20 One day, as Jesus[a] was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up 2 and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” 3 He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, 4 was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” 5 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they did not know where it came from. 8 And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
1. What was the purpose of the leader's question?
ReplyDelete2. Explain Jesus response?
3. Why wouldn't Jesus tell them?
https://hartmangroupdevotionsmark.blogspot.com/2018/11/mark-1127-33-27-they-arrived-again-in.html says:
ReplyDeleteInstead of realizing these miracles that He performed were authority enough, they were trying to trap Him into saying that God authorized Him, so that they could call this blasphemy.
They could not affirm John’s ministry without condemning themselves. And if they denied John’s legitimacy, they feared the response of the people (verse 26). In effect, Jesus exposed their own lack of any authority to examine Him.
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The question was impudent because Jesus had clearly shown by his signs and wonders that he had great authority from God.
Jesus was using the temple as a place for teaching truth and healing the sick. The things he was doing were perfectly scriptural and appropriate on that sacred ground. Yet his authority was questioned by those who were condoning sacrilege in that place.
Jesus saw through the hypocrisy of these dishonest men. He knew they were rejecting him in the same way they had rejected John the Baptizer. So he threw that at them.
So they said, lamely, “We don't know”. They could not be honest one way or the other and face the consequences. So Jesus rejected their right to question him.
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Jesus is timing His death to happen at Passover, and He has a couple of days yet, so He buys that time by avoiding the obvious answer and instead answering the question indirectly with another question.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-20-commentary says:
ReplyDeleteMatthew adds that Jesus also continued to perform miraculous healing recording "And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, “Hosanna ("Save now") to the Son of David (recognized Messianic title),” they became indignant (aganakteo)." (Mt 21:14-15) The religious leaders saw the miracles, but still refused to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah.
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Three groups of the most important religious leaders in Israel confront the authority of Jesus. The fact that all three conspire together is indicative of the great alarm Jesus had created among the religious crowd. And keep in mind that these three groups had Jewish sects that were not usually congenial (e.g., Sadducees were often in priesthood, Pharisees would be among the Scribes). This unlikely amalgamation was an example of the ancient proverb "The enemy of my enemy is my friend!". These three groups comprised the Sanhedrin, which was in effect the "Supreme Court" of Israel which was composed of 70 members with the head of the group being the Jewish high priest.
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Their questions were in themselves reasonable ones from their point of view. They were the custodians of the Temple. Our Lord, by forcibly ejecting those who were engaged in business in the Temple, was claiming a superior jurisdiction. They ask Him in public now to produce His credentials, first, to state the nature of His authority, and second, to name the person from whom He had received it.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-20-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteNotice that this is the first of a series of questions calculated to trip up Jesus. In this case, if Jesus stated that He was teaching and preaching based on His own authority, these evil men could say He was in effect out of His mind, acting like a meglomaniac! On the other hand if Jesus said He was acting on the authority of God, they would accuse Him of blaspheming God. So it looks good for these tricksters who now think they have Jesus boxed into a corner!
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The problem that those Jewish religious leaders faced is the same problem that every person who comes into contact with Jesus faces: His authority confronts my authority. The bottom line for them is the same for us today: If Jesus is acting by God’s authority, then we had better submit to Him. Authority is a fundamental question of life: Who has the right to govern?
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Jesus doesn’t dodge their question. He says, in effect, that if they will answer His question rightly, they will have the answer to their question. If John was God’s prophet and he pointed to Jesus as Messiah, then Jesus was acting under God’s authority.
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It is notable that Jesus did not ask about John's ministry in general or about John's character but specifically about the baptism which John performed. Why did Jesus focus on the baptism of John? To understand what Jesus was doing, one needs to know that the baptism of John was a type of baptism that had never been practiced in Israel prior to John's ministry.
Jewish baptisms practiced before John were ritualisitc, symbolic, external and not associated with genuine repentance and a radical change of one's heart. In marked contrast, the Baptism of John called for confession of sins (Mt 3:6+) and repentance shown to be genuine by the spiritual "fruit" that subsequent "grew forth" in one's life.
So let's summarize - What is the essence of the baptism of John? It is not the physical act of immersion in water, but it is what this act symbolized which was belief in the coming Messiah, confession of sins, repentance and forgiveness of sins resulting in genuine salvation. In short, those whose lives subsequently demonstrated supernatural "fruit in keeping with repentance," were saved.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-20-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteMatthew 3:5 - 10
5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, 6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Charles Ryrie - The common teaching of that day said that the Jews participated in the merits of Abraham, which made their prayers acceptable, helped in war, expiated sins, appeased the wrath of God, and assured a share in God's eternal kingdom. Consequently, the people were startled when John and Jesus preached the necessity of personal repentance.
John 5:19l, 22-23
19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father[e] does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
John 5:30 - 33
30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. 33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.
John 8:28
So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.
John 12:49 - 50
49 For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”
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Why would the Lord ask about this? The point is that their answer to Jesus' question would answer their own question. First of all, John pointed men to the Lord Jesus. He told the Jewish people that Jesus was the Lamb of God that would take away the sins of the world. John proclaimed Jesus as his superior. John 1:26-27... "John answered them saying, “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. 27“It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." If these men rejected John, they would be rejecting Jesus, too. If they were unwilling to accept the truth of John's message, then they would not benefit from the truth that Jesus was sharing with them. If they accepted John's message as from God, then they would need to accept Jesus who was the focus of John's ministry.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-20-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteThough today the word baptism generally evokes thoughts of identifying with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (cf Ro 6:2-3-note, Col 2:9-12-note), baptism did not begin with Christians. For years before Christ, the Jews had used baptism in ritual cleansing ceremonies of Gentile proselytes. John the Baptist took baptism and applied it to the Jews themselves—it wasn’t just the Gentiles who needed cleansing.
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After three years of teaching and performing miracles, Jesus had given them sufficient proof that He was the Messiah. No more information would be forthcoming. There was no point in continuing to cast pearls before swine. The Jewish leaders had willfully rejected all the light they had seen; there was no reason to give them more. This was a pronouncement of judgment on the leadership of Israel. At His mock trial two days later, these men demanded of Jesus, “‘If You are the Christ, tell us.’ But He said to them, ‘If I tell you, you will not believe; and if I ask a question, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God’” (Luke 22:67-69).
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His cleansing of the temple was what would have been recognized in Old Testament times as a prophetic action—the kind of action by which a prophet would occasionally confirm his spoken message and bring it home to the people around him. Jesus protested that the temple was being prevented from fulfilling its purpose as “a house of prayer for all nations” (see Is 56:7). Gentiles were not allowed to enter the inner courts, but in the outer court they might draw near to the true and living God and worship him, like those “Greeks” who, according to John 12:20, went up to worship at Passover. Because of this the outer court was sometimes called “the court of the Gentiles.” But Gentiles were hindered in using it for its proper purpose if space within it was taken up by market stalls and the like. One of the latest Old Testament prophets had foretold how, when representatives of all the nations were to go up to Jerusalem to worship, “there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day” (Zech 14:21 RSV). Jesus’ prophetic action was designed to enforce this lesson.
So, when Jesus was asked, “Who gave you this authority?” the true answer was “God.” Why then did he not say so? Because his questioners would not have believed him. He tested them first with another question, to see if they were capable of recognizing divine authority when they saw it. So Jesus said to them in effect, “If you cannot recognize divine authority when you see it in action, no amount of argument will convince you of its presence. If you cannot tell me by what authority John baptized, I will not tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Questions and findings:
ReplyDelete1. What was the purpose of the leader's question?
They were looking for a way to accuse Jesus.
2. Explain Jesus response?
He was telling them that His authority came from the same place as John's baptism via His questions. However, to accuse Him, they had to answer the question, and they couldn't in front of the people.
3. Why wouldn't Jesus tell them?
They would have arrested Jesus a little too early. Jesus wanted the few extra days to teach in the temple. Furthermore, Jesus wanted to get them thinking about what they were asking. Why didn't they believe John? For the same reason they were rejecting Jesus.