11

Rejecting the King’s Authority
(Luke 20:1–8)

On one of the days while He was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted Him, and they spoke, saying to Him, “Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?” Jesus answered and said to them, “I will also ask you a question, and you tell Me: Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” They reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” So they answered that they did not know where it came from. And Jesus said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” (20:1–8)

Since this episode ends on the matter of authority, that is a good starting point. In Matthew 28:18 the risen Lord declared, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” That reaffirmed His declaration that all things had been placed under His control and rule by the Father (Matt. 11:27; cf. Luke 10:22; John 3:35; 13:3; 17:2; 1 Cor. 15:27; Eph. 1:22; Phil. 2:9–11; Heb. 1:2; 1 Peter 3:22).

Two Greek words translated “authority” in the New Testament reveal the scope of the Lord’s dominance. Dunamis refers to power or ability; exousia to right or privilege. Jesus possesses both aspects of authority infinitely, a clear indication of His deity.

The Lord’s authority may be viewed from several perspectives.

First, He possesses authority in Himself. When He spoke, “the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes,” who usually quoted other rabbis as their source of authority (Matt. 7:28–29).

Second, He possesses the authority to forgive sin (Matt. 9:6–8). That direct evidence of His divine nature was not lost on His opponents: “The scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, ‘Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?’” (Luke 5:21).

Third, He holds authority over the forces of hell. On one occasion when He demonstrated that authority by casting a demon out of a man, “amazement came upon [those who witnessed the miracle], and they began talking with one another saying, ‘What is this message? For with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out’” (Luke 4:36).

Fourth, He has authority to give eternal salvation. “But as many as received Him,” the apostle John wrote, “to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).

Fifth, He has authority to judge, since the Father “has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22; cf. v. 27).

Finally, He has authority over death and life. In John 10:18 Jesus said, “No one has taken [My life] away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father,” and in Revelation 1:18 He added, “[I am] the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”

That Jesus presumed to assault the temple operations without regard for the Jewish authorities shocked and outraged them. From their perspective it was bad enough that He physically disrupted their lucrative business operations (see the exposition of 19:45–48 in the previous chapter of this volume). That He did so without first seeking permission from the Jewish hierarchy made the Lord’s actions all the more intolerable and outrageous. They were infuriated that He treated the leaders and their religious system with disdain. He ignored the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin, the high priests, the chief priests, the rabbis, the scribes, and the temple police. He was opposed to the demands of the entire superficial, legalistic system. In fact, He constantly denounced it with His teaching.

The tragic conversation recorded in this passage took place on one of the days (Wednesday of Passion Week) when Jesus was teaching the people in the temple, which He had attacked with divine, controlled fury on Tuesday. The liars, manipulators, hypocritical false teachers, and greedy merchants He, at least temporarily, evicted. In the vacated space stood Jesus, God’s true teacher, to proclaim the truth from heaven and the gospel of salvation.

Jesus would spend most of Wednesday and Thursday teaching (cf. 19:47; 21:37–38); chapter 20 of Luke records what He taught on Wednesday. The content, as always, was the gospel, the good news of the kingdom (cf. Matt. 4:23; 9:35; Acts 1:3), as He called the people to repent and believe in Him. Mark 11:27 notes that this particular confrontation took place “as He was walking in the temple.”

Christ’s teaching likely followed the themes that He had stressed from the start and throughout His ministry—the wretchedness of sin, the folly of hypocritical, legalistic false religion that could not restrain it, and the hopelessness of trying to achieve righteousness by one’s own efforts. He may have spoken of the folly of pretentious prayers and superficial religious deeds, performed to be seen by men rather than God (cf. Matt. 6:1–5; 23:5–7). His teaching surely would have included warnings about the inevitability of divine judgment and eternal hell. He would likely have reminded His hearers about the danger of spiritual pride and the need for humility, bankruptcy of spirit, and a broken and contrite heart. He no doubt spoke of the compassionate love of God for sinners, the possibility of forgiveness, peace with God, entrance to His salvation kingdom, eternal life, and the hope of everlasting glory in heaven. He probably reiterated the high cost of following Him in self-denial and forsaking all. His words may have included such themes as the persecution and suffering those who identified with Him would face, the importance of the Word of God, honesty, forgiveness, true riches, faith, grace, and mercy. In short, the Lord’s teaching would have touched on everything pertaining to salvation.

This dramatic face-off between Jesus and the Jewish leaders plays out in three scenes: the leaders’ confrontation of Jesus, His counter, and His condemnation of them.

THE CONFRONTATION

the chief priests and the scribes with the elders confronted Him, and they spoke, saying to Him, “Tell us by what authority You are doing these things, or who is the one who gave You this authority?” (20:1b–2)

Unable to contain their outrage at Him, the Jewish authorities decided once again to make an effort to discredit Jesus. The chief priests included the reigning high priest, Caiaphas, and the former high priest Annas, who still wielded heavy influence behind the scenes. Just as American presidents are still referred to by the title “president” after they leave office, so also Annas was still referred to as the high priest. In addition, the chief priests included the captain of the temple, who assisted the high priest, and other high-ranking priests. The scribes, the mostly Pharisaic theologians who interpreted and taught the law of Moses and the rabbinic tradition, were in the group, along with the elders. Essentially this assembly was from the Sanhedrin, the governing body of Judaism. The three groups are frequently mentioned together (cf. Luke 9:22; 22:66; Matt. 27:41; Mark 14:43; 15:1). Though they disagreed on other matters, these diverse lots were united in their determination to execute Jesus.

Confronted translates a form of the verb ephistēmi, which can have the sense of suddenness, sometimes with hostile intent. In Luke 21:34 it describes the sudden coming of judgment, while in Acts 17:5 it describes the Thessalonian Jews’ attack on the house of Jason. That is its emphasis in this context.

The leaders were desperate to stop the Lord from preaching the gospel in the temple, but His popularity with the people restrained them from seizing Him (cf. Luke 19:47–48; 20:19; 22:2). The alternative was to trap Him openly and force Him to discredit Himself publicly. Knowing that Jesus had claimed that His authority to do and say what He did in defiance of them came from God, they expected that He would repeat that claim, leading them to accuse Him of blasphemy and call for His execution.

Seeking to implement their plan, they accosted Jesus. “Tell us by what authority You are doing these things,” they demanded, “or who is the one who gave You this authority?” When He attacked the temple the first time at the start of His ministry, the Jewish authorities had made a similar demand: “The Jews then said to Him, ‘What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?’” (John 2:18). The phrase these things can be stretched beyond Christ’s teaching in the temple courts without the approval of the Sanhedrin to include everything from His triumphal entry on Monday.

THE COUNTER QUESTION

Jesus answered and said to them, “I will also ask you a question, and you tell Me: Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” They reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” So they answered that they did not know where it came from. (20:3–7)

The Lord’s response was devastating. Instead of being snared in their clumsy trap, Jesus’ counter question, “Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men?” trapped them in a dilemma from which they could not escape. To answer a question with another question was accepted rabbinic practice, the idea being to force the questioner to consider the issue at a deeper level. Jesus was not evading the question, but unmasking their hypocrisy. They already knew where He said His authority came from; He had affirmed it many times before. As noted above, their plan was not to gain information, but to lure Him to repeat His claim to divine authority publicly, so they could accuse Him of blasphemy.

The religious authorities, who confidently saw themselves as possessing the deep understanding of all spiritual and theological knowledge, were no match for Jesus, even when facing the simple question that Jesus posed: What was the source of John the Baptist’s ministry (the baptism he performed symbolized John’s entire ministry)—was it of divine or human origin?

This query put the Jewish leaders in an impossible quandary. They huddled together and reasoned among themselves (i.e., deliberated with one another), desperately and futilely seeking a way out. They knew they could not say that John’s ministry was from God, for two reasons. First, they themselves did not believe that it was (John 7:28–30), and thus did not want to publicly put their seal of approval on the Baptist. Further, to affirm that John was a true prophet of God would leave them with no answer for the question the Lord was sure to ask: “Why did you not believe him when he affirmed that I am the Messiah?” (cf. Luke 3:1–18; John 1:26–29; 3:25–30; 5:32–36; 10:41).

On the other hand, to deny the popular view that John was a spokesman for God would have serious and even potentially fatal consequences. “If we say, ‘From men,’” they reasoned, “all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” To reject God’s prophet was to reject and blaspheme God Himself. That could make them worthy of death.

The only exit to take to flee the volatile dilemma was to painfully humiliate themselves by pleading ignorance. Therefore they condescended grudgingly and answered that they did not know where John’s ministry came from.

THE CONDEMNATION

And Jesus said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” (20:8)

Having silenced His adversaries, Jesus ended the conversation by saying to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” 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). There was nothing left for them but judgment, and He would sit on that judgment seat to render sentence on them.

There is a limit to God’s patience. Those who hard-heartedly reject the light will eventually be abandoned to judicial darkness. God said of the pre-flood world, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” (Gen. 6:3). In a prayer of repentance, the returned exiles from the Babylonian captivity confessed regarding their ancestors, “You bore with them for many years, and admonished them by Your Spirit through Your prophets, yet they would not give ear. Therefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands” (Neh. 9:30). Isaiah adds, “But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; therefore He turned Himself to become their enemy, He fought against them” (Isa. 63:10). Through the prophet Jeremiah God reminded wayward Israel, “I solemnly warned your fathers in the day that I brought them up from the land of Egypt, even to this day, warning persistently, saying, ‘Listen to My voice.’ … Therefore thus says the Lord, ‘Behold I am bringing disaster on them which they will not be able to escape; though they will cry to Me, yet I will not listen to them’” (Jer. 11:7, 11). Luke 19:41–42 says that “when [Jesus] approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.’”

The merciful, saving message of the gospel would still be extended to the people, and thousands would be saved on the Day of Pentecost and beyond. But for the hard-hearted leaders, the door of opportunity was shut (cf. Matt. 12:25–32). The Bible warns all people not to follow their example: