Mark 11:27-33 27And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking around in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, 28and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Or, who gave you this authority that you might do them?” 29Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one word, and you answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30Was the baptism of John from heaven or from people? Answer me.” 31And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32But will we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John was indeed a prophet. 33And in answering, they said to Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
It was now Tuesday, the third day in Jerusalem. Three groups that hung around the temple precincts and made up the Sanhedrin came to question Jesus. The Sanhedrin was the ruling council of Jews made up of 71 who made decisions about religion and represented the people before the Romans. Jesus was like other famous teachers who gathered around the 162 30-foot columns in the temple to teach their pupils. The group tried to trap Jesus by questioning him about what authority he had down the acts the day before. The implication is that they felt their authority threatened by this new teacher and proposed prophet. If Jesus said he did these things by his own authority, they could arrest him for being a public menace. If he said that he did it by the authority of God, they could condemn him for blasphemy. They may have thought they had him trapped.
Jesus offers a counter-question about John the Baptist that traps them instead. If John’s work was human, then the people would riot. If John’s work was divine, then he was the forerunner, and Jesus was the Messiah. They were unwilling to accept either choice and face the truth of Jesus’ identity. When John came baptizing, he called people to prepare for the kingdom. When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river, the Spirit of the Almighty God descended upon him in the form of a dove. For the leaders to accept John’s baptism, they would need to acknowledge that Jesus’ authority came from God, but they were unwilling to accept this.
This short dialogue reveals several deficiencies in the Jewish leaders. As the fig tree illustrated, they had withered at the root. They may have looked pious on the outside, but they lacked faith and the fruit of true righteousness. They follow the pattern of others in Mark’s Gospel of refusing to accept Jesus’ authority. The difference in this situation was that these were the most powerful people of Israel. Much more was at stake in this situation. This dialogue was an opportunity for them to change their minds and accept Jesus as the Messiah. They had heard about and, in many cases, seen enough evidence to show Jesus’ power and authority. They did not need to ask this question because they should have been able to answer it already. Jesus’ supremacy was before all who would accept it.
Rejecting Jesus results in judgment. The most fundamental decision we must make is what to do with Jesus. The account of Jesus’ rejection by the Jewish leaders should serve as a warning to all who do not accept the message about Jesus and his kingdom. The leaders were more afraid of the people (peer pressure) than of God and God’s plan.
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