Where Jesus’s authority comes from.

They returned to Jerusalem. As Jesus walked in the temple, head priests, scribes, and elders came to him and told him, “By what power do you do these things?” or “Who gave you this power, so you can do these things?”

Jesus told them, “I’ll ask you one thing. Answer me, and I’ll tell you by what power I do these things. John’s baptism: Is it from heaven, or from humans? Answer me.”

They discussed it among themselves, saying, “When we say from heaven, he’ll say, ‘If that’s true, why didn’t you believe him?’ But can we say from humans?” They were afraid of the crowd, for everyone considered John a prophet. In reply to Jesus, they said, “We don’t know.”

Jesus told them, “And I won’t tell you by what power I do these things.”

—Mark 11.27-33 KWL

Mark versus John.

If you’ve read the gospel of John (and I hope you have) you might notice Jesus already answered this question. Many times. He told anybody and everybody the Father had sent him. Jn 5.36 It was common knowledge Jesus believed he was sent by God.

Whereas in Mark, Jesus only suggested, Mk 9.37 but never outright said, the Father sent him. All those public declarations in John of who he was, didn’t happen in Mark’s gospel. And if they didn’t happen, of course the Jewish leaders would ask Jesus, “Who do you think you are?” In part, they really did want to know who they were dealing with. Or at least what he thought of himself.

In John, Jesus’s response was, “Destroy this temple. I’ll raise it up in three days.” Jn 2.19 He didn’t avoid their answer; he gave them one. They couldn’t understand it—really nobody could, till Jesus was resurrected—but it was still a valid answer.

So it appears Jesus practiced an entirely different behavior in Mark than in John. Hence the two entirely different answers to the same sort of question. And this tends to really bug those Christians who want the gospels to line up with one another more than they do. They want to know which of the gospels is how things really were.

Short answer: Both gospels tell how things really were. Some leaders didn’t know who Jesus was at all—and had already kinda made up their minds about him—and their story is the Mark story. Other leaders knew precisely who Jesus was—or at least who he said he was—and their story is the John story. It’s not the same story. It’s history repeating itself—and Jesus adapted his answer to suit his particular audience.

So let’s look at the audience in Mark, and why they merited this particular answer from Jesus.

Who has authority over Judea?

Jesus was teaching in temple when a group of leaders. These are the sort of folks who comprised the Judean Senate. Senators back then weren’t elected; they got their positions by merit. Elders were the heads, or representatives of the heads, of the wealthiest families. Scribes were the bible scholars, the best-educated people, who tended to know not just the bible, but about all sorts of things. And the head priests were the members of the high priest’s family—the high priest being a descendant of Aaron, Zadok, and Mattathias ben Johanan, and appointed to the job by the king. (And since the emperor of Rome was their king, the high priest would be appointed by his procurator, namely Pontius Pilate.)

Jesus didn’t fit into any of these categories. He wasn’t rich; he wasn’t accepted as a scholar; he could possibly be a descendant of Aaron and Zadok but his genealogies don’t say. The only way he could legitimately be considered a ruler of Israel is by God’s direct appointment. That’s precisely what the senators were looking for.

The senators had two questions for him: “By what power do you do these things?” or “Who gave you this power, so you can do these things?” (v28) Often this is translated, “Who gave you authority to do this?”—which is another valid way to translate exusía. In that culture there was no difference between power and authority: If you can do something, it’s expected you’re authorized to do it too. And if it was a supernatural act, the source of both your power and authority would be the same.

But when you think about it, these were sorta stupid questions. What other response could Jesus give than “God”? I doubt anyone expected him to say “Baal,” or something sarcastic. Of course he’d say “God.” Even though they wouldn’t necessarily believe him.

And if they wouldn’t believe him anyway, what’s the point in giving them a straight answer? So Jesus monkey-wrenched their anticipations.

A question for a question.

Why’d he do this? Most preachers tend to treat it like a clever prank on Jesus’s part: He answered their question with a question he knew they’d never answer, and as a result he didn’t have to answer. Ha-ha, stupid Pharisees. (Even though Mark never identifies them as Pharisees.)

But Jesus is kind. He doesn’t do pranks. He doesn’t put one over on people in order to show off how bright he is. His point was not—is never—to embarrass or humiliate or trick people, and get even with them for their malicious intent, or punish them for their lack of faith. Jesus’s motives in doing this were good, not evil. When people figure Jesus was giving them the runaround, they’re really just talking about why they would do such a thing. Not about why Jesus would. Not at all.

So why did Jesus undermine the leaders? Well, imagine Jesus gave them precisely what they wanted. Well, actually, we don’t have to imagine—we can just read John.

So the Pharisees told him, “You witness about yourself. Your witness isn’t valid.” In reply, Jesus told them, “I witness about myself anyway.

My witness is valid because I know where I came from and where I’m going.

You haven’t known where I’m coming from, nor where I’m going.

You judge according to the flesh.

I don’t judge anyone.

But when I judge, my ruling is valid, because it’s not just mine,

but mine and my Sender’s—the Father.

It was written to you in the Law, ‘Two people’s witness is valid.’ Dt 19.15

I’m the witness for myself, and my Sender, the Father, witnesses for me.”

So they told him, “Where’s your father?” Jesus replied,

“You’ve neither known me nor my Father.

If you knew me, you’d have known my Father too.”

He spoke these messages in the treasury while teaching in temple. Nobody arrested him: His hour hadn’t come yet.

—John 8.13-20 KWL

And they’d get into some stupid theological argument, which wouldn’t convince them any, and might get Jesus arrested prematurely. Jesus would try—as he did in John—to correct their horribly wrong understanding of God. They’d try to embarrass him, and say some insulting things. They’d waste the entire morning on it, and so much for whatever lesson Jesus was trying to teach his students.

So rather than waste his breath, Jesus stymied them. “John’s baptism: Heaven or humans?”

No straight answer.

Of course, Jesus knew exactly what their answer was. The senators hadn’t been too quiet about their contempt for John. If it were just Jesus and the senators by themselves, they might honestly tell him to his face they didn’t believe in John. But with the public there, ready to tear apart anyone who didn’t believe John was God’s prophet, they decided hypocrisy was the way to go.

It’s been pointed out—’cause it’s typical human behavior—the senators could have responded, “We asked first. Answer our question first.” Little kids do that; adults do that; everybody does that, and has done it throughout history. Mark doesn’t say so, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a few of the senators didn’t say, “Answer our question first” to Jesus. After all, they had a perfectly good comeback to Jesus’s obvious answer, “God.”

But that’s what made their brilliant scheme backfire: Jesus’s answer was obvious. Everyone already knew how Jesus would answer. But they didn’t know how the senators would answer. There would have been no pressure from the crowd for Jesus to declare himself—but there would have been plenty of pressure from the crowd for the senators to declare themselves. And there’s only so many times you can insist, “Answer my question first,” before people say, “That’s enough. We already know what he’d say. What do you say?”

“Heaven or humans?”

First thing I noticed in this passage were the two options Jesus gave the senators: “Heaven or humans?”

What would we ask them? Simple: “Heaven or hell?”

It’s hard-wired into the Christian culture. If a prophet isn’t from God, we immediately leap to the assumption the prophet comes from Satan. But Jesus never mentioned the devil. That’s our thing, not his.

Now, some of the reason for this is Sadducees didn’t believe in the devil, and in Jesus’s day, the head priests were Sadducees. Had Jesus given them the option, “Heaven or hell?” they’d wind up with a whole new debate, over whether hell even exists.

And some of the reason is because the real question is “Heaven or humans?” When we run into fake prophets, it’s not automatically the devil’s trickery. Not to say the devil doesn’t get involved in such things, but you don’t need the devil in order to fake the supernatural. Sometimes you just need a radio transmitter and a few confederates, like Peter Popoff has used in the past. That, and a few gullible people who believe you no matter how much evidence people can find to the contrary. Hence most of the fake prophets we encounter aren’t devilish at all. They’re human frauds.

If the devil were involved every single time, Jesus would’ve phrased his question differently. He would have implicated the devil, while at the same time accommodating the unbelieving Sadducees: “Heaven, or not heaven?” But he didn’t. Because humans are complicit. Even if the devil is behind some of the trickery, it’d need a human accomplice—and the human is just as much to blame as any devil.

The senators’ reasoning.

It seems someone was able to overhear the senators discuss how they were gonna answer Jesus, which is why it’s in the bible. Their thinking was, “If we say John was legit, our hypocrisy is exposed. If we say he wasn’t, we’re dead.” Luke has it, “When we say from humans, all the people will stone us; they’d believed John to be a prophet.” Lk 20.6 Yeah, stoning was actually illegal under the Roman occupation, but that didn’t stop the occasional mob from losing their head and stoning someone to death regardless. Ac 7.57-58 Stoning was the appropriate response for blasphemy, and this just goes to show how high the public’s esteem was for John: Saying he wasn’t a true prophet was like slandering God.

So, “heaven” made them look like sinners, and “humans” made them look like heretics. Their third option, the one they went with, was “We don’t know”—which made them look pathetic. But pathetic was better than the alternatives.

It was brilliant, as usual, of Jesus. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a fan. Most of Jesus’s fans assume he was omniscient, that he knew everything; that he’d read the senators’ minds, or even knew they were coming, and knew precisely which question would trip them up. But that’s not so. Jesus gave up his omniscience in order to become human. Pp 2.7, Mk 13.32 Yes, he saw what his opponents were up to, knew who his audience was, knew his opponents’ flaw, and put all of them together at just the right moment. But you don’t need superpowers in order to do that. You just need to be aware of your circumstances. And Jesus was.

Where we go wrong.

What Jesus did right—and what we Christians often don’t do write—is he chose not to answer their challenge. He took the road out of it.

We take up the challenge. We foolishly figure a fight is an opportunity—“Maybe I’ll win them to Christ!”—and get into some dumb argument which achieves nothing. We assume our rightness will always produce victory.

If we were in this story, instead of Jesus, we’d have given them the answer they wanted—“My power comes from God”—and got sucked right into that big long stupid theological argument. We’d assume we’d come out of it brilliantly. But read John again. Jesus gets sucked into argument after argument, and yes, he comes out of every single one of them brilliantly—but his opponents are thick-headed and blind and frustrate every chance at victory. There are no victories when you’re debating fools. They remain fools. And you’re a bit of a fool for engaging them.

The only gain Jesus made, in John, is his students believed in him more. But they did nothing for his opponents—except give them further condemnation.

So. When we Christians get challenged by skeptics who just want to show us up, and we figure now’s our chance to shine, we’re being dumb. Best to do as Jesus did here.

Jesus began by exposing the senators’ hypocrisy straight away. He gave them a litmus test: Did they believe in John? They didn’t. So there was no point in discussion. When a skeptic wants to know what you think about Jesus, cut right to the chase: Do they believe in the supernatural? No? Then there’s no point in discussing Jesus with them, for he’s a supernatural man, and any discussion which ignores this fact is doomed to go awry.

The senators were neither open to receiving correction. (“He’ll say, ‘If that’s true, why didn’t you believe him?’”) Nor were they honest about what they did think. (“They were afraid of the crowd.”) Jesus wasn’t gonna convince them of anything. They weren’t interested in truth. They were only interested in making Jesus look bad. That was all. Why play that game?

Yet that’s the very attitude we see when skeptics challenge us. They don’t care about truth. They just wanna bash Christians. Those who are interested in truth—who honestly want to understand where we’re coming from—don’t do it by debating us. The point of a debate is to win, not seek truth. Debaters figure they have the truth already—now they just want to smack down their opponents.

So learn from Jesus. Don’t accept their challenges. Jesus is not a debate topic. He’s Lord.