In the first of five (or four or six depending on which scholar you agree with) controversy dialogues on the Temple Mount before Passover, Yeshua/Jesus deftly captures the chief priests, scribes and elders in their own trap. They demand to know what right He had to shut down Temple commerce the previous day, and He demands that they take a stand on whether or not John was a prophet—putting them in the hot seat no matter which answer they give. Also, we are going to talk about the Constitutionality of the Ten Commandments and whether or not Christians can really claim that certain rights are rights at all.
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11 27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, 28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” 29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.” 31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. 33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
So, last week we covered the pronouncement against the fig tree and the judgment against the Temple and the Temple establishment. A lot of times, that is called the cleansing of the Temple by translators (just like the entry is called the Triumphal entry when it really isn’t) but as they undoubtedly set up shop again the next day, that isn’t really accurate either. Seen as prophetic action of judgment, heralding the imminence of the destruction of the Temple, it really opens up the story. As a result, the following accounts through the first few verses of chapter 13 make a whole lot more sense. Yeshua/Jesus has declared God’s divine condemnation upon the Temple and the Temple hierarchy (chief and high priests) in classic Jeremiah style. As you will probably recall, that didn’t work out well for Jeremiah or any of the other prophets who tried it and so, we are going to have a prolonged clash between Yeshua and the various Jewish authorities that will lead to His crucifixion. Every leadership group will be represented—even the Sadducees whom we have not seen up to this point.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.
We’re now in the third day of the temple controversies. Day 1, the entry into Jerusalem where Yeshua rides into town on a dedicated donkey’s colt, goes into the Temple, looks around and promptly leaves. These were both prophetic actions hearkening back to what was expected when a king would return from battle, would be paraded into the city, and would culminate the day with a visit to the Temple and sacrifices. Yeshua only looked around and inspected the place, which didn’t bode well. They spent the night in Bethany. Day 2, Yeshua is hungry and goes to a fig tree out of season, one with no edible fruit on it (just like the Temple the night before) and declared judgment that no one would ever eat of it again. Then they went to the Temple where Yeshua performed a prophetic act of judgment against the worldly and corrupt nature of what it had become and stayed to teach people afterward. They left and spent the night in Bethany. Day 3, they got up and made their way to Jerusalem, passing that same fig tree, now withered so badly that the roots are even withered away. Yeshua looks toward the Temple and tells them that when they pray for the wickedness within the current Temple to end (the mountain tossed into the sea) that they do so with clean hearts full of forgiveness. And with that, we continue on with the story of what happened on this third day in Jerusalem.
27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him,
They arrived in Jerusalem and ascended onto the Temple Mount via one of the gates and we see the first of the controversies shaping up. I will tell you, some scholars see four, others five and some six. I personally see five so that is how I will teach it. Whole lot of controversy dialogues here, regardless. Good arguments for all these positions. Something cool to study out. The verse says “they came again to Jerusalem” but only “He was walking about.” I don’t think this means anything except to focus our attention not on the group, because the group isn’t going to face the wrath of the leadership—only Yeshua will. We have three groups here coming at him—chief priests, scribes, and elders. Why does this sound familiar? What does the very first passion prediction in Mark 8 tell us?
31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
First challenge is also delivered by the first to be identified by Yeshua as those who will reject Him. Now, who are these groups? The chief priests would have been the formal Temple establishment—not the priests who served two weeks each year plus festivals, they were mostly normal, faithful guys who loved God and were thrilled to serve during their courses. They weren’t wealthy or powerful. They were guys like John the Baptist’s dad Zechariah. In Acts, we see that many later become believers in Yeshua. You might hear some folks teach that John was the only legitimate priest in the Land, but that’s not supported by history or by the Bible. The chief priests were bureaucrats—the people who were permanently working at the Temple, who had positions of importance and who were beholden to the High Priest and all the former High Priests of the family of Annas (they had to buy the position from Rome and so they didn’t serve for life anymore). The second group, the scribes—we’ve talked about them before. They were legal experts and they were literate—putting them in the position of sometimes being Torah teachers. They worked as retainers for the rich and powerful but drew up contracts for those who weren’t. Then, we have the elders. The elders would be your wealthy laymen, and by laymen, I mean, not priests. And we know they will be rejecting Him, but how will they do it? Well, we won’t have to wait long to find out.
28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”
BOOM. “Yesterday you came in here and disrupted Temple operations. You turned over the money-changer tables. You flipped over the stools of those who sell pigeons. You drove out everyone who was trying to buy and sell, along with all the critters. You wouldn’t allow anyone to carry anything through the Court of the Gentiles. And then, nice as you please, you deigned to teach and all without our approval. Who the heck do you think you are?”
Of course, what we want Him to do is to quote from Malachi 3 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.” We want Him to say, “Who am I to do these things? I am the Lord of the Temple, that’s who.” *mic drop* But their minds aren’t even in that place at this point. Only the disciples know, and they only know in part. And what they know in part, they really don’t seem to actually “get” anyway.
They are daring Him to declare Himself a prophet sent by God. If they can do that, then if they can trip Him up on the slightest matter, they can declare Him false and discredit Him. This is a formal inquiry, and given the specific groups mentioned, this might actually be a Sanhedrin inquiry—which would have been made up of chief priests, scribes and elders. If so, then this is a legal action, an investigation. This is a prelude to formal charges being made in the future. At this point, everything is still being done legally, by the books, but that will change. Yeshua, of course, sees the trap very clearly and turns it on them.
29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
Answering a question with a question was a very cultural way of dealing with others in a debate. But whenever Yeshua says anything like this, you know that whoever is being asked needs to be cringing and/or running for the hills. But whenever He says something like this, it is always to someone or a group of someone’s very impressed with their own cleverness. They believe they can successfully set and spring a trap—probably because they are used to dealing with people from other factions and it is all a matter of knowing and properly applying their party’s talking points and knowing more than the other guy. Their problem is that they mistake Yeshua for just a mere teacher, a fly in their collective ointment. They think He is an adversary to be conquered. They aren’t for one minute truly grasping the ramifications and implications of everything He has said and done. They have boiled Him down to a threat to the institution that they serve. And we still see it today when organizations are corrupt—church, politics, whatever—and instead of reading the writing on the wall and coming clean, folks circle the wagons and protect it instead. It may be corrupt, but it is theirs, it is comfortable, and especially if their power and identity is bound up in it. None of these groups wanted this particular applecart tipped.
This is a challenge, make no mistake, “If you want me to answer your two questions, you must first answer one of mine.” Sounds fair, right? Yeshua can’t outright refuse to answer, I mean, who on earth would refuse to talk about who sent them and about their authority to do what they are doing? No one in the ancient world, that’s for sure. Everything was about honor and power and who you were and where you came from and what you had the right to do. So, He can’t refuse, but He can make the stakes so high that they effectively must withdraw their question.
30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”
Oh man…they are in trouble now according to Luke 7: 28 I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” 29 (When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John, 30 but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.)
When the Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes and the leadership in general showed up at John’s baptisms, it was to question him and not to participate. They demanded to know who he was, according to Matthew. According to Luke, they refused his baptism even though sinners were coming and repenting. I mean, if that isn’t a sign of John’s authority then what is? But now they are on the spot. There is a huge crowd gathered for the festival and there are few things more enjoyable in honor/shame cultures than watching honor challenges. Watching two men go at it verbally—a competition where one man comes out with more credibility and reputation and the other comes out with less. This is why this sort of thing was always public. They aren’t looking for information, they are wanting to exalt themselves over Him by tripping Him up. It’s like being in high school, only it’s your whole life instead of only four years. Which is like a nightmare for me to think about.
Yeshua puts them on the spot. They opened this can of worms and now, if they want an answer, they are going to have to eat from it. But the problem this poses is much bigger than they are seeing. What is before them right now is the choice between rejecting or accepting John the Baptist publicly but, more than that, where people come down on the subject of John’s legitimacy will very much determine whether or not they must accept Yeshua. After all, John was the one who pointed out Yeshua as the Messiah. More than that even, there is the larger question of accepting or rejecting God’s will here and His plans. In public. On the busiest week of the year at the Temple in front of a worldwide audience. These are probably Sanhedrin members, like our Supreme Court justices only a whole lot more of them. They were probably in session over some legal matter when it became known that Yeshua and His disciples were present and they might have dispatched this commission to go ask the questions they all wanted the answers to.
Of course, we also want Yeshua to tell them this, also from Malachi 4, 5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” Is it safe for me to express for all of us who have the benefit of a narrator how frustrating it is that He won’t just come out and say it? But we have to understand that these are the people who have placed themselves atop the social hierarchy as being arbiters of the Law. They know the Scriptures, backwards and forwards, better than we do. They have all the pieces but they are determined to interpret them in such a way as to support their own beliefs, and their desire for vengeance against the gentiles. They are so determined that they are willing to overlook all of the physical evidence, every eye-witness testimony, all the miracles, and all the everything that is going on. They ignored John, despite his miraculous birth. Thus, they ignore John’s testimony about Yeshua. And they are also ignoring all the signs and wonders of Yeshua’s ministry.
31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
Too late, they realize the no win situation they have gotten themselves into. If there were Hebrew swear words and if they weren’t on the Temple Mount, I imagine some would have been heard that day. They are caught, and they know it. Yeshua isn’t just talking about the baptism of John in general, he’s raising the question of His own baptism. Yeshua’s commissioning happened at His baptism. John immersed him and the heavens ripped open and there was a voice and the Spirit descended like a dove. The voice identified Yeshua as God’s beloved Son. Yeshua, therefore, was anointed and commissioned not with oil but in Spirit and in Power. Who John is, determines who Yeshua is.
In the first century, they didn’t speak the tetragrammaton anymore. I am not certain when they stopped doing that but by this time they were using euphemisms instead. “Heaven” is a popular substitute for Yahweh and so when we see “Kingdom of Heaven” it means “Kingdom of Yahweh.” Here, when they are debating their response, “From Heaven” means authority straight from God. They are wondering if they can safely admit that John was a prophet sent from God on the mission that he himself claimed he was on, “He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” (John 1:23) But they have a problem, if they admit that (and there is serious pressure from the crowd to do so), then we know that they refused to repent and be baptized by him—proving themselves to be in rebellion (which is why John called them snakes and vipers—they came to question him as to his identity but refused to repent).
32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.
I always think of the Princess Bride, and the iocane powder incident as Vizzini is explaining why he cannot choose to drink from the dread Pirate Robert’s cup but he also clearly cannot choose to drink from his own, for a variety of philosophical reasons. If you have never watched this, I won’t give away any spoilers but it comes down to a hilarious battle of wits. And this is what they are doing here, “We can’t drink from the cup that says John was a prophet because we rejected him and we clearly can’t drink from the cup that says he wasn’t because the crowd is going to tear us to pieces, Temple Mount or not.” Public opinion was nothing to play with in those days. About a hundred years earlier, the High Priest decided to divert from the “way we do thing” during the water pouring festival at Sukkot and the entire crowd pelted him with their etrogs. If you have never held an etrog, they are hard as a rock. Think of a lemon with skin that’s like half an inch thick and covered with lumps. I wouldn’t want one etrog thrown at me, much less hundreds from below and from above. Suffice it to say, they stepped into their own trap and there was no good way out of it. So they settled for a loss of face and conceded defeat instead of creating an even worse situation.
Notice real quick here that the verse says they were scared of the people—not scared of God. That’s incredibly revealing. How can religious leaders fear people more than God? Well, as the Supreme Court (if they are indeed a Sanhedrin delegation), their credibility to interpret and hold people accountable to the Law goes only so far as people have faith in them. As much as they were powerful and despised the am ha’aretz whom they thought to be beneath them, without the little people there could be no big people. Without subjects, is a man a king? Without worshipers, is there a priest? And so, these guys were stuck in this system where the need to maintain their positions within the system blinded them to the fact that this system existed for the purpose of serving God and serving mankind. They had it all wrong and upside down. They were protecting privilege, and position and forgetting that those things weren’t the point. The service was the point and their positions were meant to facilitate worship and life and justice and righteousness and all that jazz.
33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
There is so much more here than meets the eye. If they had said, “From Heaven” or “from man” then Yeshua would have been nigh unstoppable. He would have become the anointed one that John was coming before or He would have become the people’s darling, the defender of their hero John. And, I have to tell you that everyone loved John with the exception of Herodias and these guys. Josephus even wrote about how much everyone loved him. The ruin and downfall of Herod Antipas is historically credited, by the Jews, as being because of his murder of John. John was loved. The people knew he was a prophet, they came to him in droves. They accepted the baptism of John. They accepted his preaching, They accepted his claims about his identity and accepted his call to repentance. His own disciples, some of them ended up following Yeshua instead.
This is the first time that Yeshua’s enemies on the temple Mount will be effectively silenced. When they say, “We do not know” within an honor/shame context, it means that they lose the credibility with the crowd to press any more questions and arguments. And so, because they gave a non-answer, Yeshua refuses to answer. In effect, He is refusing to show them any respect at all. In fact, at this moment, He would be an utter fool to answer—it would only give them ammunition to press their attacks further. Much better to have them trying to come up with new traps, which is exactly what they will do but not quite yet.
I failed to mention it at the beginning, but we have another Markan sandwich here—this question about authority, then next week, the parable of the vineyard and the tenants where there is a hidden question of ownership over the Temple itself, followed up by a question about the authority of Caesar to collect taxes. As with all Markan sandwiches, the outsides interpret the middle and vice-versa. The big question here is, “Who is the boss over the Temple and what is owed to that boss?” As for now, Yeshua has left them hanging. They asked what His authority is to disrupt Temple commerce (which was, I might add, disrupting worship) and who gave Him that authority. His authority came from God, of course, as the One Unique Beloved Son, the creative Logos BUT if they reject the ministry of John, if they have already made up their minds) then they have already set up a system within which Yeshua cannot be those things. Only a fool barges in and asserts their authority under such conditions. It would serve no purpose. “You cannot have legitimate authority because you were given it by John who was not recognized by us and therefore he can’t be legitimate because we, as the legal experts, would know and since we cannot verify John’s authority to baptize then we cannot endorse yours either. So there. Plus, we still aren’t sure if you are doing all that stuff because you are in league with Beelzebul anyway.”
No matter what he would come up with, they have a way out. Unless He corners them with needing to make a public declaration about everyone’s favorite modern-day prophet, John. Saying anything definite is tricky. Emotions ran high at Passover, and John’s murder was still fresh in their minds—and the Royal Stoa was close by at the southern end of the Temple Mount platform where Herod Antipas and his guests could sit in the shade. They are stuck between calling Herod Antipas a prophet-killer in front of a large crowd with a long memory, and in the presence of Roman soldiers, and saying that he was just some loon in the desert. Then they have to say they don’t know or they will die or there will be a riot or the soldiers will drag them before Herod. Aye caramba.
Now, I am going to change the subject to something super controversial. Please hear me out before getting angry or thinking I hate the commandments because I love them and if you have read my books you know that.
So, I want to talk really quick about something that we are discussing today on my facebook wall (I am writing this in March so don’t bother searching). Professor Carmen Imes wrote this really Epic blog last week, that I will link in the transcript, called God’s Radiant Law and she made some really excellent observations. As a Canadian resident, she can look at our situation with more objectivity than we tend to be able to here in America (it really does help to get out of the country for a few years or more). But she was talking about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and pointing out that some of it cannot co-exist alongside the Ten Commandments that so many people want plastered on our courtroom walls, and it didn’t take me too long before I realized she is dead right. The Ten Commandments guide our lives as believers and I would not trade them for anything, but you cannot square freedom of religion and freedom of speech with the first three commandments—declaring Yahweh our God as the only God, the only focus of our worship, and outlawing the production of graven images, and forbidding the misuse of His Name. It’s just outright incompatible. Because of the Constitution, people have the legal right to disregard the first three commandments—and, for that matter, the fourth and the fifth telling them to remember and sanctify the Sabbath and to honor their mother and father. And before I get too depressed, I will just stop thinking about the rest of them.
And there was a comment about our religious rights being stripped away—prayer in school, publicly displaying the commandments in public (state-owned) buildings, etc. and it occurred to me. Did we ever have the right to do that under the Constitution? Or did we assume and co-opt that legal right when we had the political power to do so? Clearly, the Constitution doesn’t give us that right and so it seems clear that we Christians strong-armed it and imposed it on everyone else. It’s a facet of what we call Christian Nationalism which assumed that this is a Christian nation and that as Christians, we have special rights that other religions should not have. Namely, things like our prayers in schools, our commandments on the walls, our Bible quotes in state-run places. And we had it for so long that we assumed the constitutionality of it and when secular people started noticing, they made the corrections that they saw were more in line with what the Constitution actually allows. And we can hypothesize about original intent but the truth is that the words are very clear.
And I have no doubt that some of you think I am off my rocker now and a few might be angry with me. But, I think we need to think about this before we take on the posture of being persecuted when “rights” that do not actually exist and are actually at odds with the Constitution are taken away from us, in public places. Like the “rights” of white people to own slaves (and I am not comparing the two, okay, but the mindset) was so deeply ingrained that rich southerners actually felt persecuted when people wanted to end slavery. How about the rights of Greco-Roman men to own their children, to the point where, if they threw their wives out, the wives couldn’t see their children again. How about the opposite here in America until just a few decades ago when no one would take seriously a man’s ability to be a single parent—and kids were automatically given to the moms. Some of you might not remember that but I sure do. It was just how we thought—we didn’t question it until father’s groups started bringing the idiocy of that position into the light of day that we even cared. But we have in our minds, sometimes, rights that are actually privileges based on assumptions—and sometimes assumptions that are just dead wrong.
If we were living under a constitutional theocracy, where Yahweh is king and His laws are the law of the land, then, yes—no religious freedom. If you live in His country and He has given you the land to work as an inheritance, then yeah, you are required to worship Him—or leave. But our Constitution is not that kind of document. It doesn’t ban religion but it doesn’t give any one religion special rights either. We’ve had those “rights” for so long that we have begun to see them as rights—and our Constitution as God-given. But would God give us a Law code that allows us to break at least the first five commandments, and call it our right to do so? I am really concerned about the pedestal that our Constitution sits up on when we mistake it for something God has ordained.
Now, before anyone thinks that I hate the Constitution, I certainly don’t. I am grateful for it, to be honest. But I see it for what it is and we can’t claim rights for ourselves that we would deny to others, under it, as though being Christians and Jews means that the Constitution is our document, one that protects and serves our interests and desires, and not also the document of atheists and Muslims and Hindus, that protects them—sometimes from us! Goodness knows Native and African Americans needed to be protected from White Christians, and still do all too often. So, I think the right question isn’t, “Why are our rights being eroded and chipped away at,” and instead, “Do we really want freedom of religion or not, now that we are losing our supermajority?” Maybe we could even ask, “Has anyone else truly had freedom of religion or have they just been being humored all along while we assume special privileges that we deny to other groups?”
What is God-given? The Ten Commandments. What was created by a bunch of very intelligent men, all of whom white and upper class, who had seen governmental and religious abuses and were trying to find a way out of said abuses (at least for upper-class white men)? The Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights, which had to be radically altered after long and sometimes bloody struggles to end slavery, and to recognize the humanity of people of color and of women. Our homes need to be governed according to God’s laws. The Constitution currently allows that for all citizens. The Constitution delineates our legal, secular rights—and as such, is a secular document. By its very nature, it must apply to everyone equally or it is a sham—as it has been proven to be during some very dark days in our history. What we need to be asking ourselves is, are we wanting those rights on an equal basis with everyone else or do we want a separate and superior set of privileges granted to Christians? Do we get our prayers in schools? Do we get our commandments on the walls of state buildings? Or do we want protections in place for the day that we might be outnumbered and the people who remember how adamant we were to remain on top, might get together and get the upper hand over us with only the Bill of Rights to give us legal protections?
Anyway, if anyone is still listening–heck, if anyone was even listening in the first place because they don’t tell me if anyone listens at all—I appreciate you hearing me out. It isn’t an easy thing to talk about or to even think about. It’s been challenging for me to wrap my head around over the course of the last decade as I have really started questioning a lot of the talking points that come out of my mouth without my actually ever really putting them to the test as to whether or not they hold water. But these are conversations that need to happen. And we shouldn’t be intimidated by the subject matter, nor should we brush these sorts of questions aside. I mean, I used to be very, very political until the kids were born and then the realities of special needs motherhood just gave me no time and I eventually lost my taste for it. And as I grew more and more separate from all the mantras and the things we just say, I started to question them. And whenever I would object to my questions, I noticed that I was using these arguments that would just roll off my tongue without thinking and I had to question them as well. Sometimes, I would blush at how naïve and simplistic my thinking was, how black and white I was making everything so that I could be satisfied with easy answers. But life is complex. The problems out there generally have no easy answers.
More and more, I want holiness and social justice. I want freedom for me and for the other guy. I want a world where we live the kinds of lives, out in public, that cause people to see the mercy, compassion, and love of God and not the hopeless and critical nitpicking of a bunch of religious old biddies. I want a world, now, that looks like the world to come. Whatever won’t exist then, I am not willing to turn a blind eye to now. I want His will done here on earth as it is in Heaven and we put up with way too much injustice being done in the here and now because our priorities are off, and we commit way too many sins as believers because our priorities are off. We really need to be concerned with both, but I guess that’s a conversation for another day.
Next week, Yeshua will drop a nuclear weapon on the chief priests—it’s going to be ugly.
