Matthew 21:23 – 27

“By What Authority”

23 Now when He came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?”

24 But Jesus answered and said to them, “I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell Me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things:

25 The baptism of John—where was it from? From heaven or from men?”

And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’

26 But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the multitude, for all count John as a prophet.”

27 So they answered Jesus and said, “We do not know.”

And He said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

Verse 23 occurs the day after Jesus had driven out the merchants from the courtyard of the temple in verses 12 and 13 of this chapter. These Jewish leaders were questioning Jesus authority to perform such an action in the temple grounds. Jesus was not as a human being part of the temple ruling officials.

When Jesus was asked a proper question he never avoided answering. But rather than directly accuse them of their insincerity and hypocrisy he chose ask a question which would expose their beliefs and motives, if they answer Him sincerely, then He will answer their question regarding His authority in the temple.

John's baptism was never questioned, people flocked out to follow his instructions and to be baptized by him, but the rulers and prominent Jews in the temple society refused to follow his instructions to repent of their sins and be baptized.

(John 3:7[But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?]) They definitely knew of John and his work, but these verses indicate they refused to accept his teaching and the baptism.

His question put them in an embarrassing position, if they admit his teaching was originated from God, then they have to admit they rejected the teaching of God's word.

If they said it was not from God, then it blames John as being a person teaching his own message, which would arouse the anger of the multitudes who believed correctly John was a prophet of God.

They refused to answer because they were caught in their own hypocritical actions, they had plenty of evidence John was a prophet of God, so Jesus also refused to answer, but he did not misrepresent his position as the Pharisees did. He just refused to tell them.

We know Jesus had the authority to drive the merchants out of the area of the temple they had no right to be in. Jesus is the Son of God, the temple was the home of God on earth. Who would have more right to cleanse the temple than the Son of the owner of it?