Neutrality is not an option

And it happened that on one of the days while He was teaching the people in the temple and proclaiming the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up to 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?” And 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?” And 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, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Luke 20:1-8

Introduction

Famously Switzerland remained neutral throughout the second World War. Rather than choosing a side they believed was good and right, they saw an opportunity to formally stay out of the conflict while accepting business from everyone. This largely worked out for the small alpine nation which is currently known around the world for banking (and watches, chocolate, and very small knives).

This is the tactic the scribes and chief priests tried employing as they removed themselves from taking a side in matters over which the general people were passionate. They did this because they were not interested in being righteous before God, but instead they were interested in maintaining power over men. This power and influence is not foreign to Jesus’ discourse with the pharisees and teaching class. Earlier as He lamented over Jerusalem, He made this famous statement to the pharisees,

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you did not want it!

Luke 13:34

Notice here how the Lord longed to gather together the people, but their leaders did not want it. They had been unfaithful in their stewardship over what belongs to God, and He had come to take it from them. Except they did not see it.

The opposition

It is clear to us the chief priests and the scribes opposed Jesus thanks to the commentary from the evangelists, but in their time they did their best to ensure people did not know it. That is why they regularly came to Jesus with trick questions. In this case, however, they were quite bold in their opposition to Him by demanding the source of His authority.

Their authority was clear: it was given by God in Deuteronomy 17:8-9:

If any case is too difficult for you to judge, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, and between one kind of assault or another, being cases of dispute in your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which Yahweh your God chooses. So you shall come to the Levitical priest or the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall inquire of them, and they will declare to you the judgment in the case.

Here in Jerusalem, the place God chose, lived the chief priests and the scribes with the elders. The chief priests, of course, made up the Levitical priests, and the scribes and elders made up the judges. They had a biblical claim to the power they wielded, and they were loath to give it up.

So when they came to Jesus to challenge Him, He struck back at the crux of their folly: they were interested in power, not righteousness.

Commitment

Jesus responds by asking whether John’s baptism was from heaven or from men, trapping them in the twisted game of neutrality they were playing. While they were confident in the argument for their authority, they also recognized their power was contingent on the people who followed them. And this question troubled them because it put that into jeopardy.

As the text tells us, they did not want to offer support of John because they would be exposed as hypocrites, but they did not want to oppose him either because of his potent following among the people. And so they went back to their tried and true position of neutral.

Their only problem is that neutrality is not an option with Jesus. Since they refused to answer His question, it was only fair that He would then refuse to answer theirs. But His refusal was far more stinging and consequential than theirs. His refusal to reveal Himself to them is His rejection of them into His kingdom. Consider Luke 11:23, “He who is not with Me is against Me and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” Their feigned neutrality was exposed for the hostility it truly was. All neutrality is this in reality. Switzerland refused to take sides in World War II, but in doing so they did business with the Axis powers and refused entry for Jewish refugees from those nations. While they may not have been allies with the enemy, they were enemies of righteousness.

For anyone who thinks he can walk through life friendly to Christian values and beliefs while refusing Jesus as Lord, let this be a warning that this is still opposition. If you want to take part in the righteousness Jesus has to offer, then commit to faith in the power of the gospel today.

May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.