Mark 11:31

Of course, being blind as they were, they were thinking only of man's authority. The Lord therefore asks them a question in return, with admirable wisdom. He promises that if they will answer, He will answer their question. "The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men?" Where did John get his authority? Heaven's authority had never entered their earth-bound minds. So they find themselves in a serious dilemma.

He appeals neither to miracles nor prophecy, but to conscience. How clearly the ancient prophecies had been fulfilled in His person, in His life and in His ministry! How full the testimony of signs and wonders He worked! Yet their question proved how useless it all had been. His question proved either their dishonesty or their blindness. In either case, who were they to judge? They thought they were examining the Lord of glory. In truth they were only showing their own distance from God, their own estrangement from Him. So it always is. How we judge what concerns Christ is a sure gauge of our own condition. So is our refusal to judge it.

They had no conscience, except a bad one. It shrank back into silence at once, afraid to commit itself, but not afraid to trifle with God and man. For this was their reasoning: if they allowed John's baptism to be from heaven, they must receive his testimony to Jesus.

The baptism of John was something new. It had no air of sacred tradition, no claim to age, no link with the priesthood or the temple. To admit that it came from heaven was a most serious matter for these men. They drew all their importance from the regular course of the law and its rituals. Besides, it settled at once the question of the Messiah, for John had declared in the strongest and most solemn way that Jesus was the Christ.

If they endorsed John's baptism as coming from heaven, they condemned themselves, for they had not believed him. If they rejected it as coming only from men, they would lose popularity with the people who held him to be a prophet. That popularity was very dear to them, for "they loved the praise of men" (John 12:43).

They cannot answer it. If they said John's mission was from men, they would be in direct opposition to the people. And theirs was no martyr-spirit, ready to suffer for their convictions. It was easier, for all the humiliation involved, to claim ignorance. But then they were no court to judge claims of this kind.

If all they could say was "We do not know," they confessed their own incompetence. Those who could not settle the question about the servant were surely not fit to judge the Master. In truth, their inability was, if anything, smaller than their hypocritical wickedness. The will was more at fault than the understanding.