Luke 20 begins with a confrontation.
One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” (Luke 20:1–4)
Before digging into this passage, whenever I heard this chapter I thought Jesus was simply countering a question with a question. The chief priests and scribes were trying to serve him a trap, so he volleyed back a puzzle. I didn’t see much connection.
I should have known better.
Authority and Baptism
Since John baptized Jesus, when Jesus referred to John’s baptism he was not pointing toward something abstract. For Jesus, this could not have been more personal and meaningful. Jesus’s ministry began with his baptism.
For Luke, the surrounding context of Jesus’s baptism (Luke 3:21–22) was all about authority. John spent time answering questions from tax collectors and soldiers, two groups of people in authority (Luke 3:12–14). This led to questions about whether John was the Christ, but he pointed to one who was coming who would have so much authority that he could baptize with the Holy Spirit and serve as judge (Luke 3:15–17).
John was then thrown into prison for opposing Herod’s evil ways (Luke 3:18–20). Without an eye toward the topic of authority, this might seem a strange section of the passage. But when we know the theme, we see Herod’s obvious abuse of authority.
Finally, we read of Jesus’s baptism. Luke doesn’t explicitly tell us that John baptized Jesus, but this is a reasonable deduction (see Luke 3:7 and Luke 3:21), confirmed in other Gospels.
The Baptism of God’s Son
When Jesus was praying immediately after his baptism, a special guest arrived.
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21–22)
We usually read this voice as divine words of comfort and affirmation; they were this and much more. The title “son of God” was a kingly title, stretching back to the Old Testament and finding its clearest illustration in 2 Samuel 7:8–17. From that point forward, Davidic kings were “sons of God.” The one with ultimate earthly authority toward God’s people was the son of God.
Luke proceeds from the baptism of Jesus to the genealogy of Jesus. Unlike modern Christians, Luke’s first readers would not have nodded off at a list of “begats.” Especially not this list.
The genealogy begins with Jesus and ends with God, with lots of sons in between. Luke is repeating his point in case we didn’t hear it the first time: Jesus is the son of God.
The Confrontation Fizzles
The chief priests, scribes, and elders thought that Jesus’s question in Luke 20 was about John. But Jesus’s question answered theirs. Who gave Jesus the authority to do what he did?
God did. In John’s baptism of Jesus, God declared Jesus to be his son, and Luke wants us to see there is no higher authority.
Context Matters
We write a lot on this blog about how context matters. But we aren’t only concerned with the sentences and paragraphs surrounding your favorite verse.
This example from Luke 20 shows the importance of at least three different Scriptural contexts. The location of the question in Luke 20 and the baptism in Luke 3 reminds us that the immediate context matters. The reference from Luke 20 to Luke 3 reminds us to keep the whole book in mind—the context within the book matters. And the references to the phrase “son of God” remind us that the whole Bible is connected. Old Testament context informs New Testament usage.
This is not just an argument for careful Bible study and for regularly re-reading the book of the Bible you are studying. It’s also a reminder that the whole Bible matters when we interpret the whole Bible.
