Why Christ could not make His Authority known to the Pharisees.
I. John had said to the Pharisees, "Bring forth fruits meet for repentance, and think not to say unto yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham." They were saying within themselves, "We have Abraham to our father," while they had no likeness to Abraham. They were wrapping themselves up in a comfortable security, while they had a sense of inward hollowness. They were exulting in the profession of faith in an unseen God; they were not believing in the unseen God.
II. Our Lord did not arbitrarily refuse to tell the Pharisees what His authority was unless they could tell Him whether they believed in John's mission. He refused to tell them what they could not understand except upon a previous condition. Were they still the proud, contemptuous, self-exalting men whom John had denounced? They could not know what Christ's authority was; they could not enter into its meaning, let it be defined to them with the most Divine accuracy. Had they listened to John's words? had they felt that they as much as any Gentile needed to be cleansed, and that God must cleanse them? had they received the call to repentance as the best, most comfortable, most Divine of all messages, not only to the publican, but to them? Then they were in a condition to be taught about that mysterious government over the heart and will which Christ carries on; then they could feel something of the freedom and universality and penetrating quality of His royal grace. Every prophet had come proclaiming that valleys were to be exalted, that mountains and hills were to be made low, because every prophet had come witnessing of a Divine and eternal and invisible kingdom, which claims all as its subjects, which refuses its blessings to none who do not choose to be without them.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons,vol. iv., p. 95.
References: Matthew 21:23-46. Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. iii., p. 109. Matthew 21:25. Homiletic Magazine,vol. x., p. 99.