LUKE 20:1 – 21:4: THE OPPOSITION
© Rosemary Bardsley 2025
Luke 20 reports a number of aspects of the opposition Jesus faced from a broadening range of religious people – the chief priests, the teachers of the law, the ‘elders’, and their ‘spies’, and also from the Sadducees. Luke also reports how Jesus responded to their efforts to discredit him.
A. JESUS’ AUTHORITY QUESTIONED – Luke 20:1 – 8
In Luke 9:22 Jesus taught that he would ‘be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law’. We have seen the opposition of the Pharisees and teachers of the law several times, but that of the ‘chief priests’ was not reported until 19:47. From this point on the opposition of the ‘chief priests’ is quite intense, possibly because Jesus is now in Jerusalem, where they held significant power and authority in the temple. The opposition of ‘the elders’ is first reported here in 20:1.
Answer these questions about Luke 20:1 – 8:
What was the question put to Jesus in verse 3?
How did Jesus respond?
What made it difficult for them to answer Jesus’ question?
B. JESUS’ EXPOSURE OF HIS OPPONENTS – Luke 20:9 – 19
As we read the parable of the tenants we need to keep the response of his adversaries in mind: they ‘knew that he had spoken this parable against them.’
This parable is similar to others we have already studied – that it features (1) a person going away for a long time, and (2) the expectations that person has of the people left behind with certain responsibilities.
Assuming that the ‘owner of the vineyard’ is God, answer these questions:
Who is represented by the servants sent by the owner to collect what was due to him? (Read Luke 11:50, 51 & 13:34).
Who is ‘the son’ sent by the owner of the vineyard?
What else does Jesus call himself (verse 17)?
How do Acts 4:8 – 12 and 1Peter 2:6 – 8 help you to understand the importance of Jesus Christ?
What is Jesus to you – the cornerstone, or a stone that causes you to stumble?
What was the impact of this parable on the teachers of the law and chief priests?
Suggest why they ‘were afraid of the people’?
C. THE UNSUCCESSFUL SPIES – Luke 20:20 - 26
Answer these questions:
What did the religious leaders hope to achieve by sending the spies to question Jesus?
How did the spies attempt to make Jesus favourable towards them?
What made their question seem almost impossible one to answer?
Why was this attempt to discredit Jesus either with the people or with the authorities unsuccessful?
What do you think? Did Luke report Jesus’ answer to their question about paying taxes simply to show us that Jesus was very aware of their hidden motives and refused to be trapped by them, or does Jesus’ answer about paying taxes apply to us and our attitude to governments today?
The religious leaders thought that the question they sent the spies to ask would put Jesus in a no-win situation. If he said ‘Yes. Pay taxes’ he would displease the people and lose his popularity with them. If he said ‘No’ he would be going against the Roman authorities and be accused of insurrection. But Jesus’ answer ‘astonished’ them, and they could not say anything, because, if they had, they themselves would be speaking either against Caesar or against God.
About the application of Jesus’ words to our attitude to government laws today: Luke did not make such an application. But there are other scriptures which express the same principle.
What do these texts say about our obedience to government requirements?
Matthew 17:24 – 27:
Romans 13:1 – 7:
Titus 3:1:
1Peter 2:13 -17:
D. THE SADDUCEES’ QUESTION – Luke 20:27 – 40
This is the only time that Luke mentions the Sadducees in his Gospel.
About the Sadducees, the New Bible Dictionary says:
They counted it a virtue to dispute with their teachers.
They had no following among the people; they were restricted to the well-to-do.
They were more severe in judgement than other Jews.
Most priests, but not all, were Sadducees; but nearly all Sadducees appear to have been priests.
They came from the most powerful priestly families.
They predominated in the Sanhedrin.
They rejected any concept of an after-life, including resurrection, rewards, retribution.
They denied the existence of the ‘soul’, angels, and demons.
The Sadducees’ appearance as opponents of Jesus tied in with the entrance of the ‘chief priests’ into the fray (Luke 19:47). Their question reported in Luke 20:28 – 33 expressed their denial of life after death, and was in direct conflict with the position of the Pharisees, who believed in the resurrection of the dead. Their question focused on what they saw as the foolishness of such a belief.
Jesus answer consisted of two parts:
[1] He pointed out that their question was based on ignorance of what things were like in ‘that age’, that is, in the age to come, when there is neither marriage nor death – verses 35 – 36. In doing so he also clearly affirmed that there is such a thing as ‘resurrection’ – saying ‘in the resurrection from the dead’ and ‘children of the resurrection’.
[2] He directly affirmed that the dead rise – verses 37 – 38, stating (1) that Moses called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’; (2) that God ‘is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.’
Jesus’ response drew the approval of ‘some of the teachers of the law’; although they were among his opponents, they acknowledged the correctness of his answer.
E. JESUS’ QUESTION – Luke 20:41 – 47
His opponents did not dare to ask him anymore questions (verse 40), but Jesus asked them a question they could not answer, a question that focused on his own identity.
Jesus’ question focuses on what David said in Psalm 110:1, where the Messiah (the Christ), who is elsewhere identified as ‘the Son of David’, is called ‘my Lord’. Jesus’ question is ‘How can the Messiah, whom David calls ‘my Lord’ be his son?’
Jesus here confronts his opponents, and us, with the mystery of his incarnation: that he is at the same time both a physical descendent of David (‘the Son of David’) and also ‘Lord’ (that is, God). Jesus does not wait for them to try to answer his question; nor does he expect them to answer it.
We have in this little report several different categories of people: Jesus, his disciples, ‘all the people’, and ‘some of the teachers of the law’ to whom he addressed this question.
While they were all listening, Jesus, warned his disciples to ‘beware of the teachers of the law’.
Read Luke 20:45 – 47.
What are Jesus’ five criticisms of the teachers of the law?
What is one key characteristic of their behaviours?
What did Jesus say would happen to them?
Suggest why their punishment will be severe:
F. A CONTRAST – Luke 21:1 – 4
Jesus, looking up, saw the contrast between the rich people and a poor widow as they put their gifts into the temple treasury. They ‘threw in large amounts’ (Mark 12:41) – but that was only a small portion of their wealth. She, although she only put in two very small copper coins, actually put in all that she had, which meant, Jesus said, that she had put in more than all the others.
What does this teach you about how God views our giving?
How does it contrast with the love of display and the heartlessness of those Jesus criticised in 20:46, 47?