And they answered Jesus and said, “We do not know.” And Jesus answered and said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Their answer, “We do not know,” was not a confession of lack of knowledge, but a mask of deliberate dishonesty. They knew that any answer they gave would expose their sin, so they chose false uncertainty. Christ does not give them the answer that they did not want to accept in truth. This is a very serious spiritual principle: whoever rejects the light already given is not given new light to satisfy curiosity. The Lord is not obligated to reveal His mysteries before hypocritical hearts. His authority had already been testified by His words, His works, John’s testimony, and the fulfillment of Holy Scripture. But those who did not want to believe remained in their darkness. This ending warns that dishonest silence before God’s truth is also sin, and the person who says “I do not know” when in reality he does not want to obey risks losing the light of truth.