On several occasions the High Jewish priests asked Jesus, that if He is the son of God, then demonstrate by doing X or Y.
I assume in all of these cases, he could have fulfilled the requests to show who He was - so why not just give them some proof?
Why did Jesus have to beat around the bush ?
Why not prove Himself for exponentially more followers?
Jesus did give them proof, on numerous occasions. He healed the sick, turned water into wine, and raised the dead. He showed how his coming fulfilled prophecy. But they still didn't believe.
Consider the story of the blind man Jesus healed in John 9. When he was brought to the Pharisees, did they say, "Zounds, Jesus restored the sight of a blind man! He must be a great prophet if not God himself!" No, they didn't. They had the man right there, giving his eye-witness (no pun intended) testimony. And what was their response? They had his parents brought in and questioned if he had really been blind. When they said he was, they demanded that the man explain how Jesus did it. Of course he didn't know. They pressed and pressed, and when he wouldn't recant his story, they had him excommunicated.
So when they asked for yet another sign, Jesus told them no, he had already given them all the proof they needed. If Jesus had come to some meeting of the priests and performed a miracle right in front of them, I'm sure they would have claimed it was an illusion or a magic trick.
It's just like some of the demands people make today. Every now and then an atheist will say, "If there really is a God, let him strike me down with lightning right now." Why doesn't God respond by sending lighting? Because: suppose that an atheist said that, and at that very moment a bolt of lightning tore through the roof and knocked him to the ground. Would all the atheists say, "Wow, we were wrong. God did indeed prove his existence"? I really really doubt it. Much more likely they would say, "Wow, what an astounding coincidence! Just as Bob made that comment about God striking him with lightning, he actually was struck by lightning! You know it would be funny if it wasn't that poor Bob was so badly hurt ..." Right? Does anyone seriously think otherwise?
At some point you have to say, he's done all these miracles, he's given you the Bible, you can believe it or not. In Luke 16:31, Jesus says, "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead." I used to wonder what Jesus meant by this. For of course, if someone really came back from the dead, everyone would have to believe. How could they not? Then stories of near-death experiences came out, people who claimed to have died during surgery or in accidents and then been revived, and who talked about seeing a "being of light" and a heavenly -- or sometimes hellish -- place. Did this end the controversy, and everyone who heard became Christians? No. They said these people were making up stories or hallucinating. Maybe some people became convinced that there is life after death from such testimony, but I suspect it's few. I'm a Christian, I believed in life after death before I heard these stories, and they don't particularly convince me of anything. I don't know what to make of them.
If someone doesn't want to believe, no amount of evidence will convince him. God's not going to waste his time giving a 127th proof to someone who wasn't convinced by the first 126.
Jesus Himself actually essentially says why He didn't give proof:
John 10:24-26 (NLT)
24 The people* surrounded him and asked, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus replied, “I have already told you, and you don’t believe me. The proof is the work I do in my Father’s name. 26 But you don’t believe me because you are not my sheep.
*My NLT Bible has "Jewish leaders" instead of "people" at the beginning of the verse.
By this point, Jesus has even healed a man that was born blind, which no one else had ever done (John 9), yet the Pharisees didn't believe Him. Jesus goes on to say that "I and the Father are one." (verse 30), at which the people picked up stones to stone Him. Jesus points out that He did a lot of good acts and asks which one they're stoning Him for, at which they reply that they're stoning Him for claiming to be the Son of God despite being a mere man.
By this point, it's clear that anyone who asks Him to give proof is not going to believe it anyway, for they are so dead-set** on the idea that Jesus is NOT the Messiah. This is also backed up by the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man:
30 “The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’
31 “But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Well...not only did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead (and the Pharisees still didn't believe [John 11]), Jesus Himself rose from the dead...and sure enough, many people didn't believe anyway. Refusing to believe evidence because it doesn't agree with one's beliefs is not just a modern phenomenon...
**Awful pun, I know. Though I guess you could say it's a killer pun.
...sorry.
In Luke, Jesus was asked for a sign - a miracle - to prove he was. Jesus responded by saying that he would, in fact give them a sign, just not the one they expected.
In 11:28 - 32, he says:
29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom; and now something greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now something greater than Jonah is here.
In his foreknowledge, I would argue, he knew he was going to die and be resurrected. Like Jonah, he knew that he would spend "three nights in the belly of [the earth]." His resurrection would in fact be the proof that was demand. Later, in the story of Lazarus and Dives, the Rich Man, Dives - who had been sent to Hell, begs Abraham for the chance to at least warn his family not to join him. Jesus, through Abraham has an interesting reply:
“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
In short, Jesus is saying:
a. even a person being dead and then not being dead won't convince them
and
b. the Scriptures (aka "Moses and the Prophets") already contained sufficient proof, if only people would have listened.
Finally, it should be understood that it is terribly easy to blur the line between seeking proof and seeking some cheap entertainment. Perhaps no one susses this out of Scripture better than Andrew Lloyd Webber in Jesus Christ Superstar when he shows Herod to be a buffon demanding that Jesus perform a miracle. He says:
Herod, of course, had no intention of believing that Jesus was Divine, nor would he have ever brooked a rival "King of the Jews." The coolest part of that song, of course, is that it is entirely scriptural. As Luke 23 says,
When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time he had been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform a sign of some sort.
Oh, and for the record - that was the context in which the High Priest you asked about demand proof, and Jesus remained silent.
I know that there are already some wonderful answers to this question, but I thought that I would just add in my two bits, which hadn't already been said.
Namely, that besides having already given them signs and proofs through many miracles, he also had three other reasons for not fully disclosing His identity as Messiah:
Okay, now something not totally related, though somewhat as a reply to some comments on El'endia Starman's answer. I was wondering if anybody had read the Gospel according to Nicodemus? It has a wonderful account of the resurrection through the eyes of those risen from the tomb on Christ's descent into Hades. Here is a link. Just start at page 19. I found that to be very interesting.
Forgive me if I strayed off topic. "Bearing with one another and forgiving one another..."
Jesus was'nt interested in doing anymore than he had already done . When he said "it was finished" it was finished . His concern afterward was getting his followers to stay together long enough to receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost . That's why he appeared so many times to them .I believe if he hadn't they would've been to scared to do anything and would've went back to their old lives . If you look at the disciples before Pentecost and after Pentecost their behavior is totally different due to the power of the Holy Spirit that enabled them to carry out the Great Commission and spread Christianity to the world .
I think Luke 4:12 explains it nicely:
Jesus answered, "It says: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
When the high priests asked Jesus to do X or Y, He had no interest in responding to their cheap tests. The Power of God should never be used in sideshows to perform "magic tricks".
