Who is Jesus?

Mark 12:35-37

35 And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? 36 David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,

“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand,

until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’

37 David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?” And the great throng heard him gladly.

Pray

I can’t think of a better time to preach this text than this time when we eagerly await the Messiah. He has come, but in the Advent season we take the posture of what it would be like to be in that pre-Jesus world and we study the Scriptures to determine what and who we should be looking for. The Scriptures outlined who this Person and Lord would be.

If you are a Jew that is anticipating His arrival, can you imagine the joy that you would have when you finally saw His coming. I know the song Joy to the World that we sing at this time is not a Christmas song, but a song about Christ’s coming at the end of time. The words have meaning in this time too. When these Jews saw Jesus and knew that He was the promised Messiah don’t you think that their praises were something like, “Joy to the world, the Lord has come let earth receive her King!”

In today’s text, Jesus is no longer being questioned but He is the interrogator and he is asking the “experts” to give an answer.

35 And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, “How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?

If you are not familiar with the Old Testament, this statement can be confusing for you. The Old Testament has all sorts of prophecies about the Messiah. These are words from the Lord given to prophets that they then speak to sometimes give warnings to the people and sometimes to tell what is to come. God the Father gave several prophecies about Jesus’, or the Messiah’s, coming. One was that this Messiah would be in the line of King David.

John 7:42 shows that this was the thought among the Jewish people of the time. “Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”

If we remember from our study in Mark chapter 10 the story of Bartimaeus. He was a blind beggar just outside of Jericho. Do you remember what he shouted out? “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me?”

The people gathered that the son of David would be the Messiah from several Old Testament texts. 2 Samuel 7:16

And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ ”

Jeremiah 23:5–6

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

Psalm 89:3–4 (ESV)

You have said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’ ”

Jeremiah 30:9 ESV

But they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.

Amos 9:11 (ESV)

“In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old

Isaiah 9:4–7 (ESV)

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Micah 5:2–3 (ESV)

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

This drum was being beaten over and over in the Old Testament of a human being born from the line of David that would be the Christ, or “anointed one” and Savior of the Jewish people. This is something that no one disagreed on.

This is a rhetorical question Jesus is asking the crowd of why the Scribes say that the Christ is the son of David. He knows why they teach it, because it is in the Biblical text, but it is the next part of the teaching that he wants to press them on.

Jesus continues in his teaching.

36 David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,

“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand,

until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’

The text that Jesus is quoting is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament. Psalm 110:1. It is quoted directly in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts and Hebrews and its content is mentioned in 1 Corinthians, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, Hebrews and 1 Peter. All in it is either quoted or alluded to 33 times in the New Testament. This is an important text when it comes to understanding what Jesus came to do and who Jesus is.

But first, where does this text come from. You would say Psalm 110. That is correct, but the text says it comes from the pen of David, but not only David. David is “in the Spirit”. See, we have this interesting thing that happens in the bible that doesn’t happen in other ancient or “holy” texts. The bible is the infallible word of God written by fallible men. It is not dictated by man with God speaking in His ear, but rather it is an aligning of man to God’s will and thoughts to speak the mind and message of God. Unlike when the supposed angel Gabriel came to Muhammed and basically used Muhammed as a human stenographer, the Lord decides to give us His true word through people by changing their heart and mind to be able to understand and fully articulate to fallen, finite humans God’s instruction. There is nothing enviable about David. The only wins that He recieved were attributed to and caused by the Lord. He was a weak man on his own and prone to sin. The pages of Scripture bare that out. The only thing we are to gather from David is that He, though very sinful, always turned back to God. God’s Spirit was on Him and working through David to do what God created him to do.

This great king and military leader, writing in the Spirit says, “The Lord said to my Lord.” The first LORD in the original Hebrew is Yahweh, which is God’s name, or the best pronunciation that we can come up with for His name, and the second Lord is Adoni, which means Lord of all. It is only a reference to God. He is prophesying about Christ, saying that Jesus is equal to God and shares in His glory. When someone sits at the right hand of a King, that person is sharing in the glory of the king and has great power.

David is saying something that the Jews and most of us cannot wrap our mind around. God the Spirit was writing through David and telling of what God the Father is saying to God the Son. We are seeing Jesus unpacking the doctrine of the Trinity. There is one God in three persons. They are all one God with distinct jobs and roles. Jesus is going to be seated at the right hand of God the Father until the Father puts all of Jesus enemies under His feet.

David is calling Jesus, Lord of all about 1000 years before Jesus would arrive in the flesh. Because Jesus would legally be an heir to the throne of David through both Joseph and Mary, He would fulfill the role as son of David, but he isn’t just a man. He is truly God and truly man. Jesus points this out as He continues his teaching.

37 David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son?”

The Scribes clearly taught that the Messiah would come from the line of David, but when they came to this passage, they didn’t have an answer. How could they square the circle of the Messiah being David’s son but also his Lord. In that day, you would never bow down to your son. There was a hierarchy that would never allow that. In order for David to call his son Adoni or Lord of all, he would have had to been God. Jesus is showing them clear evidence from Scripture that is pointing to His deity, but their view of God was too small. That couldn’t be because that was outside the possibility of what God could do. They could never worship God correctly because they refused to believe the truth when it was presented to them by God.

Worshipping Jesus just any old way will not do. We are to study and worship Him correctly in His correct position and title. Jesus is not an angel as the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe. Hebrews 1:3-5 says,

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

For to which of the angels did God ever say,

“You are my Son,

today I have begotten you”?

Or again,

“I will be to him a father,

and he shall be to me a son”?

He is not a created being as the Mormons believe. Colossians 1:15-16 says,

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

He is not just a good teacher or a good person. There is no room for that. Jesus in his teachings give no room for that. He calls himself God. In John 8, Jesus is being questioned by the Jews, He uses the name of God to describe himself when he says in verse 56,

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

When Jesus is before the High Priest in Matthew 26, they ask Him, “Are you the Christ? The Son of God.” Jesus responds,

You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

This idea that He is a good person or good teacher, but not God is not an option. If He is not who He says He is then He is as CS Lewis says, He is at least a lunatic and worst a liar.

When Jesus confronts the Scribes and questions the people in the temple and shows them through their own Scriptures that He is the one that was promised, it says in the last line of today’s passage,

And the great throng heard him gladly.

The crowd liked that Jesus stuck it to the religious elites. Finally someone put them in their places. Someone that was smarter and could give them a taste of their own medicine. We don’t see a repenting or turning from the Pharisees or Scribes or Sadduccees at Jesus questioning, but you also don’t see the crowd worshipping either. They like the way He taught, they liked the things He said, but they didn’t respond appropriately to Him being Lord. If they had they would worship Him as God. They would fall down on their faces and give Him praise.

I have had friends who were atheist tell me that they would believe if God showed them a miracle. I argue that they wouldn’t because there were a lot in the bible that saw and were impressed but didn’t worship.

Who is Jesus to you? Is He a great man that we can follow some of His teachings for a better life. Can we use his methods to be better people? Yes. Turning the other cheek, forgiving, not worrying, don’t be sexually impure, all of those things are helpful and if that is all you want out of Jesus, just a better life, you can get that from the teachings of Christ, but when this life is over it will not turn out well for you. When we read this Gospel of Mark, the author thinks that we will read the whole thing. He expected us to know the verses before today’s verse where the Scribe is probing Jesus for answers pertaining to the law and the Scribe agrees with Jesus. What does Jesus say to the Scribe? Good enough, you like what I am saying. You’re in. You’ve arrived. Does he tell the crowd, this guy has got it? “Just take from my teachings the things that you like and you will be good to go.” No. He says, “You are not far from the kingdom.” He had not made it in the Kingdom because he didn’t recognize Jesus how David did as Adoni, or Lord of all.

If you are here and you see Jesus as anything other than Lord of all, God in the flesh, Savior of the World, you are missing the Kingdom. He has come to free captives and make you right with God the Father.