When Jesus Probes
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Have you noticed that Jesus never asks a question for the fun of it? He’s not confused. He’s not playing around. He isn’t simply trying to get anyone. When Jesus asks a question, there is a purpose behind it. He wants to probe deeper than the surface. Most people like to stay on the surface. Most people don’t want to go too deep into our thoughts or feelings, and yet Jesus does. He asked questions to probe the depths of a person’s understanding or their belief. When he asked the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” It was a penetrating question. Are the disciples keeping their ear to the ground. Do they know the rumors that are going on when it comes to their rabbi. But then he probes even deeper. “Who do you say that I am?” Now they have to search their own souls. What is their understanding? What is their belief? What do they make of their own rabbi? Is he a prophet like the people say? Is he just a rabbi? Or is he something more?
It’s not much different in the passage this morning. Jesus isn’t playing around when he asks his question. He isn’t playing “gotcha.” He’s probing. So far, the chief priests, elders, scribes, and Sadducees have all been asking Jesus questions. Each one of them is playing “gotcha,” but Jesus is not getting his revenge; he’s not playing their game, but of course, he does get them. As we saw a few weeks ago, even when Jesus asked the question about John the Baptist—whether his authority was from God or man, he was not merely playing around. He would have used that question to go deeper if the chief priests and scribes had answered him.
When Jesus probes, it’s always for a reason. This morning, we see that he wants the scribes to know who he is, not just as a rabbi and not just as Messiah, but who he truly is. And so in this short monologue, we see Jesus probe the Scribes. Then we see him point to the Scriptures. Finally, he probes the Scribes again.
Probing the Scribes
Pointing to the Scriptures
Probing the Scribes (Again)
But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?
For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’
David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”
Probing the Scribes
Probing the Scribes
Until now, Jesus has been on the defensive. And by that I mean that he was the one being peppered with questions. He was drawn into these silly arguments. He had not voluntarily asked questions on his own. But this time Jesus goes on the offensive, beginning with a question. And in so doing, he is probing the understanding of the Scribes. And we can be assured it’s the Scribes because they are the last people mentioned before the “them” in verse 41. In other words, the Scribes are the antecedent to “them.”
Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.”
For they no longer dared to ask him any question.
It would not have made any sense for Jesus to ask the Sadducees; as Donald mentioned last week, they Sadducees didn’t believe in the Prophets or Writings, only in the Torah—the first five books of the Bible. The only ones left then are the Scribes, and Jesus probes their understanding of the Messiah.
But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?
This would seem to be a no-brainer. The Scribes could easily answer this question. One need only go back to 2 Samuel 7:12
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
Everyone understood that this prophesy was ultimately going to be fulfilled by the Messiah. That wasn’t hard. That was surface level. Again like the “who do people say that I am?” There is a deeper question to come. Like the “is it easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say rise up and walk?” There would be something more to understand.
Let me ask you though before we go further: in your Bible study and in your reading, how deep do you go? How much do you probe your own soul with God’s Word? When praying, how deep do you go? In your confessions, do you keep it light and surface-level, or do you search your heart for motive and lusts and fears? Are we like David in Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!
Jesus is always about going deeper. Like a submarine, he may be on the surface for a moment, but the intention of a submarine is to dive deep and dive fast into the ocean. Are we one board to dive deep? In our time with Jesus—in our Bible and prayer—are we diving deep?
Pointing to the Scriptures
Pointing to the Scriptures
This takes us to the second part of the monologue: Jesus points to the Scriptures. The Scribes number one job was to copy the Scriptures. They know what they say. They not only copied them, but they were considered the experts in Scriptures. That’s why they were also called “Lawyers.” If you had a question as to what something meant, you would go to a Scribe. That’s exactly what Jesus did. He probed the Scribes and then pointed to the Scripture from which his question came.
For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’
Jesus pointed to the 110th Psalm. Incidentally, the book as a whole is called Psalms, but each chapter of the book is simply called a Psalm (singular). Hence, we wouldn’t say Psalms 110, but rather Psalm 110. It’s kind of like Revelation; it’s not Revelations.
But here Jesus pointed to the 110th Psalm. This Psalm, more than any other passage in the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament. It was understood by everyone who accepted the Psalms as Scripture to be a Messianic Psalm. There was no dispute about it with anyone. The Scribes would have known immediately that Jesus wasn’t pulling a fast one on them. He wasn’t taking a disputed passage to make his argument. He was taking a well-known, 100% agreed upon Messianic Psalm. But he pointed out something that apparently had been missed.
Isn’t it amazing when God does this to us? You’ve read a piece of Scripture over and over again. Maybe even have it memorized, and then suddenly he goes deeper and show you what you’ve been missing all these years. It’s exciting when it happens.
Here is Jesus doing this to the Scribes. He is taking an old familiar Psalm and pointing out something that it says that had not been noticed before. In the very first verse of Psalm 110, David wrote something profound that seems to have been missed. We don’t get the full picture in Luke, so let’s look back at the Psalm.
The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
All the words look the same, except for one. That first LORD in Psalm 110 is not exactly the same as the first Lord in Luke 20:42. That’s because the first Lord in Psalm 110, is actually the covenantal name of God:Yahweh. It’s sometimes called the tetragrammaton which means “four letters,” YHWH. When the Hebrew Scriptures were read aloud (or even silently) instead of saying the name Yahweh, they would change the word to Adonai, which is Hebrew for LORD. They did this so they wouldn’t accidentally take Yahweh’s name in vain. So Jesus, following protocol, when he quotes the verse does not say Yahweh, but Adonai. And since he didn’t actually say God’s name, then Luke wrote as he spoke. He said Adonai (Kurios in Greek) so Luke wrote it down just as he said it, and that’s why we don’t see all caps in Luke.
But looking back, we see that Yahweh is the one doing the speaking. And he is speaking to the one everyone, including the Scribes, understand to be the Messiah. What Jesus pointed out is that David called his own Son “Lord.” In other words, David called his son, “Master.” We may not necessarily see the weirdness of this. It’s not uncommon for a son to take over a business and his father step down to a lesser roll. Suddenly the son is the boss and the father is an employee.
But at this time, it was unheard of. We even see this between Caiaphas and Annas. Annas was Caiaphas’s father-in-law. He was the chief priest before Caiaphas, and so we see in John that even though Annas was no longer the official high priest, when Jesus was arrested, he went to Annas first. And only when Annas gave the okay was he taken to Caiaphas. The son is never over the father.
Yet here, David calls the Messiah—his own Son—Lord/Master.
David was the greatest of Israel’s kings. Pretty much all the other kings were measured by David. Were they like David or not? God kept his promise to David that is reiterated throughout the books of 1 and 2 Kings. “For the sake of David my servant, I will do such and such.” But Jesus pointed out that David saw someone greater than he. How had the Scribes missed that?
So let me ask you again, how are you at reading and studying God’s Word? Certainly, we will only understand it by the power of the Spirit, but that doesn’t mean we read it passively. When we read it, are we looking for implications and applications? Implications are those areas of Scripture where we can place ourselves. When Peter tells us to abstain from the passions of the flesh, we can look and say, “What are my passions of the flesh from which I must abstain?” That’s an implication. Application is more of how we can take something that aren’t as easy. Jesus healed on the Sabbath and so broke tradition but kept the law; are there man-made traditions that need to be broken so that we can keep the law of loving God and neighbor? Are we reading to read or are we reading to be changed?
Probing the Scribes (Again)
Probing the Scribes (Again)
This takes us to the final part of Jesus’s monologue. He once again probes the Scribes. I keep calling this a monologue because Jesus never actually received a reply from the Scribes. Jesus reiterates the question now that the Scribes would understand why he is asking.
David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”
In other words, what does this lead them to conclude? It is only reasonable for anyone to conclude that David did not see himself as the end-all-be-all of kings. The Messiah, though a descendent of David’s would be David’s superior. It was not to David that Yahweh had said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” David had received the throne as God’s representative on earth. But the Messiah would receive the very throne of God. Thus the Messiah was not only the Son of David to receive his father’s earthly throne, but that he was the Son of God and would receive his Father’s heavenly throne.
I remember watching Bart Ehrman on The Colbert Report back in 2009. Now, Ehrman likes to consider himself to be a scholarly historian. However, Stephen Colbert a devout Catholic as well as a comedian, actually made Ehrman look rather foolish to me. But Ehrman claimed in that interview that Jesus never claimed to be divine and that he never claimed to be the Son of God. Though not a direct claim, we see here that this is exactly what Jesus was implying. This was the conclusion to which he was expecting the Scribes to come. The Son of David not only takes the earthly throne, but the heavenly one as well.
And if David, Israel’s greatest king, had prophesied that the Son of David would be Lord over himself, then who did the Scribes think they were? Who did the Pharisees or Sadducees or elders or anyone else think they were to claim authority over him? Who are we to think that we can do as we want with him as well? One of the last things Jesus said before he ascended to heaven was that we were to teach the disciples to observe everything that he has commanded. The key word is “observe.” We are to listen and obey everything he has commanded. Why? Because all power and authority has been given to him in heaven and on earth. He is David’s Son but also God’s Son.
We have no right to question. We have no right to make excuses. We have only to submit ourselves to the King of kings and Lord of lords. To question his authority or the validity of his commands because we don’t feel like doing them is to be no better than those who opposed Jesus to his face. Let that sink in for a moment. To question his authority or the validity of his commands because we don’t feel like doing them is to be no better than those who opposed Jesus to his face.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we close out this passage of Scripture, we have seen Jesus give a short monologue in which he probes the Scribes and then points to the Scriptures so they understand why he asked what he did. But then he asked again knowing the conclusion to which they would come. They never respond. Maybe they didn’t like the answer. Maybe they didn’t dare admit it. But the truth is the truth, whether we like it or not and whether or not we want to admit it.
Now we are left with a question: what are the implications and applications for us? This implies that Jesus is not only the King of the Jews, but of the Universe and that includes us. He is on his throne at this very moment because his enemies have not yet been made his footstool. It implies that we can either worship him and obey him as the King of Heaven or one day lay under his feet.
We apply this to our lives by reading his word—his commands—closely and observe them in the obedience of faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. We play an active role in our obedience, but it is not by our own power or energy. As Paul instructed
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
God is at work inwardly, we then use that in a display of faith-energized work.
Prayer
Our heavenly Father,
Let us not be satisfied with surface level Christianity. Let us not be satisfied with riding a speedboat barely skimming the top of our lives and souls, but may we enter the submarine with Jesus as our captain and dive deep with him.
May we actively dive deep into your Word and into our prayers. And always see that ours is but to observe whatsoever our Captain has commanded.
In Jesus’s name. Amen.
