Jesus the Expositor

Mark 12 and the Approach to the Olivet Discourse

Well, if you have your Bibles, turn with me to Mark chapter 12, and we have been looking through chapter 12 now for several weeks, and we are not going to finish tonight, but I hope that we will finish next week, chapter 12, and then move to chapter 13.

I do admit chapter 13 has some difficult portions, and I'm not dragging my feet, I promise. It's not as if I'm afraid to get there, but I am rather anxious about when we are there, because 13 is Mark's rendition of what's known as the Olivet Discourse, which is a very disagreed upon set of passages, because it revolves around Christ's second coming, and so when we finally do get there, I hope to help you understand why we believe what we believe about it, and maybe look at some of the ways other people have interpreted it, but we'll get there in a few weeks.

But tonight we're going to look only at verses 35 to 37 in Mark's 12th chapter, and I've entitled tonight's lesson, Jesus the Expositor. Jesus the Expositor. Expositional preaching is the art of examining a text to determine the meaning based upon grammar and historical context.

That is what I seek to do, and I know our elders seek to do every time we open the Word of God. We seek to give an understanding of it that is right, and expositional teaching means that we seek to expose, that's where the word expose comes from, or exposit the text based upon the grammar and the context.

Jesus Questions the Scribes About the Messiah

Well, in this short passage, Jesus examines a text of scripture. He only cites one verse from the Old Covenant, but he uses that single passage from the Psalms, it's Psalm 110, to confound his opponents.

And what's interesting about that is the context, before we read I just want to remind you of the context, Jesus has been at the receiving end of the debaters of his day. They have all tried to come and trap him in his words.

The first who came, came to trap him in regard to taxes. That was the Pharisees and the Herodians. They gathered together, they came up and said, should we pay taxes to Caesar or not? Hoping that Jesus would go one way or another in such a way that they would be able to claim that he was either anti-Jewish, because if he said pay your taxes and without any type of qualification they would have said, see he's against, he's siding with Rome, or if he said don't pay your taxes they would have been able to say to Rome, look you have an insurrectionist.

Either way Jesus was going to get trapped, but Jesus being wiser than any man who ever lived said, render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's. The second of the arguments was a question of theology, and if you'll remember that it was the question of the resurrection.

The Sadducees who don't believe in the resurrection came to Jesus with a somewhat of a riddle. A woman had seven husbands and they all died and then she died, whose husband will she.

Be?

And Jesus of course told them they knew neither the scripture nor the power of God. Last week we looked at the third of these interactions, and the third one was on the subject of priority. Priority, they asked the question, what is the first law?

And by that they did not mean what law comes first in order, but rather what law comes first in rank? What's the most important law? And Jesus told them that the greatest law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

Interestingly, as I mentioned last time, quoting neither of those from the Ten Commandments, but yet giving a summary of the commandments in those two commands. Well tonight Jesus turns the conversation back against his opponents, and he asks them a question.

So let's read the text together. It says, beginning in verse 35,. And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? 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.

David himself calls him Lord. So how is he his son? And the great throng heard him gladly. Oh may God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of the word of God. So that is our text for the evening, and again on Wednesday nights I had been taking larger sections but tonight I felt like it was really not a good idea because while I do think the next two incidences, which is the story of Jesus giving a warning against the scribes and then the story of the woman with the widow's mite, I do think those go together and I am going to put those together as one.

I think this one stands on its own and will be something that is important for us to consider on its own. So again, the situation has changed. Jesus is no longer receiving questions. He is now asking questions.

He's in the temple teaching, which is first of all an interesting reality if you just sort of in your mind picture that Jesus is teaching and as he taught in the temple he said how can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?

Christ, Messiah, and the Promise to David

Now, right away as we start to consider and break this down, when we see the word Christ, many of us are familiar with this, but for those who aren't I always like to make sure we're all on the same page.

Do we know what the word Christ means? It is a translation of the Hebrew Messiah. So in Hebrew it would be Mashiach or Messiah and in English, or I'm sorry in Greek it would be Christos. Yes, so that's correct.

So Messiah and Christ are the same. But what does that word mean? I'm sorry? No, the anointed one. The word Christ or Messiah means the anointed one. Now every time I teach this I always like to point this out, not because I like to mention politics but I think it's funny.

Do you remember back when Barack Obama became president? Many people were calling him the anointed one. It was not meant to be serious but there were people, oh he's the one that's going to come because he was bringing what?

Hope and change and they said he's the anointed one. Well what they were calling him by calling him the anointed one is they were calling him Christ. Now, I don't think anyone intended, maybe some did, I don't think anyone intended to worship him, even though maybe I shouldn't be so bold as to say no one.

But the idea of calling someone the anointed one is the same as saying Christ. Now an interesting fact, in your New Testament the word Messiah is rarely used. In fact, in the ESV it's only twice that the word Messiah is used.

It's almost always translated as Christ. But I want to show you something if you have your Bibles that you just hold there and mark just very quickly. Turn over to John's Gospel and go to John chapter 1 and go to verse 41, John 1, 41.

This is when Andrew goes to Simon and is telling them that they found Jesus and it says, He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah. Now does yours say Messiah?

Messiah.

Well, but it's, yeah, Messiah, anybody's not say Messiah at that point. Everybody says Messiah right there, right, John 1, 41. But then notice what the next sentence says. What does it say? Which means Christ, right?

So what is happening here is John in his Gospel is he's writing the word Christ or he's writing the word Messiah because that's the Hebrew word. But then he's immediately translating it into Greek because he knows he has an audience who is going to read this in Greek.

So this would be like me saying to you, Jesus is the logos, which means the word, right? Logos means word. So I use the original word, the Greek word, and then I immediately translate that word into your language so that you can understand it.

That's what John does here. He says, Simon said to him, We found the Messiah. Why would he use the word Messiah there? Well, this is two Hebrew brothers and they're using the word that they understood from the.

Old covenant.

This word I'm going to show you in a minute. This word's in the old covenant. They have Old Testament texts that use this word. And so therefore, they know what that means. But John's audience needs to be told it's the Christ.

The Messiah is the Christ. Now the same thing happens. You don't have to necessarily turn there. In John chapter four, verse twenty five, when Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well, if you want to go there, you can just see it's the same thing.

Jesus is talking to the woman at the well in John four, twenty five. And I love this. She says. It says in verse twenty five, The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming. He who is called Christ.

And when he comes, he will tell us all things. But notice what John does again. John uses the word Messiah. He then immediately translates it into Greek Christ. And so and what's interesting about this, I guess it's good that we turn here because I'm going to stay.

I'm going to hold on this for a second.

What's interesting?

Think about the story of this woman.

Who is this woman?

John. For the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman came to Jesus and noticed that even she knew the Messiah was coming. She said, we or I know that Messiah is coming. How does she know? Because it was part of the tradition of their belief.

You remember where the Samaritans came from. They were the the mixed group that came out of the when the the northern kingdoms were.

Taken into captivity.

And out of that came this mixed group called the Samaritans. And so she still had this belief. Remember, she said, you guys worship on that mountain. We worship on this mountain. And Jesus said, you know, God's looking for people to worship in spirit and truth, that whole conversation.

But he says, she says, we know Messiah is coming. Why am I making this a big deal? Listen. On Sunday, I'm going to talk about the Jews and their relationship to Christ today. Remember, I gave you that little tidbit Sunday.

I'm going to talk about this. I've been thinking about this all week. The Jews of Jesus's day and even the Samaritans of Jesus's day knew the Messiah was coming. So anyone who says, oh, those Old Testament passages, they didn't talk about a Messiah.

Yes, they did.

And they knew they did.

They absolutely knew Messiah was coming. Now, if you want to see it in the Old Testament, turn with me back to Daniel nine. Now, got to be careful in Daniel because Brother Mike's teaching Daniel. So I don't want to get too far into that.

I want to.

It's like if I was going to Job, I'd have to ask Brother Andy's permission.

That's a joke.

But go to Daniel chapter nine. And go to verse twenty five. Now, some of yours will be translated different. And that's why I want you to actually see this one. So if you have your Bibles, go over to Daniel nine, verse twenty five.

And in fact, Mike and I were talking about this Sunday night because this is a passage I'm doing a debate this week on in times tomorrow night at eight thirty. I'm doing a debate on the rapture. And this is one of the passages that will probably come up because Daniel's prophecies often come up in that conversation.

But this particular passage says, no, therefore, and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to the risk to to restore and to build Jerusalem until the Messiah, the prince shall be seven weeks and three score and two weeks, the street shall be built again and the wall even in troublous times.

What does the word what mine says, Messiah, the prince? I know the New American Standard says Messiah, the prince. What is your say, brother? Messiah, the prince. And he is. You got new King James, right?

Messiah, the prince. Does anybody say the anointed one? OK, what translation do you have in this? ESV says the anointed one. That's right. That's right.

Yeah.

So I'm actually I took from a different translation when I put it in my notes because I wanted to see what everybody's had. But I wanted to point out that word Messiah is this word Mashiach. And if you look, here's the great part.

If you look at the Greek Septuagint, you guys know we love us some Septuagint up in here. If you look at the Greek Septuagint of this text, it says Christ. He uses the word Christ because that's the Greek word for the word Messiah.

So it's just this. This is something they knew. This was something they understood. So all of that is sort of a back looking, looking back. Now let's go back to Mark. OK, so we can all take our Bibles and go back to Mark.

And Jesus taught in the temple. And he said, how can the scribes say that the Christ, which means the Messiah, how can the scribe say? Remember, the scribes are the teachers of the law. The scribes were the ones who who knew the Bible.

They were the ones who knew the scriptures. How can the teachers of the scriptures say that the Christ is David's son?

The Son of David and the Davidic Covenant

All right.

So Jesus is asking a question. How can the Messiah be David's son? But first of all, stop right there and just ask this question. Why would that assumption be made that the Messiah would be David's son?

Well, the reason for that is because David was given a promise by God. And what was the promise that David was given by God? Say that I'm sorry to have a descendant on his throne. That's right. His kingdom, his throne would last forever.

That was David's promise from God. And I'm sorry, I can't hear you, Missy, this air is blowing in my ear. Yeah. So if you want to just a passage, 2 Samuel 7, verse 16, and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever.

So we have a promise given to David in 2 Samuel 7. We have the same thing in 1 Chronicles 17. And it is a promise in verses 11 through 15 that that the kingdom would be forever, the throne will be established forever.

These are promises or this is the promise that was given to David. Now, Jeremiah 23, we can add to that this thought. Jeremiah 23, verse 5 says this. 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.

So we have this prophecy from Jeremiah that there's a branch of David that's coming. There's this shoot of David that's going to come. Who is that? It's Christ, points forward to Christ. But this promised kingdom actually precedes David.

When is the first time that we hear in the Bible a prophecy about a kingdom that would last forever? Think hard.

Huh?

Well, we have a promise to Abraham that Abraham's seed would bless the nations, but it's a little after Abraham. It's with the son of Jacob. His name was Judah. And it says the scepter shall not depart from his house.

Remember that prophecy is given from Jacob to his son, and it says there will be a scepter. What's the scepter? The scepter was the staff of the king, and the scepter would be in the hand of Judah, and it would not depart the house of Judah.

Well, follow the line. Judah is the ancestor of David, and David is the ancestor of Jesus. And so, the scribes knew that the Messiah would be the offspring of David. One other verse, you don't have to turn there, but it's an interesting verse.

In John chapter 7, verse 42, they're arguing that Jesus can't be the Messiah because Jesus was from Galilee, right? Nazareth, Galilee. Listen to this verse. Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?

See, Jesus was from Galilee, but he was born where? In Bethlehem. But they're arguing against Jesus. They're saying you can't be him because you didn't come from David's city. They're arguing against his history because they didn't know his whole history.

They didn't know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and thus fulfilled the very prophecy that they're saying he didn't fulfill. So, it's very important the understanding of everyone at that time was that the Messiah was coming.

That's number one. Everybody, again, we could go back and through. Everybody knew the Messiah was coming, and how do we identify Messiah? He is the son of David. Now, think about how many times in the Bible when Jesus is going out doing ministry, he was called son of David.

Think about it. Jesus, in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, they cried out, have mercy on us.

Who?

Son of David.

You know what they're saying when they say have mercy on us, son of David? They're saying have mercy on us, Messiah, because that's what son of David means. That's what they meant when they said son of David.

They're saying have mercy on us. We know who you are. You're the Messiah. In Matthew 12, 23, it says, and all the people were amazed, and they asked, can this be the son of David? They weren't asking, can this be one of David's offspring?

They're saying, can this be the son of David, because the son of David was Messiah. They understood who that was. They're saying, can this be him? Can this be the one? Matthew 15, 22 says, and behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David.

She was a Canaanite, and yet, what did she say? Son of David. She knew who Jesus was. She knew the importance of being in the line of David, and that he was not only a son of David, because I'm sure David probably had many descendants and multiple wives, and think about Solomon.

Yeah, it's like that increased the offspring quite a bit, but this is not a son of David. This is the son of David. What did they say when Jesus was coming in on the back of the donkey on the day of the triumphal entry?

Hosanna to the son of David.

Interesting. The New Testament opens up there, right?

Oh, I was just fixing to say, you beat me to it, but go ahead.

No, it's the genealogy.

That's right.

The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David. Matthew chapter 1, verse 1. So really, we have to consider when we look back at Mark 12, when he says, how can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?

He's asking them something they already knew was true. They already knew the Messiah was coming. They already knew the Messiah was the son of David, and many people had already identified him as the son of David, but now he gets to this question.

The question is based on the correct understanding. You're correct so far. Messiah was coming. He's the son of David, and I'm the son of David. So based on that, how can the Messiah be David's son when David calls him Lord?

And Jesus quotes Psalm 110, verse 1. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand. Now, you know this probably, but just in case you don't, when you are reading your Bible, most translations, not all, but most, will distinguish between Lord with all capital letters, and all capital letters is the sacred name of God, which we pronounce Yahweh.

We can sometimes put the Yahweh. It's four letters in the Hebrew, Yah-heh-vah-heh, what's also known as the Tetragrammaton. It's four letters. Tetra means four. Tetragrammaton, four letters. It's the four-letter name of God, right?

But we simply say Yahweh.

But when we see the word Lord, capital L, little o, little r, little d, it is the word Adonai. Adonai is a great song. There's several songs, but there's one, Adonai, I can't even try. But you know what I'm talking about, right?

It was a beautiful song. And the word Adonai means the sovereign or the ruler, the one who is over all, right? And so when David is writing Psalm 110, and he writes, the Lord said to my Lord, that sounds in English like a redundancy, but in Hebrew it wouldn't have sounded like a redundancy because it would say, Yahweh said to my Adonai.

That's the way it would have been, and that's the way it is in Hebrew. Yahweh says to my Adonai. So what it tells us is in view, we have two Lords in view. And this is where it's important to at least step back and for a moment say, we must understand the doctrine of the Trinity for any of this to make sense.

Because when we talk about God and his essential being, he is one. God is one in his essence or his substance. But he is three in his person or in his subsistence. And therefore, when we describe God, we can say God is one, just like we did last week, Deuteronomy 6, hear all Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one, right?

And yet at the same time, there are three persons who are called God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. The Trinitarian formula for baptism is what? Baptize them in the name, Anima, which is interesting because it's a singular, in the name, the singular name of the triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit.

So Jesus in this is being identified as the sovereign. The Father in this, if you will, or God is being identified as the sacred name of Yahweh. And so a distinction is being made without a division. It has to be understood a distinction without a division.

We can distinguish between the persons without dividing the Trinity into three parts. Okay, that was the heavy theology, but we need to at least be able to distinguish that. So having said that, when we consider what is being said, oh, and I skipped something, I'm sorry.

I was so excited to get to this, I forgot something. I'm a failure. I forgot. I beg your forgiveness. Back up just a second. David himself in the Holy Spirit declared, the Lord said to my Lord. I missed that part.

I don't want to forget it. Notice what is said there. David is saying this in the Holy Spirit. Jesus is tacitly and really offhandedly reminding us of the doctrine of inspiration. That when David said, the Lord said to my Lord, said it in my right hand, he said it not on his own accord and not by his own interpretation or inspiration, but by the Spirit of God.

I love the fact that Jesus always affirms what the Bible says to be true. There's a video somebody sent me this week of some kind of preacher, he had on a purple shirt with a rainbow flag on his sleeve, and he was saying that Jesus never wanted us to trust a book.

He wanted us to trust in love. He never wanted us to believe the scriptures. He wanted us to believe in goodness, and he had this. I'm going to probably do a response to it, because it drives me up the wall that people actually believe that.

I'm going to go to texts like this, and I'm going to say, no, Jesus pointed people to the scripture. Jesus said, have you not read what God said to you when these things were written? This, or have you not read what God said?

Think about that.

Have you not read what he said? Meaning, these are his very words written for us. And when someone says, Jesus didn't tell us to look to the book, he told everybody to.

Look to the book.

You know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. That's your problem. And I tell you, the guy in that video knows neither the scriptures nor the power of God. So I'm going to go off on that little side rabbit trail, but I had to go back, because I didn't want to miss that.

David reminds us of inspiration here when he says in this passage that David said, in the Holy Spirit, these things.

Psalm 110, the Session of Christ, and the Kingdom to Come

All right.

So getting back to the Lord said to my Lord. This passage, Psalm 110, is the most cited Psalm in the New Testament. It is cited by Peter on the day of Pentecost. He quotes it in his sermon. It is referenced multiple times in the book of Hebrews.

It is alluded to several times in Paul's letters, including Ephesians chapter 1, verse 20, and Colossians chapter 3, verse 1. This Psalm is all over the New Testament. And the reason why, I want to quote from an article here.

This is from a TGC article.

It says this.

It says, out of all the verses in the Hebrew Bible, the most frequently quoted in the New Testament is Psalm 110, verse 1. Clearly, the apostles and the prophets saw this messianic Psalm as highly significant for their understanding of Jesus.

But why?

Why is this Psalm so significant? Because Yahweh is speaking to Adonai. So we can say the Father is speaking to the Son, and he is promising him victory. By the Spirit, very good, Mike, yeah, because we just established that.

By the Spirit, the Father is declaring to the Son a place of authority. Sit at my right hand. So we have authority, and we have victory.

Why do we have victory?

Sit at my right hand.

Until what?

Until I make your enemies your footstool, or until I put your enemies under your feet. John MacArthur, in his notes on this particular passage, said this. He said that this was a widely held messianic Psalm until after Christ, and then it began to be reinterpreted by Jewish teachers.

Because it was so obviously pointing to Jesus, they had to point it at something else. And that happens on other passages, too. Brother Mike sent me a video this week of a man walking around Israel with, reading Isaiah 53 and asking people, who is this about?

And they had, many of them had never even read it, because it's not read in the traditional readings of the Jewish people. They don't read it in any of their feasts or anything, they don't read Isaiah 53, because it's so obviously about Christ.

And when one man, when he read it to him, actually was converted, like began to weep. This is about Christ. This is in my Bible. This is obviously true. And it's like Paul says, he says, it's like a veil is over, they don't want to see it.

The veil is there, it's covering. But when they believe in Christ, that veil comes off. And I just, I think about this verse, how many Jewish people read this and they can't see Christ. That veil is covering their eyes.

We ought to pray that their eyes be opened. We ought to pray that God would bring revival to all people, and Jews included, that God would give them a revival to see who their Messiah truly is. Their texts, their scripture clearly says it, clearly points to it.

And yet they reject it. So David, in this psalm, affirms that this is the Messiah by saying that he is actually his Lord. David says, Yahweh says to my Adonai, who is David's Adonai? Who's greater than David?

See the people after Christ, well maybe it was Abraham, or maybe it was one of the other prophets. Or maybe, some even say Judas Maccabeus, who is certainly not the one that's in view here. He was during the intertestamental period, the battle of the Maccabees.

But David recognizes this Lord is my Lord, he's my Lord. Why would he call him my Lord? Because he is the Messiah. And then we come to the part of the psalm which is exciting. And that, I mean it's all exciting, I get excited about all of it, but the part where it says, sit at my right hand.

Because we are reminded in that word, the word sit, we are reminded of one of the aspects of Christ's work that we often are forgetful of. R .C. Sproul points this out in his lesson on this passage. He said, we all celebrate the birth of Christ, we all celebrate the death of Christ, the burial of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ.

Well he calls it the session. The word session comes from the Latin word which means to sit. So when you think of Congress as in session, that means they're sitting at their position of authority, right?

They're sitting in session. Even the elders, we talk about the elders being in session, right? The session is when they're sitting and deliberating, they're making decisions, they're in their position of authority.

So this, where we talk about the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, is then followed by the session of Christ, where he ascends to the right hand of the Father and he sits in the position of authority.

I'll quote Dr. Sproul, the most important session of all is the session of Jesus Christ in heaven. When Yahweh said to David's Lord, sit at my right hand, he was saying, be seated in the highest place of authority in the universe.

Psalm 110 is a prophetic psalm, and David was saying by the Holy Spirit that when the Messiah had finished his labor in this world, he would be exalted to heaven and enthroned at the right hand of God.

We declare that these things took place when we recite the Apostles' Creed, which affirms that Jesus ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God Almighty. But there's a key word, until. Notice what he says.

Sit at my right hand until when? Until his enemies. Does yours say footstool, brother? I keep saying put under his feet, put footstool. The Ottoman. I joked, I said that earlier. To be put under his feet means to be trodden down.

It means to be vanquished underfoot. And here's something I want you to understand. Christ is reigning now. This is why I'm, this is one of the reasons why I'm an Amillennialist. And I've never talked about end times as much as I have in the last year because of the whole internet stuff about the king of the Amillennialists.

I don't know if you know anything about that, but just something that happened. But now we're doing a whole thing. Brother Andy and I and Mike or Brother Mike, we're doing a whole end times conference on this and I'm going to be preaching on how is Christ reigning now and what does that.

Mean?

Because it says he's sitting at the right hand of power. He is in the position of authority now. But there's coming a day when his enemies will be put under his feet. Now there's two views on that. There's the Amillennialist position and the Postmillennialist position.

The Amillennialist says Christ reigns and then he will return and vanquish his enemies. The Postmillennialist says the church through Christ reigns and will vanquish his enemies and then Christ comes.

And the difference is Christ comes to a saved world, that's Postmillennialism, or Christ comes to save the world, that's Amillennialism. And that really is one of the big distinctions. Do we see things getting better?

Do we see things getting worse? Do we see things staying the same? That's the question. But I like Revelation 19. You don't have to turn there, but I do want to read it to you. Because this is the vision John is given of Christ's return.

This is the king stepping off the throne and coming back. You think of how many of his parables was the king goes away and he comes back or the master goes away and leaves it with the tenants and he comes back, right?

This is that moment in future history where it's described in Revelation 19. It says, Then I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse. The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes.

War.

His eyes are a flame of fire, his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God.