WWUTT 918 Blessed is He, Even the King of Israel?

The Triumphal Entry and the Crowd’s Messianic Expectations

Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey's colt, and the people said, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes, the King of Israel! They thought he was going to be their political king. They didn't realize he was the king of kings when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will. For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We've been in John chapter 12 this week, and I'll pick up where we left off yesterday, reading verses 12 through 19. The Apostle John wrote,. The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.

So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel! And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion!

Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt. His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that those things had been written about him and had been done to him.

The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard that he had done this sign.

So the Pharisees said to one another, You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him. Now it's interesting that we read about the Pharisees here saying to one another that the world has gone after Jesus.

What we were looking at yesterday when they were plotting to kill Jesus and also Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead, it mentioned specifically that this was the chief priests who were plotting this.

Verse 10, So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well. What's the difference between the chief priests and the Pharisees? Well, back when we started our study of the Gospel of John, I mentioned that the Sadducees are never spoken of in the Gospel of John.

And I think that this is one of the reasons why, or one of the evidences rather, that John was written after 70 A .D. because the Sadducees were part of the Sanhedrin until the temple was destroyed. Rome sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the temple.

And then after that, because the Sanhedrin was no longer as influential as it used to be, and the Sadducees were part of the aristocracy, which also ceased to exist since Rome was oppressing the Jews, then the Sadducees were no longer part of the Sanhedrin.

The Pharisees were always middle class. They were common folk. So they continued to preserve the law and things like that in Jerusalem or for the Jews. But the Sadducees weren't around anymore. So when John wrote his gospel after 70 A .D., there wasn't a need to mention the Sadducees since that wasn't a sect of the Sanhedrin that the people recognized anymore.

It was only the Pharisees. So here in John 12 verses 9 through 11, when John mentions the chief priests, it's likely that that's the Sadducees. He just doesn't mention them as the Sadducees because those who had the most authority in the Sanhedrin were generally the Sadducees.

Usually, the high priest himself was a Sadducee. Caiaphas, the high priest at this particular time, whom we're going to read about a little bit later in the gospel of John, he was likely of or from the Sadducees, even though that's not going to be mentioned here in John.

So that's the possible distinction between Pharisees and the chief priests, whom John had mentioned in verses 9 through 11. So immediately following that event, we're on to the next day here, which is Sunday.

Passion Week, the Kingdom of Israel, and the Prophecy of Zechariah

This is the start of what we commonly refer to as Holy Week or as I refer to it as Passion Week. Holy Week is the Catholic name, but it has also been under the name Passion Week because this is Christ's passion.

This is what he has come to do now. Having lived in obedience, he is laying his life down for his sheep of his own authority, as Jesus had said back in John chapter 10 to the will of the father, as he said over and over again over the course of this gospel.

So here is the event that kind of starts that week off. And we remember this triumphal entry on what we call Palm Sunday, and that's coming up in about a week and a half here. So I didn't get to this story quite at the time that Palm Sunday that we're going to be celebrating Palm Sunday, but but that's what we're reading about here.

So this was immediately after Jesus had been in Bethany. He had enjoyed dinner at Mary and Martha and Lazarus house. And Mary had anointed Jesus with that fine perfume. This all happened the day before.

So now on Sunday, the large crowd that had come to the feast, remember when they heard that Jesus was there with Lazarus, they came because they wanted to see Jesus and the man whom he had raised from the dead.

Now, it's likely the entire village of Bethany was there at the tomb when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Most of those people were there mourning with this family that they knew the whole village knew everybody.

So they knew Mary and Martha and they knew Lazarus, their friend who had died. So the whole village was there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. We're talking over 100 people, a couple hundred people had seen this event happen.

And so then there are people from outside Bethany who have now come to see Jesus and Lazarus. That was the account that we had on Saturday. And that crowd has just been growing and it's just been over a couple of days.

So when Jesus gets to Jerusalem the next day on Sunday, he's amassed a crowd of several hundred people. And included in this crowd are those who have seen miracles from him before. Maybe it even sat on the hillside when he taught.

So hundreds of people are now gathered. Maybe there was over a thousand. We don't know for sure. It doesn't give us an exact amount. It's the the gospel accounts were more descriptive of the crowds that Jesus fed, like when he fed the five thousand or when he fed the four thousand, which is not as common a story.

That was in Matthew chapter 15. Anyway, so Jesus had done these miracles in front of thousands of people. And it's those thousands likely that have come here to celebrate Jesus entering into Jerusalem.

They believe at this point, many of them believe that he is the promised Messiah who is to come. And they think his coming into Jerusalem, this is going to be it. He is going to announce his arrival. And finally, the guy who's going to free us from the oppression of Rome is here.

So that's what the people are thinking. The next day, the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.

See, it's that it's that label specifically that the people think this is the Messiah. This is the one who's been prophesied all the way through the prophets we've been waiting for all the way up until this day.

Here he is. He is coming into Jerusalem and he is going to go to his rightful place at the palace and he is going to deliver us from the tyranny of this wicked nation, Rome, that has been oppressing us.

They've been oppressed by Rome. They had been oppressed by the Greeks. Of course, they've been oppressed by the Chaldeans, the Babylonians, the Persians before that. So these people who had been under oppression by some other kingdom or some other nation ever since they were exiled out of their land.

Six hundred years before these events that we're reading about here. So here they have been waiting for this deliverer. And finally he has come. That's what the people believe. So they call him the king of Israel.

They think he is going to deliver us and make us a great nation again. We are going to be a kingdom as great as we were under David and Solomon. And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it just as it is written.

Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt. And this is in reference to a prophecy in Zechariah nine, the coming of the shepherd king who would save his people.

Israel, Zechariah nine nine. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. Righteous and having salvation as he humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Whenever a king came riding into a city on a horse, it was usually as a conqueror or it was as a symbol of war. But when he came riding in on a donkey, it was a symbol of peace, even more so on a colt.

That was even more humbling than just riding on a mule itself. In First Kings chapter one, when Solomon's brother, Adonijah, set himself up as king and this was before David had died. Adonijah decided he was going to be the next king and set himself up that way even before David had passed.

But David always had it in his heart for Solomon to become the king. So Nathan and Bathsheba brought this before David and David said, OK, we do need to do something about this so that the people will know Solomon is king and not Adonijah before I die.

So what David did was he put Solomon on his donkey, on David's donkey, so that the people would see Solomon was on the donkey. And this was as a matter of peace because the kingdom was at peace. The people did not want to be at war.

So Solomon was on this donkey and was led up to the place where he was anointed king and they brought people together. This was all kind of, you know, part of David's plan so that the people would know Solomon was king and not Adonijah.

And they brought the people together to hail Solomon as king. But that was Solomon's announcement came on a donkey. This was a common practice to announce a king in such a peaceful way. And this is the way that Jesus is writing in to Jerusalem.

But notice that the people don't actually understand the symbolism here because by hailing him the king of Israel, they think what he's going to do is use his power, which he's demonstrated to heal the sick, to feed thousands of people, to to raise a man from the dead, which is, again, what most of these people have on their minds.

That's that's exactly the way that John has set this up. They're all thinking about Lazarus having just been raised. And now Jesus is coming into Jerusalem on a donkey, just like we remember Solomon coming in the days of David.

And so they hail him as the king of Israel, but they miss that. The reference to the donkey is he's coming as a king of peace. They think he is going to use this power that he has to overthrow the Romans so that there will no longer be the oppression of a suzerain nation over them and they will be sovereign again.

They will even become the prosperous kingdom that they once were. After all, isn't that what all the prophets have talked about, that God was going to restore us and he would restore our fortunes? Jesus is going to be the one to lead us to that.

And by calling him king of Israel, they thought that they they made this reference in a militaristic sense, that he was going to become a military king who was going to lead them out of oppression by these other nations.

And they were going to be a conquering, powerful empire once again. Now, when the people refer to Jesus as the king of Israel, they spoke better than they knew. Remember back in Chapter 11, Caiaphas made the comment that one man he had this prophecy that one man should die for the people and not that the whole nation should perish.

And he did not say this of his own accord. I'm reading in Chapter 11 verse or chapter 11, verse 51. He did not say this of his own accord. But being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

Now, Caiaphas thinks he's speaking of the people of God. Who have been dispersed throughout the Roman Empire are all going to come back to one place. They're all going to come back to Judah, to Jerusalem.

But that but again, he was speaking better than what he really knew. The children of God were going to include Jews and Gentiles. And in fact, that's where we're going next in the story. We'll get to this part next week.

But when we we jump down to verse 20, it says now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip who were from Bethsaida in Galilee and asked him, sir, we wish to see Jesus.

So the Greeks come to Jesus and they want to see him. And this is right after Jesus, or at least the way that that John is writing this narrative here. It's right after Jesus comes into Jerusalem in the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.

One who was going to be a king, not of the Jews only, but he is king of the whole world. And there are Jews and Gentiles who will be brought into this kingdom. Jesus had just talked about this back in John chapter 10.

I have sheep that are not of this fold. I must go to them. And remember, they will know the voice of the shepherd and they will follow him. And so this is not just from the Jews, but also Greeks who would come to know Christ and become part of this kingdom, people of God and know Christ as king and worship him as king and not be destroyed by him.

Which because as we know, the next time Jesus comes, the second coming of Christ, it's not going to be in peace. He's not coming on a donkey. Revelation 19 says he's coming on a white horse. That was that was like the great horse that Caesar sat upon to proclaim himself as God.

Well, Jesus, symbolically on a white horse when he returns, truly is God. And he is going to come as a conquering king. And he is going to he is going to wipe out everyone who did wicked and he will deliver and save and welcome into his kingdom.

All those who did righteousness clothed in the righteousness that he has given them. So in this particular instance, Christ comes in peace. But the next time Christ comes, it's going to be to make war and no one will be able to stand against him.

He's not laying his life down for anybody the second time that he comes for. The Bible says that he did that once for all. The next time he comes, it's going to be to wipe out the wicked and deliver the just.

So here in this particular case, the people are proclaiming him the king of Israel, but they are proclaiming him king the way they want their king to be, not who the scriptures actually says he is. And Jesus found a young donkey sat on it, just as it is written again from Zechariah nine.

Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt. And this is the fulfillment of that particular prophecy. Later on in Zechariah nine, it says on that day, the Lord, their God will save them as the flock of his people.

For like the jewels of a crown, they shall shine on his head for how great is his goodness and how great his beauty grain shall make the young men flourish and new wine the young women. And this is the abundant life that Jesus talked about in John 10, 10.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. We have that abundant life now in Christ, certainly in a spiritual sense, and it will become our reality when we die and enter into that eternal kingdom with God in glory.

So I tell you, if if you are someone who has stumbled across this podcast and you do not know Christ as savior, turn from your sin, believe in Jesus Christ, the righteous one, and you shall live. So we go on here in verse 16, the disciples did not understand these things at first, these the triumphal entry that they're witnessing here.

But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness.

Remember, the the chief priest wanted to put Jesus and Lazarus to death to try to prevent people from going after Jesus. They wanted to cover up the evidence. But now there was no point. There's no point in doing that.

So many hundreds, if not thousands of people are now proclaiming his praises. Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So that the chief or so that the Pharisees, verse 19, said to one another, you see that you are gaining nothing.

They're saying that to each other. See, you're gaining nothing. We as the Pharisees, we're not getting anything out of this. The whole world has gone after him. And indeed, we see that that's not just the Jews, but also the Greeks, because that's where we go next in the story and what we'll look at next week, starting in verse 20.

Hosanna, False Expectations, and the Meaning of Jesus’ Kingship

Now, it's often debated about these people who were shouting Hosanna, shouting the praises of God, Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Often whenever we get to the Easter story, you'll hear somebody say those who were shouting Hosanna on Sunday were shouting, crucify him on Friday.

Is that really true? Yes and no. There probably were some people in this crowd who were shouting Hosanna that ended up shouting, crucify him a few days later, because what they end up realizing is that, well, OK, this isn't the king that we were expecting.

He's not just coming in the name of God. He's proclaiming himself to be God. And the chief priests and the Pharisees, they tell us that we need to hate this guy, the high priest. That's what he's saying.

So I guess it's blasphemy. We need to stone him to death. OK, so there probably were some people who had been shouting Hosanna that didn't turn around. And because Jesus wasn't meeting their expectations of what they wanted the king to be, they made him an idol.

Really, they didn't worship him for whom for who he said he was. They wanted him to be who they wanted him to be. So they were worshiping an idol. They didn't really know the true Christ of the Bible, if you'll pardon the expression.

But anyway, they so they started shouting, crucify him. They jumped against him when they realized he's not going to deliver us from Rome. Selfish expectations instead of glorifying God. But there were some people who shouted Hosanna in this particular crowd that did indeed believe he was who he said he was, whom the father had revealed him to be.

They truly believed in the Messiah. They were brokenhearted when he died because this was not going according to the way they thought it was going to go. I mean, you see here that the disciples themselves, they didn't understand these things at first.

And it wasn't until Christ was glorified that he was raised up into the heavens and seated at the right hand of God that then they understood that these things had been written about him and had even been done to him.

So then people come to believe they come to understand the gift of the Holy Spirit is given and the gospel is proclaimed at Pentecost. There were 40 days between Jesus resurrection from the grave and his ascension into heaven.

And we'll read about some of that period of time when we get to the end of John. And then it wasn't until Pentecost, 50 days after Passover, that the Holy Spirit came to the the apostles and the gospel was proclaimed in Jerusalem.

And from that day forth, the Church of Christ has grown and expanded. And we are part of that church now. We who are in Christ Jesus. As Robert Godfrey has said, Jesus did not say, I will build my civilization and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

He said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And we are part of that church now. All of us who are in Christ Jesus and no one can take away from us what has been promised by our Father in heaven for those who repent and believe.

Amen.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.