God's Messiah: Mark 12:35-37

Sometimes God’s truth seems more difficult to understand than it is.  Human beings have a knack for making things complicated.  We like to overthink.  We like to analyze minutia.  Often the best approach is to stop, give God’s truth the room it needs, and not worry about making it difficult.  That’s easier said than done.

Jesus quotes David in what I think is one of the most obscure and confusing passages in the Gospels.  He then asks a rhetorical question, except this question doesn’t feel rhetorical.  Most rhetorical questions have answers that are obvious.  This question is far from obvious in answer.

David says, “The Lord said to my Lord.”  There is a significant clue to what Jesus is trying to say through this quote.  David’s reference to “the Lord” is as we would expect.  David is talking about God.  This implies that David’s reference to “my lord” is not a reference to God but another person.  David is referring to God’s messiah.  What Jesus is doing here is indicating to the crowd that He wants to teach about the Messiah.  This makes even more sense because God would naturally tell His messiah to sit at His right hand.

Then Jesus asks the rhetorical question that isn’t so rhetorical.  Jesus asks, “If David calls God’s messiah Lord, how can God’s messiah also be David’s son?”  Since the question is rhetorical, Jesus doesn’t answer it.

It’s highly probable this passage falls into the same category as a parable.  Jesus could be using this teaching to see who will ask Him about it, either now or later.  The crowd receives the teaching, but they say nothing to Him about it.  Maybe they understood.  Maybe they were afraid to ask Him about it.  We don’t know.

We also aren’t told how the disciples react to this teaching.  It’s possible they understood what Jesus is getting at.  It’s possible they ask Jesus about it later.  Again, we don’t know.

What is the point Jesus is trying to make?  Jesus is talking about His nature.  Jesus is the God-made-man.  He is both fully divine and fully human. 

How do we get this from Jesus’ question?  David was a man after God’s own heart.  Therefore, if David calls God’s messiah “my lord,” then David is ascribing divinity to the messiah.  At the same time, Jesus reminds the crowd that God’s messiah was prophesied to be of David’s lineage.  Therefore, God’s messiah must be human.  Putting this together, we get a lesson about Jesus’ nature.  He is the only possible candidate for God’s messiah because He is the only one who both fully human and fully divine.

This passage initially seems confusing and hard to parse.  Once it’s been explained, the passage no longer seems that complicated.  Sometimes God’s truth seems more difficult to understand than it is.