A DEAFENING SILENCE

While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, He asked, ‘Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” David himself called Him “Lord.” How then can He be his son?’ The large crowd listened to Him with delight (Mark 12: 35-37).

Dead silence! They had all exhausted their questions to trap Him, and now it was Jesus’ turn. Asking questions played an important role in the rabbi’s teaching method and an excellent way to get people to think for themselves and to reveal their level of thinking by the questions they asked.

The Pharisees’ big contention with Jesus was: “Blasphemy!” He was a man and yet He was claiming to be God. Many of the people dismissed Him because He was only the son of Mary and Joseph; the village carpenter and one of their locals. The people of Nazareth were enraged with Him and drove Him out of town because He dared to put Himself on the level of their great prophets and even to claim that He was the fulfilment of prophecy!

He was a mere man, therefore He could not possibly be the Messiah, they argued, so Jesus fired a question at them, a very puzzling one at that. Their own Scriptures taught that the Messiah would be the son of David. That meant that He had to be human and one born in the ancestral line of David. Yet, at the same time, speaking prophetically, David addressed Him as “Lord”.

David’s psalm (110) begins with the declaration:

The Lord says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” The Lord will extend your mighty sceptre from Zion saying, “Rule in the midst of your enemies!” (Psa. 110: 1-2).

Speaking prophetically under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, David addressed Messiah as “my Lord” and attributed to Him the functions of deity, and yet the rabbis recognised Him to be the son of David. There could be only one answer and that was the very thing the religious leaders rejected – Messiah a human being born of the line of David. But there was just too much prophetic evidence of Messiah’s ancestry to deny it or to set it aside. He would be of the tribe of Judah, a ruler (Gen. 49:10); called a “Branch” of the stump of Jesse (Isa. 11:1); Matthew’s genealogy traced His ancestry back to Abraham through David.

Seventeen times in the New Testament Jesus was addressed as the son of David. Even the common people knew that Messiah would come from the line of David. So why were the religious leaders so blinded that they refused to recognise Him as their Messiah? Why did the Jews down the centuries reject Him as their Messiah since the evidence is so clear? Prejudice! They have believed the lie and failed to weigh up the evidence.

There is something about human beings that makes them hate to be wrong. It’s called pride. People will cling to their right to be right even if they are dead wrong. And even worse, they will defend their error to the death rather than acknowledge that they could be wrong and open themselves to the possibility that someone else is right.

If the Jews had only been honest enough to consider the evidence, they would have been confronted with the truth. Truth is truth and will stand up to scrutiny. Jesus’ appeal was for them to consider the Scriptures. “Your word is truth”, He declared in His prayer before His death (John 17: 17). The question is not, “Who is right?” but “What is right?” It takes humility to be teachable. A person who has a teachable spirit is the one who will eventually arrive at the truth. Their passion to be right put these men in line to be deceived and deceived they were, bringing judgment on themselves because they refused to listen to the truth.

Only those who receive Jesus’ words with humility and obedience will really understand and know the truth.

To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ (John 8: 31-32).

If they had a mind to receive it, the answer was quite simple. Messiah was both son of David and Son of God. God in the flesh – Immanuel – God with us. John stated it in a nutshell:

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

There was a deafening silence. They knew the answer but they refused to speak it out.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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