12:35-37
– At this point in Mark’s narrative,
Jesus has answered and bested all debaters who have been lofting tricky
questions at him (11:27-12:34). So he takes the opportunity to get in a point
of his own, a point hinting at his true identity. And he does it by using
Scripture. Jesus could very well speak from his own authority, but he knows
that for his audience at the Temple Mount, it is the argument made from
Scripture that they will most respect. His insightful exegesis is an encouragement
to us, to make sure that deep and thoughtful treatment of the Scriptures is at
the core of how we learn and teach our doctrine. For his teaching, he chooses a
text that was widely believed to refer to the Messiah, Psalm 110:1 (the same
psalm that Hebrews 6:20 takes as Messianic, in its prophecy about a new “priest
forever, in the order of Melchizedek”). Here he pushes the case that, if this
psalm is to be believed, the Messiah should not merely be considered the son of
David, but divine. Here, in a brilliantly short piece of exposition, Jesus
stakes several implicit claims about the Messiah. First, that he is divine. He
points out that David calls the Messianic figure “Lord” in the first line—“The
Lord said to my Lord.” It’s clear from the text that the first “Lord” refers to
God the Father; in the Hebrew that word is YHWH, the personal name for God. But
the second “Lord” is unclear—no one from the narrative of David’s life seems to
fit this character, whom David would have called “Lord.” Thus the tradition
developed that this was a reference to the coming Messiah. But if David calls
him Lord, then the Messiah is greater than even the most honored king in all of
Israel’s history. Further, the second “Lord” uses a word in Hebrew that can
also be used as a name for God, Adonai. This
word, like our word “lord,” can, on the other hand, also mean “master.” But in
the ancient Greek version of this verse, which Mark has Jesus quoting, the same
word is used for both “Lords”—the word kyrios,
which in the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) was the customary name to
translate references to God, including the divine name YHWH. Thus Jesus draws
out the implicit divinity of the Messiah from this verse, noting that even
David must call him “Lord.” Second, this verse implies the pre-existence of the
Messiah. This was not a widespread expectation for the coming Messiah among
Jews at the time, but it clearly fits when we take the Messiah to be a divine
figure. The psalm appears to suggest that the second “Lord” is in intimate
communion with the first “Lord” (God the Father), and that David knew them
both. That is to say, the Messiah was not simply a future figure to David, but
a present reality. This fits perfectly with what Christians have always
believed about Jesus the Messiah being the incarnation of the pre-existent Son
of God. Third, this verse implies a plurality in the Godhead. If the Messiah is
taken to be divine, and the Septuagint refers to both “Lords” by use of the
divine name, then this demonstrates another point that Christians have always
held: although we confess one God in nature and essence, we acknowledge that he
exists in a union of plurality, in three persons united in nature, essence, and
love so fully that they are in fact one God. Jesus cleverly drives this part of
it home not only by drawing attention to the doubled form of “Lord,” from which
one could infer the persons of God the Father and God the Son, but also by
prefacing the quote by a direct reference to the third person of the Trinity,
the Holy Spirit. Mark notes that this teaching of Jesus, at once so clearly
grounded in the accepted, sacred Scriptures of the entire audience, and yet at
the same time offering a fresh and startling perspective on them, delighted his
listeners. For any believer in Christ, who knows him intimately (more
intimately, even, than David could have dreamed of knowing), these great truths
about our Triune God are still, and ever shall be, our delight.