Five Faces Of Pride - Mark 12:35-40 (Contd) Series

Mark 12:35 While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he asked, "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? 36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: " 'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet." ' 37 David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?"

The large crowd listened to him with delight.

38 As he taught, Jesus said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, 39 and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 40 They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely."

Did David Write the Psalms of David?

Before quoting psalm 110, Jesus prefaces the quote with a very interesting comment.

Mark 12:36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared …

Those words are very important for two reasons. The first one has to do with the question of whether or not David wrote the psalms that have his name at the top. When you read a psalm, before you get to verse 1 in the psalm you often see a heading that says something like, “For the director of music. A psalm of David.” Exactly half the psalms are attributed to David (73 in the heading, and two more that aren’t in the heading but the NT attributes them to David). Most modern scholars will tell you, “Oh, don’t pay any attention to those. That doesn’t mean David wrote it. It was probably just added later to say that the psalm is associated with David.” But in this passage, not only does Jesus attribute Psalm 110 to David, but if the psalm wasn’t written by David, Jesus’ entire argument falls apart. Jesus’ whole argument is that the Messiah has to be greater than David because David calls him Lord. If someone else wrote the psalm and called the Messiah “my Lord,” Jesus’ argument doesn’t hold. So did David actually write the psalms of David? If not, then we can’t trust Jesus.

Inspiration

The other important thing we need to notice is what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit.

Mark 12:36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared …

That tells us that Jesus believed in what we call the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. Sometimes people will say things like, “That poem was really inspired,” or, “He’s an inspired preacher.” That’s not the kind of inspiration we’re talking about in the phrase “inspiration of Scripture.” The word comes from 2 Timothy 3:16 which says, “All Scripture is inspired” (or your Bible might say, “All Scripture is God-breathed.” “God-breathed” is a good translation. The Greek word is theo-pneustos. Theo means God and pneustos means breathed out. The words written in the Bible were breathed out of the mouth of God. They are the very words of God.

This is why I also believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. The original writings had no errors. I know that because God doesn’t breathe out errors.

And just a quick word about how the process worked. God breathed out the words, but he breathed them into the writer’s mind, and that writer said it in his own words. The Bible writers weren’t taking dictation. God didn’t just tell them, “Ok, get this down. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God…” In order to get the material they wrote down, they had to do normal human research. Luke 1:3 Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you The Holy Spirit didn’t whisper it in his ear. The Spirit did teach it to them, but not through dictation. Luke had to do the same hard work of research as any other historian. He wrote from his own knowledge in a way that reflected his own thoughts and style and personality and vocabulary. That’s why Luke’s style is very different from Peter’s, and Peter’s is different from John. They did their research, they expressed the ideas in their own words, but the Spirit superintended the process to make sure what ended up on the paper was indeed the infallible, inerrant Word of God, breathed out of the very mouth of God.

And if all that is kind of hard to grasp, then welcome to the whole paradox of the sovereignty of God verses the free will of man. If you try too hard to reconcile it then you’ll end up either destroying the divine side of it or the human side of it. Just let it be a paradox and don’t expect God to have the same limitations we have.