Luke 20:27-40 English Standard Version Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection 27 There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, 28 and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. 30 And the second 31 and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. 32 Afterward the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.” 34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” 39 Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him any question. We haven't heard much from the Sadducees yet, but they are also part of the Sanhedrin. They are secular Jews who believe in the Torah, but they deny the power of the resurrection of the dead to either eternal life or eternal damnation. Since they did not believe that there was any life after death, their question they posed to Jesus was not an honest question. They are trying to trick Jesus into admitting that their interpretation of the Scriptures has to be correct, because the Pharisee's interpretation would lead to some logical absurdity (that a man could be married to multiple different woman in the afterlife).
They cite a passage in the Law where Moses commands the people to do everything within their power to make sure that every family has an heir (preferably a male heir so that they keep the family name) to inherit the family's land that was given to them by God. If it was impossible for that woman to bear children, then provisions were made for a close family member to inherit the land and the land would stay in the family because there was an eternal covenant made between God and the Jewish people relating to the Land. So, the Sadducees are reading these verses out of context as if they had to do with some teaching about marriage in general and eternity when it has to do with His preservation of the covenant about the Land to future generations and that God would be responsible to make sure that there would be future generations to inherit the land. So, now that you have context for how this question was a very poor reading of the text and again was a trap being set for Jesus by people that would have been political rivals with the Pharisees (the Sadducees were closely allied with the Herodians and the Roman Empire), then let's look at Jesus' answer to them. He does not answer their riddle but instead addresses the underlying issue that they did not read to try to understand nor did they read the passage in the context of the whole of Scripture to use what was made clear other places to interpret what may have been unclear here. Luke's version of Jesus' answer though when taken out of context and not read alongside the other answers to this question can lead to bad theology. Jesus compares those who will be raised to eternal life to the angels, who are also called "the sons of God" some places in the Old Testament. This does not mean that Christians (New Testament saints) become angels when they die. However, there will be some similarities to our new bodies that we receive in the Resurrection and those of angels. First, it seems from answers given other places that there will not be sexes/genders in our new bodies because our identity and purpose are not sexual in nature. The first command that God gave to man after Creation was to be fruitful and multiply. He made us (and all other sexual creatures) male and female for this purpose and it was part of his good plan for us to procreate, but in that time, procreation will no longer be the goal. Secondly, our goal will not be interpersonal relationships. Though not explained deeply in this passage, we are going to have a very, very deep intimacy with Jesus (and maybe with the rest of the Godhead) that is as intimate as the members of the Trinity have with each other. There will not even be a desire for marriage because that intimacy will pale in comparison to the intimacy that we will have in the perfect union we will have with God and each other (again in a way that is not at all sexual, though it is described in the New Testament epistles as marriage between Jesus and His Church because that's probably the closest intimacy that we can compare it to). We will all be part of the Bride of Christ though that is married to Jesus. If the Sadducees paid any attention to the Prophets (they did not) they would know that God used the husband and wife analogy over and over again to describe His relationship with His people Israel (though it was usually to talk about how they were unfaithful to him like a cheating spouse--sometimes even leading to God saying that He wished He could have a divorce from them, but that His covenant with them was eternal and His name and glory were at stake if He would give up on them and not fulfill the covenant that resulted in what we call the gospel of Jesus Christ coming to pass). Jesus answers the Sadducees question in a way that is a somewhat interesting way. He uses one of the parts of Scripture that He knows they acknowledge and He starts there with them where God revealed Himself to Moses and the people saying, "I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Jesus points out that God doesn't say "I WAS the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." While we may miss this in our reading of the Old Testament, Jesus states clearly here that this should mean to us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still very much alive and that the LORD was still their God even after their physical death. Jesus says that the LORD is the God of the living--that is those who receive eternal life, and that this means that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had life after death. This passage that Jesus quoted back to them with the question "Have you not read...?" would be very insulting to them. Jesus is saying that they should have seen it, and yet they missed this truth in one of their most revered passages. They had to admit that this was a good answer (notice they didn't say that they admitted it was the right answer and that they were wrong in their interpretation--just that they could not argue with the answer that Jesus had given), and they didn't dare to argue with Him or question Him any more because of how foolish He had made them look. Jesus had the nerve to stand up to them and tell them exactly what He thought of their terrible interpretation of Scripture and He used Scripture to explain Scripture, which is what they should have been doing all along. Even if they had only used the first five books of the Bible (the Law) and nothing else, Jesus says that they should have been able to reason their way to a correct answer about there being life after death and that there would be a resurrection of the saints. So then, we too should believe that there is eternity waiting for all of us--either eternal life with God or eternal death this is separation from all the blessings of God as we face the punishment for our sin against an infinite God. Our souls will live one place or the other, though our bodies will be different as they will be designed for the place where we spend eternity. Our bodies now are made for this world and the purposes given to us in this world. We will receive new bodies in the resurrection that will prepare us for that new world that we will be a part of and those bodies may seem similar to the bodies of angels, but we do not become angels. God still gives men and angels very different roles in eternity, but that's something we can study at another time. Luke 20:19-26 English Standard Version Paying Taxes to Caesar 19 The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. 20 So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. 21 So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God. 22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” 23 But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar's.” 25 He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” 26 And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marveling at his answer they became silent. This is a passage that not many people in this day like to hear, but people in Jesus' day especially hated this message because they saw the tax collectors (like Zacchaeus who Jesus recently fellowshipped with) as traitors who betrayed their Jewish brothers and sisters to the pagan Romans. They were seen as worse than Gentiles and they were excommunicated so they could not bring sacrifices to the Temple or come there to worship (this is why the tax collector in Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is standing far off--he's getting as close as he's allowed to get to the altar). Now, the scribes and chief priests knowing that Jesus has associated with tax collectors in the past and how the people feel about paying taxes and about their fellow Jews working as agents of the Roman government who were occupying Judea, Samaria and Galilee as well as the surrounding area, tried to trap Jesus by asking Him if it was right for God's people to pay taxes to a pagan emperor like Caesar who practiced emperor worship. Their question is rooted in the Law. Was this a form of idolatry and by paying taxes were the people complicit in worship of the emperor?
Although that sounds like a good question when framed the way that I framed it, we know from what Luke writes before this that it was not asked as a serious question, but as a pretense to arrest Jesus. It was a "gotcha" question where there was supposed to be no right answer for Jesus. If He agreed with them that paying taxes to Caesar was equivalent to idolatry then they could Jesus over to the Romans and He'd get the death penalty for telling people to not pay their taxes. However, if He said that the people were obligated to pay their taxes to Caesar then they expected the people to revolt against Him (remember it's almost Passover which is known to be a time when the people are stirred up with memories from the Exodus and they are ready to be "set free" again even if it means they need to riot to do so). They hoped the people would then turn against Jesus, and maybe would even do the job of killing Him for them. Why have they gone on the offensive like this? Because they perceived correctly that the last parable that Jesus was telling the people (about the evil tenants) was about them. They wanted to respond by arresting Jesus right then and there, but they feared the people, so they had to come up with some pretext for arresting Him--especially so close to the holiday. In fact the text is clear that there are now spies planted among Jesus' followers, but they are there to try to trap Jesus into saying something that will get Him in trouble with the Roman governor (Pilate). Again, the Jewish leaders are trying to figure out a way to get Rome to take care of Jesus for them. So then, we know from what Luke tells us that this is meant to be a loaded question that Jesus shouldn't have a way out of other than to not answer it. Yet, Jesus turns things around and asks them a couple of questions. They may try to use flattery to say that Jesus is impartial and that they are interested in learning the way of God that they say they are interested in Him teaching to them, but we know what's really going on, and so does Jesus. He is not fooled by them one bit. Jesus decides to use an object lesson and asks for someone in the crowd to hand Him the kind of coin that would be used to pay their Roman taxes (a denarius). Then He asks the crowd whose image is stamped on the coin. The religious leaders think they have won at this point, imagining that Jesus is going to say that Caesar stamping his own image on the coin is a violation of the second commandment, and that using Roman money was tantamount to being participants in idolatry. However, that is not where Jesus goes with His object lesson. The crowd knows whose image it is and answers, "Caesar's." Some might have imagined it was a dumb question....did Jesus really not know who Caesar was when He saw Caesar's image? Of course He did! But the point Jesus was trying to make was that Caesar's image being on the coin was a sign of Caesar's ownership of that object--all money issued by the Roman government was stamped with Caesar's image to make it apparent to everyone that it was Roman currency and that they had a right to it in the form of taxes. Now then, Jesus flips the script and says that we are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's (the things stamped with Caesar's image), but to God the things that are God's (we are to be made in the image of God). In the context of Passover God redeemed a people for Himself out of slavery in Egypt and He made them a nation in a day. He declared that they now belonged to Him and he put His image upon them giving them the Law and the Tabernacle, and giving them His name to call Him by and for them to be known by. They were called The LORD's People by the other nations. So then, if this is true, why then are they unwilling to give themselves to the LORD as tribute in the same way that it was expected that the coin bearing Caesar's image was to be used to pay tribute to the emperor? The religious leaders are flabbergasted that He had gotten out of their trap and had once again trapped them. They had no reason to arrest Him for what He said for He not only told the people to pay their taxes, but also told them to obey the Law and pay their tributes (tithes and offerings to the LORD). How could they turn Him over to the authorities for this kind of answer? They could not! In fact, they are so dumbfounded by His brilliant answer that they are silent not knowing what to say. Don't worry though, they will be back. Just like when Satan left Jesus at the end of His temptation in the wilderness, it was only until a more opportune time to test Jesus could be found again. This whole week that we call "Passion Week" or "Holy Week" will be a time of testing and examination for Jesus. It must be proved to all that this is the Lamb of God without blemish, and it's ironic that God is using Jesus' enemies to accomplish this good purpose. They are trying so hard to find any defect that they can to disqualify Jesus from being the Messiah (the King), yet they are unknowingly examining Him to be their Passover Lamb. Luke 20:9-18 English Standard Version The Parable of the Wicked Tenants 9 And he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. 10 When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 And he sent yet a third. This one also they wounded and cast out. 13 Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.’ 15 And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When they heard this, they said, “Surely not!” 17 But he looked directly at them and said, “What then is this that is written: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’? 18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” Jesus has already taught several other parables very similar to this one, and I've made reference to this one a couple of times recently as it seems to be Jesus' proclamation to the Jewish leaders that He knows exactly what they are scheming and planning for Him. Yet, Jesus does so in a way where the rest of the people listening wouldn't perceive that Jesus was talking to the Pharisees about Himself.
This actually draws from teachings of the Old Testament prophets that many of the people would remember about the nation of Israel being the LORD's vineyard (see Isaiah 5 for instance). Now if there's one things that the people committed to do when they came back out of captivity from Babylon, it was to keep the tithe. The people actually owed much more than just a simple 10% in required tithes, but the picture here is of a king who is requiring a tithe be paid to him as tribute. Since the LORD was supposed to be the King of His people, then it makes sense they might also view their tithes as tribute to Him as their king. Notice that those who were left in charge where mere servants (slaves) of the king. Maybe they had some authority over each other, but in the eyes of the king, none of them had any position or authority. They were all to do with the land (the nation of Israel both as a land and a people) what the King would do with it if He were present. This is a picture of how the nation was entrusted to religious leaders like the priests and Levites, and to political leaders like the house of Judah, an to other leaders like the Sanhedrin (the council of 70 elders that acted as the Supreme Court and like Congress for these people). All of these leaders failed to pay tribute to God with their hearts which is what God required first before any money. When the servants failed to pay tribute at the proper time, the LORD sent them other servants as messengers (especially the prophets) to call the people back into right relationship with Him. They were urged to repent and change their actions which were currently in a state of rebellion against God, and they were warned if they did not change their ways that the LORD their King would have to come in judgment against their rebellion. They treated these messengers from the LORD with contempt and abused them and in so doing, they told God exactly what they thought of Him and His covenant and His ambassadors. They would rather die than submit. Do you think that's a harsh interpretation? See how the story plays out. They imagine that they can defy God and continue to keep for themselves what belongs to Him and not have to pay any tribute. They who are only slaves fancy that they can be like the King and be in charge and that the King will leave them alone if they just kill all His messengers including His own Son (see verses 13-15 because this is where Jesus lets them know that He knows they are out to kill Him). What will God do to these wicked tenants? Of course the people are caught up in the story and they are probably yelling something like, "Crucify them, crucify them." They knew that justice and even vengeance belong to God and that His wrath would be poured out on the wicked like these evil tenants, yet they did not make the connection that these evil tenants were some of them--the leaders of the Jews and many of the Jewish people who had rebelled against God openly and had joined with the plot to kill the prophets and would now join with the plot to kill the Messiah. We see that the whole nation gets caught up in this. Then Jesus makes it clear that He is the Son that is going to be rejected and killed, though the disciples and the people were not given understanding at this time (though it is possible that the Pharisees who had already rejected Him perceived that He was talking about them and hardened their hearts even more...we see some indications of this in other gospels that they reach the point of no return even though they understand exactly who Jesus is). So then Jesus says He is the Chief Cornerstone that the builders rejected, meaning He will be the foundation that God will build His people upon. And Jesus declares that how people respond to Him will determine whether they will be broken (again, a word related to repentance that would bring about healing) or whether the would be crushed by the judgment of God. It will be their choice what it will mean for them to see Jesus in His Second Coming. For some it will be a day of great joy when they will be forever united with Christ and all the enemies of God will be defeated, but for those who are the enemies of God, it will be their day of reckoning when they will be judged both in the temporal and in the eternal realms. God's wrath will be poured out on all those in rebellion to Him and those experiencing the wrath of God will know that this is the work of Jesus, the Lamb of God who sits on the throne (see Revelation 6:15-17). They will know their rebellion and who they are in rebellion against, and they will know they are being punished for their rebellion, and they will not change their hearts to come into submission to Jesus. They even imagine death will be some way to escape His justice, but even death is not an escape for those who are outside of Christ. Death is just entrance into their eternal pain and suffering they will experience outside of the place that had been created for God and men to reside together and instead men choose through their rebellion to go to the place created for the devil and his angels. Luke 20:1-8 English Standard Version The Authority of Jesus Challenged 20 One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes with the elders came up 2 and said to him, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” 3 He answered them, “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, 4 was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?” 5 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they did not know where it came from. 8 And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” This question actually sounds pretty silly and petty if you have paid any attention to the teachings and events that we've studied since Luke 16--all of which probably happened over a week or two. I don't expect the Pharisees to piece together everything that's happened over the past 3 years, because I know myself and know that I sometimes have trouble remembering things that happened more than a few days ago. But, Jesus has been telling them the same thing over, and over, and over again. He is the master and they are His slaves. The Temple was His house, therefore, He had the authority to clean it out. These people belonged to Him and He was their God, so of course He would accept worship and praise from them, and of course He spoke as one who had power and authority because He spoke everything into existence out of nothing.
However, they did not ask this question out of ignorance, but out of rebellion. They recognized what authority He was saying that He did these things by and they refused to submit to that authority, and they wanted to trap Him into directly saying that He was God. For the Old Testament Law would call such a statement made a mere blasphemy, and it was punishable by death. This was their new solution--to get Jesus to say something in front of witnesses that would lead to them justifiably executing the death penalty immediately, for that is the way that death sentences were carried out in that time. Witnesses immediately testified to the elders (that is the Sanhedrin), who just so happen to already be present at most of these testings, and on the agreement of the testimony of two or three (male) witnesses, every fact will be established and judgment will be swift and decisive. Unfortunately though, the Romans would not not permit the Jews to carry out their own capital punishment (stoning for religious crimes or civil crimes) or so the Sanhedrin will say so that they can put the execution of Jesus off on the Romans. However, first, they must entrap Jesus with His own words, so they ask Him a loaded question, "Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority." As I said before, Jesus has already answered that question, and He knows that they didn't miss the answer He had given previously. So, He doesn't answer their dishonest question except to ask them a question that in a sense does answer their question, but reveals their hearts and puts them on trial in front of the people. In so doing He turns the tables on them and catches them in the trap that they had tried to set for Him. Jesus says He will only answer their question if they answer His--"Was baptism of John from heaven or from man?” In a sense, Jesus is asking the question back to them about by what authority John the Baptist said and did what He did and is implying that the answer is the same to both questions. They knew they were in trouble either way they answered because if they said "From God," then the obvious follow-up question is why they didn't repent and believe what John said, but if they say that it was from man or from earth (that it was not from God), then the people who knew John to be a prophet would be angry with them. Therefore they claimed ignorance and simply answered, "We don't know," even though they clearly did know. They showed that they were liars and they were exposed to all the people. None of the people seriously believed that these religious leaders who went out to listen to and test John the Baptist didn't know where his message and power and authority came from, but they didn't want to believe him because his message upset them and the status quo that they profited from. The same was true about Jesus--they knew exactly who He claimed to be (even greater than John), and He clearly told them not just that His message came from the Father in heaven, but that He Himself came from the Father and would return to the Father. They feared the reaction of the crowd in stoning them that was the same reaction they had hoped to provoke in the crowd against Jesus. Jesus having exposed them for who they were said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” Dishonest questions do not deserve serious answers. We should be able to discern when someone is asking a question for information and when they are asking to ensnare and entrap. Jesus will show us over this period of examination that there are many such questions He would face from His enemies that didn't deserve answers--in fact, He didn't say much of anything during His trials when they questioned Him because their questions did not deserve answers (or even if He did answer them, they would not believe). You can see that the tensions that were under the surface for a while are out in the open and what was once a desire simply to embarrass or discredit Jesus has now turned into an open campaign to use the Law to execute Him, and the Pharisees and the entire Sanhedrin had purposed in their hearts that Jesus would not make it to Passover. They had but a few days to put their plans in motion so it is going to be non-stop action for both Jesus and His enemies, and the enemies of Jesus are going to have to bind themselves together with those they would typically find to be their enemies with the common purpose of eliminating Jesus. Yet even with all the powers of the Jews and the Gentiles coming against Him, Jesus was still completely in control and nothing happened to progress the timeline until He knew it was time for the timeline to progress. Luke 19:45-48 English Standard Version Jesus Cleanses the Temple 45 And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” 47 And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, 48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words. I believe I've alluded to this over the past couple of days as well as there is a consistent them here of Jesus coming and expecting the people to be ready. The place that He was to come to and that the people were to recognize Him and worship Him was in His holy Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus had already once before cleansed the Temple at the beginning of His ministry, so this is twice that He has done this within three years. You think they would have listened the first time, but they went right back to their old ways showed that they were lovers of money and not lovers of God, as even the system of sacrifices was a way to for them to extort and exploit their brothers and sisters who couldn't bring their own animals for sacrifice--either because they were unable to raise their own animals or they came from too far away and their animals couldn't make the journey.
This also happens during the time of purification, when the Jews were supposed to be cleaning their houses of all the leaven that represented the sin in their lives. Here Jesus is cleaning out the Temple and He speaks of it as "My house." He did not call it My Father's house this time. I don't think the Jews missed this. Jesus identified Himself as the one that people came to the Temple to worship. So, we've seen Jesus selected as the sacrifice by the people on the day of the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday) and He has entered Jerusalem as the Passover lambs are entering through another gate preparing to be inspected. Only those found to be without blemish will be acceptable, and we are going to see Jesus tried and tested during this period. The scribes, Pharisees, teachers of the Law, Sadducees, and event he Herodians will all come together to test Jesus and try to prove that He is not worthy, and the people will listen to His teaching and come to the conclusion that He is who He says He is--even the Temple guard who were sent to arrest Him during the time He was preaching in the Temple came back to the religious leaders empty handed because they believed Him and said that the people would have begun to riot if they would have publicly arrested Him. All this was done to fulfill prophecy, to fulfill the "prophetic type" that Jesus was the Passover Lamb that was to provided redemption and freedom for His people, and the spotless Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is controlling the timeline here knowing exactly when things need to take place. He didn't have to be in the Temple to preach during these days leading up to the Feast, but He is making sure the "principal men" come in direct opposition to Him and conclude they must destroy Him. Their thoughts must be, "How dare He come into our house and say such things....." But was it their house? It was not! They fancied themselves as the owners when they were really just slaves that were given stewardship of God's people and the King had returned. The LORD was in His holy temple. Jesus will have much to say in the next few days, but it will be impossible to miss that He is indicting this system of religious leaders who were supposed to prepare people for His coming and failed to do so. Instead they are out for money, power, and popularity. They take advantage of the people of God and put burdens on the people they themselves cannot bear and they find ways to exempt themselves from their own laws and regulations (sound like any other politicians you know?). These leaders see that they are about to lose everything if the judgment comes now or even if the judgment doesn't come, if they allow the people to install Jesus as king, then Rome will respond with a war and they will be ousted from their positions of power that Rome had been quite happy to let them have in exchange for helping Rome keep the people in check. All the high officials from the High Priest to Herod and of course Pilate were all selected by Rome who had no idea that God had given rules for how these leaders were to be selected. These were nothing more than political appointments to the Romans, so they picked people that would use religion to manipulate the people, but Jesus would expose this cabal as the phonies that they were. He was the one who had the authority and the people were recognizing that He was in charge and they were not. The High Priest will even say this is the reason that they had to kill Him. This passage is around the same time as today's passage (maybe a little before as the resurrection of Lazarus that happened on the Saturday prior to this sparked this conversation). John 11:45-57 English Standard Version The Plot to Kill Jesus 45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, 46 but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” 49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. 50 Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” 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, 52 and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. 53 So from that day on they made plans to put him to death. 54 Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples. 55 Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. 56 They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all?” 57 Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him. See how got put it in the hearts of these leaders to fulfill His good purposes. They thought they were eliminating the threat to them, but in accord with Genesis 50:20 that what these brothers of Jesus meant for evil, God meant for good and for saving the lives of many of their brethren (and not just the Jews, but also all who would believe in Jesus and come into the family of God by adoption, as Joseph's two sons point to in the Old Testament being a "double blessing" for Joseph). Luke 19:41-44 English Standard Version Jesus Weeps over Jerusalem 41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” I made reference to much of this in the last journal article. What is seen as a time of joyous proclamation to us is a time of mourning and sadness for Jesus. This ties in with the lesson from the fig tree that we'll see in Luke 21. The people appear to be responding correctly and look like they have life and should be bearing fruit, but the Lord knows that their heart is dead and that they are fruitless and that this means judgment is coming up on them. Even in the midst of knowing what was coming, it was not for Himself that Jesus was grieving, but the pain He felt was for the Jews that they had rejected Him, even though it was all part of the plan.
This specific prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans. They tore down every brick because they heard that the Jews had used gold for the mortar between their bricks and they wanted to take every little bit of gold that was there. Jesus says that the reason this will happen though is because they were not ready at the time of visitation, even though they had all the prophecies to tell them to be ready (and some very specific ones to tell them exactly when the Messiah would be "cut off" (His crucifixion), so they could infer when He would be coming like Simeon and Anna did at the beginning of the gospel of Luke). Again, we'll see much of this explained by Jesus using the symbolism of the fig tree, which represented the nation of Israel, but we should not miss that it also is going to represent a lot of us when Jesus comes back the second time. We too should be ready for Him to come at any time, and many of us who have a form of godliness are really spiritually dead and there will be an even greater condemnation and judgment to come upon those who are not ready in the day of His appearing, for at the time of His appear, it will be the time for the living and the dead to be judged and those outside of Christ will not be able to enter the kingdom of God and will instead enter into eternal judgment, hellfire and damnation. Luke 19:28-40 English Standard Version The Triumphal Entry 28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” 35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” As Jesus proceeds to Jerusalem, He is going to stop on the Mount of Olives and send some of His disciples ahead of Him into the city to find a colt (a young donkey) that is tied there. They are supposed to untie it and bring it to Him and if anyone questions them about it, they are simply to say that "The Lord has need of it." This is a strange request and a strange answer, because this donkey did not belong to any of them nor are they purchasing or renting it, but it shows in some ways that everything does belong to Jesus. It also seems apparent that everyone in town was supposed to know who they were talking about when the disciples would say that "The Lord" has need of it. I'm not sure everyone would know and understand the prophecy as to why the one they thought to be Messiah might need a donkey, but many of them might have known this--for every king that was going to ride into Jerusalem would ride in on a horse if the king was going to make war, but on a donkey if the king was coming during a time of peace. Jesus is telling the people both by His parables and by how He chose to enter Jerusalem that now is not that time that Messiah had come to make war with the nations of the world. We will see Jesus come as the Conquering King in the book of Revelation and He will follow this same path from the Mount of Olives, but He will come riding on a white horse then which heaven will supply, and He will need no sword other than the words that come from His mouth.
On this day that we are studying that we call Palm Sunday, the disciples went into the city and found the colt just as Jesus had told them, and the owners of the colt questioned them as Jesus had implied someone would, and the disciples gave the answer He told them to give, and there was no objection. So, why did the Lord have need of it? I sort of already answered that question in the first paragraph of this journal entry, but let's look at the prophecies that Jesus is fulfilling from the book of Zechariah and the book of Isaiah. Zechariah 9:9 English Standard Version The Coming King of Zion 9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. The book of the prophet Zechariah speaks much of the coming Day of the LORD, but there was not distinction between the First Advent of Christ and the Second Advent of Christ. Everything that Zechariah saw that was related to the coming of Messiah in the future got all blended together for him. So, this prophecy about riding in on the colt of a donkey from Zech. 9:9 identified Him as Messiah, who had come to make peace, not war, but in Zech. 14:4 we see the prophecy of how He would return when He returns and He will stand on the Mount of Olives and the earth will split in two because of the power that He brings with Him when He comes in judgment. So then it is understandable that the people, even those who knew the prophecies, were somewhat confused on the purpose of His mission. Even if they understood this event to mark that He was the Messiah, He's also in the right place (the Mount of Olives) for where His journey would start when He would come into the city to execute judgment. If it is time for that, the people both want to welcome their king and go out to meet Him to let Him know they are not His enemies. There is a moment during this Triumphal Entry when Jesus does pronounce judgment over Jerusalem and the Temple though. As He is riding down the mountain, He is sad because He has longed to gather His people Israel under His proverbial wings like a hen gathers her chicks, but they will not come to Him, so He will not be able to protect those who are not in Him when the time of judgment is to come. Just like the mother hen covers her chicks to protect them and it keeps them from having to be concerned about what's going on outside, they don't have to see it (even though they may hear it) because they are protected by their mother and are close to her, and that's all that matters. So it should be with us that we shouldn't care what the world throws at us as long as we are in Christ and being comforted and protected by the Holy Spirit. But, as much as this was His desire, He could not make His people love Him, and so, it was time prophecy what would be the result of them rejecting Him. (This will be the next passage that I journal about, so I won't tell you too much of this right now). The people currently give outward signs of accepting Him right now though, but only the version of Him that they are willing to accept. They are ready to try to make Him king as the Son of David--the rightful heir to the throne, and they would not listen to Him when He said that event though the throne belonged to Him, He was not here to claim it at this time. So, they sang the words from the Psalms that were meant to be sung upon the coming of the Messiah (these words will be sung again by faithful Israel who belong to Christ at the time of His coming to reign on the throne of David in Jerusalem in the future). "Hosanna" (which means, "The LORD Saves" and "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD." They didn't understand who right and how wrong they were. This was the LORD's Salvation in the person of His Son, but it was not the kind of salvation they expected. They were expecting something like Joshua (who Jesus shares His name with...both are more correctly transliterated Yeshua, but the Latinized version of this name is Jesus. It means "Salvation."). So the people are believing that Jesus is going to live up to His name, but they are thinking of Him in the same way as another who had that same name, and they are imagining Him as the conqueror Joshua, and not the high priest of the Old Testament whose name was Joshua. Both Joshua the conqueror and Joshua the high priest point us forward to the person of Christ, for He would one in the order of Melchizedek that would be prophet, priest, and king all wrapped up in one, but for right now Jesus came to fulfill those roles of being the Prophet of Deuteronomy that be like Moses, but better as God Himself would teach the people, and the Great High Priest that we read about in the book of Hebrews because He would make intercession for His people by His own body and blood (that is why He was going to Jerusalem). He would not just be the sacrifice that is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, but He would be the High Priest that would enter the Holy of Holies that is the throne room of God and apply His blood to the Mercy Seat to make atonement once and for all for all His people so that their sins would be blotted at and remembered no more--they would be as far as the east is from the west as far as God is concerned, and as if they had been buried in the deepest depths of the sea for no one to see or remember (and event this last word picture falls short, but in the coming kingdom we are told that there is no more sea as an image that there doesn't even need to be a hiding place for our sins because they are completely gone forever and ever). All this is going through Jesus' head and He's already exhausted, but He also knows the week that He has ahead of Him where He is going to be tried and tested, and that starts right here where the devil in a way tempts Him to just go ahead and take the throne now without worrying about the cross. Look how the people were ready for Him to be their King, yet they were not ready for Him to be the propitiation for their sins--the payment of their sin debt that would satisfy God's wrath and justice. The words were coming out of the mouths of the Jews, but Jesus knew their hearts, so tomorrow, we will see how Jesus will weep over the city and the people. He is there to fulfill His mission, but it is a mission they are unwilling to accept and instead of welcoming the salvation He is going to provide (as they are saying with their mouths on Palm Sunday) they will be willing participants in His death, but what man meant for evil, God meant for good. It will be through the hands of these same people that Jesus will be offered up to be crucified and they will a week later sing a different tune of "Crucify Him, Crucify Him" as they cry for Pilate to give them Barabbas (which incidentally is funny because his name means "Son of the Father"). We'll get to all this and more as we study these passages, but this event as seen as the "kickoff" of sorts for what we call Passion Week. Get ready for the next few chapters to be non-stop action and intense moments full of emotion and stress and Jesus knowing that He doesn't have much time left and He has to try to make His disciples understand a few last lessons before it is too late and He has no more time to teach them. |
Daniel WestfallI will mostly use this space for recording my "journal" from my daily devotions as I hope to encourage others to read the Bible along with me and to leave a legacy for others. Archives
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