Sixteen Sermons on Mark's Gospel
Mark 12
August 3, 2003
by Rev. Stephen C. Magee
God’s plan to secure to Himself the praise of all the nations
was really no secret. If one reads the
Old Testament fairly, this point is quite clear. The only question that could remain was not
one of “if”, but only of “when.”
The timing of God is perfect.
Consider this: by the year that Jesus died on the cross, there were Jews
throughout the Middle East and
Throughout this
massive region there were thousands of synagogues. In these places of worship there were many,
many Gentiles in attendance. Did you
know that? These were a group called
“god-fearers.” They had not been
circumcised, which meant that they were not fully a part of the covenant
community – sort of like those who might attend churches regularly today, but
who will not be baptized, or do not wish to be known as church members. But they attended and were interested in the
religion of Yahweh. There were thousands
of them, together with thousands of Jews, some of whom were looking for
Messiah.
All of this
describes God’s perfect timing. All of
this describes the world of Europe and the Middle East in the year 33, the year
when Jesus of Nazareth, the Cornerstone of the
Take this world
of that day, add the Son of God, and the gospel of His atoning death and
victorious resurrection, and what do you get?
INSTA-CHURCH.
And that is precisely what happened.
The conditions were perfect for a Pharisee of Pharisees named Paul to go
forth where no man had gone before, and to open up the mysteries of God’s plan
from the Old Testament Scriptures as no one had done before him. Thousands upon thousands believed, and the
church – the people of the
THE PASSAGE:
What will the owner of the
vineyard do?
God planted a vineyard in the
Isaiah
5:1-7 Now let me sing to my Well-beloved A song of my
Beloved regarding His vineyard: My Well-beloved has a vineyard On a very
fruitful hill. 2 He dug it up
and cleared out its stones, And planted it with the
choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, And also
made a winepress in it; So He expected it to bring forth good grapes, But it
brought forth wild grapes. 3 “And
now, O inhabitants of
It is this image of the vineyard of God that Jesus uses, in
Mark 12, to speak once again about the end of the Old Testament Administration
of the Covenant of Grace. He speaks of
this as One who testifies to something that is fading
away, but also to clear the way for what is coming now and is new. He will not only speak about these
things. He is a player in His own
parable. He will do these things.
Jesus is the Son of the vineyard owner. He is the One that the owner sent to collect
the fruit of the vineyard that was due Him.
They should have respected the Son, even though they beat and killed the
prophets – the messengers who came before Him.
Yes, they should have respected the Son.
But they killed Him, and treated Him as one who had no place in the
vineyard of God.
What will the owner of the vineyard do when they kill His
Son? He will come and destroy those
workers, and He will give the vineyard – the
Jesus is the Son who will be killed by the rebellious and
murderous workers. He is also the One
who, through His rejection by the “builders” (the Jewish religious leaders),
and even through His death, will become the Cornerstone of the long-awaited
fulfillment of the
But back in Mark 12, as Jesus prepared to be the Passover Lamb,
He told this parable, and Matthew’s gospel tells us that when the chief priests
and the Pharisees heard this parable, they got the point. They knew this parable was against them.
Pharisees, Sadducees,
Scribes, O My!
When Dorothy is on her way to Oz, she goes through a scary
forest with her new friends the scarecrow and the tin man. They link arm in arm and chant together in
their fear, “Lions and tigers and bears!
Oh my!!”
It turns out that the only lion that actually meet is one who does not
have any courage. I can just imagine the
reaction of the disciples to the events described throughout chapter 12 of
Mark’s gospel. Jesus has some seemingly
powerfully enemies. Pharisees, Sadduees, Scribes!
Oh my!! But while they each come
out in turn to do rhetorical battle with the Word of God incarnate, they are no
match for Him. In fact, they will each
play their part in the parable that Christ has just told – a parable that
speaks of the end of their power, and the new beginning that will come with the
Pharisees
First on the
scene are the Pharisees, together with the Herodians. Now the Herodians
are political rulers who wish to use Roman occupation for their own
advantage. Jesus is a potential
disturber of the peace, since He attracts crowds that follow Him. The Pharisees are envious of the pull that
Jesus seems to have upon the crowds, but they also have another problem with
Him. They have a completely different
understanding of the Old Testament law than He does. Their entire system of religion is built upon
making the law “keepable”. They have so confused the traditions of
rabbis with the Word of God that no one could really sort out where one began
and the other ended – except Jesus. He
challenges their authority by demolishing their incorrect understanding of the
Law. Jesus obeys the Law to the perfect
glory of the Father, rather than trying to make the Law man-size. When man comes up against the Law, we are
shown to be law-breakers. We are
consigned to the prison house of sin, and the rebellion of our hearts, words,
and actions is exposed. We are made to
see our poverty of merit, and to cry out for a Redeemer who will save us. Jesus keeps the God-size Law in all its glory
and then dies for men, who deserve the penalty of violating the Law of
God.
The disagreement between the Pharisees and Jesus was no small
technicality. If the Law is as keepable as the Pharisees say that it is, then there is no
need for a Savior. If there is no need
for a Savior, then why did God send His Son, and why does His Son die on a
cross?
In any case, the Pharisees and the Herodians
don’t really agree on much, but they do see eye to eye on this: Jesus needs to go. He is dangerous. So they come up with a plan to get Him to say
something that will be threatening to Roman authority. Taxes. Empires collect taxes. People don’t like to pay taxes. Jesus is the darling of the crowds, who would
like to throw off Roman rule. Jesus,
should we in
Give me a coin. Whose
property is this little piece of metal that is so impressive to you all? Why look here! There’s a face on this. It’s Caesar!
Why this must be Caesar’s coin, since it has His face and inscription on
it. Give to Caesar what is
Caesar’s. But, by the way, give to God
what is God’s. You claim to be the people
of God. You are made in the image of
God, not the image of Caesar. You have
been marked with the sign of the covenant.
That means that you have His inscription on you, and by the way, He has
your inscription on Him, if you are part of the elect. You belong to God. Why are you not giving yourself to God?
Sadducees
They come one after another in this chapter. Exit Pharisees
stage left. Enter Sadducees stage
right. Now Sadducees are the
realists. I wonder what they thought of
all these miracles?
Well, anyway, there is one thing that they certainly did not believe
in. Their religious perspective had no
place for resurrection.
Again, this is no minor point.
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus did not rise from
the dead. If Jesus did not rise from the
dead, then we have no reason to believe that His death was effective in taking
away the penalty of our sins. If He
could not defeat death, we have no reason to believe that there is anything but
death awaiting any of us. Not a small
point.
Now the Sadducees do what realists always think to be the
highest comedy. They use the Bible to
try to prove that the Bible is absurd and not to be believed, except as some
kind of inspirational mythology, but not for real life as realists live
it. So they take the instructions of
Deuteronomy 25 regarding the continuation of family lines in the Old Testament
order of things, and try to show how absurd this would all be if something so
silly as the resurrection of the dead were real. One woman – seven husbands. Who’s going to be the grand-prize
winner? Remember they are realists, and
they are having fun here. What’s the
inheritance like in your airy-fairy world of resurrection? Who gets the woman? These people really are much smarter than the
average bear.
Jesus has some fun of His own with this. You very wise men have two chief points on
which you are displaying your ignorance.
One - You do not know the Scriptures.
Two – You do not know the power of God.
You are realists all right. You
are so earthly-minded that you are no heavenly good. Are you able to understand what a
resurrection body is like? Do you
understand what the life of heavenly angels is all about? People in heaven don’t get married. The marriage in heaven is going to be between
the Son of God and His church. And
anyway, the God of the Bible is not the God of dead people. He is not the God of mere memories. When He introduced Himself as the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He was speaking of people that still had existence,
though their bodies on earth were buried in tombs. He is the God of the living. You are greatly mistaken.
Scribes
The third and final group on the scene are
the scribes. They are actually not a
third group at all, but largely a subset of the first group – the
Pharisees. These scribes are the
teachers of the Law, who have by office the duty of expounding the Word of
God. One of the scribes questions Jesus
about what is “the first commandment of all.”
Now one would
not have had to be the Son of God to answer this question. There are two places to go. You could answer with the first commandment
itself, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” or you could answer with the Shema,
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength.” Every child
learned the Shema as a matter of first
importance. It is really an
amplification of the first commandment, and this is where Jesus goes. It is one of the best texts to go to if you
want to show that the Bible teaches monotheism – that there is only one
God. (He also adds something from
Leviticus to show that this kind of love for God has important implications for
how we treat one another.) If this is
all so elementary, why does the scribe ask this question, and why is he so
effusive in His praise for the obvious right answer that Jesus gives?
Could he be subtly questioning the identity of the One he
addresses? There is only one God. Who are you, good teacher? You can not be God. There is only one God, and all our other
duties flow from our exclusive devotion of life to that one God. Who are you?
I think that this may be the case. My reasoning is the two episodes that
immediately follow this incident. Both
of them have to do with the scribes, and both of them are critical of the
scribes. In the first, after saying to
the inquiring scribe, “You are not far from the
The scribe was not far from the
Jesus was not
making a small point here. If God is not
triune, then Jesus is not divine. If
Jesus is not divine, He could not pay the infinite penalty required for our
sin, for we have sinned against an infinite God. If He were only a man, He could only pay a
finite penalty, as a finite created being.
But Jesus did pay that infinite price.
He died for us, and rose again as the Son of God – David’s Son and
David’s Lord.
The second scribal incident that follows directly is a word of
warning to the disciples concerning the scribes. They desire power, riches, and the acclaim of
others who would call them wise, but they devour the estates of helpless
widows, and then cover it up with long prayers.
These are the “builders” in this wicked and adulterous
generation. They should have been the
ones waiting for the coming of the Kingdom, and most ready to greet the
King. But they were married to the
world, as are so many who peddle the religious trade in our day. Their hands are full of the things of this
world, and they congratulate themselves on their wisdom, their power, and their
riches.
The
The chapter closes with a contrast to the old world of
Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes. Jesus
spoke to His disciples in front of the temple treasury, and drew to their
attention a woman who no one else would have noticed. She was a widow, a poor woman. Others had put in large amounts. But Jesus said she had given more. The others gave out of their abundance. She gave out of her poverty all that she
had. Two coins worth one sixty-fourth of
a day’s wages. If someone makes ten
dollars an hour and works for twelve hours per day, they can make $120 per
day. One sixty-fourth of that daily wage
is a little less than $2. This is all
she had – a little less than two dollars.
But she gave it all. All the
Pharisees, Herodians, Scribes, and Sadducees, with
all their self-importance, were not as impressive as this one woman. This is the kind of person who surrenders her
life to the Son of God, the great Cornerstone of a new temple. She gave out of her poverty.
He Came to Be the Cornerstone.
Christ, though He was rich, became poor for His chosen people,
the new people of God. In His new
poverty, He gave all that He had in His death upon the cross. His gift of His life in total consecration
was an infinite offering. His
resurrection from the dead was a complete vindication of the richness of His
great offering. We must see this new
Kingdom, and follow in the sound investment advice that the King has given us
in His life and death. We must take our
spot in the best real estate available in this fleeting world of sin – the new
real estate of the
APPLICATION:
Some Religious Investment
Advice
I was struck during some recent studies to read some words of
John Calvin. They are from “The
Necessity of Reforming the Church” written in 1543.
Let us now see what is meant by the due worship of God. Its chief foundation is to acknowledge him to be, as he is, the only source of all virtue, justice, holiness, wisdom, truth, power, goodness, mercy, life, and salvation; in accordance with this, to ascribe and render to him the glory of all that is good, to seek all things in him alone, and in every want have recourse to him alone.
It is so important for us to see our poverty in ourselves. If God is the only source of all
virtue, then I am the source of no virtue.
Any virtue I may display must be from Him alone. This is true not only of virtue, but also
justice, holiness, wisdom, truth, power, goodness, mercy, life, and
salvation. You are the source of none of
these things, if God is the only source of them. And He is.
Let me offer to you some sound religious investment
advice. Do not count on your power, your
wisdom, or your riches, to supply you with the investment security that you
desire. Boast in the power, wisdom, and riches of the Son of God. Boast particularly in His cross. Through the cross, you have been crucified to
the world, and the world has been crucified to you.
Then, as one who has seen your own poverty in yourself, and in
what you possess, as one who is alive in Christ, give generously out of your
poverty. Offer up your whole life, and
leave nothing for yourself. Give up all
your rights today, for the great privilege of being declared a son of God in
Christ.
Jeremiah
9:23-24 23 Thus says the LORD: "Let
not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his
might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; 24 But let him
who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the
LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and
righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.
Be delighted in the Lord. Love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and
strength. And then let the things that
delight the Lord be your delight.
I need to make a particular application
for ministers here. Whatever gifts we
have been given are resources to be used for the Lord, not for our own
pleasure. We must not misuse God’s
resources. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and
Scribes described in this chapter were challenging the Son of God. They were proud of their own ability to use
the Word, and they tried to use the Word of God to their own advantage, even to
such an extent that they could be rightly condemned as those who “devour
widow’s houses.”
Ministers of the Word, together with all
the servants of God, must rightly see their poverty, and then give generously
out of the poverty they have. This is
the way of the
A Question of Real Estate
Where do you want to live?
Where is the most precious real estate?
There is a woman, saved by the blood of Christ who has a mansion in
glory. She did not have much here
below. There were many Pharisees,
Sadducees, and Scribes ahead of her in every measurable way in her day. But she was richer than them all, and wiser
in her investments. I want to live where
she lives now. Don’t you? I want to live in her neighborhood.
Conclusion: Eternal Math
Add it up. You are the source of zero. God is the Giver of eternity. Through the work of Christ alone, eternal
life and countless blessings have been granted to those who are united to Him
by the Father’s great love. This is new
math for a new Kingdom. The old kingdom,
with all its important “builders”, is gone.
The new is here now through God’s servants in His body, the church. Let us do addition and subtraction the way He
does, and watch Him perform great multiplication. Let us keep ourselves from unnecessary and
fruitless division, and find, in His infinite perfections, the sum of all that
we desire.