Mark 12:35-37 So That We Might Live and Be Glorified

The Text

³⁵ While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he asked, “How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David?

³⁶ David himself says by the Holy Spirit: The Lord declared 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?” And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.

The Devotion

Acts 2:32-36 (CSB) “God has raised this Jesus; we are all witnesses of this. Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God and has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, he has poured out what you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into the heavens, but he himself says:
The Lord declared to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.’
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

The Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all the promises of the Old Testament.

Read the Old Testament. Flip the page. Then read:

Matthew 1:1 (CSB) An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:

What does that mean to you and me--not necessarily Israelites.

Ah, go to the Psalm of David where both Mark and Peter quote:

Psalm 110 (CSB)
A psalm of David.

¹ This is the declaration of the LORD to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”

² The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion. Rule over your surrounding enemies.

What did Christ come to do?

The people of this time wanted him to overthrow the Roman occupation. Dig a little deeper and they wanted Christ to cleanse out all non-Jewish people--Gentiles, Samaritans (impure Jews in the eyes of the Jews of that time) because everybody else was the enemy.

God did not send his one and only Son to drive out enemies that we have made up in our minds.

Colossians 2:13-15 (CSB) And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.

Christ came to save us from our real enemies: sin, Satan, demons, hell, and death.

Your make-it-up, fairy tale enemies who don't agree with you, don't worship God like you do, and generally oppose your way of life. Newsflash: they are not your enemy because they can't really do anything to you. "But they seek to steal, kill, and destroy us." No that is the Devil. Satan and his demons can tempt you to sin and let you get swallowed up into the undercurrent of the wrath of Christ because you refuse to repent of your sin.

Christ came to save us.

And when Christ died on the cross--not just lived or resurrected or ascended--but his death on the cross, that disarmed sin, Satan, and demons, and put them to open shame.

Christ told the scribe, "You are close to the kingdom of God." This reality that Christ is victorious is the kingdom of God.

How close are you to the kingdom of God? Are you in it or are you being conquered by sin and death. Are you in it because you repent of your sin and trust and obey the Son of God who is God. Are you in the kingdom of God because the Triune God has made His home in you.

Are you in the kingdom of God?