28th July 2023

28th July 2023


Pray (ACts)


Read - Mark 12:35-37


Message Alan Burke 


Ok we have spent the last two devotions working up to this question of Jesus as he quotes from a Psalm of David from 110 the most quoted in the New Testament. And look what David writes inspired by the Holy Spirit in Psalm 110:1 “The LORD, says to my Lord”. You see the way the first LORD capitalised that it is the personal name for God that is used in the Hebrew, Yahweh. And here Yahweh speaks, not to David, but to David’s Lord. The word that is used for the second Lord is Adonai in the Hebrew usually used to refer to the Lord himself or one greater that you are addressing. Now remember David is the King, ask yourselves this who was greater than him? If you are King no one, and you are only second to God but David’s LORD says to David’s Lord. David here is the author he is speaking of another, he is singing of another, The LORD says to my Lord. 


What we have in Psalm 110, that Jesus quotes in Mark 12, is David looking forward to the promised Christ, the Messiah of God. The teachers of the law and the people understood this Psalm as speaking of son of David that the Messiah would be a royal descendant of David. But Jesus then teaches the that this ‘Lord’ of which David speaks is not a greater son, a special human that descended from his line, rather it would be David’s Lord, one who was greater than David, it would be the Christ, the Messiah of God who was God. Their view was inadequate, their view was merely that the Messiah would be a great man but he would be and was the son of the most high God. 


David in writing this psalm in the power of the Holy Spirit, was looking to the day that one would come from his line, one of his descendants that would be greater than him, his Lord, as the words of the Psalm put it. If we were to translate this literally it would be… “Yahweh, says concerning my (David’s) Lord". David is looking to the future, the one who would come from his line who would rule over the LORD’s people, the promised deliver of the people of God the Messiah. Jesus didn’t just quote from the opening line of the psalm, he continued, The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”


Let’s think of the first bit of that verse; “Sit at my right hand”. The psalmist here is speaking of what would happen in the future, how David’s Lord, the Christ would sit at the right hand of the Father. When did this happen? Well in Acts 2 in that great sermon at Pentecost Peter uses these words and speaking of what happened at the ascension, how God raised Jesus up and how now he is exalted at the right hand of God (Acts 2:34-35). What has happened is that Jesus has been exalted, after his death and resurrection Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Lord and this is what David foresaw. At that point Jesus was given authority that over all the earth. In this exalted position Jesus is crowned Lord of lords and king of Kings, which is shown in how His enemies, all those who are in opposition to him will be made a footstool and a metaphor that recalls how a victorious king would place his feet on the neck of the foe that he had defeated in battle.


Jesus at the right had of God the Father is there in the seat of ultimate authority, it is God’s anointed King who is there. One thousand years before the coming of the LORD’s Christ, this Psalm which Jesus quotes pointed forward the arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ in the heavenly throne room, that took place forty days after the resurrection, after he ascended into heaven.Now while the act of sitting normally indicates that the work is done, and in a sense it is for Jesus has done everything that needed to be done to secure our salvation. He has provided purification for our sins and only when it was complete did he sit down, this is the Son of God that is revealed as he enthroned in power governs and rules over all (Heb 1:3). When he returns his enemies will be put under his feet. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q3 What do the scriptures principally teach?
The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man. (2 Tim. 1:13, 2 Tim. 3:16)
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