V41 – After the Sadducees and Pharisees had tried to trap him with their questions and getting answers that silenced them, Jesus now asks them a question.
But there is a difference between Jesus asking them a question and them asking Jesus a question. Remember, the Sadducees and Pharisees had come to him wanting to trap him so that they could arrest him. Their questions were not fueled by an interest and desire for Godly knowledge, their questions were malicious in their intent. But Jesus could not do the same to them by seeking to trap them because that would be evil. And how do we know that Jesus’ intentions were pure, even in this case? The Bible records that:
I Peter 2: 21-23 NIV – To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
In a sense, Jesus was now showing them the questions that they should truly be asking. Jesus was not going to behave like them. He was going to ask them a real question and this was not revenge for them trying to trap him, it was a question to stir up their minds.
The intention of Jesus was always and is still always to reveal God’s kingdom and salvation to human beings and this is what He was doing here. He wanted to ask these teachers of the law and the leaders of the religion a hard question so that it can jolt their minds to really think about Kingdom matters that they did not seem to understand. They were focused on trapping him but all the while, Jesus was focused on teaching them the truth and directing them to true worship.
I see a big lesson here:
Jesus, our Lord and savior, is our example. As 1 Peter 2 has said— “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” We should endeavor to be like him and to learn from him. And there are other verses that admonish us to be like Christ:
1 John 2:6 NIV – Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
Ephesians 5:1-2 ESV – Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
John 13:13-16 NLT – You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and you are right, because that’s what I am. And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message.
First, the lesson is to be like him. We must be imitators of God if we say we love him. If we don’t obey him (obeying his word) wholeheartedly, our love for God is not yet complete.
1 John 2:5 NLT– But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him.
Second, do not retaliate when they try to trap you with their questions. Rather, seek to understand the root cause of why they are doing that and pray for them and ask the Holy Spirit to help you to address that. In this situation, our goal must always be to reveal Christ Jesus… our Lord and savior.
The third lesson is to remain in love, all through. Love for even those who persecute you. And the Holy Spirit will always be there to remind you to love God and do his will in all situations. He will also remind you to love every person. His promptings will always be clear. When we hear these promptings, let us harden our hearts but rather obey him wholeheartedly and with joy.
The fourth lesson is to be patient. Jesus was very patient with the Pharisees and Sadducees. He did not blast them in anger but first, patiently deal with those issues and questions they have and after that, direct them to Christ. Direct them to the real bigger issue… do they know him? Are they in a close relationship with him?
V42-45 – Jesus, the messiah has always been from the beginning. He was only revealed by coming to earth at the time He came. But He has always been present, from the beginning. The Pharisees and Sadducees, and the whole Israelite nation did not seem to understand that.
They thought that the Messiah would be a physical human being who would come to liberate them from their oppression from the Romans. They did not seem to understand that the Messiah actually already existed since the foundation of the earth and that all things were created through him. And so, if the Messiah existed since the beginning…. How then could He be a son (descendant) of David?
Even though David, their forefather, knew that the Messiah was his Lord and was God, David’s descendants (the Israelites) still seemed to think that He would be a mere human being.
How could the Messiah be just a human being yet He already existed at the beginning??
There was no way that the Messiah would be just any human being. If He has been from the beginning, even before David, then He was not a human. He was and is God himself. Because it is God who has always existed since the start. In fact, He himself is the Alpha and Omega. He himself was the beginning and He is the end.
The Israelites, Pharisees and Sadducees, had not ever been able to understand that.
And so the big question that Jesus was directing them to was this ….. “Who is this Messiah really?” or “Do we really understand who the Messiah is?”
The Israelites did not understand who the Messiah was. Yet at this point, he was right in front of them. They were seeing God physically but did not realize it. They were so bound to their wrong teaching such that when Jesus said to them directly that He was the messiah and He was God, they could not take it yet it was true. They had God in their midst but did not notice. We see this in another part of scripture which puts this perfectly in context:
John 8:58 NIV – Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
Here are other verses that show that He was present from the beginning:
1 John 1 NLT – We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us.
John 1 NIV – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
V46 – They could not dare ask another question after this because they knew they could not trap him. He had turned the script over and posed them with a difficult question that would really cause them to think if they really knew the God whom they say they knew and whom they taught people about.
(Oh Father, thank you, thank you for Christ who was from the beginning, who is now my example to follow. Help me to truly imitate him and live like him.)