Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Was Jesus Really God? | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 20.41-44

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're learning what it looks like to follow Jesus by working our way through the gospel of Luke. I became a Christian in college, and after I started following Jesus, I immediately wanted to know as much about the Bible as possible. That probably makes me a big nerd, but that's just the way I'm wired. So anyways, I sign up for a class on campus about the Bible, thinking of it. I'm going to learn a ton. What I didn't realize was that I was about to embark on a systematic

Starting point is 00:00:40 deconstruction of the Bible. I'll spare you the details. But one of the coup de graham moments for my professor was boldly announcing that Jesus didn't believe that he was God. And he said, look, if you doubt me, I have this challenge for you. Find one place in the Bible where Jesus actually says it. Spoiler alert. Jesus never says it. Okay. So did Jesus actually believe? that he was God? Because if he never said it directly, maybe that's a sign. Now, here's the deal. If I could time travel, I would go back and ask my professor this question. Based on what you know, as a scholar and expert, based on what you know about how Jews in the first century talked about God, do you think it's proper or even smart to expect someone to make such a bold, obtuse statement of personal divinity?

Starting point is 00:01:32 or is that the kind of clunky communication style that we in the West simply prefer? Because here's the deal, anyone familiar with how first century Jews, or even first century near eastern cultures, talked about God, they wouldn't be surprised by the fact that Yahweh incarnate would never directly say, hey guys, I'm Yahweh incarnan. Like a good novelist, he wouldn't tell it, he would show it. Why? Well, one reason is that people in those cultures, they tended to circumscribe or circle around incredibly important points. They would talk around them rather than talking directly to them. Notice just one example here, how Matthew, the gospel writer Matthew, he's a very Jewish gospel writer. And so he has Jesus in his gospel talking a lot more about the

Starting point is 00:02:24 kingdom of heaven than he does about the kingdom of God. Why is that? Well, I think it's because heaven is a place associated with God. So rather than outright naming God, Matthew circles around the name with this phrase kingdom of heaven. And we know from other Jewish writers at the time that this was incredibly common. But that's not at all. You see, the pagan world, and Luke wrote to the pagan world, the pagan world was not unfamiliar with the idea of semi-human, semi-divine figures. It wasn't uncommon to hear stories of God sleeping with men or women to produce spectacular. progeny like Hercules. In fact, it was widely believed that Alexander the Great's mother was impregnated by Zeus in the form of a serpent. In fact, Alexander's questionable parentage led his apparent father to

Starting point is 00:03:16 actually exile him for a time in an effort to pass the crown onto one of his sons who he was more positive didn't have a divine father. I'm not making this stuff up. So for Jesus to say, I am God, it would have been a totally comprehensible statement to Luke's audience. They would have understood it. The problem is that they would have comprehended it in all the wrong ways. Jesus is not a half human, half divine, half baked demigod. No, he's somehow fully human and fully divine. Somehow he is Yahweh, the God of Israel incarnate. And there's actually no place where Jesus makes his identity more clear. then Luke 20 versus 41 to 44. Now here's the deal. He doesn't come right out and say it. He doesn't say, hey guys, I'm God. But he makes a statement which lays out a trail of breadcrumbs, which if you follow those breadcrumbs, can only possibly lead you in exactly that direction. Let me set the scene. It's the last week of Jesus's life. And he's been visiting Jerusalem every day to go and teach people. And in chapter 20, we see the power brokers of Jerusalem show up to Bible flex on Jesus, and again and again, they get thoroughly trounced until we finally read in verse 40, they no longer dared to ask him any question. And that's how bad it goes for them. It's kind of that classic TV scene where the bully shows up to beat up the nerd, and the nerve finally stands up for himself and shows the bully up for what he really is, just a scared, insecure kid, just like the rest of us. But Jesus isn't merely content to disson.

Starting point is 00:04:54 disarmed the Bible bullies. No, once they're knocked out, once they've already backed down, he makes a statement that I think normally would have led people to try to stone him on the spot. But not anymore. Jesus can all of a sudden peel back the curtain because he's shown that he is the authoritative teacher, that he's the authoritative healer, and he's made it obvious that he is the true and long-awaited king of Israel. And because of that, he can make this bold statement, which we're about to read, and no one even challenges him. So let's get to it. We're going to pick up in Luke chapter 20, verse 41. But He, Jesus, said to them, how can they say, he's talking about his fellow Jews who were teaching at the time? He says,

Starting point is 00:05:36 how can they say that the Messiah is David's son? It's a common teaching, right? That the Messiah, the future king of Israel who had rescued them from pagan oppressors, it was a common idea that he would be a son of David. So he says, how can they say that the Messiah is David's son? For, David himself says in the book of Psalms, and he quotes from Psalm 110 here, the Lord, that's Yahweh, said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. David thus calls him Lord, the Messiah. So how is he his son? So here's what's happening. Jesus pulls Psalm 110 out of the air and makes a radical observation. In context, David is foretelling a day when Yahweh would set one of David's own sons at Yahweh's right hand on the throne of heaven.

Starting point is 00:06:28 But you got to hear the rub here, right? Because David doesn't call his own son, my son. Instead, David calls him my Lord. Now, in the world of the ancient Near East, no one's son could ever become his own father's lord. But then things get worse because David doesn't say, the Lord says to my future Lord. He simply says the Lord says to my Lord. Yahweh says to my lord, as though somehow his future son was somehow already his lord right then and right there. At this point, people's brains just have to be exploding because Jesus is merely drawing Psalm 110 to its natural conclusion that the Messiah, the coming promised king isn't just a coming king, that the Messiah is actually a pre-existent king, that he is a king who is David's Lord, even while David lived. Jesus, the Messiah, he is saying this, when David was, when David lived, I am. He's saying I was David's Lord when David sat on the throne. He's saying, even though I'm human, I am something more than that. I am the pre-existent Lord of King David.

Starting point is 00:07:38 And as any good Jew would have known, there's only one pre-existent Lord. Yahweh himself. With a single Bible quote, and then 10 words, Jesus unveils that the Old Testament always pointed forward, not merely to a rescuing king from the line of David, but to a rescuing king who is also simultaneously the Lord of David, the Lord of Israel, Yahweh himself. I've often wondered how Jesus' self-consciousness of his divinity developed. I mean, what was that like? He grew up like any other human. He wasn't born speaking a language or thinking thoughts beyond a baby's thoughts, Jesus learned to walk. Luke himself says that he grew in wisdom. Two different times he says

Starting point is 00:08:22 this, that Jesus grew in wisdom. So is Luke's gospel also unpacking for us the process of Jesus' ongoing self-consciousness, of his ongoing self-awareness, we might say, of his incarnation and divinity? Well, we don't really know, do we? But we can be sure of this. And the days leading up to Jesus' crucifixion, he knew who he was. And he didn't. use his power, his divine power. He gets it here, right? He understands, I am Yahweh incarnate, but he doesn't use that power to save himself from the cross. He doesn't use that power to spill the blood of his enemies to conquer Jerusalem or even conquer the world by his might. No, that's not what he does at all. Instead, he self-consciously sets aside his divine power. He sets aside

Starting point is 00:09:10 his divine power as the pre-existent Lord of King David to die as a slave on a Roman cross. we're also desperate to cling to the small things that give us power, prestige, affluence. We don't even want to circle around those things. We want everybody else to see them. The last thing that we want to do is set them down, or even worse, expend them for the sake of someone else, for the sake of someone weaker. But that's exactly what Jesus does. Today, I want you to ask God to make you conscious of the gifts, opportunities, and privileges that he's given you. Ask him for the strength to set those things down and to use

Starting point is 00:09:53 them to the advantage of those who are weaker than you. Maybe it's a sibling or a friend or a family member. Maybe it's a co-worker or an employee. Ask to follow Jesus's pattern of self-giving. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Was Jesus Really God? | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 20.41-44

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.