How Jesus Used His Trial To Teach Christology: The Mark Series pt 62 (14:53-72)

okay i'm going live here we are this is uh part 62 of our verse by verse teaching through the entire gospel of mark and let me give you guys a little intro into what we're getting into today um sometimes skeptics when i don't mean to use that word like as it's as if it were an insult but i'm trying to just sort of use a term to collectively describe people who approach the bible with that that view of skepticism right they don't believe it because that's the idea not just skeptical in nature i think i'm that way but rather they've concluded they don't believe it well some of the skeptics have sometimes suggested that a lot of the christians beliefs a lot of the beliefs that you and i have right now that these beliefs weren't really original to christ or the apostles initially that they kind of developed later over time this might seem like inconsequential to someone who's not a christian but to a christian that's kind of a big deal to think that you know the core of my faith is is not authentic with christ it's not starting with the disciples that's a problem you know for me because the whole idea is that we're believing what they gave us the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints so one of the ways that some skeptics some will make this case is they'll say that in the gospel of mark we have what they call a low christology as opposed to a high christology and the idea is that in mark's gospel we have jesus as like an important figure a messiah figure probably maybe um depending on which skeptic you talk to and although it's hard to understand how they can argue that but they'll also suggest that we don't have jesus as the exalted like you know the ultimate divine one jesus isn't god with us that that kind of christology is not there in present in the gospel of mark now let me give you guys the background forgive the long introduction as we dig into what actually is going to be jesus standing before the high priest but this is like a a theological climax of the gospel of mark this important moment and it addresses the concerns that skeptics have so uh one of the reasons why they target the gospel of mark for this is because most scholars will think that mark was written first that between matthew mark luke and john mark was written first john was written last and so some of them and i only say some some skeptics even some scholars will try to like trace this like development of theology from mark to john now it's one thing to say that the church progressively understood the theology of who christ was you know in in its infancy that that they were discovering still in the book of acts they're still learning these things but it's something else to say the apostles didn't originally teach it or that jesus himself didn't underst have his own understanding that he was the son of god that he was god with us that's a problem so we're going to talk about this because mark the earliest of the gospels does actually have quite a high christology it's just you have to study for it you have to think about it um mark the gospel of mark does not reward the lazy and so the other claim that skeptics will sometimes make is that there's an underdeveloped concept of christ's death as our sin offering in the early gospels and in fact they'll say it's throughout the entire new testament they'll say it's this underdeveloped idea that the idea that jesus dies for your sin that that your sin is actually the thing he's being punished for on the cross that concept this atonement idea that it's not really present there early on but in fact not only are both of these things present they're central central to the theology that the gospel of mark teaches us and it's one of the reasons why i picked the gospel of mark to do this first by verse study because i want to cover and tackle like what skeptics say not because i'm angry but because i like care about them and the people hearing them and i think that the bible does withstand scrutiny so let's scrutinize all right so let's look at the illegal trial of jesus mark chapter 15 we're going to start in chapter 14 starting in verse 53 we're going to read straight through to verse 72 this is a large portion of scripture if this is your first time clicking on one of my videos i'm pastor mike winger and i do theology apologetics i want to help people learn to think biblically about everything about half my video content is verse by verse bible studies maybe a little less than that um the other the rest of its q and a's on fridays i do q and a's at 1 pm and then um occasionally do other random videos like hopefully this week wednesday hopefully i'll have a new video out on the passion translation but here we are mark 14 53. let's just read through it just load the whole passage in your mind don't worry about what i think about it you just listen and think about what's happening here start asking questions about it start making observations on your own they led jesus away to the high priest and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes gathered together peter had followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest and he was sitting with the officers and warming himself at the fire now the chief priests whole council kept trying to obtain testimony against jesus to put him to death and they were not finding any for many we're giving false testimony against him but their testimony was not consistent some stood up and began to give false testimony against him saying we heard him say i will destroy this temple made with hands and in three days i will build another made without hands not even in this respect was their testimony consistent the high priest stood up and came forward questioned and questioned jesus saying do you not answer what is it that these men are testifying against you but he kept silent and did not answer again the high priest was questioning him and saying to him are you the christ the son of the blessed one and jesus said i am and you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven tearing his clothes the high priest said what further need do we have of witnesses you have heard the blasphemy how does it seem to you and they all condemned him to be deserving of death some began to spit at him and to blindfold him and to beat him with their fists and to say to him prophesy and the officers received him with slaps in the face as peter was below in the courtyard one of the servant girls of the high priest came and seeing peter warming himself she looked at him and said you also were with jesus the nazarene but he denied it saying i neither know nor understand what you're talking about and he went out onto the porch the servant girl saw him and began once more to say to the bystanders this is one of them but again he denied it and after a little while the bystanders were again saying to peter surely you are one of them for you are a galilean too but he began to curse and swear i do not know this man you were talking about immediately a rooster crowed a second time and peter remembered how jesus had made the remark to him before a rooster crows twice you will deny me three times and he began to weep all right this passage um comes here right at the very at the very last moment right jesus is is being brought in the middle of the night he's been betrayed by judas he was at the garden of gethsemane right in the middle of the 90s betrayed by judas he's brought at night time to have a trial before the jewish leadership of of israel in jerusalem in particular and so they go they put him on trial they want they want to find a reason to kill him okay to try to get him killed and this is their chance um verse 53 backing up again to verse 53 and it is i don't know if you noticed some of it but there's very high christology in here and it's very connected to jesus's atoning sacrifice these two things of you know that jesus is god with us and that he is the one who dies for our sin um being punished for our sin they're in this passage and we'll we'll get there but i want you to understand everything which is why it's going to be a long study today and so um mark 15 of 1453 they led jesus away to the high priest and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes gathered together this gathering this council as it's called in verse 55 is the sanhedrin i've used this term before the sanhedrin is like the jewish supreme court of the time now they're a limited supreme court because the romans are really in control and they limit the power of the jewish sanhedrin but the sanhedrin serves a special function not only are they there to handle lesser issues issues amongst just the jews they don't have the authority to deal with you know non-jews and stuff but they can handle lesser issues amongst their own people but they're really there right the romans have them there to give the appearance of self-government to the jewish people so they won't rebel against the romans so the sanhedrin is you know they sort of have two tasks one is for the benefit of the jewish people and the other one is for the benefit of the romans and their control and we'll see how this plays into jesus's execution because they have some influence in getting jesus a lot of influence and jesus getting jesus crucified under pontius pilate because of their role trying to keep the peace they can reverse that role real quick and cause problems uh one of the problems with this with this whole idea though he goes before the sanhedrin this this is literally a court case basically effectively it's like a court case he's a he's in front of the supreme court the terms that are used there the chief priests elders and scribes is a three-fold term to describe the sanhedrin this again is evidence that mark knows the history mark the gospel of mark does know and is familiar with what's going on in the in the time of jesus right there in palestine or in israel i'm not trying to give a political commentary here and forgive me for whatever terms i use there but um but the idea here is that it it's it's like a court case but it's got issues it happens at night that already is a problem okay like just think for a second if you were dragged into court at 3 a.m and the leaders of the court are all gathered together at 3 a.m to hear your case you already know something's not right this is sketchy this is a very sketchy trial this whole trial is got issues now in the mishnah the jewish mishnah which is written about 200 years after jesus's time we have a record of what the rules are for capital trials that the sanhedrin will hold when they want to condemn someone to death they have to have them during the daytime they cannot happen at night they cannot happen on the eve of a festival jesus hears it's on the eve of passover when they do this trial they must be held at one of three court rooms but jesus is not being brought to a courtroom he's being brought to the high priest's house in the middle of the night here and it must begin by hearing a case for the defense but no case is offered in defense of jesus by anybody they don't even try to and there is not allowed there's not allowed to be a verdict that day because it's such a heavy thing to give the death penalty they can't give a verdict that day they're supposed to wait 24 hours before giving the verdict let like marinate and consider the testimony they've heard and all that none of these things are observed in jesus's case this has led a lot of commentaries to say that jesus's trial was just straight up illegal but there's some pushback on this okay i i mean i was going to say this myself as well that this was just in a legal trial and but as i was researching it i found there are a few problems one uh the mishnah the rules that we have for capital punishment we're not sure if they actually do trace back to jesus time specifically okay it was codified 200 years later that's what was rather was written down it's a little tough reading the mishnah some of the content definitely goes back to jesus definitely goes prior to jesus but some of the content does not some of it clearly comes later after the destruction of the temple even so the mission is kind of a mixed bag it's a little challenging sometimes some passages like the one on the rules about capital trials it may or may not have been written when jesus when his trial took place while it wasn't written but it may or may not have been in place when jesus trial took place there's another problem and that is they actually aren't technically doing a capital trial they do want to put him to death but they don't actually sentence him to death if you notice later in the passage they sentence him to being deserving of death then they take him to pilate and they try to get pilate to sentence him to death so in context they're not looking to actually execute jesus but to build a case to bring jesus to pilate to have the romans execute him because they don't have the power to execute the the limitations on their governing power one of those limitations was the ability to execute at the time still okay so it may not have been i can't say okay it broke all five laws about capital punishments possibly maybe some of those laws were in place maybe they do or don't apply to a this weird scenario where it's more like a um preliminary assessment and not exactly a full-on trial but the trial is still sketchy for a number of reasons that we're going to get into and it should be obvious to you that it is verse 54 let's look at them peter had followed him at a distance right into the courtyard of the high priest and he was sitting with the officers and warming himself by the fire okay this is it this is all you hear of peter until we get way way down past all the stuff about jesus into verse 66 then peter shows up again i'll be covering this later but i want to say real real briefly um and and i don't i hope i'm not stepping on any toes i know there's a number of pastors even that watch in this content and you consider maybe you're studying to teach on mark um and you're about to teach and you get to this passage and you're like oh i have a great point to share with people about peter here's what i've heard some pastors say about peter at this point they turn peter into like an allegory peter is bringing an allegorical like um this is one of my pet peeves in bible studies just you all know when someone brings a good a good teaching a good lesson but it's not really connected to the scripture um when that's the case and you're a pastor studying and you have i have a good application but it's not really connected to the scripture don't do it you know what just say guys this is not connected to the script don't pretend that your application is connected to the scripture when it's not here's my example of how this happens people will say peter had a three-step process for for when he denied jesus step one he was following jesus at a distance and that's right there in verse 54. peter was following at a distance guys don't fall here's how it goes don't follow jesus at a distance stay close to jesus and so now peter's following at a distance which was just a physical description it's now considered an allegory for my discipleship in christ i'm not being very close to him right i'm sort of following jesus at a distance metaphorically step two you know peter first did that step two he's then warming himself by the fire of the world there's the world and their heat the warmth of their fire is giving you warmth as you're warming yourself oh this is step two guys don't warm yourself with the comforts of the world first you're following jesus at a distance next thing you know you're finding yourself you know trying to make yourself feel good with sinful things trying to bring joy and happiness into your life with compromises and let me be clear you guys this this is good advice this is all good advice right but it has nothing to do with what peter's actually doing um in my opinion i know i'm trying i may be coming off a little too strong here i'm not trying to be mean or anything but but i think this is a good example of something that is not healthy to do to the body of christ um let me i'll explain why in just a second the impact of it but the third step for peter we get down later on when we get to verse 62 and stuff is where peter denies jesus so this is where the pastor warns the congregation right now perhaps you're following in a distance perhaps right now you're starting to warm yourself with the comforts of the world sin is bringing you peace in your life you're looking to sin to like be your therapy um to bring you warmth and the next step is you may end up denying christ just like peter did okay these are actually good applications i think it's it's a little daunting to think about it but it's actually good application for us it's just not about peter um peter doesn't connect us to this peter's following at a distance doesn't mean following like as a partial disciple he's kind of following jesus kind of not like that's not really what it means it literally means peter's the only one that we're that we read about in mark anyway john was nearby as well but the only one we read about mark who is actually like still kind of trying to stay near to where jesus was so he could see what was going to happen to jesus i don't think it's meant to be a metaphor i think that what we lose from this passage when we when we latch on to say a really good application from a wrong interpretation what we lose is that peter's actually showing some bravery here peter has seen jesus in agony in the garden he has seen judas betray jesus and he knows jesus went for forward willingly and he's at this point very confused but maybe he's still hoping and this is the application i'd have i think maybe he's still hoping that he's right about what jesus will do and he's waiting for jesus to like overcome somehow you know he's going to jesus is going to come out like any minute now jesus is going to walk out of the chambers with the high priest declaring him as the messiah and then the jewish nation will unite under christ like maybe he's thinking that will happen he's not really believing jesus will be crucified as he said he would so if you have an application for what peter's going through for your life i think this is it my attitude towards my own confusion and the shock of unexpected suffering while i wait for glory that's what peter's going through he can't give up and i've met people like this maybe you're like this he can't give up the idea that the suffering he's seeing can't be happening it can't be in god's will and so he just can't overcome it peter of course flips later on he has a completely different attitude towards suffering here he can't comprehend how suffering that makes no sense to him could be in the will and glory of god and that to me is our application um that we have for it not about following at a distance all right i'll i'll move on i'll move on this is my little i'm gonna build a pet peeve uh last last thought on this if we as teachers if we do this if we take passages and because we just get addicted to how good this application is we start abusing a passage you know we take it and we turn everything into allegory it will probably make people feel good and it may even spiritually help them in some sense but what it's going to do is create a vulnerability in the congregation where they're not very good at knowing how to interpret the bible because they've heard stuff abused and they've grown accustomed to passages being taken out of context when they approach someone encounter someone who has false theology they're not equipped to deal with the verses those people will take out of context so that's why i say look there's comfort and wisdom for us in every area of life we just don't want to quote the wrong passage to bring that comfort and wisdom all right let's look at the next verse which is 55 now the chief priests and the whole council kept trying to obtain testimony against jesus to put him to death but they're not finding any they need they need someone to accuse jesus but there's problems there's problems which is that they need to have multiple witnesses that agree verse 56 for many we're giving false testimony against him but the testimony was not consistent now here's problem number one i'll call it even though this is like the third issue but uh for the for calling the court um against jesus in this case this shows that the trial is wrong it's immoral it's definitely an abuse of power but you can see how it is right here first off the court calls for witnesses now the way the law works right courts aren't supposed to call for witnesses maybe you know at a certain point they they extend are there any other witnesses that kind of thing but actually it's the people it's the it's the victims or the or the witnesses who call for the court that's the big difference you see it should be the witness who goes to the court and says i saw jesus do such and such i have another witness here that will agree and then they then they convene a court case but here first they get jesus and then they put out a call for witnesses this means that the court is oppressing christ oppressing him using their power to oppress him they don't want to follow the right procedure they're looking for witnesses instead of it being witnesses asking for the court this is why they actually have trouble condemning jesus because they can't they don't even have the right accusations against him they just grabbed him when they could now we know that the court's agenda was to kill jesus mark 14 1 tells us that they the chief prescribes these people had already been looking for a way to seize jesus by stealth and kill him so they're not interested in upholding the law the lie here then the law is being so abused i mean it's meant to bring people freedom from oppression that's what the law is supposed to be as i read the prophets as i read what god wrote to israel as well in their law the law's meant to stop oppression that's actually a big emphasis and i realized that um in our world today oppression becomes like a key word that some people say mike stop saying like stop oppression because it sounds like you're using critical race theory or something but here's the thing um i'm going to start with scripture and then i want to apply that biblical worldview across all those issues there's mika saying hi and those issues include oppression like this is this is a big deal the one of the reasons why governments have laws is to stop oppression of people this look up the word oppression in the bible and you'll see this is a very very big deal to god and i'm not going to back off of a real agenda to stop oppression because someone will think that that's um you know i'm being too liberal or something like that like i'm going to start with scripture and live that out and i know i'm just it's going to irritate people but it's also going to give peace to others who realize yeah this is a big deal so here's the strange thing they want to kill jesus why don't they just accept the false testimony right they get false testimony but this is the whole agenda the court just wants to kill jesus but it seems as though they had um procedures in place are you what are you where are you going where are you going kat this is her it seems like they had procedures in place where they had to double check the testimony of the witnesses now we do read about this in the mishnah and it may have come later except here's the thing mishnik rules about capital punishment may have come later this wasn't perhaps technically a capital trial but rules about just how to interrogate witnesses there's a good chance that's that goes back to jesus time since they've been doing this forever hey figure out where you're going come over here sorry about that um so what i'm saying what i'm trying to say is i think the court was constrained by policies that had them double checking the witnesses testimonies now in the mishnah the way it's written is they would pull the witnesses aside you know say one witness says he said this another one says he said that and they agree they pulled him aside and be like what day did he say it what time did he say it right so they would interrogate the witnesses was he by this tree or that tree and if it if it didn't agree then they had to discount that testimony so this gets in the way many gave false witness against him but their testimony is not consistent but this leads us to problem number two in the trial which is that there's no consequences for false witnesses under the is the isla the law for israel in deuteronomy 19 16 listen to what happens when you bring false witness to try to get somebody in this case killed if a malicious witness rises up against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing then both the men who have the dispute who shall stand before the lord before the priests and the judges who will be in office in those days that that is this courtroom that he's in front of now priests and judges and the elders the judges shall investigate thoroughly and if the witness is a false witness and he has accused his brother falsely now what happens what should have been done to all these false witnesses against jesus then you shall do to him just as he had intended to do to his brother thus you shall purge the evil from among you wow and this was meant to to prevent the abuse of the law right the rest will hear and be afraid and will never again do such an evil thing among you now if we applied this in modern courts this would mean that if someone accused you of a crime and then you found out they were it was discovered not your uncer uncertain right maybe there's not enough evidence to convict but that doesn't make them a false witness but rather you find they're a false witness they're relying to get you in trouble then they would get the the penalty say you were gonna owe ten thousand dollars now they owe ten thousand dollars um yeah that would help stop some frivolous losses i think and this didn't happen in the case of jesus these false witnesses appear to have no consequences at all do you see the court is being in unjust they're being unjust and it's very obvious because they how they handle the trial then verse 57 going back to mark 14. it says some stood up and began to give false testimony against him saying and here's the specific statement this causes a lot of problems for jesus and the disciples later we heard him say i will destroy this temple made with hands and in three days i will build another may without hands but not even in this respect was their testimony consistent now there's a couple issues with this this exact phrase um destroy the temple made with hands three days build another without hands obviously jesus didn't say this exactly mark isn't saying that mark is saying he was accused of this jesus said something similar and it was twisted like so they could use his words against him and this happens every time i do anything online whatever you say can and will be twisted and used against you but what's interesting here is that in mark there's nothing even similar to this that jesus says the closest you get is mark 13 where jesus says that the temple will be destroyed but he doesn't say anything about his agency being involved in any fashion john 2 19 is the only place where we actually have a similar passage and this is where jesus this is probably what the saying they're twisting jesus says destroy this temple and in three days i will raise it up right and we learn from john jesus was talking about his body notice he says for them to destroy this temple not him he's not the one who's going to destroy the temple this is what gets jesus in trouble they pretend he was claiming he would destroy the temple and in three days i will raise it up he's talking about his body he's going to raise his body back up resurrect notice that jesus is the agent of the resurrection the father the son and the spirit in the bible a little fun trinitarian moment for you the father the son and the spirit were all given credit for the resurrection of jesus he was raised by the spirit the father raised him and he's going to raise himself because we see this trinitarian work happening at the resurrection of christ so this is a distortion of jesus's words and what's interesting is that in mark they don't agree so it seems in this case the testimony of the witnesses did agree on what jesus supposedly said but they didn't agree on some of the other issues like perhaps where he was when he said it what time he was um how did you hear him where were you like they asked him these sort of like follow-up questions and it didn't work out this ends up frustrating the court and the high priest takes a new tactic we'll talk about that in a second but before we move on to that um because they couldn't get the witnesses to kill him um or to condemn him i should say this same statement is used against stephen in the book of acts let's look at this as well because this became like the thing that like non-non-messianic non-christian jews were saying against the jews who were following jesus they started saying this same statement oh he's going to destroy the temple because then the christians got a reputation of being anti-temple and the interesting thing is that it's it's not true that they were anti-temple right peter they were still going to the temple they were still even partaking in sacrifices for for the in the book of acts although they were teaching that no one the gentiles didn't have to become jewish to become christians so there's like a truth that's there but they did continue to use this attack on the christians and it did work so in acts 6 13 they want to kill kill um stephen and they use the same accusation they put forward false witnesses who said this man incessantly speaks against this holy place in the law right that which is distortion it's true that the christians were teaching the jews the gentiles could be saved without obeying the law but they weren't telling jews don't obey the law destroy the law like no this it's more of a doctrine of fulfillment of the law than it was destroying and you read that you read the gospels or you look at my hebrew roots series and you'll see the teaching on that it's it's better than that's more nuanced than that but then they quote this for we've heard him say that this nazarene jesus will destroy this place the temple alter the customs which moses handed down to us and this is not true jesus rather was going to create a new temple right he wasn't going to destroy the temple that was going to be judgment that would come in the future but he was going to create a new temple which is those who believe in him we're the body of christ we're the temple of the holy spirit and he wasn't going to alter the customs he was going to fulfill them why do i say this because this is a great example of how um a careful and important doctrine of christian faith can be distorted oversimplified and used as a hammer to attack christians so let's take the teaching christians have on the topic of homosexuality i just bring up the word and there's people uncomfortable right now just hearing me say it because the world generally doesn't doesn't care as far as i can tell it doesn't care what christians actually believe on the topic they care how they can use the topic to create division and anger and discontent amongst people especially towards believers you know i've regularly been witnessing where i talk to people and they're convinced that if i'm a christian and i'm consistent i'm automatically homophobic and i'm like i it's like i have to do hard work to make sure yeah i mean one one girl one time at a school public school um i was doing a a thing there the christian club invited me and i i did some q a in front of the the the kids during lunch in the public school and this girl asked the question she goes why does jesus hate gay people right this is exactly the thing that happened to jesus happened to stephen this idea of i'm going to take a triggering topic i'm going to misrepresent your beliefs on it and then put you on the defense and so i my response at the time was you know jesus doesn't i said would you would you hate know what was i said to her i said would you die for somebody that you hated would you give your life for someone you hated and she's like no and i said well jesus died for all of us and you see it was i was trying to be careful how i answered this because i don't think people want a thoughtful explanation of a detailed understanding of christian teachings on say transgender issues and homosexual topics and things like that they're more interested sometimes in just bringing up triggering topics that cause rage against people why do i bring this up okay here's the bad news jesus didn't actually hide from this the uh the early church stephen was literally stoned and killed after this stuff that they said about him as christians it is not your job to stop people from being angry at you it is your job to represent true authentic christianity wherever you go and if people respond with anger because of misrepresentations misunderstandings and sometimes because they don't even care what the truth of christianity is that's not your fault it's not your job your job at that moment is very important and your job and my job is to return kindness for anger to return gentleness for harshness right to turn the other cheek that is our task at that moment and yeah so we'll move on mark 14 60. this is where the high priest he gives up on trying to get witnesses against jesus and now he asks him some direct questions the high priest stood up and came forward and questioned jesus saying do you not answer what it is or what is it that these men are testifying against you he wants jesus to talk about these accusations even though there aren't they're all false witnesses so he has nothing he needs to defend but he kept silent and did not answer and again the high priest was questioning him and saying to him are you the christ the son of the blessed one now jesus stays silent and doesn't answer before i get to verse 61 the rest of it let's talk about this first part why doesn't jesus answer i can think of three reasons and this is great bible study habit right here you read a passage and go he didn't answer why why is a great question in the bible why why didn't jesus answer okay so i've got a few possibilities one is jesus is fulfilling scripture isaiah 53 7 jesus jesus obviously in the gospel of mark is very interested in isaiah isaiah 53 in particular and isaiah the servant songs of isaiah which we'll talk about in a minute really amazing stuff but isaiah 53 7 it says he was oppressed and afflicted he did not open his mouth like a lamb that has led to the slaughter and like a sheep before that is silent before it cheers he did not open his mouth by oppression and judgment he was taken away this is like a description of the very court case jesus is in right now and he's staying silent before them this is to fulfill scripture but that's only one of the reasons we'll talk more about this why why this is remarkable that isaiah 53 is so packed with so many details about christ at this season of his life especially the cross another reason though why he stayed silent was to be condemned you know pragmatically just humanly jesus wanted want i mean he didn't want to but he wanted to because he wants to do the do the plan right he doesn't enjoy it though um but he wants to be condemned jesus we we know jesus offered clever words to get out of trouble many times we read about all the time in the gospels i'll bet you there was some combination of words jesus could have given that would have turned all this against against the people in the court that would have caught exposed their issues that were he could have appealed to some um something you know that would have probably got him off the hook i think jesus still could have gotten away so he says he says nothing this is so he'll be condemned and then three and this hits my heart i think jesus says nothing in his own defense because you have nothing in your defense like when you stand before god there are not false witnesses these are god has witnessed all you've ever done wrong and he knows it all and as i stand before him one day for my life to be examined like i have a zero defense except jesus like my only defense is jesus standing in my place taking the punishment for what i've done jesus's silence is is ironic because he's silent because he's innocent and could prove himself innocent right he's also silent because i have no defense for my sins and he goes in my place and he is condemned for me this is encouraging to me as a christian if you're not a christian i want you to understand this this is how christians handle guilt we handle guilt by offering nothing in our defense no excuses not uh you know lord i i only did that because of the way i was raised i only did that because i was having a bad day i wouldn't have done that if they hadn't done that to me first we offer none of that stuff like all that stuff goes off the table and we and we face our guilt in in the full shamefulness of it and we hand it to christ and we say you carry this to the cross this is healthy healthy handling of guilt where you know it's washed and clean with no excuse no justification just an advocate who goes in my place and pays for it then he gives me his righteousness instead this is beautiful i think that um it's what we need we need to understand this we need to understand this so um let's look then at um the rest of verse 61 which says and he began um again the high priest was questioning him so he hit him with a new thing he's gonna ignore all the accusations here's something that would trigger everybody big time he asked him this question are you the christ the son of the blessed one are you the christ the son of the blessed one the way this is worded in greek is really interesting because uh in the greek it's hard i guess to communicate this in english but in the greek um the idea is that it's like an assertion the high priest is making so there's a lot of irony layered into this moment right here and one of the ironies is the high priest himself is declaring christ is this he jesus is the christ the son of the blessed one and he's but he's doing it as a as a question to confirm it um this puts it on the lips of the high priest that jesus is the christ the son of the blessed one the next person who will affirm this in mark is the centurion who helps crucify jesus in 1539 that is the guy who's like surely this was the christ you know the son of the blessed one the son of god actually he's a son of god interestingly enough um blessed one is a is a substitute for the word god and they would often do that right they're not going to use the divine name they're often not even going to say god they're going to say like blessed one or the power as jesus will say in the next verse but the centurion in verse 39 of chapter 15 when he says jesus is the son of god he doesn't replace the divine name why because he's not a jew so he doesn't have that habit interesting little tidbit okay let's talk a little bit about the the the moment we're having right here um there's there's what scholars will call the messianic secret and a lot of people have have acknowledged it and it's a good thing to acknowledge there's this messianic secret in mark where jesus is like telling people you know don't tell him who i am he tells the disciples you know yeah i'm the christ he confirms it through peter right but he tells him don't tell anybody um and so some people have had just some real fun with this and they've suggested that things like uh jesus didn't really even know he was the messiah or he wasn't sure he wanted to be the messiah so he's like don't tell anyone i'm not really sure if i want to be known you know and they give all these weird things these weird motives to jesus or to the author of the gospels of mark matthew luke in order to say that like yeah jesus never said he was the messiah actually and they're trying to cover it up by saying oh he said he was but he told us not to tell anyone i think all of these are dead ends and and waste of time in the end um the messianic secret in mark when you read it in context and i hope i've made it clear in this mark study and this is very we're getting there's a lot of theology stuff we're getting into here but mark doesn't so much have a secret as it does have a lesson about the messiah and the idea of don't tell people don't tell people is all couched in the idea that the messiah is a certain kind of messiah you see in israel at the time there's different versions of messiah they have a they have tons of texts from the old testament they're not really sure how it's all going to play out they might think the messiah is just a political leader they might think the messiah is going to come and die they might think there's a different messiah there's two messiahs there's one son of joseph one they called the son of david and they have two messiahs one of them dies and the other one's the reigning ruling messiah they don't however have a real understanding that the messiah is the atoning sacrifice for their sin they just haven't accepted just like peter hadn't what isaiah had said about jesus what psalm 22 had said about jesus i say all this to say this moment right here is like are you the christ the son of the blessed one this is when the nature of who messiah is comes out and messiah is not just a human figure who's going to do a political thing that's what most of the views of messiah were at the time not all of them but most of them james edwards in his commentary he says this this is about the deity of christ in mark he says until the question of the high priest however jesus has steadfastly silenced all proclamations of his divine sonship right that he is the son of god mark said it in chapter one but but publicly it hasn't been stated yet in order truly to understand the meaning of his person something has been missing the missing element has been the necessity of his suffering only in the light of suffering can jesus openly divulge his identity as god's son at the trial the veil is finally removed the malevolence which the jewish authorities have harbored since the beginning of jesus ministry is finally exposed hence the secret that jesus has protected since the beginning of his ministry can now be disclosed this is key okay again that you have to have a careful study of the passages in mark to understand this the the high priest is not just asking jesus if he's the messiah he's asking if he's divine and jesus is confirming i am this is huge this is like the the christological climax of the gospel this verse 61 and 62. that's what rt france calls it the christiological climax of the gospel and for those who want to suggest mark has a low christology the reality is is that mark has been trying to defeat low christology all the way through the text of mark until he could reveal openly the full like divinity that there is in christ and that comes right now the messianic secret is really a revelation that jesus is divine and then there's two revelations one's glorious and one's terrible right jesus is divine the glorious revelation the messiah his his nature is divine he's god with us and the the terrible one is that he's gonna die on the cross in the place of your sins being punished for what you've done wrong these are the two things that have to come out they have to come out this is the theology of the messiah now look at jesus's answer jesus says i am and you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven he's actually quote okay there's three incredibly awesome things happening in this verse jesus's i am statement implies something like deity i'll get there in a second then he quotes you'll see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power this is from psalm 110 verse 1 and then you'll also see me coming in the clouds of heaven when you take all three of these together they're a powerful case i think for the divinity of christ a high christology in other words so let's walk through them one at a time uh let's first take the ion statement jesus says i am um let's see here um okay the i am statement um many of you already know this right because you've read john's gospel and it has the i am statements of jesus there's obviously an i am i am is a divine title right i am by itself is used as a divine title this is exodus 3 14. or you also need to couple that with isaiah 43 10 and verse 13 because those passages god very makes it very clear that simply saying i am by itself can be a divine title so jesus uses that phrase in verse 62 it's i am eggo a me in the greek that's where what what's there in the greek of the old testament the septuagint in those same passages now jesus there's a debate on this right like some people say look it's just coincidental jesus is really just saying i am the christ the son of the blessed one he's not also saying i am god but son of the blessed one that is a divine title right he's the son of the blessed one he's the son of god that's not annoying humans aren't going to be called that it's called blasphemy by the high priest later when he confirms it but there's more so i'm going to build a case right now i could be wrong but i'm going to build a case why i think this i am statement in mark is meant to be like a deity statement from jesus that he's like claiming deity for himself well in mark uh 6 50 jesus is walking on water i've touched on this several times before so i'll briefly mention it here but in mark 6 50 they're terrified as he's gonna walk by them but then he decides to come to them right uh immediately he spoke with them and said to them take courage it is i do not be afraid this is i am this is ego amy in the english we translate it differently but it is and the reason why this is significant is because the passage that is being alluded to in mark here clearly alluded to is job chapter 9 verses 8 through 11. i won't walk you through the whole thing because i've done this before when we were taught through uh mark chapter six but this is this is where god is the one who alone he alone stretches out the heavens only god does that and what does he do he tramples down the waves of the sea that is alluded to in the description of jesus walking on the on the lake the sea of galilee who makes the bear in the orion the pleiades and the chambers of the south who does great things and unfathomable and wondrous works then job says this about god were he to pass by me i would not see him were he to move past me i would not perceive him and job's complaint throughout the book of job is he wishes there was a mediator between him and god he wishes someone could bring him near to god so he could be close to god and talk to god and understand god better he says god alone walks on the water jesus in mark's gospel walks on the water he says if he were to pass me by i would not see him well he's jesus in the passage is strange he's beginning to pass them by but guess what they see him he says i would not perceive him but guess what they do perceive him he goes look it's me it is i and the term he uses to describe himself is i am which can be a divine title i've talked about this in more detail but let me just summarize oh that's awesome we'll get there in a minute um jesus unlike in the old testament when he's like job's crying out oh if god was only near to me oh he walks in the water but he'll he'll just pass me by i can never see him jesus walks in the water he's god with us he's god drawing near to us he's god answering the cry of job in the cry of our hearts to know god and to be near god jesus then comes and in that context where he's doing something only god does he says i am then as i build my case here multiple pieces in my case for jesus using the i am statement in mark chapter 14 is that this is in the context of mark right in mark 6 50 there's a very deity like um laden passage the usage of i am in a passage that really feels like a deity of christ's passage in many ways and then he uses it again later in another passage that is just covered in deity related concepts are you the son of the blessed one that implies deity also jesus's use of daniel which we'll talk about in a minute the way he uses daniel implies his deity because he's the one who is worshipped by all nations and god alone or should receive that kind of worship and then luke in the gospel of luke says uh he has this you rightly say that i am right but so the i am statement is in luke as well as matthew or as well as mark but matthew it's not there in matthew matthew doesn't record all of what jesus says here he just says you have said so so he's matthew's emphasis is the high priest is the one who proclaimed it and jesus affirmed the high priest said who he was but again matthew's probably not recording word for word so we have two accounts there and it's also consistent with jesus's use of i am in the gospel of john right jesus clearly uses i am as a divine title in john and unless you're going to take john as being like invented by somebody other than jesus here that seems like a pretty strong case to me so let's move forward um what is jesus condemned for in this trial notice this that i'm talking about the divinity of christ here right the gospel of mark has jesus as the divine one as god with us what does jesus condemn for jesus is not condemned for being the messiah this is a common mistake people make it wasn't wrong like it wasn't considered worthy of death to call yourself the messiah let me read you uh james edwards commentary on this again i think this is he has great points on this i think two weeks ago i was telling you where i thought he was wrong on something but here i think he's got he had the nail on the head and he says this it is often supposed that jesus claimed to be the messiah triggered the explosion from the high priest and his condemnation by the sanhedrin this is not the case it was no crime to call oneself the messiah or to be called so by others for as justin martyr later acknowledged the messiah would be only a man among men this is what the jews were thinking of the messiah at the time a century after jesus rabbi akuba openly declared barkokpa leader of the second revolt against rome to be the messiah and a massive people believed it even after barco's death the charge of blasphemy was thus not owing to any messianic claim perhaps not even to the charge that jesus would destroy the temple remember those were conflicting testimonies blasphemy was not breaking a holy commandment or even profaning a holy place but the audacity to ascribe god's honor to oneself or to equate oneself with god it was the claim to be god's son not messiah that sealed jesus fate before the sanhedrin the charge of blasphemy is powerful if indirect proof of jesus claim to be the son of god do you guys get the idea that this the reason why jesus is responded to the way he is from the high priest is because he's claiming divinity not just messianic identity right he's because it's important to jesus that when you think messiah you think son of god you think god with us and you also think must suffer for our sins these are two key issues and this these are core issues in christianity what i'm saying is the central faith of of christians in the identity of christ right that he's he's man and god and also his suffering on the cross for our sins and rising this is what was always central in the mind and heart of jesus for us to to learn and know and he orchestrated his life on earth so he could force this upon us reveal it to us and teach us this jesus confession let's talk about jesus confession here um mark 6 no 14 hold on i know what i'm doing mark chapter 14 look at what jesus says we talked about the i am now let's look at the rest i am and you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven this part coming with the clouds of heaven let's talk about this part first this combines there's two illusions here this is to daniel 7 verse 13 and 14. and when you look at the passage in daniel you'll see there are also allusions to the to the divinity of christ in this passage and when jesus says it in this context that seems to be the emphasis so daniel sees a vision of the end times and of the final kingdom of god and of the person who's going to rule over the final eternal kingdom so he says i kept looking in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him that that would be god right the father and to him was given dominion glory and a kingdom that all the peoples nations and men of every language might serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed so he's gonna you know reign as king over all nations all people he'll be the ultimate ruler of all for all time and what is he he's the son of man and what is he going to be served by all people now that word serve is very interesting in the hebrew that word serve is generally used it's pretty much used to imply the worship of a deity it's religious worship service that's what it is and everyone's going to serve him now when you just take all the i remember i've talked about the subtle theology of mark it's sort of subtle but it's kind of in your face at the same time it's like if you if you realize what they're saying it's pretty it's pretty slap in the face with the deity of christ but here put it all together it's a very heavy passage also this son of man by the way this puts jesus his son a man's statement in context jesus when he calls himself son of man he doesn't just mean he's human he means he's the eschatological like the end times ruler over all of god's kingdom receiving service and being over all nations and all people for all time so he's obviously claiming more than just being a human um but the um the interesting thing is about him coming in the clouds or with the clouds so depending on your translation and between mark and daniel it's written slightly differently with the clouds on the clouds and this connects to psalm 68 4 and deuteronomy 33 26 where it's god yahweh who rides on the clouds yahweh now this is kind of a big deal i've talked about it before so i won't get into details about it but it's kind of like a thing right like like they would know it like if you're part of the ancient near eastern context you would know that the claim to be the one who's coming on the clouds or with the clouds that's kind of a big claim like it's a deity claim and the son of man is coming with the cloud so that implies deity as well subtly at least jesus is also saying he's going to judge them now this is ironic because he's standing before the judges of israel and they're judging him and he tells them he's going to judge them now some will later on say that jesus when he's on the cross and he says like god why have you forsaken me that jesus is totally confused here's an apologetic moment for us right apologetics like defending the faith and they'll say jesus is confused he's on the cross he doesn't know what's going on he's confused he's in despair yet literally standing before the men who are going to condemn him he tells them i'm going to judge you one day obviously jesus is not confused that's um something that bartyman should stop saying the next passage jesus quotes is from psalm 110. and in verse one and i it's gonna be a longer study today i apologize for those who are bothered by that if you ever find my studies are too long you always can stop watching the video i find that that works very very well but i can't help it man there's too much good stuff to share all right psalm 110 one says the lord says to my lord sit in my right hand until i make your enemies your footstool okay remember um he said sitting at the right hand of power now commentaries all agree jesus is quoting psalm 110 1. in fact this is the most commonly quoted verse in the entire new testament it quotes this verse of the bible more than anywhere else jesus had previously used this verse to imply his deity let me go there i just do you see everything about this is like pointing to the deity of christ in mark's gospel which some would say have a low christology mark 12 35 jesus talks about psalm 110 1 and he actually does kind of a bible study on it he says how is it that the scribes say that christ is the son of david right what's the identity of the christ is he merely the son of david david himself said in the spirit and he quotes the psalm the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand until i put your enemies beneath your feet david himself calls him lord so in what sense is he his son jesus wants this the careful theology of the new testament to be in place in what sense is he david's son oh according to his human lineage he's from the line of david through mary but he's also david's lord because before david ever existed jesus was the the almighty and so yeah that's what jesus quotes when he stands before um before them and they're asking are you the son of the blessed and he quotes this verse because he's trying to say um sorry let me take us back there because he's trying to say yes like i am deity laden statement and you shall see the son of man sitting at the right hand of power deity laden verse reference coming with the clouds of heaven deity laden eschatological daniel 7 reference and i think that this is very powerful very powerful so one of the key things that mark wants us to know is jesus is more glorious than they expected he's god with us um the other thing is that jesus has to suffer and die that's the other thing and this we start to get into in verse 63 tearing his clothes the high priest said what further need do we have of witnesses tearing his clothes was a traditional thing they would do like it was meant to say i've heard a horrible blasphemy and i'm responding to it oddly he's the one blaspheming christ right now in reality then it says you've heard him blasphemy how does it seem to you and they all condemned him to be deserving of death so again they're not actually giving him the death penalty they don't have the power to do that it seems like they're agreeing okay guys let's use our authority to try to get pilate to kill him but then they can sort of say hey it's on pilot like we don't have to follow our normal procedures they're kind of trying to get around the real rule of law here and so they condemn him to be deserving of death this makes you wonder if nicodemus was around if josephus joseph of arimathea was around they were both part of this council but they may not have been there if they all condemned it to death or it might be that mark just says all meaning like a large majority so we'll just say they all committed to death or might be that they weren't invited people didn't know that nicodemus was interested in jesus they may have deliberately not invited him to this nighttime meeting our in american history we've had times where congressmen were simply not invited to things because people didn't want them to vote mark 14 65 some began to spit at him and to blindfold him and to beat him with their fists and to say to him prophesy and the officers received him with slaps in the face the treatment that jesus gets here is shocking shocking treatment it's like a mocking game that they do to jesus where they blindfold him pardon me they blindfold him first and then they punch him and then they mock him hey tell us who hit you that's why they say prophesy they're like say tell us who hit you and they're handing them to officer and officer and each officer who takes him next hits him again jesus his his abuse and his suffering did not begin on the cross it started way earlier um at this point he's tired he's stressed out at more than about as stressed out as you could possibly be as we see from the drops of blood that he's sweating is that medical condition is a high stress thing and now he's being beaten now when somebody hits you and you see it coming you brace for impact if you don't see it coming it's a lot worse and he's blindfolded and being hit i just think god is so patient god loves these people so much that he wants these same people beating jesus to be saved he doesn't just strike them dead like he doesn't thanos snap them out of existence you may have been raging against these people but jesus's heart is father forgive them they don't know what they're doing so powerful now the irony here i said this passage is layered with irony but the irony here is they're saying prophesy as if him not prophesying on demand is proof that they that their skepticisms are right about jesus but he had already prophesied about them in mark 10 33 he said behold we're going to jerusalem and the son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death and they will hand and will hand them over to the gentiles they will mock him and spit on him and this is exactly what they're doing mocking and spitting him scourge him and kill him they're going to do these things so jesus is actually he already prophesied about them as they mock him for not being able to prophesy that's how far off it is now isaiah 50. this is why today is going to be a long study because we're going to get into a bunch of isaiah right now i've been wanting to do this for a while these are the servant songs of isaiah now isaiah 50 verse 6 is a verse that i think is being fulfilled in jesus's life right now i gave my back to those who strike me and my cheeks to those who pluck out the beard i did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting this is exactly in fact because of this i'm thinking they pulled out his beard they or at least ripped out parts of it right as a way of mocking him jesus gave himself over to these things it is descriptive it fits but here's where a lot of people and understandably okay i'm not going to just call you like some sort of mean meanie for doing this they'll wonder like hey mike are you really taking these verses right in the old testament or are you getting them out of context you know sometimes people go well jesus fulfilled that verse in that verse and i look at the passage and i go i don't see how that's about jesus like that verse sounds good but is that passage really about him and i can understand some of the problems here part of the issue is the old testament is complex and big and you have to study it in detail often things you think are out of context that the new testament authors quote when you study it more you find out it was totally in context it was just smarter than we thought it was well this is going to be one of those cases um jesus to set this up i'm going to talk about isaiah and the four servant songs of isaiah but to set this up let me just say jesus clearly i mean clearly and abundantly in mark's gospel and the other gospels and later in the new testament the other authors as well they show that jesus is suffering is connected to isaiah 53 in particular isaiah 53 most of the most of this chapter is quoted in the new testament referring to jesus jesus sees it in this context when he says his blood's poured out for many he's referring to isaiah 53. and i've already talked about some of this in detail so i won't go into it all but what you may not realize oh man i and i've been going on for a while so if you need to take a break just take a pause come back come back tomorrow next week fine but this is so cool that you get this isaiah has four what are called servant songs isaiah 53 is the fourth and final of the servant songs i'm going to look with you at the first three so you can see that these really are talking about christ and he really is actually fulfilling prophecy given hundreds of years before he was born so let's look at these servant songs and we'll see how they're about ultimately jesus i'm going to do a quick survey of them the first is in isaiah 42 verses 1 through 4 it's only four verses pardon me um here it says behold my servant whom i uphold and that's why we call it the servant song it's it's it's a poem and it's about the servant the servant of isaiah who god earlier in isaiah he uses the term servant to talk about different people but these servant songs are talking about one particular person jesus behold my servant whom i behold whom i uphold my chosen one in whom my soul delights i have put my spirit upon him think of the baptism of john he will bring forth justice to the nations he will not cry out or raise his voice nor make his voice heard in the street he won't do it through through violence he's not starting a riot a bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish he will faithfully bring forth justice he will not be disheartened or crushed until he's established justice in the earth and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law now here it's pretty vague there's not i mean these verses are actually quoted about jesus in the gospel of john about the bruised reed and all that jesus talks about himself like that but let me just say this give you some context you might not notice if you just read this passage by itself earlier in isaiah isaiah 40 41 it's dealing with false idols and it uses this word behold like a key word it's like behold and describes the false idols behold and describes the people worshiping the idols then finally it comes to behold my servant so in other words hey israel israel you've got false idols you've got people worshiping false idols i want you to reject those the one i want you to look at is my servant right that begins the servant songs he is the one whom we are to follow after he's not an idol he's going to be something a lot better than that so isaiah 49 1 gives us the second servant song listen to me islands and pay attention you peoples from afar the lord called me from the womb now this one's in the mouth of the servant he's the one speaking the lord called me from the womb from the body of my mother he named me jesus was named before his birth he has made my mouth like a sharp sword in the shadow of his hand he concealed me he's also made me a select arrow he's hidden me in his quiver all this those three like phrases uh clauses these these are all about jesus being hidden the servant is hidden he's prophesied but he's not known this is so consistent with the revelation of christ he and the whole messianic secret theme in mark it is it's like this was always the player but jesus didn't unders you guys didn't understand it till now um verse three he said to me you are my servant israel in whom i will show my glory now here's where some and even modern jews are going to say mike this isn't about jesus this isn't about the messiah this is about israel but remember he's called israel but let's read on because it gets a lot better um you'll see why it's not israel but i said i have toiled in vain i've spent my strength for nothing in vanity yet surely the justice due to me is with the lord and my reward is with my god so here's one who he's suffering and he's not getting what he deserves right he's suffering instead of getting glory and he's trusting himself to god this is jesus heading to the cross verse 5 and now says the lord who formed me from the womb to be his servant that's what he called a servant song to bring back jacob to him so that israel might be gathered to him check this out this is this is the one who's bringing israel back to god he's called israel but he's bringing israel back to god why is this this is because and if you guys have been following my content for a while you know i love typology in the old testament jesus in the old testament it's one of my favorite subjects do you know that typology starts with the old testament like this isn't a new testament thing where we're saying jesus is the bronze serpent jesus is the rock that was struck jesus is the greater moses jesus is the great high priest it's it's also old testament here in the servant song in the second servant song jesus has called israel but then we find out that he is one who's bringing israel back to god so he stands representing all of israel jesus is the greater israel he represents all of israel on the cross but it's bigger than that because he's not just saving israel so he goes on for i'm honored in the sight of the lord and my god is my strength he says it is too is it too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of jacob and the restored ones it is too small uh of israel uh the preserved ones of israel so the the the idea of just saving israel alone that's too small i'm also gonna make you a light of the nations jesus is the light of the world so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth do you catch this this is um this is beautiful jesus is the one who's going to save all people that's that's that's what we're getting here in this passage and then this says the lord the redeemer of israel and its holy one to the despised one to the one abhorred by the nation that would be probably the jewish nation they're gonna abhor their own savior to the servants the servant of the rulers kings will see and arise princes will also bow down because of the lord who is faithful the holy one of israel who has chosen you yeah you'll be despised you'll be but but eventually they'll all bow before you jesus is the name of all names this is all old testament this is i don't know if it blows your mind it was written before 600 years before jesus shows up but we get more and you start to realize these servant songs are are giving a progressive revelation of who the messiah is going to be it climaxes in isaiah 53 but it builds all the way through so in isaiah 50 verses 4 through 10 we have the third servant song the lord god has given me the tongue of disciples that i may know how to sustain the weary one with a word he'll be a teacher he'll teach god's god's words to people he awakens me by morning by morning he awakens my ear to listen as a disciple the lord has opened my ear and i was not disobedient nor did i turn back john talks about this a lot where jesus he only does what the father tells him to do he's following a set plan the whole time he's walking the earth he's doing what the father declares and so he's obedient he does not turn back we're watching that right now when he went to the garden of gethsemane he walked forward to be betrayed he did not turn back he was obedient even then and if you think i'm oh mike you're reading that out of context no i'm not look how's he what's he not turning back from he gave his back to those who strike him right i give my cheeks to those who pluck out the beard i did not cover my face from humiliation and spitting and that's the verse that brought us here jesus before the the soldiers of the temple being beaten being spit upon being humiliated he gave himself voluntarily for this this is 600 years before christ that we read on for the lord god helps me therefore i'm not disgraced therefore i've set my face like flint and i know that i will not be ashamed jesus isn't confused he knows he's going to the cross so he can go and rise from the dead and he can save us all he also knows he'll be vindicated now the the resurrection in the new testament is seen as the vindication of christ he's vindicated or proven true by the resurrection and proves that he was who he claimed he who vindicates me is near who will contend with me let us stand up to each other who has a case against me remember nobody had a case against him let him draw near to me behold the lord god helps me who is he who condemns me right that's that's the high priest that's these guys they condem but behold they will all wear out like a garment the moth will eat them they're temporary he's going to reign forever who is among you that fears the lord that obeys the voice of his servant that walks in darkness and has no light let him trust in the name of the lord and rely on his god and that's how that song ends with this call hey no matter how dark things are remember remember the darkness jesus went through no matter how dark things are for you you trust in god your vindication will come true you wait on the lord you trust in him see jesus on the cross know jesus rises from the dead you might be going through hard times too but it's coming you just trust in him beautiful that just leads us to isaiah 53 where jesus has i'm not going to go through it for the sake of time and because i'll talk more about it later as we talk about jesus on the cross in the coming weeks but isaiah 52 verse 13 through 53 12 this is the most detailed theological explanation of the of the death of christ for our sins in the entire bible and it's it's not only in isaiah the climax of the ultimate you know purpose of the servant the servant songs but throughout mark and all the gospels throughout mark though clearly isaiah 53 is the focal point of how we should interpret jesus on the cross it's quoted all the time it's alluded to all the time jesus himself starts off alluding to it when he's talking with the disciples so really beautiful really powerful know these verses aren't brought out of context at all um but i don't want to miss application here okay that's all beautiful theology stuff um i kind of alluded to this already but let me just bring us to the application when i see jesus being hit being beaten i don't just have a suffering savior i've also got an example to follow and peter put it this way remember the same peter that couldn't couldn't handle that jesus was going through this later he got it and he says for you've been called to the for this purpose since christ also suffered for for you leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps who committed no sin nor was any deceit found in his mouth and while being reviled he did not revile in return while suffering he uttered no threats but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously the application for us is pretty simple jesus wants us to suffer the way he did which means giving kindness in exchange for pain and hurt and i mean please christians i don't know what suffering you're going through but there's there's there's going to be people that mistreat you today respond to them with kindness and grace turn the other cheek to them and it's hard to do this when you look at them and you think you are not deserving of this but when you look to jesus and you think that you didn't deserve what he gave you it gives you i don't know i feel like it goes from impossible to turn the other cheek to turn kindness for for for rudeness but i look to jesus it becomes like hard not to like oh my goodness the pride and arrogance of me that i wouldn't turn the other cheek if my savior turned the cheek how can i not if my savior was willing to suffer so much how can i not all right let's let's finish up today by going through the rest of this section which is just about peter and his um his denials mark 14 66 as peter was below in the courtyard one of the servant girls of the high priest came and seeing peter warming himself she looked at him and said see said you also excuse me you also were with jesus the nazarene but he denied it saying i neither know nor understand what you were talking about and he went out onto the porch so he kind of tries to get away from her the servant girl saw him and began once more to say to the bystanders this is one of them okay this is kind of embarrassing this moment if you think of peter he's he's like running from a servant girl like he's fleeing from a servant girl this is the guy who pulled the sword out and cut off the high priestess he's obviously having some changes in his perspective he's still trying to follow trying to get as close as he can but he does not want to be identified with christ at this point um it makes sense that they call him someone who's with jesus the nazarene because they're not in nazareth so calling jesus the nazarene is the way that they would talk about jesus in jerusalem especially if they don't they don't believe in him but it's also embarrassing because it's a servant girl but but that's servant girl you might think oh he ran for a girl but she's actually kind of embarrassing because she's the servant of the high priest but she's not just any old servant girl she's a servant of the high priest so that is kind of scary she is dangerous she can report to you know peter to the high priest so he denies it then in verse um 70 but he again denied it now he's denying it from the bystanders and after a little while the bystanders were again saying to peter surely you are one of them for your galilean too now the other gospels revealed to us that the reason why they thought he was galilean because of an accent he had a vocal accent so israel's kind of like say england where you have like the london accent and you have a different accent in the north the different areas in england have different accents or so i have been told and so they're like this as well galilee has a different way of speaking they just sound different um probably not a flattering thing to have the galilean accent and um in fact later they know they're unlearned man partly maybe just because of their accents then in verse 70 when we get his response but he began to curse and swear i do not know this man you were talking about notice what he does he curses and he swears um this is uh we don't want to read this without knowing the history he's not cussing like the the f word or something like that that's not what peter's doing here he's probably cursing this is the word anathema right this is this is like the word for um let me be accursed so he's bringing curses down on either himself or jesus we don't know for sure because it's vague the text doesn't tell us what he was cursing he may have been cursing him himself maybe jesus maybe both saying something like um god do so and such and such to me or worse if i'm not telling the truth right now so he's promising he's swearing he's making an oath but he's also accompanying it with a curse god strike me down god make me suffer if i'm not telling the truth this this is the low point for peter he said jesus i will die with you but now in the in the name of god probably or something like that he he denies him and he asks for curses to be brought down upon him now i don't know if you were peter i don't know if you might be thinking god can never forgive me now like he can never forgive me for that jesus said if if you deny me before men i'll deny you before my father in heaven and i denied him before men this is exactly what i did but it turns out that peter was forgiven that this whole denying me before men isn't if you ever do it once it's if this is the choice you make and you stick to it but if at any point you turn you repent you turn from that you can be restored i think that this is an example of how major major lapses and failures are forgivable are forgivable in christ those who think oh i've done too much i went too far god can't forgive me that's just not true and i think god picked peter and paul david i think he picked these people partly because they failed so big right paul was persecuting and trying to murder christians peter denied christ david committed adultery and murder i think these people are partly picked so that we can have hope in the grace of god that he can still use us even though we've majorly failed then we get the very last verse we're covering today immediately rooster crowed a second time and peter remembered how jesus had made the remark to him before rooster crows twice you will deny me three times and he began to weep he began to weep this is the low point for peter he's kind of lost everything he's scared he's terrified of dying i didn't put it on the screen there for you he's terrified of dying though and just compare this to the peter we get later on who in second peter tells us soon i'll be putting off my tent as the lord showed me he knew he was heading to a painful death and he's like you know i wish i could stick around just to help you guys like but he's enjoying the ideas going to glory this is so different like when you see this is him seeing the death of christ but not the resurrection of christ when he sees the resurrection of christ he's then willing to put off his own tent and follow jesus we've got to be like that you got to be like that so peter peters peter's not such a such a terrible loser he's just kind of like you and me we we kind of need need his example um so the um the in conclusion the messianic secret stuff in mark's gospel i think hopefully i've showed through the careful theology that jesus is giving us in this gospel not just mark jesus is giving us that we have a messiah who is not a mere social deliverer but he's divine right he's the son of god he's the one who says i am right with all this like tension in his voice and he is also the one who will suffer and die for our sins in our place he is he is giving us the central beliefs of christian faith they're coming straight from christ the disciples talk about them later but they come from christ so this is the theology of the gospel right here in the gospel of mark beautiful stuff so we're going to pray before we do that uh next week next week i'm going to be digging into pilate and barabbas jesus before pilate the whole issue of barabbas that kind of thing so it's going to be getting really really neat really neat stuff beautiful beautiful stuff and i hope you all will stick with me um i know i'm doing long studies but i can't help it like i study all week and have a little stuff to share with you you should see all the stuff i cut out let's pray um lord we thank you for your word we thank you for the example that we have in jesus and even the example of restoration from failure that we have in peter as well as the warning about our own attitude towards suffering i mean so much of the bible seems to be trying to teach us to have a different attitude towards suffering than we that we've got help us to do that help us to look to jesus not only his death but his resurrection so that we could see the goodness in all of it we pray for your glory in our lives we pray lord that even today you would help us right now today to be very deliberate and purposeful about returning kindness for those who who hurt us who are cruel to us who spitefully use us to bless them to love them to pray for them in jesus name amen amen all right y'all uh thanks for joining me really blessed for those of you guys that come and um this wouldn't happen without the support i'm not even i'm asking for support i'm just saying thank you for those of you who've been supporting this ministry that's such a huge uh thing like literally we're getting i mean at least 50 000 people a day that are watching videos right now and it's all free content that's out there and i'm able to do it because and and continue putting everything out free because of the support and i'm just uh and we're supported we're well supported so i'm not even asking for more i'm just saying thank you for those who've been taking care of us that's you know really neat really neat your partners in this ministry and i guess that's all i got to say so take care see you guys on friday

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 30,248

Rating: 4.9399142 out of 5

Keywords: mike winger, mark, the mark series, mark 14, the mark series part 62, Jesus on trial, how Jesus used his trial to teach Christology, better than you think, Christology, Jesus before the high priest, the trial of Jesus

Id: 062WgzM6bA8

Length: 80min 25sec (4825 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021