A Question of Identity

Mark 12:35-37 (NIV)

³⁵ While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? ³⁶ David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."' ³⁷ David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?" The large crowd listened to him with delight.

In Mark 8 Jesus asked His disciples two questions regarding His identity: “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” Even though Peter answered the questions correctly, shortly afterwards he demonstrated he hadn’t really understood what he had confessed. Now Jesus poses a question to the crowd (but probably really directed to the teachers of the law in the crowds) turning their “theology” upside down: "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? ³⁶ David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."' ³⁷ David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?"

These teachers of the law knew the Scriptures, but they didn’t understand the Scriptures. They missed seeing Jesus as the fulfillment of the Scriptures (Lk 4:17-21). They read the Scriptures through the lens of their Oral Traditions (doctrine), rather than through the lens of revelation of the Spirit. In John 5:39-40 we read “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (see also Ro 10:1-4; Gal 1:11-12). What is God’s revelation to you today as you read the verses below?

John 10:10 (NIV)

¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

John 14:6 (NIV)

⁶ Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Romans 5:8 (NIV)

⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

2 Corinthians 5:17 & 21 (NIV)

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!...²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV)

⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

1 John 2:2 (NIV)

² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Jesus, in You I learn about grace, experience grace, and become transformed by grace, in other words You for You are grace incarnate – John 1:1416.

Jesus in and through You may I increasingly become grace-giving even as I have been and am grace-receiving (Eph 4:32)