INTRODUCTION
The Triumphal
Entry occurred on what is known today among many as “Palm
Sunday.” This study will also cover what happened over the
next several days, just before the last Passover or the Last
Supper. The things that happened during the next few days
following the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem are largely
related to that particular event.
Normally, the Triumphal Entry is interpreted to represent
the time when Yeshua (Jesus) came and officially offered
Himself as the King of the Jews and as Israel’s Messiah. But
that is not the best interpretation of the actual
significance of the Triumphal Entry, because Yeshua had
already been offering Himself as the Messiah and the King of
the Jews for the previous three and one-half years. Israel
had already rejected the Messiahship of Jesus about a year
and one-half earlier (Mat. 12:22-45). At that point, Yeshua
said that the generation of His day was guilty of committing
the “unpardonable sin”; therefore, they were under the
judgment that would come in the year A.D. 70. Furthermore,
the Kingdom offer was then rescinded, to be re-offered to a
later Jewish generation: the generation of the Great
Tribulation. The Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem was not for
the purpose of officially offering Himself as the King;
there was a different purpose.
I. THE
SETTING ASIDE OF THE LAMB OF GOD
The Triumphal Entry took
place in the context of the Passover. The significance of
this particular Passover was that this was the Passover when
Yeshua knew that the final atonement for sin would be made,
by virtue of His death (Lk. 22:14).
The date when this event occurred, insofar as the Jewish
calendar is concerned, was the tenth of the Jewish month of
Nisan. According to Exodus 12:3-6, it was on the tenth day
of the month of Nisan that the lamb was to be set aside.
Between the tenth and the fourteenth of the month, the lamb
was to be inspected and tested to be sure that it was
without spot and without blemish (Ex. 12:5). Beginning on
the evening of the fourteenth of Nisan, the Passover
occurred. So the Triumphal Entry was not the time that Jesus
was offering Himself as the King, that was nothing new, but
rather, this was the day of the setting aside of the Lamb of
God. What happened over the next several days was the
testing of the Lamb to prove that the Lamb of God was
without blemish and without spot (I Pet. 1:19).
John 11:55 and 12:1, 9-11 state that Yeshua arrived in the
town of Bethany, which by then had become a suburb of
Jerusalem. He arrived six days before the passover, which
would make it the eighth day of Nisan. This was the regular
Jewish custom during the Passover feast. Those who would
come to Jerusalem for the observance of the Feast of the
Passover would arrive in the Jerusalem vicinity on the
eighth of Nisan. Yeshua was keeping with that pattern. Two
days later was the tenth of Nisan, the day of the Triumphal
Entry, the day of the setting aside of the Lamb of God.
Again, the purpose of the Triumphal Entry was not to offer
Himself as the King or to re-offer the Kingdom. These things
had been rejected and, for that generation, the rejection
was terminal. There would be no re-offer of the Kingdom
until the Great Tribulation. What happened on this day was
that the Passover Lamb of God was set aside for a period of
testing to prove that He was indeed without blemish and
without spot.
The Gospel accounts detail what happened. Between Bethany
and Jerusalem there was a town called Bethphage. As Jesus
left Bethany and was passing by the town of Bethphage, He
sent His disciples to fetch a colt. Mark 11:2 states that
they would find “a colt tied, whereon no man ever yet sat.”
They were to take this colt to Yeshua because this would be
the colt on which He would ride into Jerusalem. A miracle
takes place here which few people notice. The Gospels of
Mark and Luke clearly state that this was a colt “upon which
no one had ever sat.” Normally, if one rides a colt upon
which no one has ever sat, the colt would buck because it
has not yet been broken. In this case, the colt did not
buck, showing Jesus’ authority as the Messiah and as the
Creator over the animal kingdom. In verse 3, Yeshua told His
disciples that if anyone objected to their taking this colt,
all they needed to say was “The Lord has need of him” and
the colt would be immediately released, with no further
objections raised. The colt was brought to Yeshua, and He
rode into Jerusalem in fulfillment of a messianic prophecy
found in Zechariah 9:9, which states that the Messiah would
ride into Jerusalem upon just such a colt. Matthew 21:4-5
emphasized this as being the fulfillment of that prophecy.
Just as He was riding the colt into Jerusalem, suddenly the
buzzing of rumors began to spread that Jesus was coming,
riding in as the Messianic King of the Jews. The Jewish
people responded; and their response was something
significant. John 12:12-13 states:
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On the morrow a great multitude that had come to the feast,
when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the
branches of the palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and
cried out, Hosanna: Blessed is he that comes in the name of
the Lord, even the King of Israel.
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Mark 11:8-10 states:
| And many
spread their garments upon the way; and others branches,
which they had cut from the fields. And they that went
before, and they that followed, cried, Hosanna; Blessed is
he that comes in the name of the Lord: Blessed is the
kingdom that comes, the kingdom of our father David: Hosanna
in the highest.
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Matthew 21:8-9 reads:
| And the most
part of the multitude spread their garments in the way; and
others cut branches from the trees, and spread them in the
way. And the multitudes that went before him, and that
followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David:
Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in
the highest.
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Luke 19:37-38 reads:
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And as he was
now drawing nigh, even at the descent of the mount of
Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to
rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty
works which they had seen; saying, Blessed is the King that
comes in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in
the highest.
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The four Gospel accounts together give a full description of
the responses of the multitudes. They responded in several
ways. First, they cut off palm branches and laid them before
the feet of the colt upon which Yeshua was riding. Secondly,
they cried out Hosanna in Hebrew, Hoshanah. Thirdly,
they said, Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.
Normally, these are not actions that are performed during
the Passover, rather, they are performed during the Feast of
Tabernacles. The response of the multitudes showed that they
were expecting the Feast of Tabernacles to be fulfilled on
this occasion. According to Zechariah 14:16-21, the Feast of
Tabernacles is to be fulfilled by means of the Messianic
Kingdom. The declaration, Hosanna, and the actions of the
multitudes showed that they were expecting the Kingdom to be
set up on that occasion in fulfillment of the Feast of
Tabernacles.
However, they did not yet realize that Jesus was not coming
to fulfill the Feast of Tabernacles, rather, He was coming
to fulfill the Passover. The Passover was not to be
fulfilled by the establishment of the Kingdom, but by the
death of the Messiah. The multitudes misinterpreted the
purpose of His riding into Jerusalem on that occasion.
Furthermore, one of the greetings they applied to Yeshua
was, Blessed is he that comes in
the name of Jehovah, which comes from Psalm
118:26, a messianic psalm of the Old Testament. From a
Jewish frame of reference, that particular phrase is an
official Messianic greeting. The rabbis taught that, when
the Messiah comes, He must be greeted with these words. When
the people applied these words to Jesus, they were
proclaiming Him, by the thousands, to be the Messiah of
Israel.
But while the masses were proclaiming Him to be the Messiah,
the Pharisees did not go along with them. The Pharisaic
response is recorded in John 12:19:
The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Behold how
ye prevail nothing; lo, the world is gone after him.
Luke 19:39-40 adds: And some of the
Pharisees from the multitude said unto him, Teacher, rebuke
your disciples. And he answered and said, I tell you that,
if these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out.
To the Pharisees’ objections, Yeshua responded that there
must be a testimony to the fact that the Messiah had come.
If the multitude had been silent, the stones would have
cried out the very same lines.
That Jesus was not riding into Jerusalem to offer Himself as
the King with the Kingdom is made clear by what happens
next. In the context of the many Hosannas and greetings of
Blessed is he that comes in the
name of the Lord, in the context of many
proclamations of His Messiahship, the words of Yeshua
remained words of judgment. Luke 19:41-44 states:
| And when he drew nigh, he saw the
city and wept over it, saying, If you had known in this day,
even you, the things which belong unto peace! but now they
are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you,
when your enemies shall cast up a bank about you, and
compass you round, and keep you in on every side, and shall
dash you to the ground, and your children within you; and
they shall not leave in you one stone upon another; because
you knew not the time of your visitation.
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If Jesus had simply offered the Kingdom as He rode into
Jerusalem on that day of the Triumphal Entry, He would have
been accepted as the Messiah by the multitudes right then
and there! He was being proclaimed as the Messiah by
thousands upon thousands of Jews. It cannot be claimed that
this was a minority, because Matthew 21:8 states that it was
true for the most part of the multitude. The objectors were
the leaders, but the masses were proclaiming His
messiahship. If Yeshua was offering Himself once again as
the King and re-offering the Kingdom, they were accepting
it. However, that was not the purpose of the Triumphal
Entry. For no amount of Hosannas and
Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord
could change what had already occurred a year-and-a-half
earlier. The unpardonable sin had already been committed by
this generation. They had already rejected His Messiahship
on the grounds of demon possession; and because that sin was
exactly what He said it was, unpardonable, under no
circumstances could the judgment now be removed. Otherwise,
the unpardonable would have become pardonable, negating the
very words of Jesus. In spite of the many Hosannas, in spite
of the many messianic proclamations, because the rejection
had already occurred and the unpardonable sin had already
been committed, the words of Yeshua were words of judgment.
Jesus once again reiterated that Jerusalem was destined for
destruction. The Temple was to be torn down until not one
stone stood upon another. The reason for this is at the end
of verse 44, “because you knew not the time of your
visitation.” Because Jerusalem had not recognized at the
proper time that the Messiah had come, the judgment was
still going to occur. The time of your visitation, which
they did not know, was in Matthew 12. After a manifold
testimony of His Messiahship, after Yeshua proved Himself by
many miracles, signs, and wonders, after they heard Him
teach and preach and proclaim for the past year and a half,
they had rejected Him. Thus, they did not know the time of
their visitation. Because of this, they were still under
judgment.
Again, the purpose of the Triumphal Entry was not to offer
the Kingdom, but the purpose was to set aside the Lamb of
God in preparation for the Passover sacrifice. Mark 11:11
states that He went on and entered into Jerusalem. Greater
details of what happened once He entered the city are given
in Matthew 21:10-11: And when he
was come into Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying,
Who is this? And the multitudes said, This is the prophet,
Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.
The whole city understood the significance of what was
happening. But, once again, the chief priests, the
Sadducees, and the scribes, the Pharisees, objected in
Matthew 21:15-16:
| But when the
chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that
he did, and the children that were crying in the temple and
saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were moved with
indignation, and said unto him, Hear you what these are
saying? And Jesus said unto them, Yea: did ye never read,
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have perfected
praise?
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When the Pharisees objected to the worship Yeshua received,
His response was to let them know that the Messiah had these
things coming to Him. Jesus’ acceptance of the praise and
worship showed that He accepted their claims that He was the
Messiah. At that point, Yeshua left Jerusalem and returned
to Bethany (v. 17).
On that day, the tenth of Nisan, the Lamb of God was set
aside. From the tenth until the fourteenth, this Lamb would
be tested to show that He was indeed without blemish and
without spot.
II. THE
TESTING OF THE LAMB OF GOD
After the Triumphal
entry, Yeshua returned to Bethany where He spent every
night. From this point on, He proceeded to Jerusalem on a
daily basis. During the next three or four days, Yeshua was
tested by four different groups to make sure that He was
without blemish and without spot.
A. By the
Priests and the Elders
The first attack or test came from the priests and the
elders and the question here is one of authority. This is
recorded in Matthew 21:23- 22:14; Mark 11:27-12:12; and Luke
20:1-19.
The priests and elders approached Yeshua and asked Him the
question recorded in Mark 11:28:
... By what authority do you these things? or who gave you
this authority to do these things?
According to Pharisaism, authoritative teaching required
previous rabbinic authorization. Since Jesus was teaching
the Scriptures with authority, they asked where He received
the authority to interpret the Scriptures as He did.
Luke 20:1 describes the occasion on which they approached
Him, “he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching
the gospel.” It is while He was teaching the multitudes that
the Pharisees approached Him with this question to see if
they could discredit Him before the very masses that had, on
the day of the Triumphal Entry, proclaimed Him by myriads to
be the Messiah of Israel.
It is a common procedure among the Jewish people to answer
questions by asking questions of their own. There is a
Jewish story that tells about a Gentile approaching a Jewish
rabbi and asking him the question, “Why do you Jews always
answer questions by asking questions?” The rabbi responded,
“Why not?” So in keeping with this Jewish motif, Yeshua
responded, answering their question with one of His own in
Luke 20:3-4: And he answered and
said unto them, I also will ask you a question; and tell me:
The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?
He asked them to answer a question first. Did the ministry
of John the Baptist originate from Heaven? Was it a
God-ordained ministry or did John do it all from his own
human efforts?
The priests and the elders were then caught in a dilemma all
their own. If they said that John’s ministry was not of God,
it is they who would be discredited before the masses,
because the people had considered John to be a prophet and a
martyr for the faith. But if they said that the baptism of
John was of Heaven and that John had a God-ordained
ministry, then Yeshua could say, “I received My authority
from John.” It was John who baptized Jesus and who also
identified Him as the “Lamb of God which takes away the sin
of the world.” So, if they said that John’s ministry was
from Heaven, then Yeshua could say, “I received My authority
from John.” Being caught on these “horns of a dilemma,” they
refused to answer the question. Because they refused to
answer Jesus’ question, He refused to answer their question.
Then Yeshua proceeded to tell three parables. The first is
the Parable of the Two Sons, found in Matthew 21:28-32. The
parable tells about a father who had asked his two sons to
do something. One son said, “I will do it,” but did not; the
second son said, “I won’t do it,” but did. So in the end, it
was the son who said he would not do it who actually obeyed
the father. The parable made two points. First, sonship is
proved by obedience. While one can attain sonship purely by
faith, the evidence of sonship is by obedience. The second
point made by this parable is that the publicans and sinners
or prostitutes, the ones whom the Pharisees considered to be
outcasts, will enter the Kingdom while the Pharisees will
not. The Pharisees are like the son who said, “I will,” but
never did; while the publicans and prostitutes are those who
said, “I won’t,” but, in the end, they did obey. So sinners
will enter the Kingdom while the Pharisees will not, because
sonship is proved by obedience.
The second parable is the Parable of The Householder, found
in Matthew 21:33-46. This parable is about a householder who
leased his vineyard to the keepers of the vineyard, to
husbandmen. They were, of course, to give back a percentage
of the produce to the householder. This they refused to do,
so three different sets of servants were sent. All three
sets of servants were mistreated. Finally, the householder
sent his own son, assuming that they would indeed obey the
son; but they killed the son. The householder is God the
Father; the vineyard is a symbol of Israel in the Old
Testament; and the husbandmen are the leadership of Israel.
The point is that the Jewish leaders killed the prophets,
and now they would kill the Son. The three sets of servants
of the householder are the prophets of God. The first set
was the pre-exilic prophets, those who came before the
Babylonian Exile; the second set was the prophets who came
after the Babylonian Exile; and the third set was John the
Baptist and his disciples. All three were rejected. Now, God
the Father sent His Son, and the Son would also be rejected.
In fact, Jesus prophesied in this parable that the Son would
actually be killed.
Having stated the parable, Yeshua then made the application.
He pronounced the judgment in Luke 20:16:
He will come and destroy these
husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others. And when
they heard it, they said, God forbid.
The judgment that Yeshua described would come in the year
A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem, the Temple, and
the world-wide dispersion of the Jewish people. By quoting
Psalm 118:22-23, Jesus also pointed out that what was
happening was a fulfillment of prophecy. It was prophesied
that the Messiah would be rejected.
Then Yeshua made the application. First, there is a national
application: the offer of the Kingdom that was given to this
generation has been withdrawn. It will be re-offered to
another Jewish generation, the Jewish generation of the
Great Tribulation, according to Matthew 21:43:
... The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and
shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits
thereof.
This is not the Church, because the Church is not a nation
but is composed of individuals from many nations. He was
speaking of a nation, which is Israel. It would be withdrawn
from this generation of the nation and offered to another
generation of the nation. Secondly, as for the individual
application, those who stumbled over the Stone, Yeshua,
would find themselves eventually crushed to dust by the
Rejected Stone.
Then came the third parable, the Parable of the Wedding,
found in Matthew 22:1-14. The point of this parable was that
those who had been invited to the marriage feast would not
partake of it. Because this generation rejected the Kingdom,
which had been offered, they would lose the benefit of
having the Kingdom established in their day; they would miss
the marriage feast with which the Kingdom is destined to
begin.
B. By
the Pharisees and the Herodians
The second attack was a question of politics and it came
from the Pharisees and the Herodians. This is recorded in
Matthew 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17; and Luke 20:20-26.
The Pharisees and the Herodians were at opposite ends of the
political spectrum. The Herodians supported Roman rule
through the House of Herod, but the Pharisees objected to
it. Normally, these two groups would never have joined
together in any project whatsoever. They felt they had no
common ground, but because of their mutual animosity toward
Jesus’ claims to be the Messiah, they sided together against
Him. The Pharisees attacked His Messiahship because He did
not go along with the Pharisaic mold of what they expected
the Messiah to be. The Herodians objected because, by
claiming to be the Messiah, He was claiming to be Caesar’s
competitor and, therefore, would not honor the House of
Herod any more than John the Baptist did.
So they came to Yeshua to ask Him a question. This question
is recorded in Mark 12:14: ... Is
it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
According to Pharisaism,
to give tribute to Caesar was to own Caesar as king; and to
own Caesar as king, was to disown Jehovah. Furthermore, from
a political perspective, to pay taxes to Caesar was to
recognize Rome’s rule over Israel. The Zealot Party, among
the Pharisees in particular, objected to paying taxes to
Rome, because that would mean recognizing Rome’s right to
rule over Israel. If Jesus had answered, “Yes, it is lawful
to pay tribute to Caesar,” that would raise the anger of the
people, and Yeshua would be discredited among the masses who
had proclaimed Him to be the Messiah on the day of the
Triumphal Entry. But if Yeshua had said, “No, do not pay
tribute to Caesar,” then Jesus could be charged with
sedition and rebellion against Rome. If Yeshua answered one
way, the Pharisees would have a basis for accusation; if He
answered another way, the Herodians would have a basis for
accusation. That is why both groups were there asking this
question.
In Matthew 22:18-19, Jesus responded by pointing out that He
knew they were hypocrites and were trying to tempt Him, and
then told them: Show me the tribute
money. And they brought unto him a denarius.
Yeshua did not ask for a Jewish shekel coin, but He asked
for the Roman tribute coin which had the inscription and
picture of Caesar on it. It is also clear from the tense,
that no one there had the tribute coin. When Mark 12:16
states: And they brought it,
the picture is that someone had to go and fetch it, because
Pharisees, especially, were not allowed to carry a coin that
had the image of a man on it; that would have been
considered idolatry.
So they brought the tribute money to Jesus and He answered
their question by asking one of His own. In Mark 12:16, the
question was: ... Whose is this
image and superscription? ...
The only answer they could give was:
Caesar’s. Since this coin contained the image
of Caesar, it is obvious that, under Jewish law, such a coin
could not be used for personal use or for Temple use. The
only thing one could do with a coin like that was to return
it to Caesar.
So Yeshua taught in Matthew 22:21: ...
Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.
At this point, Jesus laid down the principle of separation
of religion and state and pointed out that there are two
areas of authority: divine authority and delegated
authority. Divine authority comes from God, but delegated
authority comes through Caesar. The payment of taxes to
Caesar did not nullify God’s rule, it only recognized God’s
delegated rule through this government. Eventually, Yeshua,
as the Messiah, will replace Caesar.
Since this was also the clear teaching of the Old Testament
that human governments have delegated authority from God,
even so Gentile governments can have authority over Israel.
Luke 20:26 states: And they were
not able to take hold of the saying before the people: and
they marvelled at his answer, and held their peace.
So, this attempt by the Pharisees and the Herodians to
discredit Jesus also ended in failure.
C. By the Sadducees
The third attack was a question of theology and this came
from the Sadducees. This is recorded in Matthew 22:23-33;
Mark 12:18-27; and Luke 20:27-40. The specific theological
issue was the question of the resurrection from the dead.
There were a good number of differences between the theology
of the Pharisees and the theology of the Sadducees, one of
which was the belief in a future resurrection from the dead.
The Pharisees believed in a physical, literal resurrection
of the dead, but the Sadducees did not.
The Sadducees liked to ask tricky questions of the Pharisees
to make them look stupid, and they often succeeded. One day
they tried one of these tricky questions on Yeshua. They
came to Him and hypocritically acknowledged Him to be a
great teacher, and tried to “warm Him up” and “set Him up
for the kill.” Then they told the story of a woman who
married a man who had six brothers. The Mosaic Law taught
that, if a married man died before fathering any children,
his brother had the responsibility of marrying the widow and
raising up children in his deceased brother’s name. She
married the first brother, but he died. In keeping with
Mosaic Law, the second brother married her, but he also died
before producing any children. Again, in keeping with the
Law of Moses, the third brother married her, but he also
died before any children were born. She married the fourth,
the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh brother, and the same
thing happened. Eventually she was married to all seven
brothers, but she produced no children through any of them.
All seven of them died and, finally, she died as well. The
question, then, was: If there really is such a thing as a
resurrection from the dead, whose wife is she going to be,
since all seven brothers had been married to her?
This was a tricky question often asked of the Pharisees, and
the Pharisees were totally incapable of producing an answer
to it. Because of their failure, they were made to look
stupid by the Sadducees. As a result, the Pharisees were
often embarrassed by those questions of the Sadducees. They
were not able to deal with the issue of whose wife she is
going to be in light of the fact that all seven brothers
were married to her, but none of them produced children. Had
they produced children, in the resurrection she would have
remained married to the one to whom she gave children.
But Yeshua bypassed that issue to deal with the real problem
the Sadducees had; they were indeed mistaken because they
did not know or understand the Scriptures (Mat. 22:29). So,
what is the answer to this Sadducean question? Yeshua
responded by stating their problem: they err, they made
mistakes, because they did not know two things. First, they
did not know what the scriptures taught on this issue; and
secondly, they did not know the power of God.
He then gave a threefold answer in verse 30. First, He made
an appeal to the power of God by pointing out that the
resurrection is not going to be a mere reawakening. It is
not going to be a mere restoration back to natural, physical
life as we know it; but when the resurrection occurs, that
resurrection will be a transformation of the body. It will
be a type of body that cannot reproduce itself. Because it
is not a body that can be reproduced, there will be no need
for marriage in the resurrection; resurrection bodies cannot
be propagated through natural generation. Whereas the human
race, as it is now, must have a marriage relationship with
sexual intercourse by which it can be propagated, this is
simply not going to be true with the resurrection body. The
resurrection is not going to be a mere reawakening, a mere
restoration back to natural life, but rather, a
transformation into a new type of resurrection life; there
will be no marrying or giving in marriage in Heaven with the
resurrection body. So the answer is: She will be no one’s
wife, for there will be no marital relationships in the
resurrection.
The second answer Jesus gave was to make an appeal to the
covenant relationship. In Matthew 22:32, Yeshua quoted
Exodus 3:6-7, where God told Moses:
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob. This was the official Old Testament
formula for what is now called the Abrahamic Covenant. Part
of the Abrahamic Covenant was that God promised certain
things to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob which were not fulfilled
in their lifetimes. God did not merely promise the Land to
the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but God said to
Abraham: To you and to your seed I
will give this land; to Isaac He said: To you and to your
seed I will give this land; and to Jacob He said;
To you and to your seed I will give
this land. So, the Land was not merely promised
to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it was
promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob personally. Yet the
most that these three men ever owned of the Promised Land
was one burial cave and several wells. Since these three men
died without the promise being fulfilled, a resurrection is
required. Contained within the concept of the promise of God
is a concept of resurrection in that, if God made certain
promises to an individual and that individual dies before
those promises are fulfilled, it automatically requires a
future resurrection for God to fulfill His promises. This is
the point of Hebrews 11:17-19, which tells about Abraham’s
faith. When Abraham was asked to offer up Isaac, he knew God
had made promises concerning Isaac. So, even if Abraham had
proceeded to kill Isaac, he knew that God would raise Isaac
back to life: God’s promises, which are unfulfilled in one’s
lifetime, require a future resurrection for those promises
to be fulfilled.
The third appeal Jesus made is found in Matthew 22:32: ...
God is not the God of the dead, but
of the living.
The point here is that God has a living relationship to the
fathers and, therefore, He cannot leave them dead.
The result of this third attack and answer is threefold.
First, the people were astonished at his teaching (Mat.
22:33), because it was a brand new view of what Exodus 3:6
meant. Secondly, even the Pharisees were impressed, because
they could never answer the Sadducean question, but Yeshua
did, and this supported their view of the resurrection.
Thirdly, the Sadducees were silenced as Luke 20:40 states:
For they dare not ask any more questions. They
were the ones who were made to look foolish.
D. By the Pharisees
The fourth attack came from the Pharisees, and this was also
a question of theology. This is recorded in Matthew
22:34-40; and Mark 12:28-34. Initially, the one asking the
question was attempting to trick Jesus. Matthew 22:35-36
states: And one of them, a lawyer,
asked him a question, trying him: Teacher, which is the
great commandment in the law? The question was,
“What was the greatest commandment? What is the most
important commandment?”
The Mark passage gives the fullest answer. Verses 12:29-30
state. Jesus answered, The first
is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and
you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all
your strength.
The most important commandment is Deuteronomy 6:4-5.
But then Yeshua went beyond the question and told them what
the second most important commandment was in verse 31:
The second is this, You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.
Since these are the same answers that the Pharisees
themselves would have given and is what they believed, they
were not able to take hold of Him at all.
So at this point, the Pharisees were also silenced, as Mark
12:34 states: ... And no man after
that dare ask him any question.
So four times the Lamb of God was attacked and tested; four
times He responded to show that He was without blemish and
without spot.
III. THE
TESTING BY THE LAMB OF GOD
Jesus now turned to all
of His attackers with a question of His own, recorded in
Matthew 22:41-46; Mark 12:35-37; and Luke 20:41-44.
According to Matthew 22:42, the question was: ...
Christ? Whose son is he?
… Whose Son was the Messiah supposed to be?
They answered correctly in verse 42: ...
The son of David.
But then Yeshua threw the trick question at them. If the
Messiah was supposed to be David’s son, why, then, in Psalm
110:1, does David call the Messiah, Lord? A father would
never address his son as Lord. So in Matthew 22:45:
If David called him Lord, how is he
his son?
Their response, according to verse 46, was:
And no one was able to answer him a word, ...
They could not answer His question, because the answer is in
the concept of the God-Man. As to His humanity, He is
David’s son; but as to His deity, He is David’s Lord.
CONCLUSION
The Lamb of God had been
tested four different times by Sadducees, Pharisees,
Herodians, elders and priests. He was attacked four times,
and four times He responded. Indeed, He proved Himself to be
without blemish and without spot. Even the Pharisees and the
Sadducees were silenced by His response. The fact that He
was now proved to be without blemish and without spot meant
that He could proceed to the cross and become the final
Passover sacrifice (I Cor. 5:7).
RECOMMENDED READING
If you enjoyed this Bible study, Dr. Fruchtenbaum recommends the
following messianic Bible studies (mbs):
mbs 009: The Trial of the Messiah
mbs 016: Nicodemus, A Rabbi's Quest
mbs 020: How Did the Wise Men Know? or Is Astrology Valid?
mbs
028: The Olivet Discourse
mbs 031: Highlights of the Birth and Early Life of Jesus
mbs 032: The Baptism and Temptation of Jesus
mbs 035: The Three Messianic Miracles
mbs 036: The Three Sabbath Controversies Between Jesus and
the Pharisees
mbs 040: The Parables of the Kingdom
mbs 043: The Confession of Peter
mbs 044:
mbs 048: Mammon of Unrighteousness
mbs 049: The Adulterous Woman
mbs 060: The Upper Room Discourses
mbs 061: The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus
mbs 069: The Agony of Gethsemane
mbs 070: The Death and Burial of the Messiah
mbs 075: The Resurrection of the Messiah
mbs 076: The Ascension of the Messiah
mbs 094: The Sermon on the Mount
mbs 099: The Results of the Death of Messiah
mbs 127: The Birth and Early Life of the Messiah
mbs 134: How the New Testament Quotes the Old Testament
mbs 183: The Healing of the Man at the Pool of Bethesda:
John 5
mbs 185: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: John 4:1-42
Many of Dr. Fruchtenbaum's studies are available for free online
reading and
listening at Ariel Ministries'
Come and See. All of his materials are
available for purchase at Ariel Ministries in various
formats.
Other select materials and resources are
available at Ariel, as well.
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Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, Th.M, Ph.D.,
is founder and director of Ariel Ministries.
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