Jesus - Wiser than the Wise - Mark 12:13-27

Sermon Series: Spare Me the Details - Just Give Me Jesus

One of the things that I love to see as a father is my children looking at and listening to books.  I wasn’t much of a reader when I was younger, but understand the incredible value of reading now as I grow more in maturity.  So one of the things that I hope I can do is to help my children develop a love for reading.  Our three youngest children are completely dependent upon others when it comes to reading – they don’t know how to read and their imagination hasn’t developed enough to make up their own stories.  But our oldest, while she still needs someone to read the words of the book to her, has a good enough imagination that she can sometimes make up a story by simply looking at the pictures.  Occasionally we can hear her on the baby monitors in her room ‘reading’ books to herself.  On a few other rare occasions we have seen her with her younger brother ‘reading’ a book to him.  And while moments like these are cute and make you proud as a parent, there is also something incredibly clear that cannot be missed by those who know how to read – our daughter isn’t telling the story exactly right with all of the details.  Her versions of the stories she reads and tells are lacking details and sometimes even a little wrong.  And while she doesn’t recognize it, those with a little more knowledge of the stories certainly do.  She knows that she’s smarter than her younger brother and knows that at certain times he likes the idea of ‘reading’ books with his older sister.  When she ‘reads’ the books she believes her versions of the story are complete and accurate, based on the wisdom she believes she possesses.  But the reality is her wisdom and knowledge of the books she reads to her brother doesn’t even come close to the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of the actual author of the book.

This may come to as a shock to many of you but a lot of times those of us who believe we are mature believers in Christ think we have all the wisdom and insight into the Bible that we need.  We believe that we have a great understanding of its principles and that we are ready to help those who are less mature grow in their knowledge and understanding.  There may be some truth to that this morning.  Certainly those of us who have spent a great deal of time studying God’s Word can help others grow in their knowledge and understanding.  But this has to be done with a great sense of humility as well, because even the most knowledgeable among us pale in wisdom and understanding when compared to the author.  Wherever you and I are as individuals, in terms of our knowledge and understanding of the Bible, there is still plenty to learn.  And each of us needs to identify who it is that is best equipped to teach us those things, so that we can continue to grow in the wisdom and knowledge of our God and Savior.  So the question that we will be trying to answer as we examine this text is, “Who is it that is best equipped to teach us the ways of God and enlighten us to the truths of the Bible?”  And I’m going to argue that in this section of Mark’s text we find clear evidence that Jesus is the answer.  His wisdom is far superior to the wisdom of those who were considered the wisest and we will see that in this passage we will see that in two distinct ways.

Once Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and in the temple the religious elite making up the religious council called the Sanhedrin seemed to be very aggressively going after Him.  They didn’t like Jesus, His teaching, or His influence when He was in Galilee.  They liked it even less when He was on, what they considered to be, their turf.  Last week we noticed in the text these men raising a challenge to Jesus and His authority.  When they found themselves unsuccessful in discrediting His authority it seems that they began trying other grounds on which to challenge Him.  In the verses we will examine for this post we are going to see Jesus’ wisdom challenged. 

In verse 13 the Sanhedrin sent men from the Pharisees and the Herodians to Jesus in an attempt to out smart Him and to catch Him in a trap.  It appears that these men, who considered themselves to be the wisest among men in regards to godly living, felt that they could devise a question that Jesus would not be able to answer without discrediting Himself among the people or getting Himself into trouble with the Roman government.  What transpires though isn’t at all what these wise Pharisees and Herodians thought would take place.  Instead of making Jesus look foolish it is these Pharisees and Herodians who stand out as not having a good understanding of how to apply godly principles to real life.

Notice first the sarcastic flattery of the Pharisees and the Herodians.  They begin by calling Jesus, “Teacher.”  Jesus was recognized by many as a teacher of extraordinary wisdom.  But this isn’t likely the opinion of Jesus held by the Pharisees and the Herodians.  These groups were not seeking Jesus out to hear His teaching and to grow in their understanding.  They believed that they knew better than Jesus and so they came time after time to challenge Him.  After calling Jesus teacher they say to Him, “we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion.  For you are not swayed by appearances . . .”  These men could tell that Jesus wasn’t into politics and the jockeying for position that takes place in political environments.  Jesus had never spent time rubbing elbows with the religious elite but had opted instead to invest in a handful of non-influential men who had been previously involved in industries like fishing and tax collecting.  While this is a true statement these men probably did not intend for it to be a complement.  In their minds, if Jesus had been a wise teacher of the Law He would have recognized how important it was to connect with the influential power brokers of the faith so that He could have gained a large audience in the right context, by the right means.  They continue to heap vain flattery upon Jesus in verse 14 when they say, “but truly teach the way of God.”  Neither the Pharisees nor the Herodians believed that Jesus was teaching the way of God.  But none the less they heap these empty compliments upon Jesus, presumably as a means to get Him to drop His guard and to be more vulnerable to their deceptive questions.  The irony of their statements is that while they were speaking sarcastically, the things they said were actually full of truth.  Jesus didn’t care about the opinions of others, and neither was He compelled to speak differently based on who was present and how significant they seemed.  (Which begs the question, “Why were the Pharisees and Herodians trying to soften Him up with their flattery if He wasn’t actually swayed by those things?”)  But perhaps the greatest irony resided in the statement they uttered saying that He “truly [taught] the way of God.”  That’s exactly what Jesus did do – but they didn’t believe it. 

At this point the Pharisees and Herodians ask Jesus their ‘clever’ question.  They ask Jesus, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?  Should we pay them, or should we not?”  Jesus was able to discern their deception.  He knew that if He simply answered the question ‘yes’ that He would lose credit in the eyes of the Jews.  The Jews did not like the Roman government or its oppressiveness.  If they believed that Jesus was for Roman taxation then they would have believed that Jesus was for the Romans and not for them, which would have cost Him in regards to His credibility among the people.  On the other hand, if He answered ‘no’ and encouraged the Jews not to pay their taxes the Roman government would come down on both Him and those who refused to pay.  In the minds of the Pharisees and Herodians they have asked a well crafted question to which Jesus would suffer great consequences, regardless of how He answered.  Jesus saw through their evil intent and asked them in verse 15, “Why put me to the test?”  That’s a great question isn’t it?  If Jesus really is God’s Son with all wisdom, power, and resources available to Him, it does seem a bit silly that His creation would challenge Him and put Him to the test, doesn’t it?  Then Jesus commands the men of the group to bring Him a denarius – the amount required to satisfy the imperial poll tax.  When they do, He asks them whose picture is on the coin.  They answer Him that it is Caesar’s picture.  Then Jesus gives them an incredible answer to their question.  In verse 17 He says, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”  Jesus’ response is an incredible one that, in the words of the Pharisees themselves, truly teaches the way of God.  Jesus affirms that as citizen we do have a responsibility to the government that the sovereign God has allowed to be in control over us.  But we are not solely responsible to that government, because first and foremost we are responsible to the Father, who is the ultimate authority in our lives.  What’s also interesting in Jesus’ answer is His reference to the ‘likeness’ or ‘image’ on the coin.  That which bears the image of Caesar belongs to Caesar.  But now think back to the creation narrative.  The first two chapters of Genesis remind us that man and woman were created in someone’s image or likeness.  Who’s was it – God’s.  So if that which bears Caesar’s image belongs to Caesar, the same should be true about that which bears God’s image.  It is we ourselves who bear the image of God, and therefore we, ourselves belong to Him – all of us.  So while we pay a certain duty to the government which is ruling over us, we owe a greater duty and responsibility to the Father, who created us in His image.

Immediately following the test of the Pharisees and the Herodians, Mark writes that a group of the Sadducees show up, and just like the Pharisees and the Herodians they are looking to challenge the wisdom of Jesus.  Mark provides his readers with a brief explanation of some of the beliefs of the Sadducees, saying in verse 18 that they did not believe that a resurrection would occur after death.  History and other manuscript evidence tells us that the Sadducees refused to believe in the resurrection because of the lack of evidence for it in the OT.  The Sadducees were very conservative in their view of Scripture, holding very firmly to what was clear, but hesitant to commit to ideas that were not clear.  So it should not come as a surprise to the readers to discover the Sadducees wanting to discuss Moses.  Moses was one of the primary characters of the OT and someone the Sadducees would have felt more than adequate and prepared to discuss.  The Sadducees come to Jesus believing that they can catch Jesus in some bad theology by asking Him to consider how an OT law contradicts (in their minds) Jesus’ proclamation of a future resurrection.  The Sadducees understood the resurrection that the Pharisees believed in would be in large part a continuation of things on earth.  For examples, couples who had married on earth would continue to be married in Heaven, just in and under greater conditions.  The Sadducees wisely recognized a problem (if this understanding of the resurrection were in fact true) in light of a specific OT law and they saw an opportunity to both challenge the wisdom of Jesus and demonstrate their superior wisdom of the OT.  The Sadducees question Jesus in regards to the text of Deuteronomy 25:5-6 which says, “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger.  Her husband’s brother shall go in to her and take her as his wife and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.”  God had prescribed a law designed to prevent intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles when a woman’s husband had passed away.  But in the minds of the Sadducees this created a problem in regards to a resurrection that was primarily a continuation of the order of things here on earth.  So the Sadducees raise a hypothetical question in which they lay out a scenario where a woman’s husband dies, she marries his younger brother, who also dies, and she continues to follow the prescribed law until 7 brothers have all married her, all have died, and she still has no children.  The Sadducees recognized that at each of their deaths, these brothers had been married to the same woman.  If the resurrection was simply a continuation of life on earth then whose wife would this woman be when she also passed away?  It is a rather insightful question.  In their minds, the OT argued against a resurrection, and they wanted to demonstrate to Jesus that their wisdom of the OT was greater than His.

In His response in verse 24 Jesus doesn’t hesitate to point out that while these Sadducees took great pride in their wisdom and understanding of the OT Scriptures, they did not know them as well as they thought.  Jesus says to them, “Is this not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”  Jesus tells these men, who believed themselves to be the wisest authorities of the OT, that they don’t understand the OT at all.  But Jesus doesn’t just make an accusation, He demonstrates His superior wisdom by rightly teaching the OT Scriptures.  Jesus begins in verse 25 to rightly explain the resurrection that takes place for those who believe in Him.  Jesus teaches that the life one experiences after the resurrection isn’t a continuation of life on earth – it is altogether different.  Jesus says that those who experience resurrection and eternal life in Heaven don’t in fact marry, like humans do.  Those who will trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord will be like angels in heaven.  Make sure that you pay close attention here!  Jesus doesn’t say they will be angels.  That is bad theology.  Angels are created beings, just like us, but they are also a distinct form of created being.  Nowhere in Scripture do we find the teaching that humans are transformed into angels when they die.  There is no shortage of people who believe this, but their beliefs are not grounded in a right understanding of the Bible.  Those who trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord while they are here on earth, asking Him for the forgiveness of sins, and believing alone in His substitutionary death on the cross on their behalf will spend eternity in Heaven, but not as angels.  They will be like angels in the fact that they spend their lives in the very presence of God.  They will be like angels in the fact that they don’t marry, but find their greatest satisfaction in God alone.  But they will be distinct from the angels  who have not sinned and who have never had occasion to experience the mercy of God through the forgiveness of sins.  So Jesus first corrects their misunderstanding of what He proclaims resurrection life to be.  But then Jesus continues to correct these Sadducees by rightly using the OT to provide proof for the resurrection.  In verse 26 Jesus directs the minds of these Sadducees back to Moses, but to a different passage this time.  This time Jesus directs them to the account of Moses with the burning bush.  In Exodus 3:6 we find God speaking to Moses through the burning bush and He says to him, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”  Although all of those patriarchs had long since passed away God still made it a point to make mention of them.  By making mention of those men Moses would have been reminded of all the promises that God had made to those individuals.  If those individuals were dead, then the promises God made to them were either finite and unfulfilled or promises made to those who were dead and had no hope of experiencing their fulfillment.  That’s not what Moses needed at the time of the burning bush.  God was calling Moses to the incredible task of going to Pharoah and freeing the Israelites.  If God’s promises weren’t to the living, but to the dead, there would have been no hope or comfort for Moses and no reason to act in obedience.  But if those men were still living, having experienced a resurrection, then God’s promises to them were promises that they would still see fulfilled and promises that inspired hope – something that Moses desperately needed if he were going to lead God’s people out of Egypt.  Jesus uses this OT passage to serve as proof and evidence that resurrection would in fact take place for those who put their faith in Him, the Messiah.  Then Jesus tells the Sadducees again that they are “quite wrong” emphasizing that both their understanding of the OT and their teaching of it had been wrong and that their wisdom and understanding of the OT were not as great as they had thought.

Mark demonstrates in these verses that Jesus was unsurpassed in wisdom.  In regards to godly living, He was wiser than the Pharisees and the Herodians.  In regards to knowledge of the Scriptures, He was wiser than the Sadducees.  And today, Jesus remains unsurpassed in wisdom.  But too often we feel like we are as equipped as we need to be.  We are comfortable with our way of living.  In our minds we are living well and don’t have any need for any further instruction in godly living.  In addition to that, when we compare ourselves to others we don’t find anyone who is doing a vastly better job of godly living than we are, so by comparison to others we are doing well and don’t know anyone who could help us to do better.  We also get comfortable with our presumed knowledge of the Bible.  We think we’ve heard it taught enough or are familiar enough with it’s principles that we don’t need to continue to be taught and given instruction.  As a result many of us are living with misunderstandings and an incomplete knowledge of the Bible.  If we are honest with ourselves we can all use help and equipping.  We can all use someone who can help us live a godly life and who can help us rightly understand the Bible.  And while there are many candidates out there, none of them measures up to Jesus.  And the good news is that He has made Himself available to each of us.      

Small Group Questions for Discussion:

1. Read Mark 12:13-17.  As we examined these verses we emphasized the truth that Jesus is the One who truly teaches the way of God.  While the Pharisees thought they were experts in godly living, Jesus demonstrated the superiority of His wisdom.  Who does our culture look to for instructions in right living?  What role does the church play in providing instructions for right living to our culture and what role should it play?  In what ways are we like the Pharisees in regards to pride in our wisdom pertaining to godly living?  How can we humbly direct people to Jesus' instructions and example without coming across prideful?

2. Read Mark 12:18-27.  As we examined these verses we emphasized the truth that Jesus rightly teaches the OT scriptures.  While the Sadducees considered themselves experts in the Scriptures, Jesus demonstrated the superiority of His wisdom by showing them evidence for the resurrection from the OT.  Do people in our community value accurate biblical instruction?  If not, what do they value and look for in teaching about God and the Bible?  What's going to make a greater impact on our community - right and accurate biblical teaching or teaching that emphasizes something else (e.g. entertaining people, making people feel comfortable, happy, etc.)  What do we need to do in order to guard against becoming like the Sadducees and having too much pride in our wisdom of the Bible?  Is it possible for us (who are not God) to have empowered and accurate biblical teaching, and if so, how?

3. What step of faith does this passage of Scripture require us to take as individuals and as a small group?  How do we work this out on mission?