Mark 11:27-12:12
Mark 11:27-12:12 Sermon Notes
After Jesus cleanses the temple and curses the fig tree (which we looked at last week), we see seven incidents that highlight this mounting tension between Jesus and the leaders of the faulty religious system.
First, Jesus has a run-in with members of the Sanhedrin demanding that He prove His authority.
Then, Jesus tells a parable about their systematic rejection of all of the prophets God has sent in an attempt to steer them back on track.
We’re going to look at these first two events today.
Then, in the following weeks, we’ll see him deal individually with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Scribes, and the section closes with that famous story about the widow’s offering.
Three truths in our passage today:
Jesus is the true Cornerstone upon which true religion is built.
God is extremely loving and patient.
God is sovereign and His plans will prevail.
Mark 11:27–12:12 (ESV):
27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple,
This is the same temple Jesus cleansed just the day before. The immense, grand temple that was supposed to be a house of prayer for the nations but had become a den of robbers.
This is the stage for our conflict today. This is the center of the action. Where else could Jesus go to confront the issues He saw at the highest levels of Judaism? Where else could he storm the corrupt religious establishment? It had to be the temple.
the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him,
These are the main players. These together comprised the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin was the governing religious body made up of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Scribes.
Rome was running the show on a military and political level, but the Sanhedrin was running the show on a religious and cultural level. Neither of these two powers were fans of Jesus.
The Romans were sort of nervous that He was going to lead a political revolution.
The Jews were upset that He was openly antagonistic towards their religious system.
Ultimately, both groups collaborate to have Him crucified.
It’s important to note that the indictment that Jesus brings against Israel for their rejection of the prophets (as we’ll see later) and ultimately their rejection of Him as Messiah, is primarily against the leaders. God is not rejecting His people Israel. He’s rejecting the way the leaders are leading them astray. There’s a difference.
Jesus loves Israel. Jesus is Jewish. Jesus is passionate about the nation that was to bring salvation to all other nations. He said elsewhere that He felt like a mother hen wanting to gather all of Israel into His wings.
…Which is why He is so upset by their being led astray by the corrupt religious elite. What was intended to be a conduit of love between God and His people had become an apostate religious system that oppressed and deceived God’s people.
28 and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”
Why are they challenging Jesus’ authority? Because He’s doing and saying things that should only be done and said by God Himself.
Cleansing lepers, binding Satan, forgiving sins, claiming supremacy over the Torah and the Sabbath
Most recently, cleansing the Temple.
Claiming that He Himself is the true temple, the true way to worship God.
This is not a small charge they’re bringing to Him. In those days, if they found someone to be a false prophet, falsely speaking on behalf of God, the penalty was death.
29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
It was common for Jewish rabbis to answer a question by posing another question.
30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”
At a glance, you might wonder, “why does Jesus appeal to the authority of John the Baptist?” Verses 31-33 reveal why this was the ultimate rebuttal.
31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
That word “discussed” appears 7 times in Mark, and it’s always in the context of people being evasive with Jesus. Sometimes it’s even used in relation to His own disciples, for example, when they are “discussing” who will be greatest in the kingdom.
So already, Mark is telegraphing for us where these guys’ hearts are at. They’re looking to evade Jesus. They’re not interested in open and honest dialogue.
Now, why are they so stumped?
Remember, John was the forerunner of Messiah. He heralded the coming of Jesus. When He saw Jesus, he himself proclaimed, “behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
So if they reply and say, “yeah, we believe John was legit”, then by extension they are implying that Jesus is under the same heavenly authority as John.
But what’s their other option? They could deny the authority of John. They could say his baptism ministry was just human in origin. But there’s a problem with that too:
32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.
This tells us something about what made these guys tick, doesn’t it?
At the end of the day they were more concerned about maintaining their position and their control and their reputation than they were about the truth.
When you see a church being led to compromise the truth as detailed in the Word of God in order to appease the culture around them, pray for them and then run the other direction.
It’s happening all around us today.
Many Churches would rather compromise on issues like homosexuality, God-assigned gender roles in the family and in the church, the doctrine of eternal hell, and all kinds of other topics that make people uncomfortable, in order to stay relevant and palatable to society.
What this world needs is not a church that agrees with them; they need a church that loves them enough to tell them the truth straight from God’s Word.
But that was not the Sanhedrin. They were more concerned with preserving their reputation than preserving the truth.
33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
Jesus is not going to leave the meaning of all of this up to our imagination. He’s going to tell a story… a parable… in order to illustrate the main takeaway of this interaction.
12 And he began to speak to them in parables.
“A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country.
Who does the man who planted the vineyard represent? God.
What does the vineyard represent? The people of God.
Who are the tenants? The religious leaders.
Already we learn some things:
God’s people belong to Him. They are precious to Him.
God had entrusted the care and oversight of His people to the leaders. In those days, leasing vineyards was very common. If you were the tenant over a vineyard, you had an obligation to steward the vineyard well.
2 When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.
Who does the servant represent? Prophets. Prophets were servants of God, sent by God in key moments throughout Israel’s history to lead and redirect God’s people according to God’s will.
3 And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed.
The climax of the story:
6 He had still one other, a beloved son.
In those days, the son was the heir. He carried all the authority of the Father.
Jesus is the human representation of the Father in every way. He carries the authority of the Father. He carries the compassion of the Father. Jesus himself said, “if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father… I and the Father are one”.
And yet, John tells us, “he came to His own people, and His own people did not receive Him (Jn. 1:11).
What would possess the vineyard owner to send His own son after all these tyrants had done to the other servants?
The answer is, love. Unbelievable love for the vineyard.
“For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son…”
And the implication is that the son carries this love too, because He’s going!
Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.
Peter, looking back on the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus, said it like this:
Acts 2:22–24 (ESV): 22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
And so we know the big picture here. We know how this all turns out. Jesus will ultimately be killed at the command of these Jewish leaders, His death will serve the greater purpose of God to atone for the sins of all who believe in Him, and He will be resurrected.
All of this is past-tense for us today.
But in our story, Jesus is predicting it before it happens.
9 What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.
The owner of the vineyard will destroy the crooked tenants.
If that sounds harsh or extreme, remember what is at stake here. These are God’s precious people. Remember Jesus’ words back in chapter 9? “If anyone causes one of these who believe in me to sin, it would be better if they had a millstone hung around their neck and thrown in the sea.”
That’s how serious God is about bringing justice to those who are led astray by false teachers.
God loves His people. God comes to the rescue of His people.
When it says He will “give the vineyard to others”, that’s an allusion to Gentiles being included in salvation.
Jesus closes the parable with a quote from Psalm 118 (Isaiah 26:16 has a similar quote)…
10 Have you not read this Scripture:
“ ‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
Picture builders building a house. Or in this case, the Temple.
In that culture, their primary building material was stones, because it’s what they had readily available.
The cornerstone was the most important stone in the whole building. It ensured that the whole foundation was straight and true.
If the cornerstone was off, everything was off.
If you took out the cornerstone, the whole structure would crumble.
Verse 11 is so profound.
Matthew and Luke have parallel accounts of this same moment, but only Mark gives us this last phrase in verse 11.
11 this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
The great mystery of the gospel is that God was sovereign over every single aspect of redemptive history… the evil rulers were still culpable… but God was still in charge. And in His sovereign love and grace He orchestrated the very rejection and crucifixion of His Son so that by His death He would become a marvelous Savior.
Well, this was too much for the religious leaders to handle…
12 And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.
What do we see in all of this?
First and foremost, we must see Jesus as none other than the true Cornerstone.
He is the one and only way to true salvation, and the only means of truly worshiping the one true God.
Acts 4:12 (ESV): 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
To reject Jesus is to reject the One on whom true religion is built. Any religion built on something other than Jesus is inherently faulty and is a counterfeit that leads only to death.
We must see the great love and patience of God.
Notice how in the parable, the owner cares deeply for the vineyard.
Notice how he patiently sends servant after servant.
Notice how he sends his own Son.
Notice how even after his Son is killed, he comes to the rescue of the vineyard.
John 3:16
Romans 5:8
1 John 3:1 “how great a love the father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God…”
We must see that God is sovereign and His plans will prevail
At times it may look like evil will prevail.
Like the schemes of evil tenants will wreck the vineyard.
Like the plans of the owner will be thwarted.
And yet, this is not what happens. The story plays out exactly according to the owner’s plan.