Mark 12:1-27

12:1-11 | This parable of pending judgment is based on an allegory from the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 5). The man (or owner) is God; the vineyard is Israel; the vinedressers are the religious leaders; the servants are the prophets; the beloved son is Jesus Himself. Just as the owner destroyed the vinedressers because they rejected his messengers and finally his son, so God would destroy Israel and its religious leaders because they rejected His prophets and His Son.

12:10-11 | Jesus quoted from the same psalm (Ps. 118:22-23) that the people used upon His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Early Christians often quoted this passage to substantiate their claim that Jesus was the Messiah (Acts 4:11; 1 Pet. 2:7).

12:12 | Curiously, Jesus’ opponents often understood His parables more readily than did His own disciples. Here the religious leaders immediately grasped that Jesus had spoken the parable against them.

12:13 | From this point in the narrative, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians – who ordinarily were antagonistic toward each other – start working together against their common enemy – Jesus.

12:14-17 | Jesus’ opponents imagined that the Romans would arrest Him for sedition if He said it is not right to pay taxes to Caesar, and that the Jewish people would turn against Him if He supported the taxes. Jesus’ answer delighted the people: the coin only has Caesar’s image, but man bears God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27); therefore, the believer’s life belongs to God.

12:18-24 | The Sadducees – essentially the religious secularists of their day – asked a hypothetical question they considered unanswerable. It was based in the ancient cultural norm that said a man could have many wives while a woman could have no more than one husband. Jesus answered that although the Sadducees might know the Bible superficially (they excluded all biblical books except those of Moses; in other words, Genesis through Deuteronomy), they had not begun to comprehend it nor grasp the might of the Living God.

12:24-27 | Jesus’ reply, rather than quoting a verse that explicitly mentioned resurrection, deduced the concept from a text that even the Sadducees would consider valid: the book of Moses (the first five books of the Bible). His answer? Since God is the God of the living, not of the dead, then resurrection must be a reality because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob died centuries ago, but are alive (Matt. 8:11; Luke 16:22-25).