33  Whose Son Is  Christ?  (22:41-46)

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?” They said to Him, “The Son of David.” He said to them, “Then how does David in the Spirit call him ‘Lord,’ saying, ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I put Thine enemies beneath Thy feet”’? If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?” And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question. (22:41-46)

The most important question in the world is, “Who is Jesus Christ?” And the world has never lacked for ideas and opinions about the answer. Certain Pharisees in Jesus’ own day accused Him of casting “out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons” (Matt. 12:24). A second-century A.D. comment in the Talmud said Jesus practiced magic and led Israel astray (Sanhedrin 43a). Julian the Apostate, emperor of Rome from A.D. 361-363, declared, “Jesus has now been celebrated about three hundred years; having done nothing in his lifetime worthy of fame, unless anyone thinks it a very great work to heal lame and blind people and exorcise demoniacs in villages of Bethsaida and Bethany” (quoted by Cyril, a fifth-century bishop of Alexandria, in Contra Julian, lib. vi., p. 191).

In modern times, most people have tended to be complimentary of Jesus, although their opinions are frequently condescending and naive. The radical French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, “When Plato describes his imaginary righteous man loaded with all the punishments of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he describes exactly the character of Jesus Christ. . . . The life and death of Jesus are those of a God” (Oeuvres complétes [Paris, 1839], tome iii, pp. 365-67). The famous poet Ralph Waldo Emerson held Jesus to be the most perfect of all men who have appeared on earth, and Napoleon said, “I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ was not a man.”

The English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill said Jesus was “the pattern of perfection for humanity,” and the Irish historian and essayist William E. Lecky said Jesus was “the highest pattern of virtue.” French philologist and historian Ernest Renan said Jesus “will never be surpassed,” and American Unitarian clergyman Theodore Parker called Jesus the youth with God in His heart. German theologian and philosopher David Strauss, a staunch critic of biblical Christianity, said Jesus is the “highest model of religion within the reach of [human] thought.” English novelist H. G. Wells wrote, “When I was asked which single individual has left the most permanent impression on the world, the manner of the questioner almost carried the implication that it was Jesus of Nazareth. I agreed. . . . Jesus stands first.”

As those testimonies give evidence, many people who do not trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior still rank Him as the highest model of humanity. But beneath most such compliments is the incipient, if not specific, denial that He was anything more than a man. And many of those who highly praise Him nevertheless deny much of what He taught, especially what He taught about Himself and His work.

Christianity has always found its most violent detractors and enemies in those who deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. Many of those detractors presume to go under the name of Christian. Some years ago a Washington State newspaper reported that the minister of a liberal church had begun a sermon series emphasizing that Jesus Christ was merely a man and not God. He said that the reason there is any controversy at all on this issue is because “there is always a bunch of people who say Jesus is God.” The minister suggested that Jesus was simply like Mother Teresa or Caesar Chavez.

Many religions and cults teach that Jesus was a prophet of God, or at least a great religious teacher, but that He was not the Savior of the world and was not divine to any greater degree than they consider all men to be divine.

The battle lines of biblical Christianity are inevitably drawn at the issue of Jesus’ divinity. That is the one doctrine apart from which all others are meaningless, because if He were not divine He could not be the Savior of the world, and men would have no way of becoming reconciled to God.

It is that supreme issue of Jesus’ full identity with which Matthew 22:41-46 deals.

THE INCISIVE QUESTION

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?” (22:41-42a)

After irrefutably answering the three questions the Jewish leaders had designed to entrap Him (Matt. 22:15-40), Jesus continued teaching in the Temple, where He had been since early that Wednesday morning (21:23). The Pharisees were gathered together by themselves, no doubt more perplexed than ever as to what they could do to discredit and eliminate Jesus. They were obviously standing nearby, and while they were pondering what to do next, Jesus asked them a question about the Christ.

He did not, however, ask directly about Himself. Although He often had declared His messiahship and His divinity, He now wanted the Pharisees to focus on what they already believed about the identity of the Messiah, the Christ, God’s promised Anointed One. Specifically, He asked, “Whose son is He?” That is, from what Jewish line was He to be descended?

THE INADEQUATE ANSWER

They said to Him, “The Son of David.” (22:42b)

To the Pharisees, as well as to most other Jews, the answer was obvious and simple. Because they were convinced the Messiah was no more than a man, the only identity of the Messiah they took seriously was that of his being the Son of David. The scribes had long taught that “the Christ is the son of David” (Mark 12:35), a teaching that was perfectly true. Through the prophet Nathan, the Lord had promised David, “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. . . . My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:12-13, 15-16).

That promise could not have applied to Solomon. He did build a house for God in the form of the Temple, but his kingdom did not last forever. Nor could any other descendant (note the singular in 2 Sam. 7:12) of David claim an everlasting throne. After Solomon, the Davidic kingdom was divided and has never been restored.

Psalm 89 makes repeated references to the Messiah as the unique descendant of David: “I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to David My servant, I will establish your seed forever, and build up your throne to all generations. . . . I have found David My servant; with My holy oil I have anointed him, with whom My hand will be established; My arm also will strengthen him. . . . And My faithfulness and My lovingkindness will be with him, and in My name his horn will be exalted. . . . I also shall make him My first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth. My lovingkindness I will keep for him forever, and My covenant shall be confirmed to him. So I will establish his descendants forever, and his throne as the days of heaven” (vv. 3-4, 20-21, 24, 27-29).

Amos prophesied, “In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of David, and wall up its breaches; I will also raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old” (Amos 9:11). Through Micah the Lord declared, “As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity” (Mic. 5:2).

God commanded Ezekiel to write,

Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king for all of them; and they will no longer be two nations, and they will no longer be divided into two kingdoms. . . . I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. And they will be My people, and I will be their God.

“And My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances, and keep My statutes, and observe them. And they shall live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons, and their sons’ sons, forever; and David My servant shall be their prince forever.” (Ezek. 37:21-25)

Starting at the millennial kingdom and sweeping into eternity, David’s greater Son, often called David by extension of the ancestral name, will rule an everlasting kingdom. “When I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch,” the Lord said, “He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, The Lord our righteousness’” (Jer. 23:5-6).

Throughout his gospel, Matthew focuses on Jesus’ being the Son of David. He begins with an abbreviated genealogy that establishes Jesus’ direct lineage from David (1:6; cf. Luke 3:31). He reports Jesus’ frequently being hailed by various individuals and groups as the Son of David. The two blind men in Galilee cried out to Him, “Have mercy on us, Son of David” (9:27), clearly acknowledging Him as the promised Messiah, the Christ. The two blind men of Jericho made the same plea: “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David” (20:30). After Jesus healed the demon-possessed man who was also blind and dumb, “all the multitudes were amazed, and began to say, ‘This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?”’ (12:23), a question equivalent to, “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” And it was the fact the multitudes had acclaimed Jesus as the Son of David that the religious leaders were so indignant, because He was being hailed as the Messiah and would not renounce the acclaim (21:9, 15-16).

It was partly because Jesus’ lineage from David was incontestable that the Jewish authorities were so distressed. Until the Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70, meticulous genealogical records of all Jews were kept there. That information not only was essential to establish levitical and priestly lineage, for the men as well as for their wives, but for many other purposes as well. No one could hold a position of responsibility in Israel whose genealogy was unverified. It is therefore certain that the authorities had carefully checked Jesus’ genealogy and discovered that His descent from David was legitimate. Otherwise, they would simply have exposed Him as having no claim to Davidic heritage and all discussion about His possible messiahship would have ended.

Yet true as it was that the Christ would be the Son of David, that answer was partial and inadequate. Rather than that title’s being too great for Jesus, as the Jewish leaders contended, it was much too limited. As He proceeded to explain, the Messiah had a claim to greatness that far exceeded His descent from David.

THE INFINITE REALITY

He said to them, “Then how does David in the Spirit call him ‘Lord,’ saying, The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I put Thine enemies beneath Thy feet’”? If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his son?” (22:43-45)

The terms kurios (Lord) and its corresponding Hebrew word dny are among the most common designations for deity in the New and Old Testaments, respectively. Because God’s covenant name, Yahweh, or Jehovah, was considered too holy to be spoken, the Jews always substituted the word dny In many English translations that unique use of “Lord” is indicated by its being printed in large and small capital letters (LORD), meaning that the Hebrew text actually reads Yahweh. When God is called “Lord” as a title, rather than as a substitute for His covenant name, the word is printed simply with capital and lower case letters (Lord), meaning that the Hebrew text reads dny.

Jesus’ argument, therefore, was this: “If the Messiah, the Christ, is no more than a man, the human the son of David, Then how does David in the Spirit call him ‘Lord,’ saying, ‘The Lord said to my lord.’”

First of all, Jesus declared that David was speaking under the inspiration of God’s Spirit when he wrote those words of Psalm 110:1. The Greek phrase behind in the Spirit is identical to that used by John of his vision on Patmos, when he “was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (Rev. 1:10; cf. 4:2). It refers to being under the control of the Holy Spirit in a unique and powerful way. And as Mark makes clear in his account of this incident, Jesus’ full statement was, “David himself said in the Holy Spirit” (Mark 12:36), ruling out the possibility that Jesus was referring to David’s human spirit.

Second, every Jew recognized Psalm 110 as being written by David and as being one of the clearest messianic passages in the Old Testament. Consequently, there could be no argument—and there was none by Jesus’ opponents—that David was speaking here about the Messiah, the second lord mentioned in verse 1. The first Lord in the Hebrew text is Yahweh, whereas the second is . The idea is: the Lord (Yahweh) said to David’s lord (dny), “Sit at My right hand, until I put Thine enemies beneath Thy feet.” In other words, David addressed the Messiah as his Lord.

Third, and most importantly, Jesus was declaring the Messiah’s deity. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, David had declared that God told the Messiah to sit at His (God’s) right hand, a place recognized by Jews to be a designation of coequal rank and authority. The verb behind sit in the original text indicates continuous sitting in the place of exaltation. God was going to bring the Messiah to a place of equality with Himself in honor, power, and glory.

At God’s right hand, the Messiah would be invincible, because God would put His enemies beneath His feet, a figure of abject, helpless subjugation. When a defeated enemy was brought before an ancient oriental monarch, the ruler would make the prisoner prostrate himself at his feet. The king would then place his foot on the neck of the vanquished enemy as if he were a footstool (see Josh. 10:24). All the detractors, deniers, and other enemies of the Messiah are doomed to subjugation beneath His control.

Liberal critics have long maintained that David could not have written Psalm 110, arguing that the Hebrew language in David’s time had not developed to the level found in the psalm and that David would not have been familiar with the priest-king relationship expressed in verse 4. But historical and archaeological discoveries have proved both of those assumptions to be unfounded. Some critics also deny the messianic character of the psalm, largely because they discount all supernatural revelation and consequently all predictive prophecy. If a “prediction” came true, they argue, it was obviously written after the fact. But that humanistic approach not only makes Scripture out to be intentionally deceptive but makes Jesus Himself a liar or a dupe. He could hardly have been the model for the highest level of human virtue, as many of those same critics claim, if He declared Himself to be divine but was not. Or if the gospel writers misrepresented what He said about Himself, how can anything else they reported about Him be considered reliable?

If David then calls Him “Lord,” Jesus asked the Pharisees, how is He his son? Jesus’ point was that the title “Son of David” alone was not sufficient for the Messiah, that He is also the Son of God. David would not have addressed a merely human descendent as “Lord.” Jesus was saying, in effect, “I am not giving you any new teaching or revelation. You should have been able to figure it out for yourselves, and would have done so if you truly believed Scripture.” The religious elite of Judaism had never seen that obvious truth, because, like many people today, they did not look to Scripture for truth. When they looked to it at all, it was for the purpose of trying to shore up their humanly devised religious traditions and personal preferences.

Jesus did not mention the most important conclusion the Pharisees should have made from what He had just said: that He Himself was the divine Messiah, the Son of David and Son of God. It was unnecessary for Him to do that, because He had been presenting His divine messianic credentials for three years. He had done so many things to prove He was the Son of God that unbelievers had to deny the obvious to conclude anything else. The signs and miracles recorded in the gospels are but a part of the countless others than He performed. “Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book,” John tells us; “but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:30-31; cf. 21:25).

Although Jesus was correcting the Pharisees^, incomplete concept of who He was, He also seems to have been giving them still another invitation to believe in Him. Several of the scribes, including the lawyer who had asked Jesus about the greatest commandment, commended Him for His wise answers to the questions given to test Him (Mark 12:32; Luke 20:39). Jesus even told the lawyer that he was not far from the kingdom (Mark 12:34). There doubtlessly were others in the Temple that day who were tender-hearted and open to God’s truth and who might be led to trust in Him and follow Him as Lord if they were convinced He were truly God’s Son.

Jesus was obviously no phantom, as some heretics in the early church proposed. He ate, drank, slept, felt pain, bled, and died. He was even “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). He was the Son of Man in every way. That He was specifically the Son of David was obvious and provable by the Temple records. And that He was the divine Son of God was obvious from the miracles that He performed without number for everyone to see.

Jesus shares with God all the attributes of omnipotence. He is the Creator, the controller of the heavens and the earth and all its creatures. He is the provider of food, the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the forgiver of sin, the giver of eternal life, and the judge of all men and angels.

Jesus shares with God all the attributes of omnipresence. Wherever “two or three have gathered together in My name,” He declared, “there I am in their midst” (Matt. 18:20).

Jesus shares with God all the attributes of omniscience. He knew what His disciples were thinking and what His enemies were thinking. “He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man” (John 2:25).

The New Testament consistently presents Christ as Son of David and Son of God. The gospel message Paul preached and wrote about was promised by God “beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 1:2-4). Paul admonished Timothy to “remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David” (2 Tim. 2:8).

In his letter to believers at Philippi, Paul wrote,

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:5-11)

“The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,” John declared, “and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

In his classic apologetics work Protestant Christian Evidences, Bernard Ramm gives a series of incisive answers to the question he himself propounds: “If God became incarnate, what kind of man would He be?” In abbreviated form, six of the answers are: we would expect Him to be sinless; we would expect him to be holy; we would expect His words to be the greatest words ever spoken; we would expect Him to exert a profound power over human personality; we would expect Him to perform supernatural doings; and we would expect Him to manifest the love of God. Of all human beings who have ever lived, Jesus Christ alone met all of those criteria ([Chicago; Moody, 1953], pp. 166-75).

THE INAPPROPRIATE RESPONSE

And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question. (22:46)

It is probable that some of the leaders who heard Jesus that day eventually believed in Him. But when Jesus finished His short but irrefutable proof of the Messiah’s divinity, there is no indication that anyone profited from that great truth.

Mark reports that “the great crowd enjoyed listening to Him” (Mark 12:37); but that sentiment was far from saving trust. The initial response of the people was favorable, but in two days many of them would cry out with the chief priests and elders who incited them, “Let Him be crucified!” (Matt. 27:22).

The Pharisees and other religious leaders there that day were dumbfounded but not convinced, silenced but not convicted, humiliated but not humbled, reluctantly impressed but still unbelieving. Doubtlessly they were thinking that they had been intimidated and embarrassed for the last time by the uneducated, unordained, and in their minds unorthodox rabbi from Nazareth.

Self-righteous religion has always been and will always be the greatest enemy of the gospel. Secularism generally is indifferent, whereas human religion invariably is hostile.

The Samaritan woman whom Jesus met at the well outside Sychar was the first person to whom He directly revealed His messiahship. After she commented “that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ),” Jesus then “said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He’” (John 4:25-26). That woman trusted in Christ herself and immediately went into her village and witnessed to others, many of whom also believed (vv. 39-42). But most of the Samaritans did not believe and down through the centuries have not believed. Today they number perhaps fewer than 500, and, like their Jewish counterparts, they are still looking for a Messiah who has already come. Like so many people, they failed to believe the truth, though the testimony of Scripture is overwhelmingly convincing.