"The King's Riddles: Whose Son Is the Lord?" | Matthew 22:41-45 | Sunday Morning Worship Service

Matthew 22, verse 41.

Matthew 22:41

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.

Jesus asked them, How is it then that David in the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit in my right hand until I make your enemies under your feet.

If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?

No one was able to answer Jesus a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

Love that.

This is a fun passage because it is a pop quiz.

Pop quiz theology hot shots.

Whose son is also his Lord?

That's the riddle of the day.

Yesterday I was uh on Amazon and I got a notice that popped up from Alexa that said, if you review five products, I'll give you a funny joke.

And Deidre said, Don't do it.

Why?

Why?

But Geneva was there going, go, go, go.

So I reviewed my five products.

And then Alexa tells me, no joke.

And I so I'm like, Alexa, what's going on?

Where's my joke?

And she said, that's not an Amazon feature.

It sounds to me like you were being scammed.

But then she said, in our house, Alexa is a South African woman.

Then she said, let me make it up for you.

I'll tell you a joke.

Why do scientists not trust atoms?

Because they make up everything.

Well, I'll let you know, you're laughing right now louder than Deedra laughed.

So it's a similar scenario here in Matthew 22, or the end of Matthew 22 here, where Jesus has been peppered with these questions designed to trap him.

Over the last three weeks, you've been looking at them.

They designed questions to trap Jesus.

That was the idea.

Question number one was well, all were from the Sanhedrin, but the Sanhedrin has different parties in it.

And question one was from the Herodians Should you pay taxes to Caesar?

And remember, that was a flagrantly hypocritical question because the Herodians are the party of Herod.

They believe in paying taxes to Caesar.

Question two was from the Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection, with the story about a woman who is married to seven brothers, and all the brothers died, and then she dies, who will she be married to in the resurrection?

And you remember Jesus blasts that question into outer space with, you know, you ask it because you don't know anything about the resurrection.

That's why you're always sad, you see.

Remember, he said that.

And then last week we saw the Pharisees' question.

They wanted to know about the order of the commandments.

I mean, the Sadducees, their question was hypocritical, the Far, the Herodians, their question was hypocritical.

For the Pharisees, at least their question was on brand.

That is a very Pharisee kind of question.

How would you order the commands?

And Jesus answers them by reorienting their world around God.

He doesn't answer with one of the Ten Commandments, he answers with Deuteronomy 6: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

And then he adds a second greatest commandment from Leviticus, love your neighbor as yourself.

And so in doing that, he puts an order into the law.

He shows the unity of the law, that all of the law has a true unity to it.

Love of God cannot be divided from love of neighbor.

Of course, there's a unity there, but there is also a taxis, an order there.

Love of God first, love of neighbor second.

This was a profound and insightful way of describing the law to the Pharisees, the so-called experts in the law.

You know, the Pharisees had often tried to order the commandments, and there were even some Pharisees that would have argued that love of neighbor is the greatest commandment, but they always said it negatively, like, don't do anything to your neighbor you wouldn't want done to you.

Jesus, in turning it positive and linking it to the love of God, just blasts the Pharisees' view of the law, as I said, into outer space.

Well, now it's Jesus' turn.

They asked him questions, three in a row, designed to trap him.

Jesus turns the tables now, and with the massive crowd, tens of thousands of people gathered.

This is likely in the courtyard of the temple there, perhaps outside on the southern steps, spilling out.

If you've been to Israel, you know thousands and thousands of people can fit on those southern steps.

Tens of thousands of people can fit in that courtyard area.

Your voice travels through it with the wall built up, even to this day.

If you're backed up against the wall, the southern steps, one person's voice, if angled down the wall, can carry to 10,000 plus people easily.

That's this scenario.

Jesus in the front row of this is the 70 Sanhedrin with their hats and their outlandish appearance, cornering him.

Now he has a question for them.

No more trick questions from them to Jesus.

Now it's one from Jesus to them.

They had riddles for him, he has a riddle for them.

And his riddle is better than theirs, of course.

When they were gathered together, verse 41 says, I mentioned this last week, that phrase, gather together.

That is a word from Psalm 2, that the nations gather together against the Savior.

They conspire to overthrow God and his Son.

That's Psalm 2.

Why do the nations rage?

Why do the people gather together and plot a vain thing?

That's what the people are doing.

So it's very interesting when Matthew uses that word, he is connecting what he's watching in front of him.

Remember, Matthew is there.

He's connecting what he's seeing in front of him to Psalm 2.

It's almost as if it dawns on Matthew.

They're acting out Psalm 2.

The nations are gathered.

This is Passover week.

Jews from all over the diaspora, from all over the Mediterranean basin, have poured into Jerusalem.

They are truly from the nations.

Why do the nations rage?

Why do the people gather and plot a vain thing?

Matthew sees them doing just that.

Jesus responds to their conniving with the question, his own pop quiz.

Here you go, verse 42.

What do you think about the Christ?

Christ is the Greek word Christos.

Some translations render it Messiah.

That would be the English word, Messiah.

Some English translations just bring it straight over to English without translating it.

That's where you get Christ from.

It's the title in the Old Testament for the promised savior, the promised savior to Eve.

The savior will be the seed of the woman from Eve, the Savior to Abram, that it will be his seed that will become a nation.

The savior promised to David that it'll be a king from the line of David.

The Savior promised to Daniel, the Son of Man will come.

That's the word, the anointed one, the Spirit will be on him.

That's the language of Isaiah.

He will be the promised savior, the anointed one.

The Greeks had a word for that: the Messiah, the Christos, and it comes here from Jesus' lips.

What do you think about the Savior?

Isn't this a better question than theirs?

This is the best question you can possibly ask someone.

What do you think about Jesus?

You don't get a better question than that.

And I don't even mean it like Jesus is the most important person in the world, although that is true.

I just mean it at a level of ranking questions.

Their questions were all tricks.

Jesus' question is just straight up theological.

Their questions are all about something taxes, marriage and the resurrection, ordering of the law.

Jesus' question is about someone, the Savior.

Do you see the difference?

Their questions were designed to put Jesus to death.

Jesus' question is designed to give them life.

It's just totally opposite.

His question is fundamentally better than theirs.

Their question was designed to obscure the truth of the law and the truth of prophecy.

Jesus' question is designed to reveal it.

It's just a way better question.

It finally matters.

We don't get a silly question about resurrection or taxes.

We get a question about Jesus.

Remember, I told you the Sanhedrin question was the most silly of all.

It's like, did Adam have the belly button?

Ha ha ha kind of question.

Jesus asks about the Savior promised to the world.

It's always about who Jesus is, of course.

He had asked a similar kind of question earlier in chapter 21 when he had cleaned out the temple, when he turned over the tables and drove out the tax collectors.

Do you remember they cornered him and they asked him, By what authority do you do these things?

That was their question to him then.

Who signed your permit to be here on the Sabbath?

Kind of question.

And do you remember Jesus' answer?

He said, I will answer you that question if you answer me my question.

By what authority did John the Baptist do his ministry?

So it's the same thing.

They asked him a question about permit paperwork, and Jesus' answer is about a person, about a prophet.

And they wouldn't answer him, remember, because they were afraid of the crowd.

The text says they were afraid of the crowd, so they didn't want to say.

You know, how hard would it be to say, listen, let me just be honest with you, John the Baptist was crazy.

He ate locusts and grasshoppers and lived in the desert, okay?

Back off.

That would have been an answer that might have even worked.

They wouldn't have said that though.

They were afraid of the crowds.

Maybe that's where they got the idea for these questions.

Maybe they can use that against Jesus.

Ask him questions that he wouldn't answer because he's afraid of the crowd.

Well, that didn't work.

And so Jesus is back to his new approach with a question for them.

Verse 42, whose son is he?

That's the first half of the question.

It's a riddle here.

So the first half of it is whose son is he?

Let's navigate this riddle together.

Answering Jesus' riddle will be our outline.

First, the half answer, whose son is he is the question.

Verse 42.

The answer is the son of David.

Now, they get it right.

Also, that's not a hard question.

It's a pretty easy question.

You know, there's the joke about the Sunday school answers in our in our Christian world that you can ask a student any question in Sunday school, and their answer will be Jesus.

They know that who turned water into wine?

Jesus.

Who healed the blind man?

Jesus.

Who's the author and protector of faith?

Jesus.

You know, what has feathers and floats in water and eats breadcrumbs and quacks like a duck?

Jesus.

It's always the Sunday school answer.

Like kids know that.

Goldfish are a powerful way of training kids.

And it works.

Jesus, the answer to everything.

They get that.

In the Saturday school, the Jewish version of this, the Saturday school, every answer is the son of David.

That's the answer.

They know this.

The question, whose son is the savior, is the easiest possible softball question to a Jew.

Obviously, the son of David.

This goes back a thousand years earlier when David moved the ark into Jerusalem.

We've been looking at that Sunday evenings in 1 Chronicles.

Now the ark is there, but the ark is in a tent.

It's in a tabernacle.

And David decides he wants to build a more permanent place for the ark.

So David calls Nathan over, the prophet, says, I would like to build God a house.

Nathan says, Go for it.

Nathan, you know, walks away.

David starts with his laying out the plans for the house.

Nathan comes back and says, on second thought, don't.

That's not the way God works.

You don't get to build God a house.

You remember what Nathan says?

God's going to build you a house.

He's going to build a dynasty from David.

Go ahead and leave the ark in a tent.

Solomon can build a house, that's fine.

You don't get to, David, instead, God will make you a house.

From your line will be the Savior.

That's the promise.

It's called the Davidic covenant.

After the Abrahamic covenant is probably the most foundational Old Testament truth in the Jewish scriptures is that the Savior will be David's son.

It will come from him, the Savior will.

From that day on, Israel's hope in a savior had a name.

The Savior will be the son of David.

The Messiah will be the son of David.

This is all over the Old Testament.

Isaiah says it this way: the shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse.

That's David's dad.

A branch from his roots will bear fruit.

Yahweh's spirit will rest on him.

The spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and strength, of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh.

You start to see some images of the Trinity in this.

The Father says that the Savior will come from David, but that the Spirit of Yahweh, distinct from Yahweh himself, the Spirit of Yahweh, who is Yahweh, of course, everything Yahweh is, his spirit is.

Every attribute that is in the that is in God is in the Spirit, of course.

And in fact, the text even lists them.

The text calls Yahweh's spirit, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and strength, of knowledge and fear of the Lord.

Everything that is directed towards the Father can be directed towards the Spirit.

Worship, adoration, fear.

Everything that comes from the Father likewise comes from the Spirit.

That's the idea.

And here that will all be seen in the Savior, who will be, notice the phrase, from the Son of Jesse.

That's David.

Jeremiah 30, verse 9.

Jeremiah 30:9

Perhaps the most famous prophecy of the new covenant in all of the Old Testament.

Says, in that day they will serve Yahweh their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.

Again, little images here of the Trinity that you will be serving Yahweh by serving the Son of David.

The Messiah will even be called David.

Keep in mind, Jeremiah is written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years after David died.

So to say that the Savior will be called David, it's not saying that David's going to resurrect.

It's not saying that, you know, it's a reincarnation of David.

It's saying that the Savior will be from the line of David.

He will be like David and from his line.

Ezekiel, writing as Israel is literally in exile.

They've lost their country already.

Ezekiel says, I will set over them, speaking of Yahweh, one shepherd, my servant David.

He will feed them and be their shepherd.

I mean, there's a dozen other passages I could point to that are like this.

The point is, throughout the Old Testament, the Savior is spoken of as David, the son of David.

The problem that you're already seeing in Ezekiel's lifetime is they are fresh out of kings.

The promise goes to David.

Maybe it could be Solomon, maybe it could be Rehoboam, and then the line of kings just keep going.

I mean, every king you wonder, could this be the guy?

Could he be the son of David that'll be the Messiah?

No, no, no.

They're all losers, basically, when you go through the book of 1 and 2 Kings, they're all bad kings.

Even the good kings are good because they repented of their bad things.

So you kind of run out of kings there, and then they literally run out of kings.

They get kicked out of the country.

The temple is torn down, the house of David is torn down.

When they get to come back under Zerubal, who's a governor, not a king, by the way, they have nobody related to David.

And if they did, there's no crown to put on his head, and there's no throne for him to sit on, and there's no nation for him to reign over.

So fresh out of sons of David, really.

And so for hundreds of years they go through sadness.

They still believe the Savior's coming.

They still believe he'll be the son of David.

No crown for him, no country for him.

He's not going to be Caesar over in Rome.

He's not Alexander the Great who ruled over Israel.

He's not the Persian king, the Babylonian king, the Assyrian king.

They're not sons of David, obviously.

That's just a sad state of affairs.

They had Nehemiah, Ezra, Zerubbabel.

What do they get instead of a son of David, by the way?

They get the Pharisees, Yikes.

That's what they have.

No throne, no crown, no king, no David.

This is, by the way, why both Luke and Matthew begin their gospels by letting you know that Jesus Christ is the son of David.

He is David's son, the record of the genealogy of Jesus.

This is Matthew 1-1 of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David and the son of Abraham.

Hundreds of years went by with no son of David, and every year they just got hungrier for it.

And now the New Testament begins by saying, This is the guy.

And this is a constant refrain in Matthew's gospel.

Maybe you've noticed it if we've been going through Matthew's gospel now for like the last what four years or so?

Seems like but a moment to me.

How many times do people say, This is a son of David?

The blind men who are crying out for healing say, Have mercy on us, son of David.

The Syrophoenician, a Gentile woman from Syria, asks David, I'm gonna ask Jesus for help by saying, Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David.

The crowds after Jesus heals on the Sabbath in Matthew 12 in the synagogue.

Remember he healed the man with a withered hand on the synagogue?

The congregation there says, This almost looks like it could be the son of David.

This is not obscure language.

I mean, forget the blind man and forget the synagogue in Capernaum.

How about the kids who lined the street into the temple two days earlier before this conversation?

On Palm Sunday, they're singing songs to Jesus as he enters the temple.

They're singing Hosanna, Hosanna to the Son of David.

That's their song.

So when Jesus asked the religious leaders whose son is the Savior, it is not a hard question.

The six-year-olds answered it yesterday.

The son of David.

That's half of the answer.

And they get it right.

Look at verse 42.

They said the son of David.

Good job.

Smarter than a six-year-old.

This leads to the second part of the answer.

The whole answer is that he's also David's Lord.

So Jesus asked them in verse 43, How is it then that David in the spirit calls him Lord?

Saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit in my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.

I want you to leave your finger in Psalm 22.

I mean in Matthew 22 and flip over to Psalm 110.

In your Bible, turn back to Psalm 110.

This is the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament.

By my count, 30 times this passage is quoted in the New Testament.

It's not an obscure passage.

The Jews read this every time a new king was installed in Jerusalem.

A very, very well-known passage.

To call it a well-known passage is almost diminishing it even.

It would be like saying the Star-Spangled Banner is a well-known American song.

I mean, kind of, I guess.

That's not really the best way to describe it.

That's Psalm 110 for the Jews.

It's well known.

Yeah, it's their inauguration song.

It's a Psalm of David.

Yahweh says to my Lord, remember, Lord in all caps in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word for Yahweh.

Most English translations don't like printing the word Yahweh because it makes people angry.

And so they put Lord in all caps there, and you're supposed to put your Bible decoder lens on and read it.

But as Yahweh says to my Lord, that's the Hebrew Adonai, Yahweh says to Adonai, my Lord, sit in my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

So this is David writing this, and David's writing this about a conversation between Yahweh and David's own Lord.

Yahweh sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter.

Rule in the midst of your enemies.

Who is this psalm written to?

That's the crazy question.

That's such an obvious question to ask.

Who is Yahweh talking to?

David writes it, but it's somebody else.

David refers to the person as my Lord.

Who's David's Lord?

Is it Saul?

The king before David?

Well, verse 2 made that impossible.

He sets him up on Zion, it says.

Saul never conquered Jerusalem.

He never, he was never established on Zion.

It's not Saul.

It's a mystery.

Who is this talking to?

In verse 3, it says, His people will offer themselves freely to him.

And then the end of verse 3, from the womb of the morning, the dew of the youth will be yours.

A very complicated Hebrew phrase.

The womb of the morning.

Literally, in Hebrew, it's the place where light gestates, is what the Hebrew phrase is.

You can see why the SV goes womb of the morning.

That's way better.

It's before light is born.

That's what it's talking about.

That's what the Hebrew word means.

Before light was born is when this promise takes place.

Before there was light, Yahweh is talking to David's Lord.

Before The first day of creation, God promises David's Lord that he will have a people that offer themselves freely to him.

And by the way, verse 4, Yahweh has sworn and will never change his mind.

He will make David's Lord a priest forever after the order of Machizedek.

Remember, Machizedek is older than the tribe of Levi, older than Abraham.

He predates the law.

And by the way, when this king comes in verse 5, he will shatter his enemies in his wrath.

That's Psalm 110.

Notice it's a hard Psalm to understand if you just ask basic, obvious questions.

Who's speaking?

Yahweh.

To whom is he speaking?

David's Lord.

When is he speaking?

Who has any idea?

Before time, verse 3.

If it's a before time conversation, how in the world does David know about it to write it down?

Jesus will answer that in a second before we get there.

It's a promise that this Lord of David will rule over his enemies in verse 1, crushing them under his feet.

That he'll do it from Zion, where Jesus will reign.

Every time they read this psalm, every new king that comes is a reminder of the old king, wasn't it?

Maybe one day, maybe one day we'll get the Son of David.

Maybe one day we'll get David's Lord on the throne.

The verb tenses are all over the place here.

Present tense, Yahweh says to my Lord.

An imperative, sit at my right hand.

Future, verse three, your people will offer themselves freely to you.

Past, before light was born in verse three.

Verse four, Yahweh has sworn has sworn and will not change his mind.

A previous conversation.

Present tense, verse five, the Lord's already at your right hand.

I mean, what you can't even outline this.

What a mess.

Back to Psalm, back to Matthew 22 now.

That's the Psalm Jesus quotes to the Pharisees.

He leads them into his own trap by asking them, whose son is the Messiah?

And all the six-year-olds and all the Pharisees know he's David's son.

Part two of the question then: how is it that David calls him Lord?

How can the Savior be David's son and also David's Lord?

It doesn't even chronologically make sense.

How can a person born from David be the Lord who existed before David was even born?

Do you follow the trap?

How can both be true?

And that's a very good question for you to answer.

I won't call on anybody.

But you might think right now in your own head, if Jesus asked you that question, how would you answer it?

If Jesus were to ask you what he asked the Pharisees, how can the Savior be David's son and also David's Lord?

Just physiologically, how is it possible for one person to be before David and after David?

That's the question.

Before I answer it, notice that Jesus answers the question I asked when I read Psalm 110, and I remember asking this question very early reading Psalm 110.

If this is a conversation from before time, how in the world did David find out about it to write it down?

Jesus answers that question.

You had to wait till the New Testament to get it.

How is it then that David in the Spirit calls him Lord?

If it's a conversation before time between the Father and the Son, how could anyone ever know about that conversation?

Is there anybody else that would have heard that conversation?

And the answer is obviously the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God's wisdom and understanding and power and might, the Spirit who inspires the scripture and reveals the mind of God to the authors of the Bible.

That's who heard the conversation.

And so even in the most like obvious Old Testament passage, Psalm 110, you have the fingerprints of the Trinity all over it.

The Father speaking to the Son, the Spirit revealing the truth to us.

That's really cool.

I love that Jesus brings that out.

But verse 44 is the text that Jesus quotes.

The Lord said to my Lord, here's the question, verse 45.

If David calls him Lord, how can he possibly be his son?

And of course, they can't answer that question.

They have no way to answer that question.

Verse 46, no one was able to answer him a word.

Ancient Near East.

Sons are never greater than their fathers.

It's hard for Americans to understand because in our American dream we want our kids to be greater than us.

That's a Western civics virtue right there.

It's every parent's dream that your kids have more than you and more power and more wealth and more whatever, a happier life than you.

It's the American, they call it the American dream.

It is not the ancient Near Eastern Jewish dream.

I'll tell you that right now.

In the ancient Near Eastern worlds, kids are never greater than their parents.

That would be an insult.

Of course not.

Parents are always greater than their kids.

Everything the kids have the gift from mom and dad.

That ethic needs to come back.

I'll tell you that right now.

No, not really.

I want my kids to succeed and do well.

But in the Jewish worlds, kids are always inferior to their parents.

It does not make sense for David to refer to the son who will come after him as his Lord.

You don't retire as being king and hand it over to your grandson and bow before no grandfather's gonna bow before his grandson as king.

Are you kidding me?

But that's what Jesus describes.

How is it possible?

And I love that he corners the Pharisees, not with some obscure text from the minor prophet or from the back channels of Ezekiel, but from Psalm 110.

How do you not see this all over the Old Testament?

How do you not see it?

Notice the part that Jesus quotes.

He doesn't quote the whole psalm.

Sit at my right hand.

That's what God is saying to David's Lord.

Sit at my right hand.

Nobody gets to sit at God's right hand.

When David, you know, that leaves the ark in the tabernacle, eventually David will die.

Solomon builds a temple for the ark.

You know what he doesn't put in the Holy of Holies where the ark is?

A chair.

The priests don't even get to sit next to the ark in the temple.

They walk in, sprinkle with blood, and get out.

God kills people who hang out there.

The whole they had bells on their robes and everything, so you hear them when they died, and then you could pull them out by a rope, is the idea behind it.

There is definitely no chair.

He doesn't walk in, sprinkle the thing with blood, and then sit down in a chair and scroll or something like that.

He gets out.

Jesus, when he walks in to the temple in heaven, where the throne of God is, where God reigns over the universe, Jesus walks in and sits down, he's saying.

How can the Messiah come after David and rank above David?

How can both be true?

Well, the the answer the scripture gives, we'll get to in a second.

That's the third part of the riddle.

The silent answer.

The silent answer, no one able to answer a word, verse 46 says, they couldn't say anything.

And by the way, I like the laughter I read it earlier.

It's supposed to be funny.

Matthew means it as a joke.

From that day forward, they didn't ask him any more questions.

They're like, we give up, man.

If you're gonna be Jesus, it can't be at a game of pop quiz.

But the right answer to the question, I know you would get this.

The right answer is found in the New Testament in Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

God's son was a descendant of David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the Son of God by the power, by power with the resurrection from the dead.

In other words, he becomes the son of David when he is born in the line of David.

He has always been the Son of God.

He is the second person of the Trinity.

He is speaking to the Father before light was made.

He has always existed.

The Father and the Son are the same God.

And the Spirit who hears the conversation is the same God.

There is one God.

In last week's text, they asked Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and he responded by quoting the Shema, the hero Israel, Shema Israel Adnail Chenu Adnaikad, Hero Israel, Yahweh, your God, Yahweh is one.

There's only one God.

Jesus just quoted that.

So now he goes to Psalm 110.

He's not introducing a second God five minutes later.

He's making the point.

David's son is God according to his deity.

How can one person be the son of David according to the flesh and the son of God according to his deity?

The answer is because he has two natures.

That's the answer.

So if Jesus were to ask you, how can the Savior be both the Son of David and David's Lord?

Your answer would be because he has two natures.

He is truly man and he is truly God.

That's Paul's answer in Romans 1.

He can stand before God as our Savior according to his humanity.

He lived a sinless human life.

And so he atones for our sin.

And he can stand before us as God's representative according to his deity.

He is truly God.

And God comes down to us to make a way back to him.

He is truly the God man.

He can tell the Pharisees, I am David's son, because he is born in the line of David according to his humanity.

And he can tell the Pharisees, I am David's Lord, because he predates David and he predates light according to his deity.

But he doesn't say those things here.

Not yet.

This is Tuesday.

This is Tuesday.

He doesn't say that.

He just quotes Psalm 110 and lets them fight Psalm 110.

I love the genius of the way he answers it.

You know, they don't know what to say.

He will not stay quiet forever.

48 hours from here, he's going to be interrogated Thursday night by the same group of people.

And do you remember how that goes down?

When that goes down, they demand from Jesus an answer.

The high priest says, I adjure you by the living God, tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.

So he's cleaned up the question by Thursday.

And Jesus doesn't just quote Psalm 110 back to him.

He says, You have said it yourself.

Nevertheless, I tell you directly, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power.

That's Psalm 110 language again.

I'm telling you, Jesus tells the high priest, you will see me sitting at the right hand of God in heaven.

Remember what the high priest does?

Rips his robes and shouts, That's blasphemy, put him to death.

That's the silent answer.

He is David's son, and he is David's Lord.

The Bible closes with Jesus answering that question too.

Revelation chapter 22 describes Jesus coming in the clouds with great glory, declaring to everybody that he is David's son and David's Lord.

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

Peter declares, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

That's Matthew 16, 16.

Philippians 2, one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord.

Matthew 28, 18, Jesus declares, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

That's the declaration of deity.

He is truly the Lord.

He has all authority in heaven and on earth.

He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.

How can he be David's son and David's Lord?

Well, how can he be A and Z?

He's outside of time.

He is before all, over all, and in time he governs all.

And so the Pharisees want to know who gave you the authority to be here?

His response to them, he is before time.

He is the Alpha, the Omega.

He rules the universe according to his sovereign will.

God didn't invent the cross in time.

He didn't see Adam fall and then think, oh no, we better figure something out.

Before time started, the Father, Son, and Spirit planned the redemption of a people for Jesus.

We're included in that.

But also, Jesus' question still stands for us.

What do you think about the Christ?

You know, it's very easy to imagine most of the crowd, not just a few, but most of the crowd on this day, probably went away and said, man, that guy can preach.

He's smarter than a Pharisee.

What a good teacher he is.

What an example.

What powerful oration.

Man, he is so insightful when it comes to morality and ethics.

I bet that's the way the majority of the crowd responded.

That's not the right answer.

That's not what Jesus is fishing for.

Most of the people that I've talked to today about this kind of question just kind of roll their eyes and say the Savior can be David's son and David's Lord.

I mean, I don't know.

That's a question for theologians to ask, I guess.

It's hard to dodge this question because remember, the prophecy that he'll be David's son and David's Lord was written hundreds of years before he was born.

So this is not like one of the things where, like, I've heard people say, oh, some of the prophecies in the Old Testament are written after Jesus' lifetime or Jesus intentionally fulfilled them kind of thing.

That's just silly.

This one's written, you know, what, 800 years, 900 years before Jesus was born?

So how do you explain that?

How do you explain a prophecy like this written 900 years before he was born that he fulfills without identifying him as God and man?

How do you do it?

And most people don't do that.

Most people will just say, theologians can think about that.

I'm moving on with life.

I mean, that is the answer of silence.

That's the bad answer.

The right answer is to remember that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.

Lord, we're grateful for the clarity of your word.

On Tuesday, no one could answer your question.

On Thursday, they killed you for the answer.

Here we are reading about it so long later.

Pray for the hearts in this congregation.

That we would be able to answer that question truly and honestly.

You are the Son of David according to your humanity.

You're the son of God according to your deity.

Two natures, one person, our Savior.

The holy God who dies on the cross for sin.

Lord, we're grateful for Christ.

What do you think about the Christ?

We can only answer.

He is bold, courageous to say these kind of things before his enemies.

You're gonna kill him for it.

He's powerful.

He's the wisdom of God.

He's the ruler of all nature.

He's the author and perfecter of our faith.

He is the Alpha and the Omega.

He is the Lord of creation.

Both God and man, we're thankful for him.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or you want more information about what it means to follow Christ, please go to our church website, iBC.church.

If you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to see you at one of our own worship services at Emmanuel.

Now may the Lord bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.