David’s Son is David’s Lord

So the Lord, what He does is He goes on offense. He’s been fielding questions and now He’s going to go on offense to deal with some of the things that they believe and so what’s interesting is that as we saw this morning that the Pharisees were not wrong doctrinally. The Pharisees were right doctrinally. If you looked at their doctrinal statement you ignored their practice but you looked at their doctrinal statement it would be a lot like ours as far as what they believed about the scripture and what they believed about God and those kinds of things.

So the issue and I know this is repeated, I repeat it over and over but it just stands out in stark relief which is just because your doctrinal statement is right does not mean you’re right with God and that’s repeated over and over and as we saw this morning the the Pharisees are the ones that gave the Lord the most trouble and so in verse number 42 Jesus asked the question, what think ye of Christ?

Whose son is He? And they say unto Him, the son of David. So this when they’re saying what think ye of Christ? Whose son is He? They’re asking about His ancestry. Now what do I mean by that? When the Lord says Christ, He’s not talking about Himself, obviously He is Christ but when He’s asking, when He’s posing the question He’s essentially saying according to what you believe, according to what you understand to be true from the scripture, who, the Messiah is descended from whom?

That’s what He’s asking. The Messiah according to what you say is descended from whom? And verse 42 answers the question correctly. He says the Pharisees say the son of David. So they believed the Bible. They believed there would be a Messiah. They believed that the Messiah was going to come through the line of David and all of that was scriptural. So we’re again reminded that even in the Lord’s question the sect of the Pharisees was doctrinally sound.

Now verse number 42, they say unto Him, the son of David. Now you know these verses but let’s just take a walk through Matthew very quickly. We’ve covered all of the verses I’m going to read to you in our study of Matthew, every one of them, but I want to show you how many examples there are of this real quick. Matthew 9 to begin. Matthew chapter 9 verse 27.

You see the Messiah, the belief that the Messiah was a descendant of David, a direct descendant of King David was a well established and widely believed idea. Remember of all the different groups that existed in the first century the group of the Pharisees was the biggest and most influential and the people tended to align with the Pharisees even if they didn’t do all the things the Pharisees told them to do.

But so the people therefore did believe in the Messiah and they understood that He would be a son of David, an ancestor of David or a descendant of David, not ancestor. But notice 927 of Matthew says this, and Jesus departed thence and two blind men followed Him crying and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. See that? That’s the blind men now. Look at chapter 12 verse 22.

Then was brought unto Him one possessed with the devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him insomuch that the blind and dumb spake and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, Is not this the Son of David? Chapter 15. Look at that real quick. Chapter 15 verse 22, this is a woman of Canaan who’s not even a Jew says this, and behold a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts and cried unto Him saying, Have mercy on me O Lord, Thou Son of David.

My daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. That’s time number three we’ve seen. Look at chapter 20. Chapter 20 verse 30. This is two different blind men now. And behold two blind men sitting by the wayside when they heard that Jesus passed by cried out saying, Have mercy on us O Lord, Thou Son of David. And then lastly Matthew 21 on the next page over verse number 15.

And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying in the temple and saying, this is what the kids are saying now, Hosanna to the Son of David. So what do you see here? This is one way you study your Bible and the things you want to cover. In fact we would say, you could say that our study tonight is kind of a study of a Bible study.

It’s a Bible study on Bible study. But as you can see by paying attention to these mentions you can see that these people recognize the Messiah as the Son of David. That was a term that was equated with the Messiah. And so this is also one of the reasons why the genealogies are so important. I know the genealogies are probably when you read them, especially some like in first Chronicles and Numbers, probably make you feel like you feel right now.

A little bit sleepy. But this, they are important. They are important because the genealogies demonstrate that Jesus is in the direct line of David. That he is a direct descendant of David. And here’s the thing, if Jesus Christ is not truly and actually in the line, in the direct line of David, that is David is not his direct ancestor, he cannot be the Messiah. So the genealogies serve to prove the point that Jesus is indeed, of all the things that the Jews had to look at to determine who is this man, what think you of Christ as they say, of all the things they had to look at, the genealogies prove that he is at least a candidate to be the Messiah.

And that was the question they had. That’s the question from John the Baptist with his baptism of repentance. And then what he said about Jesus being the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world, all these things are seeking to identify that Jesus is the Messiah. Well, one of those boxes that has to be checked is he has to be in the direct line of David.

That’s what the genealogies show. And the reason I showed you those verses is to show you that that’s what everybody expected. Because really that’s the bottom line of this conversation. So we go back to Matthew 22, verse number 42. What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he? They say unto him, the son of David. So that is well established. Now of course, they don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

They don’t believe that. There were people that did. Those people called him the son of David, but the people to whom the Lord is speaking here did not believe that. Verse 43. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord? How then doth David in spirit call him Lord? Now notice he says in spirit. That’s another way of saying David was speaking by the Spirit of God.

In other words, he was controlled by the Spirit of God or by the inspiration of the Spirit of God. In other words, Jesus is saying that the words that David spoke in Psalm 110, which is what this quote is from, it was spoken by the Spirit of God. And so this is an assertion of the inspiration of scripture from the Lord Jesus of Psalm 110. So we’re going to look at Psalm 110 and I want to show you this verse that the Lord is quoting here.

Psalm 110. Let’s go there. We’ll just read the whole Psalm, only seven verses. All right. Notice the subtitle says, A Psalm of David. Verse 1. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.

In the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen. He shall fill the places with the dead bodies. He shall wound the heads over many countries.

He shall drink of the brook in the way. Therefore shall he lift up the head. Now this Psalm is recognized as a Psalm referring to the Messiah. Now notice verse 1 very carefully, which is the verse Jesus quotes. It says, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Take a minute and look at the verse. If you could just focus your mind a little bit right now, I know I can tell you.

You’re ailing. You’re ailing. I’m hurrying. I promise. Now notice the capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, second word in the Psalm. You see this? Who is that? Jehovah. The God of the Old Testament that we understand. That’s the name of the God of the Old Testament. Okay. Alright. The Lord, now remember who is speaking? You gotta get this right. Who is speaking? The human author is David, right?

A Psalm of David. So David is speaking. He says, The Lord, God, Jehovah, said unto my Lord, David’s Lord. You see that? Okay. Just looking at this, just looking at this Psalm without any other information, you have to ask the question, who is this second Lord? So David is the King of Israel. He is the top dog. There is nobody that is David’s Lord in Israel, right?

He is the Lord of everyone, everyone in Israel at this point. David says, The Lord, God, Jehovah, said to my Lord. Okay. So the automatic question is, who is this other figure? Do you see it? Who is this other figure? Who is David’s Lord? Now that’s a, okay, the reason why it’s important for us to understand that is because that’s something that the Jews could have understood just by reading the text.

Any instruction, there’s not any special insight. It’s the issue, this mystery of this figure of this second Lord here is a legitimate question. Who is David’s Lord if not God? Because God is the one first mentioned. And obviously the answer to that is there is a Lord above David who, as we see in verse number one, the Lord said unto my Lord. So God Jehovah is speaking to this other Lord who is David’s Lord and here’s what he says to him.

Sit thou, now this is Jehovah speaking to this other Lord. He says, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Now, ask yourself looking at just verse number one, what is the position of this Lord? Think about it, he’s being told by Jehovah, your seat is right here. Now what do you know about the right hand from scripture? What do you know about that?

It’s where the sun sits, but more generally. It’s the position of closest authority, right? It’s the position where your right hand man, like the vice president would be. That’s why we have the flag always to the right of the speaker, right? In the display of the American flag. That’s where it comes from, it’s a scriptural principle. So this Lord who is unidentified in Psalm 110 is seated at the right hand of Jehovah.

That is a place of remarkable authority and remarkable privilege. That’s a place that David himself doesn’t have. So what do we know from this? We know that David, that this person, rather this figure in verse number one is someone that’s higher than David, right? This is what Jesus is pointing out. In other words, Jesus is just doing a little Bible study and concentrating on this figure. So it was the Jews own belief that this Psalm was about the Messiah.

It was the Jews own belief that the Messiah would be the son of David. Now notice this is not all that’s in the Psalm. I’m going to point out a few more things about this Psalm. So we’ve established in Psalm 110 verse one that this Lord who is sitting at the right hand of Jehovah and is going to be there until Jehovah makes all his enemies his footstool.

In other words, puts all enemies down. This is ultimate, complete, permanent victory, right? Now go down to verse number four. The Lord hath sworn. Now you’ve got to follow the words now. Who is being spoken to? The Lord, that’s Jehovah, hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest. Who’s thou? Who is the Lord addressing? The Lord, right? We’re getting confused here, right? We’re getting confused.

The Lord Jehovah, if I say it like that, is addressing the other Lord from verse one. And here’s what he says to him. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now you’ve probably heard that verse somewhere else. Where have you heard it? Hebrews, Hebrews chapter five, Hebrews chapter six, Hebrews chapter seven. And in Hebrews it’s applied to whom? It’s applied to Jesus. Now think about, just think about Psalm 110.

What a Psalm. And this is, this is, remember at the point in which our Lord is talking in Matthew 22, Psalm 110 is all there is. There is no Hebrews yet. Think about the rich doctrine that is coming out of Psalm 110 about Jesus, about himself, right? Think about this. This Psalm is hugely significant in Christology. That is the doctrine of Christ. This Psalm is the basis, is one of the bases of the argument for the deity of Christ because, in verse one, he is seated at the right hand of Jehovah.

In verse number one, he is greater than David. Now hear me, but he is a descendant, not ancestor, a descendant of David, but he’s greater than David. So that’s the basis for the deity of Christ. It’s the basis also for the teaching of Christ’s unique priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. That’s in verse four. Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. I know we’re getting into the weeds a little bit, but this is huge.

Jesus was not a priest in the sense of being a Levitical priest. And if he’s not a priest, then how can he function as a go-between? But he is a priest because in this Psalm, he is called a priest of a different order, a different group of Melchizedek, which of course is an eternal priest. Because it says, thou art a priest, what’s the next two words? That’s his eternal priesthood.

He ever liveth to make intercession for us. So the Lord is not like a Levitical priest in that they die and are replaced by the next high priest. No, the Lord, because he rose from the dead, is an eternal priest who ever lives to make intercession for us. Hebrews five and six tell us that. This Psalm is also the basis for understanding where Christ is at this moment.

Did you know that our understanding of where Jesus is primarily comes from Mark and from Ephesians and Hebrews and 1 Peter? I’d like to look at those in a minute, but that is all built on this Psalm. Look at, if you would, at Mark 16. In fact, let’s do it like this just to break it up a little bit. I’m going to sign it out for y’all to read, okay?

Ben, Mark 16, 19. Can you read that? Andrew, Ephesians 1, 20. Can you do that one? Sam, Hebrews 12, 2. And Devin, 1 Peter 3, 22. I’ll give y’all a minute to get there. If you want to write them down, you’re welcome to do that. But y’all just listen to these verses. All right, Ben, hit it. Mark 16, 19. How did they know, how did the writer there know that Jesus, because after he was taken up, I mean you can’t see him anymore, how did they know where he was going to be seated?

Psalm 110. It says it. It says it. All right. Ephesians 1, 20. Where is that from? Psalm 110. Hebrews 12, 2. And it’s set down. Psalm 110. Sit thou at my right hand. All right? 1 Peter 3, 22. Devin? All right, look at Ephesians chapter 1. I know we just read it there, but look at it one more time. Ephesians 1. Verse number 21. Notice verse 20 says, Notice verse 20, the foundation of verse 20 is what?

Remember? Psalm 110. Which says, Now notice, so Jesus is at the right hand of God in the heavenly places, verse 21. Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Now notice, so Jesus is at the right hand of God in the heavenly places, verse 21. Far above all principality, and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.

And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church. Where did that come from? It’s a scriptural truth from Psalm 110. Because the Lord Jesus in Psalm 110 is seen at the right hand of the Father, and all things have been made subject unto him, that shows us that Christ is not only deity, is not only an eternal priest making intercession for us, is not only at the right hand of God at this moment, but he is also in the place of highest exaltation.

And all of that is found in Psalm 110. So it’s no wonder Jesus brought this up. This Psalm is rich with information about Christ. Now go back to Matthew 22 and we’ll finish up. So in verse number 42, Jesus says, whose son is the Messiah? The Messiah is the son of whom? Who is he a descendant of? And they said he’s the descendant of David, he’s the son of David.

Now here’s the thing. Especially, it’s hard maybe for us to understand this fully, but it’s definitely, you can see it in scripture very clearly, is, take a step back. Take the fifth commandment, which is, honor thy father and thy mother. What does that tell us about our parents as compared to us? In the hierarchy, what does that tell us? Parents are above us, right? That’s why they get honor, because of their place.

They bore us, they brought us into the world, and they could take us, I’m sorry, why is it everybody knew exactly what I was going to say? They brought us into the world, and so they deserve honor. So you would say your parents are greater, right? That’s good, that’s right. What about their parents then? How does that logic go? If we’re to give honor to our parents, and they’re to give honor, okay, follow me now.

If we’re to give honor to our parents, and the people that we honor give honor to another, then that means that that one is more honorable than ours, and we honor ours. And you go, you follow that, you trace that back up, so what’s the conclusion? Which is greater, the ancestor or the descendant? The ancestor is definitely greater. If your parents deserve honor because they are your parents, and your grandparents, then certainly the ones that go all the way back, and that’s exactly what you see with Abraham.

They honored Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, because that was their progenitors, that was the ones who, you know. They had the highest honor, okay? This is why it’s so important, going back to Melchizedek, kind of coming full circle, that Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek, and Melchizedek blessed Abraham. That’s the whole point the writer of Hebrews is making. There was no greater ancestor than Abraham, and yet Abraham showed honor to Melchizedek.

And Abraham was blessed by Melchizedek. Do you see? So who is greater, Abraham or Melchizedek? Melchizedek, ding ding, that’s Psalm 110, right? We’re learning. All right, we’re going to finish up here. Now, so here’s the argument the Lord is making. If the Messiah is the descendant of David, which means David is greater, why then in Psalm 110 is that Messiah called his Lord? You know what that is?

That’s a paradox that the Lord is pointing out, and it’s a legitimate paradox from the Bible. Don’t you love the fact that Jesus knew the Bible? That’s just awesome. Like, he wasn’t just winging it, right? He knew the text of Scripture. So the Pharisees believed that the Messiah is the Son of David, and they also believed that Psalm 10 was referring to the Messiah. And so the only way that a descendant could be greater than his ancestor, and the ancestor call him Lord, the only way that that could be possible is if that descendant, the Son of David, Jesus Christ, if he was in substance greater than David.

In other words, he was not just a natural man, he was divine. Take a peek very quickly, just a few steps ahead to Matthew 26. This is of course the trial of Christ. So from Matthew 22 we see that the Lord stumped them. They didn’t have an answer. But what the Lord did is he demonstrated from their own beliefs, from their own Scriptures which they believed and held, that what he had been claiming for himself, that he was the Son of God, was allowed from the text of Scripture.

It was demanded because of this paradox. And by this time at the end of Christ’s life, by this time, they knew very well what he was claiming. They knew it. I know there’s some ambiguity sometimes when you read the New Testament, because Jesus doesn’t say, I am the Son of God all the time. He calls himself the Son of Man, and even then they’re like, who is the Son of Man?

Because he used third person. But they knew exactly what he was saying. If he was saying, I’m the Son of God, they knew the implications of that. Let me show you, and we’re finished with this. Matthew 26 verse 63. But Jesus held his peace, and the high, now this is just days after Matthew 22. Jesus held his peace, and the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

You see, they knew exactly what he was claiming. And the thing is, not only did he do miracles to prove it. Not only did he do good works to prove it. Not only could they not convict him of any sin at all. He took the Bible and said, you see, it’s right there. The Messiah, the Son of David, is his Lord. Something special about that guy. Something special about that guy.

And thus our Lord led them in a little Bible study. Alright, let’s pray.