Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Matthew 22 - Jesus Answers the Pharisees

Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questionsMatthew 22:42-46.  

The Pharisees tried one last time to trip Jesus up in His words, but it was He who used their subterfuge against them to still their mouths. He asked them a very simple question - what did they think of Messiah - whose son is he? They knew from 2 Samuel 7 and other scriptures that David was the father of Messiah. Jesus then asked, how then could David, in the spirit (Psalms 110), refer to Messiah as his Lord? In particular, David spoke of a vision where he heard God the father tell Messiah to sit at His right hand until He had made His enemies a footstool.

David lived a thousand years before the time that Jesus stood there speaking to the Pharisees, and still (as far as the Pharisees believed), Messiah had not yet been born. How then could David have spoken of Messiah as his Lord? David was king and would never refer to any man as his Lord, much less an unborn son of his. No, this Messiah must be more than a flesh and blood son of David. He must also be a God-man, a spiritual being that existed long before David.

That makes most of us stop and think, doesn't it? And it made the Pharisees think as well. They shut their mouths and did not question Jesus again. I believe they knew He had crossed over into the spiritual realm, the realm of God, where they had absolutely no understanding and never would.

Religious people will always clam up when spiritual truths are espoused!