Luke 20:41-44 Now Jesus Asks the Questions
1 The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” 2 The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies! 3 Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. 4The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” 5 The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. 6 He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. 7 He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.
Let’s pray.
Good morning! We are returning once again to the Gospel of Luke with chapter twenty, verses 41-44, page 880 in the pew Bibles.
In the previous passages in chapter twenty various groups of religious leaders had been asking Jesus questions, questions about where He came from and who sent Him, questions about paying taxes, questions about the resurrection. All these questions were designed to trap Jesus in His words and get either the people or the Romans to turn against Him.
Well, now it’s Jesus’ turn to ask some questions.
What’s interesting about the questions in our text is that the people didn’t answer the questions and neither did Jesus. I think this means that it is left to us to think it through and work it out for ourselves.
41 But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? 42 For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, 43 until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’ 44 David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”
I want you to look closely at the text in your Bibles, don’t count on the screen, look at the Bible in your lap. If you don’t have one use the one in the pew, page 880.
You’ll notice at the beginning of verse 41 that there is a little letter there. In my Bible it’s the letter b. If you look down at the bottom of the page you’ll find another little letter b, or whatever letter your Bible uses, next to that you’ll see another reference, Matthew 22:41-45 and Mark 12:35-37.
These are called cross references and are designed to help us understand the text more completely. These two references are the parallel accounts in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.
In Matthew’s Gospel he records Jesus asking the Pharisees, “What do you think of Christ? Whose Son is He?” And they respond, “The Son of David,” and the conversation recorded in Luke goes on from there.
I wanted to point out those tools, the cross references as well as the notes at the bottom of the page because it follows with the theme of our text this morning, that Christianity is not just an emotional experience, nor is it simply a religion of following traditions.
Quick quiz: What is the Great Commandment? To love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Here we have an opportunity to emphasize loving the Lord with all our minds. It doesn’t stop with our minds, it involves our emotions and our actions as well, but we can’t forget our minds. Using the tools available to us to study God’s Word is one way that we can do that.
Simply by looking at the cross reference at Matthew 22 we can see one of the most important questions ever asked by anybody ever: What do you think of Christ?
It’s a question we ought to often ask ourselves, and one that I’m sure can spark interesting and fruitful conversations with those around us.
But Jesus asked this question to a specific group of people that had a specific understanding of who the Christ was supposed to be.
Now as just another opportunity to expand your own understanding here, the title, “Christ,” is the same as the title, “Messiah,” it isn’t Jesus’ last name, nor is it a curse word, it is simply the Greek version of the Hebrew word which means, “Anointed One.”
Jesus posed this question about whose Son was the Christ, or Messiah, to be of First Century Jewish men. In the First Century the Jews expected to be an earthly king in the actual line of King David. Their thought was that this Son of David would not be the Son of God in a metaphysical sense but in a theocratic sense as God’s appointed ruler over the nation of Israel.
What is clear to us, since we understand the divine nature of Jesus, was not so clear to them, they only expected a human nature.
This is where Psalm 110 comes into play.
Psalm 110 is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament and so deserves our attention.
[Jesus] said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? 42 For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, 43 until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’ 44 David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”
Now let’s turn together to Psalm 110 in our Bibles because there is something important for us to see that we will not see in the New Testament quotation of it. It’s on page 509 if you are using a pew Bible and are still learning your way around.
Ben mentioned this idea a few weeks ago and it is worth repeating. Look at verse one.
The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
Notice anything odd? The Lord says to my Lord… First of all, English stinks. You’d think that a language that is so widely used across the globe would be better at translating words from other languages more precisely than this.
Notice how the first “Lord,” is in all capitols? That’s because it is the word, “Yahweh,” the Name of God. The second, “Lord,” is, “Adonai,” the ruler in the line of David that was promised, this is Messiah, the Christ.
It could just as easily be written, “Yahweh says to Messiah: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ Or, “God the Father says to God the Son…”
Now, remember that David himself, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote this psalm and that is what brings up the question, how can David call Messiah, “Lord,” if He is his Son?
Jesus was not reproving the Pharisees for teaching that Christ would be the Son of David, but for imagining that He would be a mere man. In Jewish thinking the father was always greater than the son, the grandfather greater than the grandson. It was simply inconceivable that David would call his own descendant, “Lord,” unless He was something totally other than a natural Son.
The Old Testament is clear that the Christ was to be the Son of David.
Jeremiah 23:5-6 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘Yahweh is our righteousness.’
Micah 5:2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
What is another name for Bethlehem? The City of David, where David was from, and that’s what the angels called it when they announced Jesus’ birth to the shepherds in Luke 2.
Isaiah 11:1-2 (You should really read the whole thing) There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Jesse was David’s father.
Messiah is both David’s Son and David’s Lord. To the First Century Jews this was a problem, it simply wasn’t possible. The only solution is that Messiah Jesus is also the Son of God
Jesus Himself said in Revelation 22:16, “I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
So, you may be wondering, “What has any of this got to do with me?” How often do we read the Bible with the same question on our lips, “what does this have to do with me?”
By way of application let me make this suggestion, when you read your Bible, and please, read your Bible, instead of asking of the text you happen to be reading, “what has this got to do with me,” consider asking the question, “What has this got to do with Jesus?”
That may be easy to consider when you are reading the Gospels or any of the New Testament, but what about when you read the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Prophets? Both Testaments, the entire Word of God is about the person and work of Jesus, He is on every page!
The second point of application is to consider Jesus’ question from the beginning or our talk this morning, “What do you think of Christ, whose Son is He?”
I’ll tell you right now, your life already displays your answer to that question.
For true Christianity everything depends on a correct judgment of His glorious person.
No one can answer this question for you, no pastor or teacher, no online program, or Bible study group, you must have your own faith in the person of Jesus the Christ the only Son of God who was sent by the Father full of grace and truth and is now seated at the right hand of God.
His death on the cross was for you, He paid the penalty for your sins, and He rose again by the power of God, and He is returning to judge the living and the dead. By trusting Him alone for forgiveness and salvation when He does return you can know that you will be with Him in His kingdom forever.
So, what do you think of the Christ?
Let’s pray.
