The shepherds of
Israel (i.e. the leadership) has been seeking to bring discredit to Jesus
through their trick questions. But in each case the tables were turned. Jesus, filled with the Spirit and steeped in
the Scriptures, was able to answer the questions and to silence His
adversaries. Each of the powerful
parties was shown to be the irresponsible shepherds condemned in Ezekiel
34:1-10.
But the conversation
is not finished. Now Jesus asks a
question. It is anything but a trick question. It is a question that gets to the very issue
as stake in these last days leading up to His crucifixion. It is a version of the basic question: Who is
Jesus? Who do you say the Son of Man is
(Matt. 16:15)?
Jesus places the
question in the context of a well-known Messianic prophecy, a passage familiar
to the leaders. What do you think about the Christ?
Whose Son is He? There was a
standard answer to this question that everyone understood, and thire answer was
correct: The Son of David.
Don’t miss this fact, that this is the correct answer. The Old Testament is clear that God made a covenant
with David that he would have a descendent on the throne forever (2 Sam. 7:12-17). Everyone understood that the fulfillment of
this was bound up in the Messiah.
Numerous Psalms predicted this, with one of the greatest being Psalm
110. Jesus quotes the first verse of
that Psalm:
The LORD (Yahweh) said to my Lord (Adonai), “Sit at My right
hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.
The One who will have
His enemies as His footstool is the Messiah, the Anointed future Son of
David. Psalm 110 goes on to say things
about Him that only fit the Messiah.
Again, everyone understands this.
But do they notice
that David referred to this greater Son
of his as his Lord. He ascribes to the
Messiah a title that belongs to God. How
can the Messiah be over David as his Lord and yet under David as his Son? How can the Messiah be God (David’s Lord) and
yet Man (David’s Son)?
But the issue is not
so much how can you explain this. The point is that this is simply what it
says; David said so. And this is what
Jesus has been proclaiming of Himself, time and again, that He is the God-Man,
Son of God-Son of Man. And when Jesus
sais this the Jews often picked up rocks to stone Him for blasphemy. They are denying the very thing that David
said must be!
In just a few days
Jesus will be condemned for blasphemy by these leaders. He will remain silent as they question Him,
silent until they press this issue: Tell us
if You are the Christ, the Son of God (Mt. 26:63-64). Jesus won’t be silent on that issue. It is the crux
of eternity. The leaders were given the
opportunity on Tuesday to think about this before they cried blasphemy early Friday morning.
It is a good time for
us to ask again: Who do you say that Jesus is?
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