MATTHEW 22:41-46
ON APRIL 29, 2011 the world once again was taken into Westminster Abbey. This time it was to witness the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Westminster is the usual place for British royal weddings. It is also the place for royal coronations. If a prince is being crowned as king or a princess as queen, he or she sits upon a throne housed in Westminster. The throne is called King Edward’s Chair. It was built in 1296, and all but two English monarchs sat on it for their coronation. Two features are striking about the chair. First, it is a plain-looking wooden chair. While it was once likely gilded with gold paint and ornamented with other colors, today you see mostly the bare, aged oak, along with some carved, choir-boy graffiti. Second, it is huge! Those old enough to remember the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 might remember how small her already small stature looked in that giant chair.
Either King Edward was a giant (ten feet high, four feet wide) or his throne was intentionally built big to make a point. Likely the latter is true. The point being that no one king or queen can ever fill that seat. No one person can fill the greatness of Great Britain’s royal rule.
In Scripture we learn of King David’s throne. It too is a big “chair,” far bigger than that of King Edward and far grander than the rule of England. In 2 Samuel 7 God promised David that he (God) would establish an eternal kingdom, a royal rule that would never end (vv. 13,16) and that he would “establish the throne” of this kingdom (v. 13) through David's offspring (v. 12; cp. Psalm 18:49, 50).
We learn from 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles that this “chair” is too big for David and any of his twenty-one immediate heirs to fill.
Even Solomon in his greatness looked liked a newborn, propped up in the corner of one of those huge red Santa chairs at the shopping mall. A bigger king than Solomon was needed to fill this big chair. A bigger king than David was needed to rule over this big kingdom. From Psalm 2, a psalm of David, we learn that “the nations” will be this king’s heritage and “the ends of the earth” his possession (Psalm 2:8). From Psalm 72, a psalm of Solomon, we learn that this king will have “dominion from sea to sea” (Psalm 72:8) and that “all kings” will “fall down before him” and “all nations serve him!” (Psalm 72:11).
This “throne” is huge. Who could possibly sit on it and rule over that entire-earth kingdom?
In this chapter I want you to see Jesus walk up to that huge Davidic throne and sit on it. And I want you to see that there is no space left for anyone else. He fills the chair! He alone fills the chair. Thus I want you to see and do what Philippians 2 says to see and do: “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord...” (Philippians 2:9-1 la).
What's the Right Answer?
With that grand aim before us, we turn our eyes now to 22:41 —46 and our minds to the Word for illumination. Starting in verse 41 we read, “Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question.” The language—“the Pharisees were gathered together”—reminds us of Peter’s sermon in Acts 4:26, 27, which is based on Psalm 2:2, “and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed [i.e., the Christ, the son of David].” Moreover, with the language—“Jesus asked them a question”—we are reminded that Jesus is in the middle (actually, near the end) of a debate. It has been question/answer time with Jesus.
First the Pharisees threw him their fastball about paying taxes to Caesar (vv. 15-22). Jesus knocked it out of the park. Then the Sadducees threw him their curveball about marriage and the afterlife (vv. 23-33). Jesus again knocked it out of the park. Finally an expert in the Law lobed him a soft pitch about the greatest commandment (vv. 34^41). Jesus hit that ball to Damascus.
In our text it is Jesus’ turn to throw something at them. So he takes the mound, warms up, stretches a bit, winks at the catcher, and first throws an easy ball that they bunt into play. Ah, but then he throws a pitch that is impossible for everyone (but him) to hit. Verse 46 records one reporter’s praise: “And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”
Let’s look at these two pitches he threw. First comes the hittable pitch in verse 42. Jesus asked, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They answered him, “The son of David.” There is nothing unexpected or unorthodox about their answer. The messianic expectation was that the Christ would come from David’s lineage. (And they hoped he would act like David did in his military prowess. They longed for their Goliath—the Roman Empire—to fall.)
So the Pharisees’ answer "The son of David” is true, but “only half of the truth.” The answer to the question “Whose son is he?” is “the Son of David,” but also “the Son of God,” the title (“Son”) that God the Father calls Jesus at his baptism (3:17) and transfiguration (17:5). Jesus is David’s son and God’s son!
This is what Jesus is getting at in his follow-up question. Here comes the second pitch, the unhittable one. Jesus asked:
How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet"? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? (vv. 43-45)
The Pharisees asked about Roman taxes, the Sadducees about the resurrection, the lawyer about the Law, but Christ questions them about Christ! “What think ye of Christ?” Is the Messiah more than a mere man?
He gets to that question by means of Psalm 110:1, which he quotes: “The Lord said to my Lord. Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.” In this Psalm there is an apparent contradiction. How is it that David calls his “son” “Lord”? What father, especially a king, calls his son “Lord”? How can the man that King David calls “Lord,” and who is somehow sitting at the right hand of God, in any way be David’s “son”? Put differently, and with even more complexity, how can King David, the author of the Psalm according to the superscription (and according to Jesus), “in the Spirit” no less (i.e., inspired by the Spirit of God) write about the Lord-God, Yahweh (the first “Lord” mentioned) and invite someone also called “Lord” (the second “Lord,” the messianic “Son of David”) to sit next to him, at his right hand?
The first commandment is, “You shall have no other gods besides me” (Exodus 20:3). So what is this “Lord” doing beside the Lord. Who is this kyrios sitting next to the kyrios (the Septuagint’s rendering of the two Hebrew words YHWH and Adoni) What is this text doing in the “Hebrew, monotheistic, Scriptures”? How is this second “Lord” David’s “son”? Good question, Jesus. Very good.
The Pharisees scratch their heads with both hands, we might imagine. But we raise both our hands in praise, for we know the answer, don’t we, post-resurrection Ecclesia? The answer is that Jesus is David’s son and David’s Lord! “David’s son as man, David’s Lord as son of God”"—that is the only answer to the question. The second “Lord” of Psalm 110:1 must be big enough to fill the Davidic / divine throne. Only Jesus is David’s son and God’s son. He is “the Word [made] flesh” (John 1:14)—David’s son according to the flesh, and yet he is also the divine logos: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1).
Here Jesus solves the riddle quietly but also clearly. The Pharisees, having asked a question they had never asked before about David’s famous messianic Psalm, and having asked it had no idea how to answer it, failed to see that the answer himself was “standing in front of them in flesh and blood.” What the crowd and children shouted upon Jesus’ triumphal entry in Jerusalem, “Hosanna to the Son of David” (21:9, 15), Jesus now subtly accepts and expands upon. He is the King, the king David longed for, the one king big enough to fill that huge chair. As Peter confessed in 16:16, Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus is “the Christ”—i.e., the son of David, and he is “the Son of the living God”—i.e., God’s Son.
Following the lead of Peter’s confession, the Apostle Paul adds his own. He declares that that gospel is what God promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 1:2-4)
Jesus is the son of David by birth, the Son of God as confirmed by his resurrection, and namely or thus the Lord!
What's the Right Response?
In the first part of this chapter we have explored the right answer to Jesus’ question. The answer is: Jesus is Lord—David’s Lord. In the second part of the chapter we will explore two answers to the question, what then is the right response to Jesus?
The first right response is to confess Jesus as Lord. In Romans 10:9 Paul writes, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” A few verses later he continues, saying of Jesus, “the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (vv. 12, 13). In Joel 2:32, quoted in verse 13, the reference is clearly to Yahweh, the Lord. In Romans the reference is clearly to Jesus, the Lord. Precisely Paul’s point!
Two Sub-Pointst.
The first sub-point under our confession that Jesus is Lord is proper acknowledgment.
In the British Museum there hangs an anonymous French miniature painting entitled “The Tree of Jesse with Musical Instruments.” It pictures Jesse, King David's father, asleep in bed, and from his loins (shall we say) sprouts a tree of eleven musical kings, including David. The twelfth king is depicted twice. First, he is depicted as a baby held by his virgin mother. That is at the center of the piece. Second, he is depicted as a coronated king. That is at the very top and much smaller.
Like that painting, we sometimes have the baby Jesus at the center of our vision. Matthew himself doesn’t downplay, that Jesus is “God with us,” (1:23) as a baby and as a man. However, he does seem to showcase the idea of Jesus as Lord. He paints a picture of Jesus as the sovereign. It’s at the center of his thought, and especially at the end of his Gospel. From the end of chapter 22 until the end of the Gospel, there is an escalation of the revelation of Jesus’ authority.
Let me give you three brush strokes from Matthew’s portrait of Jesus. The first brush stroke comes in 25:31-34, where Jesus says of himself:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right... [and on Jesus goes with his role as kingly judge of the world].
The second brush stroke comes in 26:64, when Jesus answers the high priest Caiaphas’s question, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ [i.e., the Son of David], the Son of God.” Verse 64 reads:
Jesus said to him, "You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
The third brush stroke comes at the Great Commission, which begins with Jesus’ announcement of absolute authority: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (28:18).
How much authority? “All authority”! Jesus continues:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that l have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (28:19, 20)
Those words above are important. Jesus is King over “all nations.” Do you see the picture Matthew paints? It is not of a baby in a mother’s arms but rather of an all-powerful divine King upon an immensely large throne.
On this crucial-to-your Christianity theme, James Montgomery Boice writes:
Most people’s image of Jesus is at best that of a baby in a manger. It is a sentimental picture best reserved for Christmas and other sentimental moments. Others picture him hanging on a cross. That too is sentimental, though it is sentimentality of a different, pious sort. Jesus is not in a manger today. That is past. Nor is he hanging on a cross. That too is past. Jesus came once to die and after that to ascend to heaven to share in the fullness of God’s power and great glory.
Boice continues:
When Stephen, the first martyr, had his vision of the exalted Christ, it was of Jesus “standing at the right hand of God” to receive him (Acts 7:55). When John had his vision of Jesus on the Isle of Patmos, the apostle was so overcome by Jesus’ heavenly splendor that he “fell at his feet as though dead” (Rev. 1:17). We need to recover this understanding of who Jesus is and where he is now. Yes, we need to recover the vision of Jesus put forth in Psalm 110—that Jesus is priest, judge, and king. He is “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4). “He will execute judgment among the nations” (Psalm 110:6). And he sits at the right hand of God with a “mighty scepter” (Psalm 110:2) and with his vanquished “enemies” under his feet (Psalm 110:1). That is the vision of Jesus in the New Testament. And that is why, I would imagine, Psalm 110 is the most alluded to and quoted Psalm in the New Testament, by one count thirty-seven times. The inspired apostolic-era authors wanted their readers to see Jesus as the exalted Lord. So let’s see him that way! Let’s see him as friend and teacher, sure. But let’s also see him (acknowledge him) as cosmic Lord.
The second sub-point under our confession that Jesus is Lord is that confession never means mere profession. This is especially clear in the Gospel of Matthew. It couldn’t be clearer in Matthew 7, where Jesus says:
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (vv. 21-23)
James said, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26, nkjv). In Matthew 7 Jesus seems to say, “Faith without fruit is condemned.” Confession never means mere profession.
In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress, one of the characters Christian encounters on his way to the Celestial City is Talkative. Talkative talks the talk. He’ll talk your ear off about "the vanity of earthly things, and the benefit of things above... the necessity of the New-birth, the insufficiency of our works, the need of Christ’s righteousness... [about] what it is to repent, to believe, to pray, to suffer.” But as Christian soon learns, Talkative’s Christian confession is all talk. Christian says to his companion, Faithful, “He talketh of Prayer, of Repentance, of Faith, and of the New-birlh: but he knows but only to talk of them... Religion hath no place in his heart... all he hath lieth in his tongue,” To this Faithful replies, “Well, I see that Saying, and Doing are two things.” A few pages later Faithful speaks of the need for "an experimental confession of... Faith in Christ.” That is what we would call spiritual experience, what Jonathan Edwards called “religious affections.”
"My Jesus 'Tis Now"
With that important thought in mind (and feeling in heart), let me transition to my second answer to the question, what is our right response to Jesus as Lord? First, we are to confess Jesus as “the Lord"—which is not a mere profession but a heartfelt confession that properly acknowledges the person and power of Jesus and readily defends his deity. Second, we are to love the Lord Jesus.
Let me explain and then illustrate this answer. This answer comes from the context. In 22:36 Jesus is asked, “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” He replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (v. 37). So here is the connection I’m making. See if this makes sense. In 22:37 Jesus says that we are to love the Lord our God. Thus, the contextual connection is: we are to love the Lord Jesus as Lord.
That’s my explanation of loving Jesus as Lord. Here now is my illustration. It too comes from the context. In my Bible it comes with a mere flip of the page. In 26:6, 7 we have a picture of such love. In contrast to the decision of the chief priests and the elders of the people to kill Jesus (26:3, 4) and Judas’s decision to betray him (26:14-16), a woman comes to love the Lord Jesus as Lord. We read of her in 26:6, 7: “Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table.”
What is this all about? This is an incredible act of adoration, which underscores something of the reality (necessity?) of Jesus’ death (she anoints him for his burial) and perhaps something of the reality of Jesus’ rule (does she anoint him as king? [cp. 1 Samuel 9:16]). Now, whether or not she knows what she is doing in relationship to the overall plan of God’s kingdom, here she certainly acknowledges Jesus as Lord and loves him accordingly.
One commentator calls this action a “lived-out commentary on the double-Love commands that Jesus taught as the main commandment of the law (22:34-40),” as she loves the Lord Jesus with deep emotion and sacrificial giving (the cost of the pouring out was at least a year’s wages; that’s the scholarly estimation of the anointment’s expense). Another commentator says, “This self-giving love models what we each must feel and do as we serve Jesus.” A final commentator—his name is Jesus—says “she has done a beautiful thing to me” (v. 10), something so beautiful that “wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (v. 13). What does loving the Lord look like? It looks like “wasting” the best of what you have on Jesus because you see the significance of his death, burial, resurrection, and rule.
At my Ecclesia we always sing a hymn to Christ, which we intentionally sing to Jesus as we would to God the Father. On the morning I preached from this text we sang the hymn, “My Jesus, I Love Thee.” Over the years I’ve heard mixed reactions to the straightforward lyrics, “If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus ’tis now.” I have heard some Christians quip, “I’m forced to sing something I don’t or might not in the moment feel.” I have heard others retort, “I don’t think it is right to use the word ‘love’ in relationship to Jesus. Knowing he is our Lord, not our lover, we should say ‘worship’ or ‘exalt’ or ‘trust in’ or something other than ‘love.’” But I like the song as it is. In fact, I love that love song. I love it because sometimes I do feel for Jesus exactly what the song says. I also love it because when I don’t feel that way I pray to God that I would. “Jesus, use this sweet melody to open my heart to you. As I sing of my love for you, let me feel it.” For me the song softens and warms my sometimes cold, hard heart.
We should love the Lord Jesus through obedience to his commands. We should love the Lord Jesus through compassionate care of others. But we should also love the Lord Jesus through heartfelt devotion toward him, like the woman in Bethany—pouring everything out. We should—with mind and soul and heart—“love the Lord,” and we should do so every hour of every week.
Recently, I was doing my usual late-morning treadmill workout at the YMCA. While I run to live I listen to dead languages. On Monday and Tuesday it is Koine Greek, Wednesday Ecclesiastical Latin, Thursday and Friday Classical Hebrew. Don’t be too impressed. I only do this because I’m awful at getting and retaining languages, and yet I think these three are important ones for me to have some handle on.
It was Tuesday. Greek! The Greek word is pronounced. There is a slight pause. Then the English definition follows. Now as I began my mental and physical workout, the television screen twenty feet in front of me had on Access Hollywood. I usually avoid eying this less-than-edifying show by working out on the opposite side. However, on that day all those treadmills were taken. The image that Access placed in front of me was the front cover of a popular pornographic magazine. It ends with “boy” and begins with “Play.” What such an image was doing on daytime television and on a screen at the Young Man’s Christian Association, I know not. But there it was.
Here is how I responded. I first turned my glance elsewhere, where I had the choice between the Cooking Channel, with the making of some mouthwatering dessert, a commercial with someone comfortably lounging on a La-Z-Boy, or ESPN with an NFL linebacker with his shirt off. Over lust, gluttony, and sloth, I choose envy (ESPN). Just kidding. What I chose to do (no joking matter) to resist these four vices was something new. I refocused on my Greek and on my God. Here’s what I did (and I hope it becomes a holy habit). I heard the Greek word, silently gave the definition before it came, and then after the definition I prayed a prayer based on the word. Here’s a sampling of how it sounded:
For that final word I could have prayed Psalm 18, which begins, “I love you, O Lord, my strength” (v. 1) and ends, “For this I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations, and sing to your name. Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever” (vv. 49, 50). But since I didn’t have that much time and I didn’t have that Psalm memorized, what I prayed was simply, “My Jesus, I love thee.” Whenever and wherever and however you practice the presence of God through persistent prayer, I pray that your answer to Jesus’ all-important question of verse 45 is more than merely academic—“Jesus is David’s Lord”—but is both academic (of the mind) and affectionate (of the heart)—“Jesus is my Lord! The Lord who sits on the throne of David is the Lord who sits on the throne of my heart.”
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)