What Do You Think of Christ?

“While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think ye of Christ?  Whose Son is He?  They say unto Him, The Son of David.”  Matthew 22:41-42

As hard as they tried, the Pharisees could not trap Jesus by any of their questions.  While they were still gathered around Him, Jesus asked them a question, not to embarrass them, but to show them that they lacked a true understanding of scripture and of prophecy.  The Pharisees were usually the ones who asked questions of Jesus in their efforts to show that He was a phony, but He now asked them a question that they could not answer:  “What do you think of Christ?  Whose Son is He?”  They were confident in their partial answer:  “The Son of David”.  Notice, even though Jesus was Christ, He did not ask, “What do you think of Me, the Christ, the Messiah?” because He knew they didn’t believe Him to be God’s Son.  There is no telling at the nasty replies they would have given Him had he asked them what they thought of Him.  They had already accused Him of working by the power of Satan (Matthew 12:24-37), thus they certainly had no plans to acknowledge Him as Lord.

The religious leaders were very familiar with Old Testament prophecy.  They understood that the Messiah would come through the line of King David.  In II Samuel 7:12-16, God told David that his house and his kingdom “shall endure before (God) forever; (his) throne shall be established forever”.  There are several other passages which indicate that a descendant of David would rule forever.  The Pharisees, scribes, and elders believed that the Messiah would come as a conquering Warrior to rid Israel of Roman rule and set up His kingdom on earth.  Even as they believed that notion, the prophecy was clear:  the Messiah would not appear as a conquering Hero, but plain and unassuming with no physical appearance that would draw others to Him (Isaiah 53:2-3).  The religious leaders did not answer Jesus’ first question but only the one about the Messiah’s ancestry.

Since they believed that Christ would descend from their most revered King David, Jesus posed to them another question that they could not answer:  (paraphrasing) “How then does David, speaking by the Spirit of God, call Christ Lord and yet be his Son?”  This question would naturally lead to other questions:  “If Christ is a descendant of David, who was a mere mortal being, how could Christ possibly have such a holy and sacred position?”  To put it another way, “How could One with such authority and majesty, be the Son of David?”  “Why would David call his Son, 28 generations hence, Lord?”  We might ask, “Did David have a much greater knowledge and insight about the Messiah than these Pharisees?”  Of course, he did.  David was a man after God’s own heart.  From what we know about the religious leaders, none of them could even come close to the relationship that God and David shared.

Returning back to Jesus’ question as to how Christ could be both Lord and Son of David, the Pharisees had no answer.  To be fair, if I had never studied the Bible, I wouldn’t know how to answer that question either.  Jesus was attempting to teach them that the Messiah would be God Himself.  If they would only believe this, they would have had no difficulty in understanding that Christ, in His humanity, was David’s Son as a result of being born on earth to Mary who was a direct descendant of David through her father, Heli (Luke 3) and Joseph, Jesus’ adopted father, also a direct descendant of David (Luke 2:4), and in His divinity, was David’s Lord.  The same type of relationship applies to Mary, Jesus’ biological mother, whose Lord is also Jesus.  This is why faith is so vital to the Christian life.  There is much in living for Christ that can’t be explained in human terms.  How can a person suffer and be joyful at the same time?  How can we reconcile the fact that God chooses us for salvation, yet we have to choose Him as well?  How do we remain peaceful when the world is falling apart all around us?  Why does a truly born again Christian not fear death?

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the answer to all of these questions.  That is what the religious leaders were lacking.  That’s why they didn’t understand.  They were taken aback so intently that they did not ask Him any further questions.  To them it was time for action.  The next time we hear from them is when they are gathered together to plot how they were going to kill Jesus (Matthew 26:3-4).  In the meantime, Jesus turned His attention back to teaching the multitudes and His disciples.  I think Jesus must have grieved greatly over the ignorance of and refusal to believe the truth about Him that was a constant occurrence as He traveled among the people of Jerusalem and the surrounding area.  I think that He grieves now over the sad state of the world, but He is still in the saving business so that whosoever will come to Him in repentance and faith will receive peace, joy, and rest for their souls.