While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,
After the attempt to trap Him with a question about paying tribute to Caesar had failed, Jesus turns the questioning back on His questioners, and this verse opens that new exchange. Turning from the scribe, He addresses the Pharisees while they are gathered together, directing to them a question about the Messiah's identity.
He asks them whose son the Christ is and what they believe about the Messiah, testing whether they regard Him as merely human or also as the Son of God. Their answer that He is David's son correctly gives the prophetic title of the Messiah, but that title alone does not recognize His divinity. For David, speaking by the Spirit of inspiration, calls the Messiah his Lord, showing the Messiah is David's son by human descent yet greater than David by divine character as the divine Son of God, both David's son and David's Lord.
The Pharisees are unable to answer His challenge. David prophetically saw Christ ascend to heaven and take His place at God's right hand, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost showed that the crucified Jesus had received authority in heaven and on earth as priest and king, the Anointed One over His people. The question belongs to warnings about rejecting the Son of God that apply to sinners in every age, and the doom they foreshadowed awaits all who refuse Him unless they repent.
After the attempt to trap Him with a question about paying tribute to Caesar had failed, Jesus turns the questioning back on His questioners, and this verse opens that new exchange. Turning from the scribe, He addresses the Pharisees while they are gathered together, directing to them a question about the Messiah's identity.
He asks them whose son the Christ is and what they believe about the Messiah, testing whether they regard Him as merely human or also as the Son of God. Their answer that He is David's son correctly gives the prophetic title of the Messiah, but that title alone does not recognize His divinity. For David, speaking by the Spirit of inspiration, calls the Messiah his Lord, showing the Messiah is David's son by human descent yet greater than David by divine character as the divine Son of God, both David's son and David's Lord.
The Pharisees are unable to answer His challenge. David prophetically saw Christ ascend to heaven and take His place at God's right hand, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost showed that the crucified Jesus had received authority in heaven and on earth as priest and king, the Anointed One over His people. The question belongs to warnings about rejecting the Son of God that apply to sinners in every age, and the doom they foreshadowed awaits all who refuse Him unless they repent.