Jesus the Son of God [Matt 22c]

Matt 22:34-46

Key verse 45

Introduction. Jesus effectively answered the truth about tax to Herodians/Pharisees and about resurrection to Sadducees/Pharisees. All these efforts were geared to discredit Jesus as the Son of God.

In today’s passage an expert of the law, one of Pharisees, asked a question on the Law of Moses.  The law of Moses was given to Israel so that they may be blessed by God as God’s people. So the Law of Moses answers to the question on how one can be right before God and become his people. Jesus answered that to love God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind is the greatest one and to love our neighbor as ourselves is the second greatest one. This answer was correct and they all, including the expert of the Law, accepted that the essence of the Law of Moses is to love God with all our being and to love man as ourselves.

The answer did not end as just an answer to the question. The answer made a great impact on them and silenced them all. So we like find that impact of the answer about the Law of Moses. The answer does not lie in the law but Jesus offered himself as the answer as the coming Messiah, the Son of the living God. Then who is Jesus and why can he be the true answer for being God’s people? I pray that God may lead us to this truth in these passages.

1. Love God and love man

There came two challenges against what Jesus stood for as The Son of God and Son of David, coming king. In all these challenges Pharisees were involved. They were the standard of truth for the time. They earned respect from the majority and they honored the entire book of OT. There came the third question: it is about what they believed to be the truth of the Bible? Is Jesus in line with the truth of the Bible? Is there an agreement between Pharisees believed and what Jesus stood for?  In today’s passages, these are questioned and answered.

V35³⁵ One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

Here the expert of the law is most likely one of the best of the Pharisees in their knowledge about the scripture.  So this person is the best among the bests in their knowledge of the Bible. Pharisees brought this man, an expert,  to test Jesus if Jesus is in line with the truth of the Bible, particularly the Law of Moses. Once, Jesus said of things that were somewhat different from the Law of Moses.   Moses said that do not commit murder. But Jesus said that if you say to your brother raca, a curse word, you are as worst as a murderer.

The Law of Moses was given to Israel directly from God at the Mountain Horeb. Its power and authority shall never be questioned among His people. If anyone is against this, he is not worthy of God. The person must be eliminated from God’s people.  He shall have no relationship with God. In this regard, the one very pointed question on the Law of Moses may be able to determine whether Jesus is of God or not.

Let’s see the question:  ³⁶ "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

It is said that the Law of Moses is composed of 613 do’s and don’ts. The most obvious ones are the Ten Commandments. The first one says, ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ The fifth one is, ‘do not murder. ‘ Like these two, there are 613 do’s and don’ts. There are so many because the law has to cover the entire area of human lives—moral, social, governmental, and religious cultus. Do you know any? So through the law God deals with the entirety of human lives so that they may be holy and righteous people of God.

Out of so many, this man asks, which one is the greatest one. So to answer this question, one has to weigh each of 613 laws according to its weight or importance. When I chose the first of the Ten Commandments as the most important one, can I take easy on the rest, such as fifth, do not murder?  No not at all. The fifth one is as much as important as the first one.

When God gave the Law of Moses, God does not want any of His people to falter on any of the Law of Moses! So God said, I am holy so you must be holy. Even if one has kept well 612 out of 613 laws and if he fails to keep just one, can he be counted to be good? No! He is still a violator of the law and unacceptable to God.

In this regard, it is not an easy question. The moment you choose one out of 613 as the most important, you are saying that the rest may not be as important as it should be. It is most likely  that you may  take easy on the other ones. But this man demanded that Jesus has to choose one!

What did Jesus answer?

³⁷ Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

This man asked for one the greatest. But Jesus gave him two, the greatest one and the next greatest one.   This means that Jesus is not answering as exactly as this man demanded. He felt that not just one that is the greatest but also the second one is essential as well.  As we look at the Ten Commandments, firs three is about what we are to do with God. It is related to the greatest commandment, loving God.  The next 7 are what we are to do with our neighbors. Jesus answered regarding these seven; love your neighbor as yourself.  Even just by simple numbers of these commandments, the second one is to cover the seven of the Ten Commandments and may be considered to  bear more weight. Yet Jesus chose the loving God as the greatest one.  So it is clear that in Jesus mind, these two cannot be thought independently of each other. One cannot love God genuinely without loving his neighbor. One cannot love his neighbor without loving God.  In essence they are one!

The essence of the Law of Moses is loving God as well as loving man. So love is the essential quality of God’s people. But what love is difficult to define. It is not an action that we can see or identify. It is an inward character, an attitude toward God or man.  Simply godliness is how much we love God and how much we love my neighbor.

The love that is described here is not an ordinary one we see among us often. It is radically different from the way that we call ‘love’. The love that God demands is with all our heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. The entirety of my being must love God. It must be in our emotion, in our affects or in our intelligence or in our labor and actions.  With all of these we must love God. In addition, it includes our allegiance and commitment to God 100%. Have we find such one among us?

The love that we love our neighbors is also not an ordinary one we can find among our friends. We have to love our neighbor as ourselves.  That means that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. When I am hungry, I immediately look for something to eat. When I am tired, I ignored the demands of others and take a rest. As I treat my self such a way, I must treat and serve other as such. Simply we have to think and behave as if we are one with our neighbors.

The first of such kind of love is seen in the Garden of Eden. When Adam said to his wife Eve. Genesis 2:23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman', for she was taken out of man." Adam took her as if she was his own body. This is the kind of understanding of one’s love to his wife.  It is the mind of oneness with our neighbor.

Such thing is found in the prayer that Jesus told us to do, the Lord’s Prayer.  From the beginning to the end, the first person pleural ‘we’ or ‘our’ is used.

It seems that Jesus just gave them the two greatest among 613. But it is not quite so. He defined the relationship of these to the entire law and prophets.
' ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

All the laws, 613 in all, as well as the recordings of the lives of Israel in respond to these laws hangs on these two commandments. What does it mean?

First , without love we do not really understand the other commandments; The love is the criterion by which the meaning and application of the Mosaic commandments are to be evaluated; Love is the central demand of the law, without which the fulfillment of the rest of the law is meaningless.

Second, since he included the prophets along with the laws, it is inclusive of history books, such as kings, chronicles, Job, Nehemiah, poetry and wisdom books such as Song of Songs, and Psalms, not to mention of all the prophetic books. Why are these hangs on the two commandments? Here Jesus is recognizing the role of the law in the covenant relationship between God and Israel. God commanded Israel to follow these two commandments. It is a part of God’s covenant with Israel. If they follow the commandments, then they will be blessed. If not, they will be punished.  Actual responses are recorded in Israel history, at political level, in poetry in human minds, prophecy as God’s response to Israel’s failure to fulfill the commandments.

As the history witnesses in the books of Kings, Chronicles, Israel failed to live up to God’s command and was eventually sent to exile. What was lacking among them? What was the cause of their failure? Did they not know the love that God was demanding from them? Was that the reason for such failure? Certainly, lack of love to God as well as lack of love to men was the major culprit that led their failure to be God’s people.

In this regard, the entire history and law and covenant hang on these two commandments.

So what can we say? If one knows and understands these two commandments, and then put into his life, then he is sure to be God’s child.

When Jesus said this, what was the response of the people? In the Gospel mark, all of them fully agreed with what Jesus said.  In Matt there was no recoding of their response. Jesus word silenced them all including the expert. Why did they have nothing to say at Jesus answer?

What Jesus said is not just a reciting an answer. What Jesus said is telling the truth that they have to abide by. The word of God suddenly convicted their heart in power and in truth! As Jesus said this the word penetrated their heart and raised a serious question; have you done that? Have you loved God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul? Have you loved your neighbor as yourself?

They were muted not just because Jesus answered correctly but because they were not able to respond this truth positively; No one could say this: Yes I did love God; Yes I did love my neighbors! Rather, a sin that they committed that morning came up to their mind. One might have recalled a fight with his wife that morning.

Can anyone of us say yes to these two commandments! Yes I did love God with all my heart, with all my mind and with all my soul! Can any one of us say that I loved my neighbor as myself? When the Apostle Paul confronted himself in this truth, he shouted in this way; Romans 7:24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Quite often I see people are begging for money while I stop at a signal. I seldom give money to these people. If I have to love them as myself, what should I do? Even before helping them, there are quite number of people among our church members that are in need for financial help and I feel helpless. If I were in their situation, I would have certainly done something right away for me. I can shout the same as Paul; what a wretched man I am!

These two greatest commandments are binding to God’s people Israel, so is binding to all that want to have God’s blessing. Actually God wants all human races to come to him and become His people. Yet as we know through the history of Israel, men failed to do so completely. Are we any better than them? As we put ourselves nakedly to the full authority of this commands, we know we fall far short of the demands of these commandments. What can they do? What can we do? As we observed, Pharisees failed and we all failed to meet these commandments. Would God let it fall out then? The answer is found in Jesus. God knew this predicament so well. So he gave prophecy of coming Messiah. Psalm 110 is one of the first ones. Israel’s failure as well as our failure of keeping this commandment surely tells us that all human being, no matter how good they might be will surely fail to meet these commandments. This inevitably leads us to look for a solution someone other than us. For this purpose Jesus stood before them. It has to do with understanding of who Jesus is!  Jesus answered this question by challenging their unbelief.

2. If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?"

So far the religious leaders challenged Jesus.  Now they ran out of questions or challenges. How can a man even with the best of his wisdom challenge God? They did not know whom they are against. Now Jesus is challenging their unbelief.

The best that they have is the Law of Moses and God’s promise in the law. But it is obvious that they cannot keep the law and they have no answers to this dilemma.

What did God offer for such hapless condition? It is the promise of Messiah. So the answer must be found in the Messiah. So they should have sought the answer from the Messiah.

So Jesus is coming back to who the messiah is. He raised this question:

⁴² "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" "The son of David," they replied. ⁴³ He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, ⁴⁴ "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."' ⁴⁵ If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?"

It was well known that the coming Messiah is from the tribe of David. God promised this to David, when he offered to build the temple for God.  Also this was well recognized by many prophets. So these people and Jesus agreed that the coming Messiah is one of David’s descendants.

This means that he will be like David. When it says that he will be like David, it means that as David led the kingdom, coming Messiah will establish a kingdom and will lead the kingdom like David.  As David was a king so will the coming Messiah will be a king. So king has to be a man of honor and glory and power. So if Jesus is to be the Messiah, then he must be a king like David. Then Jesus must have power, honor and glory as David. David, before he became the King of Israel, led many wars against neighboring enemies, particularly Philistines and won the victory. So in the eyes of the Pharisees Jesus did not have any of these characteristics of King David. Jesus is not even close to King David. So they refused to accept Jesus as the coming Messiah even though Jesus performed so many miracles.

Here comes Jesus’ question:

⁴⁵ If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?"

This is quote from Psalm 110. It is a well known as the Psalm of David. In this psalm David envisioned coming Messiah. Let’s look at it more carefully

Psalm 110:1 Of David. A psalm. The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." ² The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. ³ Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy majesty, from the womb of the dawn you will receive the dew of your youth. ⁴ The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind: "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek." ⁵ The Lord is at your right hand; he will crush kings on the day of his wrath. ⁶ He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. ⁷ He will drink from a brook beside the way; therefore he will lift up his head.

In this psalm, King David conveyed to us what God is saying to coming Messiah. Here LORD is in Yaweh, God the father, and the Lord is Adonay, i.e coming Messiah. David called him, my Lord.

If we put this in our terms, it says this way: God said to my Lord, coming Messiah; Sit at my right hand until I, God, make your enemy a footstool for your feet.

So here David called the coming Messiah as David’s Lord. Jesus’ question was if the coming Messiah is a descendant of David, then how can he call the Messiah as my Lord? Simply the coming Messiah is just one of his physical descendants, then he would not call him Lord! This is implicitly saying that the coming Messiah is not just his physical descendant. He is the Lord of King David, far greater than a king. Who may be greater than a king?

Before answering this question, I like to explore the details of the Psalm 110 in order to discover who or what the coming Messiah is like.  This Psalm is called ‘Messianic Psalm’ and has been quoted few times in NT. Jesus quoted this Psalm when he answered to the high priest in his trial—he will be sitting at the right hand of God.

Though it is a poetry, yet it is describing a scene, where he saw and heard what was happening in full view of him.

In this scene God the Father is telling to the coming messiah to sit at his right hand, the most powerful and most intimate position.

He is to sit at God’s side until God the Father subjects all of his enemies under his feet. Who else can this person be other than His Son? Also God will use him as the priest forever.

So in this Psalm, God’s strong two desires are put together: desire to sit him at the highest place, even by subjecting all his enemies under his foot,  and desire to make a priest forever.

In all due respect to this prophecy, it is quite clear that the coming Messiah is not just a great human being but someone greater than human being, i.e. the Son of God.  His deity is clamed and meaningful in two aspect as seen in this psalm.

Jesus as the Son of God represented God the father in full extent. We can find this in John:

John 10:37 Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does.

John 10:38 But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

John 14:11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

Yet these people would not accept Jesus as the Son of God. They have seen what Jesus did, in which the power of God is vivid and evident. But they were not willing to honor Jesus as the Son of God. These people oppose Jesus because Jesus claimed to be equal with God, i.e. the Son of God.

John 5:43 I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.

When it says that Jesus represents God, it means that we see God and face God’s holiness and his righteous judgment as well as God’s compassion and love through Jesus. This is seen how Jesus taught and lived and died. In order to fulfill the greatest two commandments of Moses Jesus came and taught in the Sermon on the Mount: He showed 100% love to God by obeying even to the point of death on the cross. 
So rejecting Jesus is rejecting God! If Jesus is just a man, when one rejects Jesus, he is rejecting just a man, which we are free to do according to our taste without bearing serious consequences. 

These Pharisees refused to accept Jesus’ words and his teachings as God’s word or God’s teaching. This is found in many people of respect and honor.

Many people of the world are willing to honor Jesus without hesitation; some of them said very remarkable praise of Jesus. Few are like these: the most perfect of all men; the highest pattern of virtue; Jesus will never be surpassed; the one that left the most permanent impression for the world. But all these understandings fall short; actually they never captured the essence of Jesus, the Son of the living God.  

In this question to Pharisees, Jesus pointed out their critical mistake; failure to honor Jesus as the Son of God. But Jesus demands such faith.

Second, he is mediating as the redeemer, priest forever.

When it says Jesus the Son of God, we are calling him as our mediator of our sin. As indicate in Psalm 110, Jesus’ deity is closely linked to his priesthood. Simply we are asking God for help our hapless and helpless condition in our sins. We know all too well that no men can help our condition in sin, as the commands of God demanded. What man has even with the best of the bests, he cannot help. The expert in the law knew so well and he could not help the nation Israel. He himself was in deep trouble in his own sin. So only God can help us! God in his mercy sent his own son so that he may do in place of us what we cannot do. We all dig ourselves in to a deep trench of sin. The trench is so deep that even with all mean and ways, we have we cannot get out of that trench.  We need God’s help. God sent his son Jesus to give that help. He is the priest on behalf of us. Jesus in his might can get us out of the deep trench in our sinful lives. So Jesus is the priest forever! He did this by his death on the cross and by his resurrection from the dead. He is doing this now at the right hand of God.
Rejecting Jesus’ deity means is serious. This means that we take him only as our model of excellence. In human history there are so many model of excellence. Did they help human races? If that was so, then by now we should have been living in a utopia. But we know this wasn’t the case at all. So when we reject Jesus’ deity, we are rejecting God’s mercy that God poured out through Jesus the one who suffered on our behalf.  

Let’s read:

⁴³ He said to them, "How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him 'Lord'? For he says, ⁴⁴ "'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet."' ⁴⁵ If then David calls him 'Lord,' how can he be his son?"

If King David called Jesus, my Lord, then how can he be just his son?  Jesus is the Son of God. The greatest commandments failed to lead us to God’s blessing. The true answer for our place in God’s kingdom is not in and through these commandments. It is through the Messiah. He is the Son of the Living God. Jesus is the exact representation of God Himself and he is the only redeemer for our sinful and hapless and helpless lives because he is the Son of God.

Jesus is our Lord, our Savior, and the living Son of God! So we must honor him and respect him and believe him as our Lord, the Savior.