Flashback Episode — The Question to End the Questions: Matthew 22:41-46

As I have read the Bible, studied through the gospels and other passages, and prayed for wisdom, not many verses have stumped me on exactly what they mean. However, the passage we are focusing on in this episode is one passage I don’t really understand. In our passage for this episode, which can be found in three of the four gospels, after avoiding trick and trap questions, we find Jesus challenging the religious leaders with a question of His own.

Perhaps it is a matter of how the question and quotation is worded, but for a long time I wasn’t sure what David was describing.

Let’s read Jesus’ question and what happens, before discussing some thoughts about this event. While our event is recorded in three of the four gospels, let’s read Matthew’s version of it for our episode today. Our passage is found in Matthew, chapter 22, and we will be reading from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 41, Matthew tells us that:

⁴¹ While the Pharisees were still gathered, Jesus asked them, ⁴² “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

They answered him, “David’s.”

⁴³ He said to them, “Then how can David, guided by the Spirit, call him Lord? David says,

⁴⁴ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
    “Take the honored position—the one next to me [God the Father] on the heavenly throne
        until I put your enemies under your control.”’

⁴⁵ If David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”

⁴⁶ No one could answer him, and from that time on no one dared to ask him another question.

For a long time, about the only part of this passage that I understood was the last statement, where Matthew simply describes the detail that no one could answer Jesus’ question and they didn’t ask Him any more questions after this. I think part of my confusion regarding this whole passage and discussion is in the first phrase of Jesus’ quotation. When Jesus quotes David saying, “The Lord said to my Lord”, who are each of the “Lords” that David is referring to.

Since the term “lord” can both refer to God as well as important humans, is David’s statement referring to God the Father, speaking to God the Son, or is David the one being honored with Jesus referring to David as a lord.

This psalm is quoted numerous times throughout the New Testament, which meant that not only was it significant following Jesus’ use of it in our passage, but that those in the first century understood what it meant.

In preparation for this episode, where I would need to come up with at least one theory or idea for us to think about, I decided to switch translations to see if a different translation would help uncover the meaning of this passage, and especially the phrase that was obscure. What I found was that almost every translation worded this event in a very similar way. However, one translation did explain it in a profound way.

The Amplified Bible translation is one hidden gem of a translation because throughout this particular version of the Bible, the translators include additional nuances that the original language has but that isn’t readily able to be translated into English. They do this by including these extras in parenthesis.

When looking at the amplified Bible at this passage, we discover that “The Lord (the Father) said to my Lord (the Son, the Messiah)”. Now we have a frame of reference to use when understanding this passage. David isn’t talking about himself at all, but he is sharing a dialog between the Father and the Son – also known as the Messiah.

This detail is key because of the broader context. The footnotes for this passage from the Amplified Bible share some interesting thoughts on this passage’s significance. This passage immediately follows Jesus being challenged by a key Pharisee about what commandment was the greatest. We learn that the goal of this question was to trap Jesus in His own words, but when we read Jesus’ response, we don’t fully grasp what the trick part of this question is.

When looking at Mark’s version of the Pharisee’s trick question, we discover that Jesus shares the opening lines leading up to the greatest commandment, which the New American Standard Bible translation tells us are “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord;” (This is Mark 12:29 quoting Deuteronomy 6:4.)

This detail is significant because it sets up the trick question. With the Pharisees trap, they were going to challenge Jesus based on His claim of being God’s Son because there is only one God and one Lord. Matthew’s gospel, while leaving this opening line of the commandment out, describes how Jesus answered the Pharisees question, but then challenged them on this foundational idea.

When the Pharisees answer Jesus’ question that the Messiah would be David’s descendant, they both speak truthfully, but they also expose the idea that they might believe the Messiah to be simply a human descendant of David and not someone divine.

Knowing that David was a key figure in their history, Jesus pulled their attention and ours onto three Members of the Godhead in how He quotes the psalm in our original passage. Matthew 22, starting in verse 43 says, “Then how can David, guided by the Spirit [also known as the Holy Spirit], call him Lord? David says, ‘The Lord [referencing God the Father] said to my Lord [referencing the Son and the Messiah]…”

In David’s own writings, he describes how the Messiah is honored by God and that the Messiah existed prior to His arrival. David called the Messiah “Lord”, using a term that is generally reserved for God, and with a context that does make it refer to God. By using the word Lord to describe the Messiah, David acknowledged that his descendant would be greater than he was.

In this passage, we discover some amazing ideas, and while I still don’t fully understand all the nuances that were present in this event, I do understand more than I did when I began. In this passage, Jesus pulls our attention onto the detail that David acknowledged the divinity of the Messiah, and that the Messiah is David’s descendant. These two details combined give us the impossible-for-us-to-understand nature of Jesus as both fully God and fully human. Jesus asks the perfect question to stop future questions because the answer to this question is something we cannot understand.

However, just because we cannot understand how this is possible doesn’t mean we cannot believe it. The Bible gives us plenty of evidence we can use to base our faith on, and we can use what the Bible says to know everything we need to know to be saved. It isn’t important for us to know how it was possible for Jesus to be both God and human, but it is important for us to know that God – the Son – died in our place on the cross.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Be sure to intentionally seek God first in your life and trust in Him even if we don’t have all the answers to all the tough or perplexing questions we might have. Know that some questions we have can probably never be understood, while others are only able to be understood once we reach heaven.

Also, be sure to pray and study the Bible for yourself so that you can keep your relationship and connection with God strong. A pastor, author, speaker, or podcaster can give you great things to think about, but test everything on the truth of God’s word the Bible. Take your questions to God and let Him lead you to His answers.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!