A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on October 4, 2026.
Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him any question. But he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? For David himself says in the Book of Psalms,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”’
David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?” (Luke 20:39–44).[1]
In the two preceding passages, Jesus silenced his inquisitors. First, it was the Pharisees’ spies who asked him an entrapping question about the Roman tax. Second, it was the Sadducees who posed a theoretical scenario to disprove the resurrection. Neither were successful. Jesus stumped them both and silenced them all.
Having witnessed brilliance, perhaps not knowing what to say, some of the scribes congratulated Jesus, saying, “Teacher, you have spoken well” (20:39). I can’t help but smile as I read this: Of course he had spoken well; he is the Word of God incarnate! But really, their response was simply a cover, as Luke explains, they could say nothing else, because “they no longer dared to ask him any question” (20:40). But this did not mean the questions were finished. Now it was Jesus’ turn.
Truly Man
Employing the proverbial “they,” Jesus asks, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?” (20:41). Here is a truth that everyone agreed upon, no debate necessary. The Christ, the Messiah, would be a descendent of David, as God promised. God told Daivd, “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. . . . And your house and your kingdom . . . shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:12, 16). Over two centuries after David, the promise was echoed through the prophet Isaiah, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given . . . on the throne of David and over his kingdom” (Isa. 9:6-7). Over three centuries after David, Jeremiah would prophesy, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 23:5). And this is just a sampling of Scripture that the first-century Jews knew well and held to with great expectation.
But what happens when one truth in Scripture is emphasized at the expense of another? For example, it was rightly believed that the Christ, the son of David, would rule from Jerusalem and reign over all nations. But what about Isaiah’s description of the Christ as a suffering servant, chosen by God to die an atoning death and resurrect (Isa. 53). It is easy to imagine why this truth was forgotten at the expense of the other. It was anticipated that the son of David would come in the form of a mighty military man, who would overthrow the Romans and establish Israel over the rest of the world. But it would be hard to think of this same man as one who would be despised and rejected by man, stricken and smitten by God, pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (Isa. 53:3-5).
It is easy to emphasize certain truths of Scripture at the expense of others. For example, as Presbyterians we gladly celebrate the biblical truth of predestination, that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world and through Christ predestined us for adoption as his children (Eph. 1:4-5). This is a truth worth celebrating, as it directs all glory where it belongs, to God. But we should never let this truth overshadow an equally great truth of the free offer of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16), and “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). Both are truths from Scripture, but we need not emphasize one over the other but faithfully believe both. Nor should we pit one truth against another as if they are adversaries. Let us then be on guard against elevating one truth of Scripture at the expense of another but be faithful to the whole counsel of God.
But sometimes what we believe to be true is not true at all. Sometimes our interpretation of Scripture can simply be wrong. This was the case in first-century Israel concerning the Christ, whom they expected to be an Anointed One, to be sure, but merely a man. But Jesus confronts this error by taking them to a familiar psalm, to show them that the Christ is truly man but also truly God.
Truly God
Psalm 110, a messianic psalm of David, is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. The writer of Hebrews quotes it to describe Christ’s supremacy over all (Heb. 1:13). Paul quotes it to the Corinthians concerning our victory in Christ’s victorious resurrection (1 Cor. 15:22-25). Peter preached on Pentecost to prove the lordship of the crucified and resurrected Christ and to describe his ascended glory (Acts 2:32-36). And Jesus uses it here to confront an erroneous presumption in Israel.
One commentator notes, “In an indirect, almost teasing way, [Jesus] wants to enlarge their view of the Messiah, that He is not only David’s sovereign, that He has both human descent and divine status.”[2] How does Jesus do this? He presents a conundrum from the first verse of David’s psalm:
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”’
“David thus calls him Lord,” Jesus says, “so how is he his son?” (20:41-44). If the Christ is David’s son, how can David acknowledge him as God? There is perhaps an added perplexity for us here because of the Greek and English translations. In English translation and in the Greek, the word translated “Lord” (Kyrios in Greek) is used twice. But in the Hebrew text, there are two words used: “The Lord [Yahweh] said to my Lord [‘adon] Lord . . .”
Yahweh is the self-revealed name of God alone. The second word translated “Lord” is Adonai, a general term, not always but typically, used for God. For example, in first-century Israel, when the Scriptures were read aloud in Hebrew, so revered was the name Yahweh, Adonai would be substituted: “Adonai said to Adonai.” In this way, in context both names could refer to God. You can see then how this could present an interpretive challenge in reading this verse: “The Lord said to my Lord.” But Psalm 110 was rightly understood to be a messianic psalm. So they interpreted the first “Lord” (Yahweh) as referring to God and the second “Lord” as referring to the Messiah, the Christ.
But here is the genius of Jesus’ question, when he asks, “How can they say the Christ is David’s son . . . [if] David himself says . . . ‘The Lord said to my Lord. . . .’” (20:41-42)? In other words, they interpreted the first verse of Psalm 110 as an either/or statement, but Jesus is proposing both/and. A son is subordinate to his father, and no father calls his son “Lord.” But Christ is the son of David and David calls him Lord. How can this be? It can only be, and it is, because Christ is truly man and truly God. Christ is the son of David because he is truly man, and he is David’s Lord because he is truly God.
While such a conundrum was unanswerable in that moment for the closed minds of Israel, such truth runs through the New Testament. And we who enjoy a full canon of Scripture also are the recipients of a rich creedal history articulating this glorious mystery.
In the Apostles’ Creed we profess our faith in “Jesus Christ, [God’s] only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary.” And in the Nicene Creed, we profess that the Lord Jesus Christ is “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God . . . who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Hoy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man. The Athanasian Creed says, “we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is both God and man, equally.”[3] The Chalcedonian Definition explains that our Lord Jesus Christ is “the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man.”[4] And to fast forward 1200 years, the Westminster Shorter Catechism answers the question, “Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?”, this way: “The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.”[5] My point in quoting all of this is simply to echo the point of Jesus’ conundrum: The Christ is David’s son and David’s Lord, because he is truly man and truly God, one Lord Jesus Christ.
One Lord Jesus Christ
But the question I want us to consider, in conclusion, is why it was necessary for Jesus to pose this question? Why was it necessary to allude to the humanity and divinity of Christ? It was, in a sense, a kind of self-revelation, but there is more here than a veiled insinuation to his identity. What is at stake in Jesus’ question is the gospel!
If Jesus is not truly man, then he cannot truly represent us. The Heidelberg Catechism helpfully explains this, that a mediator between holy God and sinful man must be “a true and righteous man,” because “God’s justice requires that human nature, which has sinned, must pay for its sin.”[6] The Son of God, therefore, had to become a man, to obey where Adam failed, and to die as a man for our sin. Or, as Paul puts it, “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19). Had Christ not been truly man, he could not have served as our substitute, and without his substitutionary atonement, there is no gospel.
Equally as true is the necessity that Christ be truly God. Again, the Heidelberg Catechism is helpful here, explaining, “that, by the power of his divinity, he might bear in his humanity the weight of God’s wrath, and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.”[7] If Christ is not truly man, then he could not be our substitute. If Christ is not truly God, his substitution could not save us. But thanks be to God: “there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).
In this passage, Jesus is doing more than posing a conundrum, he is revealing the essence of the gospel. Through the cross, Christ “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Col. 2:15). Through his resurrection, Christ conquered death itself, a fact today, a reality at the last day. Through his ascension, Christ is subduing his enemies, reigning at this very moment exalted at the Father’s right hand. Through the preaching of the gospel, rebels are brought under his lordship; his enemies are conquered by being converted. And our Lord Jesus Christ will continue to reign, as Hebrews describes him, “waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet” (Heb. 10:12-13). At the Cross, Christ defeated his enemies; in his resurrection, he broke their power; from heaven, he is presently subduing them; and, at his return, every enemy, including death itself, will be placed beneath his feet. Come, Lord Jesus, come!
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version
(Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] Dale Ralph Davis, Luke 14-24: On the Rod to Jerusalem (Fearn: Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 2021), 143.
[3] Chad VanDixhoorn, Ed., Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms (Wheaton: Crossway, 2022), 22.
[4] Ibid., 27.
[5] The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 21, https://opc.org/sc.html.
[6] Chad VanDixhoorn, Ed., Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms (Wheaton: Crossway, 2022), 295.
[7] Ibid.
