David’s Son and LORD B

The question is, how is it that they say Christ is David's Son? How can you say that when God is God? So what makes Jesus' claim of divinity legitimate? How compelling is the case for the deity of Christ? John MacArthur will help you answer those vital questions in the next 30 minutes today on Grace to You as he continues his series, How to Talk to a Heretic.

Before we get to the lesson though, we know there will always be people who teach error and people who are enemies of the truth, but there will also be a remnant who love biblical truth, who hunger for it and support it. And John, we heard from some people just like that not long ago. I want you to pass their stories along. This is always the favorite time for me, and I'm happy to do that.

Here's a letter from Marlene in Stockton, California. She writes, I want to especially thank you for your recent radio series on praying boldly. I have been walking with God for nearly 40 years and I have never understood prayer as well as I do now, thanks to you. Your explanation of the parable about the man who needed three biscuits is so clear and it has changed my life.

My faith has grown and now I understand how my fervent prayers can truly have an effect on the people I'm praying for. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Marlene. A wonderful testimony. Here's another letter from a lady named Ellen.

My husband and I are disabled and unable to get out much. We use the MacArthur Study Bible for our regular study of the word and listen to Grace To You radio and to CDs from your ministry. We both read quite a few of your books and my husband does deeper study using your systematic theology book, Biblical Doctrine.

Wow, he's serious. That's 1,100 pages. And then she closes, thank you for your faithfulness. And I say thank you, Helen, very much for yours.

Another letter from Josh down in South Carolina. Your ministry has so impacted my walk with Christ helping me grow in discernment and teaching others. I listen to your sermons and I own several of your books, the MacArthur Study Bible and the entire commentary on the New Testament. Thank you for being so faithful in proclaiming God's Word and for speaking truth no matter where you go and no matter who is in the crowd.

Thank you, Josh. I'm always privileged to speak the truth. The Lord blesses his truth.

We know that. So we share these letters, just a few letters with you to remind you that God's Word is doing what God said it would do. It is accomplishing his purpose and it never returns void. It is universally the vital factor in building people's spiritual lives, engages, raises life-directing questions and gives clear answers. So we're committed to bringing God's Word to people through books and MP3s and CDs and TV, the internet, and what you hear on Grace To You Radio. When you stand with us, you make all of this possible.

We're dependent vessels. God's doing an amazing work and he's doing it through friends like you. We're thankful to him, but we're also thankful to you for your partnership.

Yes, we are. And friend, know that those letters are just a handful of the countless notes we receive from people around the world, people who are tuning in and growing in Christ. So thank you for what you do to help reach them. And now let's turn to God's Word and here's John MacArthur to show you how to talk to a heretic. Luke chapter 20, coming to the conclusion of this rich 20th chapter, and in verse 41 we read this, And he said to them, How is it that they say 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 thine enemies a footstool for thy feet. David therefore calls him Lord. And how is he his son? Let's call that a discerning question, a discerning question.

It gets right to the core, penetrating, provocative, a discerning question. How is it that they say the Messiah is David's son? And so the Lord asks them the pertinent question. But I have to take you back to Matthew, Matthew 22, 41.

This is where the conversation really starts. Remember, Matthew, Mark and Luke record the same incident and they all give us little details. Matthew 22, 41, this is how it began.

Here's what Jesus said first. What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?

What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He? So you have this very direct and very pertinent and very essential and important question placed before them. I called it a discerning question because it discerns to the core of where a person is spiritually.

It is followed by a deficient answer...a deficient answer. Their answer was David. Now this is commonly believed by the Jews of Jesus' day. It's so obvious in the Old Testament, they all believed it. And apparently the people not only knew the Messiah would be a son of David, but they knew Jesus was a son of David. It is a correct answer, it is just a deficient answer.

Not wrong, incomplete, inadequate. So you go from a discerning question through a deficient answer to what I'll call a divine reality...a divine reality. This is marvelous.

This again shows us so much. Verse 42, the question is, how is it that they say Christ is David's son? How can you say that when David himself says in the book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet? David therefore calls him Lord and how is he his son?

This is just amazing. Now let me tell you what Jesus is doing here as an argument. Why are you calling Messiah David's son only when David himself says in Psalm 110, 1, that's the Psalm he's quoting, Psalm 110, 1, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet?

Now let me tell you the foundation of our Lord's argument. Everybody...everybody knew Psalm 110 was messianic, everybody. The standard universal Jewish interpretation of Psalm 110 is it is speaking of the coming Messiah. This coming Messiah is the one who will sit at the right hand of God, the position of power and authority, and make all Israel's and thus God's enemies a footstool for His feet. He is the conquering hero...He is the conquering hero, very reminiscent of Psalm 2.

That is how the Jews interpreted Psalm 110 and it was a universal interpretation. It's messianic. And when the Messiah comes, He will wield the right hand of God.

He will wield the authority and power of God and He will subdue all God's, i.e. Israel's enemies, put them under His feet. And by the way, just as a further explanation of that, being placed under the feet of a ruler was not where you wanted to be because it really was a symbol of execution. Listen to Joshua 10, five kings are brought to Joshua. Verse 24 came about when they brought these kings out to Joshua. Joshua called for all the men of Israel, said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings. So they came near, put their feet on their necks. Verse 26, so Joshua struck them, put them to death, hanged them on five trees.

Everybody knew what it meant to make your enemies your footstool, to put your feet on your enemy's neck. This is messianic. They knew the Messiah would come and destroy the enemies of God because that's what the Old Testament prophesied. How then, if this is messianic and the Messiah is to be David's son, can David call Him Lord? Because verse 1 begins in Psalm 110, the Lord said to My Lord, that is Yahweh is talking to the Messiah and David says, the Messiah is My Lord. How can the Messiah be David's son and David's Lord?

Only one way. He has to be the eternal God who becomes man. He has to be the everlasting God who becomes in time a creature. This is stunning to them. In fact, this is so stunning an argument that the Jews scrambled for centuries because of this very incident. It wasn't long after the completion of the New Testament and the availability of this that the Jews changed their viewpoint of Psalm 110. And they said, it refers to Abraham in some strange way. And others said, no, it refers to Melchizedek. And others said, no, it is a reference to Judas Maccabeus who was a ruler from 135 to 143, 143 to 135 B.C. And those who came up with the Judas Maccabeus idea took the Hebrew and altered it to create an acrostic of the name of Judas Maccabeus.

They were the originators of the Bible codes. They did anything and everything they could do to manipulate the text of Psalm 110 to make it non-Messianic because if it is the Messiah to whom the Lord is speaking and the Messiah surely is David's son, David also calls Him His Lord. The Messiah is both man and God. He is the eternal Son of God as well as man, Son of David. He is David's son and David's Lord. If He was just an ancestor to come centuries later, how could David in the present tense refer to Him as My Lord? If you don't think Bible exposition down to the personal pronouns is important, here's something that will correct your view, right?

How important is it to get the words and the phrases and even the prepositions and pronouns right? Well, some liberals came along and said, oh, David was wrong when he said this. It was just a crazy moment for David.

He was wrong. And if you were reading Luke, you might conclude that, well, David said it but he shouldn't have said it. However, Matthew 22 verse 43 says, listen to this, David said in the Spirit, or if you will, Mark 12 36, David said in the Holy Spirit. Let's make sure we're not talking about the human spirit. He said it, he said it in the Spirit, he said it in the Holy Spirit.

So all the bases are covered there. What David said then was not wrong, it was right, absolutely right, absolutely accurate. It's the same kind of construction there in Mark that you find in Acts chapter 4 and verse 25 where it says, by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our Father David.

It's the same thing. The Spirit of God inspired David to say it. David said, the Messiah who hasn't even come yet is now at this moment my Lord. It kind of reminds me of what Thomas said when he saw Jesus after His resurrection and said, my Lord and my God. This could set in permanent panic because He's exposited the Psalm, they all affirm to be messianic. The Jews have, Middle Ages to now, those who still consider the Word of God seriously have come back to the fact that this is a messianic Psalm generally. I don't know what they do to escape the fact that the Messiah has to have been alive at the time of David as well as being in the future the Son of David.

But if they're thinking at all, this same argument is a powerful argument for the Lord Jesus Christ. And one day in the purposes and in the providence of God and in His perfect plan, the Messiah will return to reign and to place His heel on the neck of His enemies in that great eschatological event of His glorious return and judgment and Kingdom establishment. But until then, His heel falls on the neck of His enemies every second of every day. The judgment of Christ on sinners and rejecters does not await the final judgment.

It goes on every single day. His enemies are always His footstool. When verse 44 sums it up, David therefore calls Him Lord and then asks, how is He only His Son?

You have an impossible dilemma. The Jews were completely stopped. And in fact, that's what Matthew says. Matthew basically says what Luke says before this incident. Matthew says it after this incident, verse 46, no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question. After the discussion with the Sadducees, Luke says it was over.

The Pharisees circle back after their little meeting. They've got one more issue and Jesus confronts them with that issue. They were done, but He came to them.

And after that, they were done for sure. Luke says they had nothing else left to say. So Jesus asked the question. They couldn't answer that.

They are doubly silenced. There's nowhere to go if you reject Jesus Christ. Don't come with any kind of patronizing nonsense about the fact that you think Jesus is a good person and the Bible is a wonderful book. The Bible says Jesus is God. He is David's Son, David's Son and David's Lord.

He is the God-man. If you believe that, you affirm Scripture. If you do not believe that, you deny Scripture. The Scripture then is to you a deception and Jesus is a fraud. The Bible is full of lies. Abandon Christianity, leave the church, get as far away from it as you possibly can.

But if the Bible is true and it is, Jesus is God and man, then what He says is true, what He did is the only way of salvation and faith in Him alone is the way to heaven. You could talk about the deity of Jesus Christ so many ways. He manifested the attributes of God, omnipotence, commanded the elements, commanded the demons, commanded the physical world, commanded death, commanded life, forgave sin. He had the attribute of omni presence. He was able to be everywhere at all times if He desired to be. He was omniscient. He knew everything, including the thoughts of men. He was immutable.

He never changed. He was holy, true, wise, sovereign, loving, eternal, glorious, unchangingly so. He is God.

He is God in the same way that God is God no less. And if God became a man, let's just create a hypothesis. If God became a man, what would we expect Him to be like? Well, I think, first of all, we would expect Him to be sinless because the God, the true God, the God of Scripture is holy...holy, holy, holy. So if God became a man, He would be sinless. Was Jesus sinless?

Yeah, even His own enemies couldn't find any accusation against Him. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. If God were a man, we would expect not only there to be no sin, the absence of sin, but we would expect, secondly, the presence of perfect righteousness.

He would be the purest of persons who ever lived. If God were a man, we would expect His words to be the greatest words ever spoken because He has the greatest intelligence and the greatest wisdom and the greatest command of truth and the greatest command of the expression of that truth. The words of Jesus would be like no words ever spoken by anyone, any time, any place.

And it was said of Him, never a man spoke like He spoke. He said, believe Me for My works, sinless and righteous and powerful, believe Me for My words. If God became a man, we would expect Him to display supernatural power with ease because it would be a true reflection of His nature. Jesus controlled nature, healed people, walked on water, raised the dead, dominated the kingdom of demons, avoided those who tried to kill Him, literally did miracles in numbers that couldn't even be counted. And John ends his gospel by saying there are too many to even write. If God were a man, we would expect Him to exert a profound influence over humanity, Jesus did like no other in all of human history.

He changed the world. If God were a man, we would expect Him to manifest the love of God, the grace of God, the kindness of God, the compassion of God and He does. We would also expect Him to display the justice of God, the judgment of God, the wrath of God and He does.

If you read the Old Testament and get the picture of God, read the New Testament, Christ is the perfect representation of God in human form, that's Hebrews 1. The Jews wouldn't believe it. No matter what He did, they wouldn't believe it. Look at Luke 22...Luke 22 verse 66.

This is after they arrest Him. Verse 66, when it was day, the council of elders of the people, the leaders assembled, chief priests and scribes, they led Him away to their council chamber saying...listen to this...if you are the Christ, tell us...are you kidding me? You want to know how hard-hearted they were? If you are the Christ, tell us. But He said to them, if I tell you, you will not believe.

What's the point? And if I ask a question, you will not answer. Do you know they never denied the miracles? None of them. They never denied the wisdom of Jesus. They never refuted His exposition of Scripture.

They never discredited the answers that He gave. They just wouldn't believe. That's the sad error of people throughout history and even today. And what about you? Are you with these hard-hearted, stone cold leaders who see it all and yet don't see it?

Who never deny any of it but will not believe it? Or are you with that crowd that is terminally indecisive and can be led around by the nose and one day can cry hosanna and a few days later, crucify Him? What is your response to the question, whose Son is Jesus Christ? If He is the Son of God, then He is truly the Messiah, the Lord, the only Savior and the only way by which a sinner, through faith alone, can escape hell and enter heaven. Father, we see again, as we always do, the wondrous beauty, majesty of Jesus Christ. In the Word we see His wondrous use of Scripture to manifest His own deity and glory.

We see His compassion on the hard-hearted and the indecisive. And, Lord, this is given to us for today as a call, as it were, to those who stand in open rejection or indecision, to consider again whose Son you really are, Son of David, yes, but also the eternal Son of God, the only Savior, who came first as an offering for sin and will come again as a reigning monarch. Father, I pray that there will be no heart here turned away, that all will embrace the Savior and believe, repent, and receive the gift of eternal life.

It's in His name we ask. Amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. Today John looked at Jesus' claim to deity and the way He dealt with those who denied it.

How to talk to a heretic, that's the title of our study. Well, friend, a word of thanks for your support for this Bible teaching ministry. Know that your support helps us reach people in communities that have no strong churches, no solid Bible teaching.

That means you're getting biblical truth into people's hands, some no doubt for the first time. To partner with us, get in touch today. Send your tax-deductible donation to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. You can also make a donation online at gty.org or when you call us at 800-55-GRACE. Thank you for helping us encourage believers around the world with the truth of God's Word. Again, you can donate online at gty.org or when you call 800-55-GRACE. And when you get in touch, let us know how John's verse-by-verse teaching is blessing you. If it's helped equip you to tell your loved ones about Christ, or if someone you know has come to faith in Christ after hearing this broadcast, we would love to hear your story. Email is a great way to reach us. You can write to letters at gty.org, or if you prefer regular mail, write to Box 4000, Panorama City, California 91412. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace to You television this Sunday. Check your local listings for Channel and Times, and then be here tomorrow when John continues his study, How to Talk to a Heretic, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.