Our thoughts of Christ's Sonship.
"What think ye of Christ? whose Son is he?" This is what may be called a Socratic dialogue. Our Lord asks questions, and leads his hearers on until they find themselves entangled, and discover how little they had thought about the things of which they had talked so glibly. The expression, "What think ye of Christ?" has been made the text of many general sermons on the claims and Person of Christ; and it has been variously urged that our opinions about Christ decide our religious standing. We try to keep strictly to the passage, and find points in following through the precise inquiry of our Lord.
I. WHOSE SON IS MESSIAH? Our Lord uses the term "Christ," or "Messiah," here in its general sense, and from the Pharisees' point of view. He is not directly speaking of himself, or affirming that he is Messiah. He speaks to these Pharisees, and virtually says to them, "You talk about Messiah, you expect the coming Messiah, you are very learned about the Messiah. Say then, 'Whose Son is he?'" Those Pharisees could not read the mind of Jesus as he could read their minds, and they did not suspect how he meant to puzzle them; so at once they answered, "The Son of David." "The Pharisees were ready at once with the traditional answer; but they had never asked themselves whether it conveyed the whole truth, whether it could be reconciled, and, if so, how, with the language of predictions that were confessedly Messianic." Show how fully our Lord met this prophetic necessity. His mother was, and his reputed father was, "of the house and lineage of David."
II. HOW CAN MESSIAH BE DAVID'S SON AND DAVID'S LORD? This was so exceedingly easy a question, that one wonders how anybody could have been baffled by it. But perhaps these Pharisees were not baffled. They saw the answer plainly enough, but they saw also what the answer involved. This explained it all—Messiah. was to be both "Son of David" and "Son of God." But Jesus claimed to be Messiah, and these Pharisees dare not let the people hear them admit that the "Son of David" was also "Son of God." Those people had triumphantly brought Jesus into the temple as the "Son of David;" and if the Pharisees had ventured a reply to Jesus, they must have acknowledged his claim to be "Son of God." Our Lord was the Divine-human being—of David according to the flesh; of God according to the Spirit. God was the soul of his humanity.—R.T.
Matthew 21
Matthew
Matthew 23
Matthew 22 - matthew-22 - worlddic.com