Luke 20:41-44

6. The Question of Jesus: Luke 20:41-44.

Vers. 41-44. Matthew and Mark place here the question of a scribe on the great commandment of the law. This question was suggested to the man, as we see from Mark 12:28, by the admiration which filled him at the answers which he had just heard. According to Matthew, he wished yet again to put the wisdom of Jesus to the proof (πειράζων αὐτόν, Matthew 22:35). Either Luke did not know this narrative, or he omitted it because he had related one entirely similar, Luke 10:25 et seq.

At the close of this spiritual tournament, Jesus in His turn throws down a challenge to His adversaries. Was it to give them difficulty for difficulty, entanglement for entanglement? No; the similar question which He had put to them, Luke 20:4, has proved to us that Jesus was acting in a wholly different spirit. What, then, was His intention? He had just announced His death, and pointed out the authors of it (parable of the husbandmen). Now, He was not ignorant what the charge would be which they would use against Him. He would be condemned as a blasphemer, and that for having called Himself the Son of God (John 5:18; John 10:33; Matthew 26:65). And as He was not ignorant that before such a tribunal it would be impossible for Him to plead His cause in peace, He demonstrates beforehand, in presence of the whole people, and by the Old Testament, the divinity of the Messiah, thus sweeping away from the Old Testament standpoint itself the accusation of blasphemy which was to form the pretext for His condemnation. The three Syn. have preserved, with slight differences, this remarkable saying, which, with Luke 10:21-22 and some other passages, forms the bond of union between the teaching of Jesus in those Gospels, and all that is affirmed of His person in that of John. If it is true that Jesus applied to Himself the title of David's Lord, with which this king addressed the Messiah in Psalms 110, the consciousness of His divinity is implied in this title as certainly as in any declaration whatever of the fourth Gospel.

According to Luke, it is to the scribes, according to Matthew (Matthew 22:41), to the Pharisees, that the following question is addressed. Mark names no one. The three narratives differ likewise slightly in the form of the question: “How say they?” (Luke); “How say the scribes?” (Mark.) In Matthew, Jesus declares to the Pharisees at the same time the doctrine of the Davidic sonship of the Messiah, very natural diversities if they arise from a tradition which had taken various forms, but inexplicable if they are intentional, as they must be, supposing the use of one and the same written source. The Alex. read: “ For he himself...;” that is to say: “there is room to put this question; for...” The Byz.: “ And (nevertheless) he himself hath said...” Luke says: in the book of Psalms; Matthew: by the Spirit; Mark: by the Holy Spirit.

The non-Messianic explanations of Psalms 110 are the masterpiece of rationalistic arbitrariness. They begin by giving to וד Ó לְדָתִהךֵ meaning: “addressed to David,” instead of: “composed by David,” contrary to the uniform sense of the ל auctoris in the titles of the Psalms, and that to make David the subject of the Psalm, which would be impossible if he were its author (Ewald). And as this interpretation turns out to be untenable, for David never was a priest (Luke 20:4: “Thou art a priest for ever”), they transfer the composition of the Psalm to the age of the Maccabees, and suppose it addressed by some author or other to Jonathan, the brother of Judas Maccabeus, of the priestly race. This person, who never even bore the title of king, is the man whom an unknown flatterer is supposed, according to Hitzig, to celebrate as seated at Jehovah's right hand! It is impossible to cast a glance at the contents of the Psalm without recognising its directly Messianic bearing: 1. A Lord of David; 2. Raised to Jehovah's throne, that is to say, to participation in omnipotence; 3. Setting out from Zion on the conquest of the world, overthrowing the kings of the earth (Luke 20:4), judging the nations (Luke 20:5), and that by means of an army of priests clothed in their sacerdotal garments (Luke 20:3); 4. Himself at once a priest and a king, like Melchisedec before Him. The law, by placing the kingly power in the tribe of Judah, and the priesthood in that of Levi, had raised an insurmountable barrier between those two offices. This separation David must often have felt with pain. Uzziah attempted to do away with it; but he was immediately visited with punishment. It was reserved for the Messiah alone, at the close of the theocracy, to reproduce the sublime type of the King-Priest, presented at the date of its origin in the person of Melchisedec. Comp. on the future reunion of those two offices in the Messiah, the wonderful prophecy of Zechariah 6:9-15; Psalms 110, besides its evidently prophetic bearing, possesses otherwise all the characteristics of David's compositions: a conciseness which is forcible and obscure; brilliancy and freshness in the images; grandeur and richness of intuition. It was from the words: Sit Thou at my right hand, that Jesus took His answer to the adjuration of the high priest in the judgment-scene (Matthew 26:64): “Henceforth shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power.” With what a look of severity, turned upon His adversaries at the very moment when He quoted this Psalm before all the people, must He have accompanied this declaration of Jehovah to the Messiah: “ until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. ”

To answer satisfactorily the question of Luke 20:44, put by Jesus, it was absolutely necessary to introduce the idea of the divinity of the Messiah, which is the soul of the entire Old Testament. Isaiah called the Son born to us: Wonderful, mighty God (Isaiah 9:5). Micah had distinguished His historic birth at Bethlehem, and His pre-historic birth from everlasting (Luke 20:2). Malachi had called the Messiah, “ Adonai coming to His temple ” (Luke 3:1). There was in the whole of the Old Testament, from the patriarchal theophanies down to the latest prophetic visions, a constant current toward the incarnation as the goal of all those revelations. The appearance of the Messiah presents itself more and more clearly to the view of the prophets as the perfect theophany, the final coming of Jehovah. No doubt, since the exile, exclusive zeal for monotheism had diverted Jewish theology from this normal direction. This is the fact which Jesus sets before its representatives in that so profound argument of His, John 10:34-38. It was exactly in this way that Rabbinical monotheism had become petrified and transformed into a dead theism. Jesus has taken up the broken thread of the living theology of the prophets. Such is the explanation of His present question. To resolve it, the scribes would have required to plunge again into the fresh current of the ancient theocratic aspirations: The descendant promised to David (2Sa 7:16) will be nothing less than Adonai coming to His temple (Mal 3:1); to His human birth at Bethlehem there corresponds His eternal origin in God (Mic 5:2): such only is the reconciliation of the two titles son and Lord of David given to the person of the Messiah.

The meaning and appropriateness of Jesus' question appear to us equally manifest. It has been sought, however, to explain it otherwise.

1. Some think that Jesus argues, from the fact that Messiah is to be David's Lord, to prove that He cannot be his descendant. For it is incongruous, say they, that an ancestor should call his descendant his Lord. According to this meaning, it must be admitted that Jesus Himself knew very well that He did not descend from David, although among the people they ignorantly gave Him the title son of David, because they took Him for the Messiah. The Christians, it is said, yielded at a later period to the popular Jewish instinct; and to satisfy it invented the two genealogies which seem to establish the Davidic descent of Jesus (Schenkel). But, (a) In this case, Jesus would have acted, as Keim observes, in a manner extremely imprudent, by Himself raising a question which more than any other might have prejudiced His standing with the people. “The character son of David could not be wanting to Him who thus publicly made it a subject of discussion” (Keim). (b) It would not only be the forgers, the authors of the two genealogical documents preserved by Matthew and Luke, who had admitted and propagated this late error; it would also mean the author of the Apocalypse (Luke 22:16: “I am the root and offspring of David”). St. Paul himself would be guilty, he who should least of all have been inclined to make such a concession to the Judaizing party (Romans 1:3: “ of the seed of David according to the flesh; ” 2 Timothy 2:8: “ of the seed of David ”). The whole Church must thus have connived at this falsehood, or given in to this error, and that despite of the express protestation of Jesus Himself in our passage, and without any attempt on the part of our Lord's adversaries to show up the error or falsehood of this assertion! (c) The argument thus understood would prove far too much; the rationalists themselves should beware of ascribing to Jesus so gross a want of logic as it would imply. If it was dishonouring to David to call any one whatsoever of his descendants his Lord, why would it be less so for him to give this title to that descendant of Abraham who should be the Messiah? Was not the family of David the noblest, the most illustrious of Israelitish families? The reasoning of Jesus would logically end in proving that the Messiah could not be an Israelite, or even a man! (d) Jesus would thus have put Himself in contradiction to the whole Old Testament, which represented the Christ as being born of the family of David (2 Samuel 7; Psalms 132:17; Isaiah 9:5-6). (e) Luke would also be in contradiction with himself, for he expressly makes Jesus descend from David (Luke 1:32; Luke 1:69). (f) How, finally, could Jesus have contented Himself with protesting so indirectly against this attribute son of David ascribed to Him by the multitude, if He had known that He did not possess it?

2. According to M. Colani also, Jesus means that the Messiah is not the son of David, but in this purely moral sense, that He is not the heir of his temporal power; that His kingdom is of a higher nature than David's earthly kingdom. But, (a) It is wholly opposed to the simple and rational meaning of the term son of David, not to refer it to sonship properly so called, but to make it signify, a temporal king like David. (b) It would be necessary to admit that the evangelist did not himself understand the meaning of this saying, or that he contradicts himself, he who puts into the mouth of the angel the declaration, Luke 1:32: “The Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David” (comp. Luke 1:69).

3. Keim admits the natural meaning of the term Son. He places the notion of spiritual kingship not in this term, but in that of David's Lord. “The physical descent of Jesus from David is of no moment; His kingdom is not a repetition of David's. From the bosom of the heavenly glory to which He is raised, He bestows spiritual blessings on men. None, therefore, should take offence at His present poverty.” But, (a) If that is the whole problem, the problem vanishes; for there is not the least difficulty in admitting that a descendant may be raised to a height surpassing that of his ancestor. There is no serious difficulty, if the term Lord does not include the notion of a sonship superior to that which is implied in the title son of David. (b) So thoroughly is this our Lord's view, that in Mark the question put by Him stands thus: “David calls Him his Lord; how, then, is He his son? ” In Keim's sense, Jesus should have said: “David calls Him his son; how, then, is He his Lord? ” In the form of Matthew (the Gospel to which Keim uniformly gives the preference, and to which alone he ascribes any real value), the true point of the question is still more clearly put: “ Whose son is He? ” The problem is evidently, therefore, the Davidic sonship of Jesus, as an undeniable fact, and yet apparently contradictory to another sonship implied in the term David's Lord. Finally, (c) If it was merely the spiritual nature of His kingdom which Jesus meant to teach, as Colani and Keim allege in their two different interpretations, there were many simpler and clearer ways of doing so, than the ambiguous and complicated method which on their supposition He must have employed here. The question put by Jesus would be nothing but a play of wit, unworthy of Himself and of the solemnity of the occasion.

4. According to Volkmar, this whole piece is a pure invention of Mark, the primitive evangelist, who, by putting this question in the mouth of Jesus, skilfully answered this Rabbinical objection: Jesus did not present Himself to the world either as David's descendant or as His glorious successor; consequently He cannot be the Messiah, for the O. T. makes Messiah the son of David. Mark answered by the mouth of Jesus: No; it is impossible that the O. T. could have meant to make Messiah the son of David, for according to Psalms 110 the Messiah was to be his Lord. But, (a) It would follow therefrom, as Volkmar acknowledges, that in the time of Jesus none had regarded Him as the descendant of David. Now the acclamations of the multitude on the day of Palms, the address of the woman of Canaan, that of Bartimeus, and all the other like passages, prove, on the contrary, that the Davidic sonship of Jesus was a generally admitted fact. (b) How was it that the scribes never protested against the Messianic pretensions of Jesus, especially on the occasion of His trial before the Sanhedrim, if His attribute son of David had not been a notorious fact? (c) The Davidic descent of the family of Jesus was so well known, that the emperor Domitian summoned the nephews of Jesus, the sons of Jude His brother, to Rome, under the designation of sons of David. (d) St. Paul, in the year 59, positively teaches the Davidic descent of Jesus (Romans 1:3). And Mark, the Pauline (according to Volkmar), denied to Jesus this same sonship in 73 (the date, according to Volkmar, of Mark's composition), by a reasoning ad hoc! Still more, Luke himself, that Pauline of the purest water, reproduces Mark's express denial, without troubling himself about the positive teaching of Paul! Volkmar attempts to elude the force of this argument by maintaining that Paul's saying in the Epistle to the Romans is only a concession made by him to the Judeo-Christian party! To the objection taken from the genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:23 et seq.), Volkmar audaciously replies that Luke mentions it only to set it aside (“ um sie zu illudiren ”). And yet this same Luke, as we have seen, expressly asserts this sonship (Luke 1:32; Luke 1:69). (e) Let us add a last discovery of Volkmar's: Matthew found it useful, in the interest of the Judeo-Christian party, to accept in spite of Mark the idea of the Davidic descent of Jesus as he found it contained in Luke (in that genealogical document which Luke had quoted only to set aside)! Only, to glorify Jesus the more, he substituted at his own hand, for the obscure branch of Nathan (Luke's genealogy), the royal and much more glorious line of Solomon (Matthew's).

Thus our sacred writers manipulate history to suit their interest or caprice! Instead of the artless simplicity which moves us in their writings, we find in them device opposed to device, and falsehood to falsehood! Be it ours to stand aloof from such saturnalia of criticism!

Our interpretation, the only natural one in the context, is confirmed: (1) By those expressions in the Apocalypse: the root and offspring of David, expressions which correspond to those of Lord and son of this king; (2) by Paul's twofold declaration, “ made of the seed of David according to the flesh [David's son], and declared to be the Son of God with power since His resurrection, according to the spirit of holiness [David's Lord];” (3) by the silence of Jesus at the time of His condemnation. This question, put in the presence of all the people to the conscience of His judges, had answered beforehand the accusation of blasphemy raised against Him. Such was the practical end which Jesus had in view, when with this question He closed this decisive passage of arms.