Son of David, Son of God

Towards the end of His earthly ministry, the Savior asked the Pharisees, “What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?”  They responded that He was “the Son of David,” and to this Jesus responded, “How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?” (Matt. 22:42-45).  The Savior was quoting a psalm of David found in Psalm 110:1 which reads, “The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”  The first LORD is in all small caps, which means that it is a translation of the Hebrew name for God “YHWH” which we typically understand to mean a reference to Jehovah.  But in this context it may have been a reference to the Father (and often in the Bible references to God could mean either the Father or the Son—they are so united in purpose that it in most cases it doesn’t matter which one we are referring to).  It appears that the general Christian interpretation for this verse in Psalms is that “two distinct divine Persons ("LORD" and "Lord") are involved,” which presumably means the first refers to the Father and the second to the Son.  Looking at the use of the small caps in Matthew 22, this appears to be exactly what Jesus meant; He asked how David called the Messiah “Lord” (not all caps) in the Psalm, meaning that Christ was referring to the use of the second “Lord” as a reference to the Messiah.  Peter clearly believed this interpretation and preached to the people at the day of Pentecost, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand” (Acts 2:32-34).  His point to the people seems to have been that Jesus was greater than David and had ascended to the right hand of the Father.    

               So what was the reason for Jesus’s question to the Pharisees?  It seems that in asking about whether the Messiah would be the son of David, Christ was trying to show that the Messiah would be more than the son of a mortal.  The Messiah would indeed come through the line of David and be called the Son of David.  In fact, that phrase is used several times in the New Testament in the description of Christ.  Matthew opened his gospel saying, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David” (Matthew 1:1).  Blind Bartimaeus called out to Jesus saying, “Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me” (Mark 10:47).  Similarly the woman of Canaan cried to Him saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil” (Matt. 15:22).  At the triumphal entry, “The multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest” (Matt. 21:9).  But though this appellation as the Son of David was correct in that that’s the family line Christ came through, the more important title of the Savior, and the one these Pharisees to whom Jesus was talking rejected, was “Son of God.”  Christ clearly referred to Himself as the Son of God, such as when He spoke to the Jews at the feast of dedication: “Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” (John 10:36)  It was ultimately this declaration that the Savior would not deny that caused the leaders of the Jews to say to Pilate, “The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (John 19:7).  That Jesus came through the line of David was an important fulfillment of prophecy, but that He was the Son of God is what made Him the Messiah and enabled Him to conquer sin and death.