Through angel Gabriel God identified Jesus as God’s Son to both Mary and Joseph, Luke 1:32a, 35, Matthew 1:20-23, before calling him David’s son Luke 1:32b. In that priority God stressed Christ’s Greater before his Lesser Identity.
Which is the essence of Christ’s question to the Jewish leaders, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” Matthew 22:42. They had peppered him with questions on Tuesday of his Last Week. When they finished he posed that single question to them. They nevertheless felt confident in repeating what generations of scholars had taught from Psalm 110:1: “The Messiah is the son of David.” Their reply reduced the Christ to a mortal descendant of the great King. A greater mortal than they had ever seen, perhaps, but only exactly like themselves. When Jesus responded with, “How is it then that David....”, they instinctively shuddered. It was a companion piece with his other devastating questions. “Haven’t you read what David did?” Matthew 12:3; or, “Haven’t you read in the Law?” Matthew 12:5; or “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” Luke 14:3; or “why are you thinking these things? Which is easier....” Mark 2:9, etc., etc. “How is it then?” Words they knew would once again surface his never-ending expansive knowledge and understanding of Scripture. That would reveal he not only SAW deeper into Scripture than all of them, but UNDERSTOOD all he SAW! Nor did he leave them any “wiggle room” in interpreting the passage. No one could say it wasn’t messianic. For all agreed that David wrote it as he had been inspired by the Holy Spirit. (The Holy Spirit had been in the vocabulary of all pious Jews for generations. See Psalm 51:11 as but one Old Testament example and Luke 1:15 as his first New Testament mention. John would later write that Jesus would give the Spirit as “streams of living water” flowing in believers, but only after Christ’s resurrection. The “streams of living water” was the gift of the Holy Spirit granted after being baptized into Christ Acts 2:38. The Holy Spirit, then, first mentioned in Genesis 1:2, returned in many manifestations throughout the Old Covenant.) And, by the way, scripture-writers repeatedly declared the Spirit’s presence in them as they wrote Isaiah 8:11, Jeremiah 1:2, 9, I Peter 1:10-12, II Peter 1:19-21, I Corinthians 2:9-10, Ephesians 3:2-6, Revelation 1:1-5 as a few examples. End Part V
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