Jesus Gets the Last Word: An Exposition of Matthew 22:34-46
The passage we are studying this morning occurred at the Temple just a few days before His arrest, trial, and crucifixion. The Pharisees and Sadducees had taken turns trying to trap Jesus in His words. The Sadducees had just tried to trap Jesus on the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. They thought they had them with the ridiculous example of the seven brothers and the one wife. As the one brother died, the next had by law to marry her to raise children for his dead brother. If there was a child, it would legally be the dead brother’s. Just to make it more ridiculous, this happened seven times. The Sadducees tried to say how unfair a resurrection would be, seeing that all of the brothers had a right to the wife. Jesus silences them on two fronts. The Kingdom is not about marrying and giving in marriage. He could have added in today’s world that a woman is not a piece of property either. The Sadducees only believed in the authority of the first five books, called the Torah. They would have held the rest of the Old Testament to be inspired, but in a lesser sense. Jesus would have to prove the resurrection by the words of the Torah, which He did. He quotes Yahweh’s words to Moses in Exodus 3: “I AM the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Notice that God speaks of them in the present tense to Moses, “Is” is used and not “was.” Therefore God spoke of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as currently living. With this, Jesus tells the Sadducees who denied the resurrection that God is “the God of the living and not the dead.” The Sadducees were silenced. Jesus had the last word.
Now the Pharisees try one last time to trap Jesus. They would certainly have agreed with Jesus teaching on the resurrection. But they were more united in their common hatred of Jesus than to praise Jesus for silencing the Sadducees. They all suffered from Jesus Derangement Syndrome. They go on the attack. First, they ask Jesus what the great commandment of the Law was. This question had been asked several times of Jesus, sometimes sincerely and sometimes, as in this case, to make him takes sides in a dispute which the Pharisees had with one another concerning this. Jesus answers by using the words of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:4. “You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” The Pharisees agreed with this statement, and it is indeed what sums up the first four commandments of the Law. Deuteronomy repeats the ten commandments first stated in Exodus. In the Exodus context, these words were spoken by God in the context of fear. The mountains shook. There were flashes of lightning. Yahweh was so holy that not one was to dare approach the mountain. But when the commandments are repeated in Deuteronomy, the context is that of love, the obedience of love and not fear. They are reminded that they were once slaves in Egypt, and therefore, to show mercy to others by allowing others to rest on the Sabbath.
Jesus adds the words of Leviticus to the first great commandment. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This covers the rest of the Ten Commandments. It is logically true that one cannot love one’s neighbor until on loves God first. This is why the commandment to love God is first. But at the same time, it is not possible to love God entirely and not also love others. So what is logically two commandments are practically speaking, one. When one also reads Deuteronomy, there is also special provision for the stranger within the gates, the widows, the orphans, and the poor. The Pharisees quoted the Shema a lot. But in many cases, their love for the neighbor was lacking. The love of the stranger was even more lacking. This became the basis of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Pharisees wanted to limit the command of God to the nearest “Jewish” neighbor. But as Jesus quoted Scripture, no fault could be found in his exegesis, they could not criticize Him without showing their hypocrisy in front of the common people, whom they despised.
Jesus then turns the table of the questioners. He asked the Pharisees about their belief in the Messiah. “Whose son, is He?” Although there was some confusion among the Jews whether there would be one Messiah or two, The Pharisees understood Jesus as asking about the royal Messiah. There were others that thought there would be a priestly Messiah as well. Little did they know that Jesus was indeed both. They Pharisees answered, “David.” Jesus then quotes Psalm 110:1. “Yahweh said unto my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” To understand what Jesus is saying here, we need to look at the superscription to the psalm: “A Psalm of David.” This says that David is the author of the psalm and not the subject of it. It was not the words of someone else saying: Yahweh said unto my lord David” as though it was the promise that David would reign forever. Jesus understands this “lord” as being a descendant of David and not David. The Pharisees also understood this as well. They would have disagreed with Jesus saying that He is both Yahweh and the “Lord.” But they did hold that David was speaking of one of His descendants.
Now Jesus asks them the unanswerable question. If David is the father, how could his son be greater than him? The Jews held that the father is always the greater. So, it would be shocking when Jesus points out this paradox to them. David, whom the Pharisees especially revered, referred to one of his descendants as “my lord.” The rationalist Pharisees could not think through this answer. They were silenced too. Jesus had the final word.
Jesus would follow up with His final sermon on the Temple. The next time Jesus would speak would be from His cross. If it was an unanswerable question about David calling his descendant “lord”, how much more unanswerable is how this “lord” would die on a cross for the sin of His subjects. From there, He would be raised from the dead and after a short period ascend into heaven, where He has the ultimate last word, the word of judgment. David rightly called His descendant “my Lord.”
We are people who desire rational answers to our questions. We do not come with insincerity. We are like Augustine and Anselm as people who “believe that we might understand” or “faith seeking understanding.” I do not say that our faith is “irrational” though. The fact that we have to speak in mysteries does not take away from the truth of Jesus. It is rather an admission of human limitations. God does not think as we think. His thoughts are above ours and so are His ways. Belief in God is not irrational. Rather it is an admission that we lack the proper categories of thought to rationally understand the ways of God. The fact that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine is not a rational or logical contradiction for God. Jesus is both the Son of God and the Son of David. We confess this as the truth, while at the same time realizing that we cannot comprehend this. The same is true of another mystery, the Trinity. The Fathers of the church tried their best to explain these truths. The statements they have made in our creeds is as good as we can explain due to the limits of finite human thinking.
There is even one more question that can only be answered by awesome wonder. Why would God choose to redeem us? We have so utterly failed God. Why did he not just roll us clay up and start over. We know we have no rational answer for this. We deserve judgment, but we have received grace. In this, the incomprehensible love of God has been so publicly displayed on a cross. But we know He loves us. In response we love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind. God has done this for us. What amazing grace has been shown us. We have been called out of bondage into liberty in Jesus Christ. We remember the words of Hebrews 11: “By faith, we realize that God created the visible world. He spoke into nothing, and all was created. He spoke again, and form and purpose were created. In like matter, God spoke to dust, and man was created. Even though by the curse of Adam’s sin, our bodies are rendered back into dust, this is not the last word. There is resurrection. For those who believe, it is eternal life. To those who do not, eternal punishment. Jesus has the final word of our eternity. Either we will hear “Enter into the joy of the Lord” or we will hear “Depart from me.” Let the first be what Jesus says to us on that day. Let the dust to which our mortal bodies have been rendered be made into a glorious body that we might forever sing His praise.
Let this be the answer to your questions. Amen.
