41 “Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son, is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44 “The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.” (Matthew 22:41–46 (ESV)
The idiom “the tables are turned” or “turnabout is fair play” respectively refers to a role reversal in a situation or a shift in power. It also means to treat someone in the same way they have treated you. This is often a pejorative, or negative, expression of behavior where we seek to hurt someone who has hurt us. Or, “turnabout is fair play” may refer to the satisfaction we feel when someone receives the same negative treatment they have given to others.
However, Jesus embodied this behavior in righteous perfection. The Pharisees, Sadducees and other Jewish religious leaders repeatedly asked Him questions; for the purpose of accusing and condemning Him. Jesus, for the purpose of confronting the Pharisees, asked, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son, is he?” Jesus often used this phase, “What do you think” as a way of testing people (Matt. 17:25; 18:12; 21:28; 26:66).
“Having confounded His questioners three times (Matt. 22:15–40), Jesus assumes the role of examiner, asking the Pharisees to name the Messiah’s father (vv. 41–42). This question is a no-brainer for the Pharisees, as well as every other Jewish sect of the day. The Sadducees, Herodians, Zealots, Pharisees, and so on do not agree on much, but all of them believe the Messiah will be David’s son. When the Pharisees admit as much to Christ, they are merely repeating truths revealed in 2 Samuel 7:1–17, as well as other parts of the old covenant revelation,” explains Dr. R. C. Sproul.
The Pharisees answered, “The Son of David.” Jesus then asked follow-up questions. He said to them, “43How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44 “The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
“What do you think of the Christ?” In guiding the Jerusalem leaders to contemplate this question of eternal weight, Jesus turned to the authority of what is written “in the book of Psalms,” specifically Psalm 110 (Matt 22:41–46; Mark 12:35–37; Luke 20:40– 44), and asked a question childlike in both simplicity and profundity, the answer to which plunges one into the unfathomable wonder of the incarnation of God,” states commentator Michael Morales.
“How could David refer to his son as Lord? This probing question was but the application of what Jesus would later declare, that He Himself is the object of all the Scriptures of the Old Testament, summarizing their threefold division in Luke 24:44 as “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms,” with the Psalms standing as the summary representative of the Writings.”
To prove the Messiah is David’s Lord as well as his Son, Jesus quoted Psalm 110, which the New Testament quotes more often than any other Old Testament text. Since Psalm 110 is Messianic, as most first-century Jews correctly believed, David’s son, the Messiah (“my Lord”), is greater than his father. Yahweh is the One greater than David, who was the most exalted king of ancient Israel.
“Christ is forcing the Pharisees to rethink their Christology and in effect asks of them the same thing He asked of Peter: “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15–16). It is a question that He asks of us all,” concludes Dr. Sproul.
Matthew records the following conclusion. “And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”
What is your answer? Of all the questions you may have asked about Jesus Christ, this is the question He asks of you. After all, turnabout is fair play. Have a blessed day in the Lord.
Soli deo Gloria!
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