Monday, December 04
Jesus is the Messiah
Psalm 110:1-7
A Psalm of David.
1 The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool."
2 The LORD shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies!
3 Your people shall be volunteers In the day of Your power; In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, You have the dew of Your youth.
4 The LORD has sworn And will not relent, "You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek."
5 The Lord is at Your right hand; He shall execute kings in the day of His wrath.
6 He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill the places with dead bodies, He shall execute the heads of many countries.
7 He shall drink of the brook by the wayside; Therefore He shall lift up the head.
Besides the title telling us that David wrote Psalm 110, Jesus and Peter both stated that David wrote it (Matt. 22:43; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42; Acts 2:33-35). They also say that David was a prophet, and he wrote it about the Messiah (Acts 2:30; 2 Sam. 23:2). He certainly did not write about any of his own descendants, for no Jewish king was ever a priest, let alone a priest forever (v. 4; 2 Chron. 26:16-23). Also, no Jewish king ever conquered all the rulers of the whole earth (v. 6).
The psalm is quoted or alluded to in the New Testament more than any other psalm, verse 1 at least twenty-five times and verse 4 another five times. Ten of these quotations or allusions are in the book of Hebrews alone.
Jesus used verse 1 to prove His deity and silence the Pharisees in Matthew 22:41-46: “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?" They said to Him, "The Son of David." He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying: 'The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool" '? "If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his Son?" And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.”
Psalm 110 presents two pictures of Messiah from the past. His exaltation as King (vv. 1-3) and His consecration as Priest (v. 4). And then a third picture from the future, His victory over the enemies of God (vv. 5-7), which happens at the end of Tribulation and His Millennium reign over all the earth in Revelation 19.
The psalm opens with the exaltation of proclaiming Jesus is King (vv. 1-3). David begins the psalm by saying: “The LORD said to my Lord…”. "Jehovah says to my Adonai". Since David was the highest ruler in the kingdom, his Adonai had to be the Lord Himself. It was this fact that Jesus presented to the Pharisees (Matt. 22:41-46), asking them how David's Lord could also be David's son, (the Messiah). The only possible answer is by incarnation. The eternal Son of God had to come to earth as a human born into the family of David by a virgin (Luke 1:26-38). The only way this could be explained is as eternal God, Jesus is the "root of David”, which means He is the originator of David. And as a man Jesus is "the offspring of David" (Rev. 22:16; 5:5).
Had the Pharisees honestly faced this truth, they would have had to confess that Jesus is indeed the Son of God come in the flesh, but they refused to do so. It is so sad that even today so many so-called Christians still deny the deity of Jesus Christ.
But my friend, this is where eternal life is found! John 20:30-31 states: “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”
God bless!