By quoting Psalm 110, Jesus is implying
that he himself is not just a descendant of King David; he is David’s “lord.” Moreover,
when the rest of the psalm is taken into account, Jesus also appears to be implying
that he will be seated at “the right hand” of God in heaven (Ps 110:1) and even
perhaps he was “begotten” by the Lord God form “the womb of the dawn” (Ps
110:3)—that is, a superhuman being (cf. the “son of Dawn” in Isa 14:12). In
other words, Jesus uses Psalm 110 to imply that the messiah is not simply
the deity of David, but the super-Davidic, divine Son of God. And Jesus
does all this not by shouting it from the rooftops or going around declaring, “I
am the divine messiah.” Instead, as a Jewish teacher of parables, he uses
riddles, questions, and allusions to Scripture to lead his audience to ask for themselves:
“Who is the messiah really? What does David himself say?” In the end, Jesus
himself “provides no solution to this question,” precisely because he wants his
audience to draw their own conclusions.
In sum, a strong case can be made that
Jesus uses the riddle of the messiah in Psalm 110 to reveal the mystery of his divine
kingship. As the messiah of Jewish Scripture, Jesus is both a descendant of
King David and the Lord of King David. He is both the long-awaited king of
Israel and the super-Davidic Son of God. In other words, he is both human and
divine. And he reveals all this without ever explicitly proclaiming, “I am the
messiah,”” or “I am David’s Lord,” much less, “I existed from before the womb
of the dawn.” Instead, Jesus uses the riddle about the messiah in Psalm 110 to
both reveal and conceal his divine messiahship—until the time is right for him
to be more explicit. Indeed . . . there is good reason to believe that Jesus
also uses Psalm 110 (along with Daniel 7) to reveal his identity in the
presence of the Jerusalem Sanhedrin and that he is accused of blasphemy and
handed over to the Romans for execution as a result (cf. Matt 26:63-64; Mark
14:61-62; Luke 2:67-68). (Brant Pitre, Jesus and Divine Christology [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2024], 155-56, italics in original)
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