The Unanswerable Question Text: Luke 20:41-44
Introduction: Turning the Tables
We come now to a point in Luke's gospel where the opposition to Jesus has reached a fever pitch. It is the final week in Jerusalem, and the Lord's enemies, the scribes, the chief priests, and the Sadducees, have been coming at Him in waves. They have been trying to trap Him, to trip Him up in His words, to find some charge that will stick. They have thrown their trickiest questions at Him, about taxes to Caesar, about the resurrection, all designed to impale Him on the horns of some dilemma. But in every instance, the Lord has answered with such devastating wisdom that He has silenced them completely. He has not only answered their questions, He has exposed the corrupt and foolish assumptions behind their questions.
But Jesus is not content to simply play defense. After silencing His inquisitors, He now goes on the offensive. He turns the tables and asks them a question of His own. And this is not just any question. This is the question. It is a question designed to press the central issue of His entire ministry, the central issue of all reality: "Who is the Christ?" They thought they had Him figured out. They had their neat little theological boxes for what the Messiah would be, a political deliverer, a super-sized David who would kick out the Romans and restore Israel's earthly glory. They believed the Messiah would be the son of David, and they were right about that, as far as it went. But their understanding was tragically, fatally, two-dimensional.
So Jesus takes them to their own Scriptures, to a Psalm of David that they all knew, and He shows them something that had been hiding in plain sight all along. He forces them to confront the profound mystery of His identity, a mystery that shatters their political hopes and confronts them with the reality of God in the flesh. This is not an abstract theological quiz. Jesus is forcing a confrontation with Himself. He is asking them, and He is asking us, "You say the Christ is David's son. That is true. But is that all He is?"
The Text
Then He said to them, “How is it that they say the Christ is David’s son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, “SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I PUT YOUR ENEMIES AS A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.” ’ Therefore David calls Him ‘Lord,’ so how is He his son?”
(Luke 20:41-44 LSB)
The Common Knowledge (v. 41)
Jesus begins by stating the accepted, orthodox position of the day.
"Then He said to them, 'How is it that they say the Christ is David’s son?'" (Luke 20:41)
Now, Jesus is not questioning the truth of this statement. He is the son of David. The genealogies in Matthew and Luke establish this. The angel Gabriel announced to Mary that her son would be given "the throne of His father David" (Luke 1:32). Blind Bartimaeus cried out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Mark 10:47). This was common ground. The Old Testament was clear that the Messiah would come from the royal line of David (2 Samuel 7:12-16; Isaiah 11:1). So when the scribes taught that the Christ was David's son, they were teaching the truth.
But truth can be held in such a way that it functions as a lie. They held this truth in a flat, horizontal, political way. For them, "Son of David" meant a merely human king, a man who would be a great military and political leader, but a man nonetheless. Their Messiah was a souped-up version of the first David. They had domesticated the promise. They had reduced the Lion of the Tribe of Judah to a political mascot.
Jesus's question is designed to explode this reductionism. He asks, "How is it that they say...?" This is a challenge to their theological system. He is saying, "Let's examine this proposition you all hold. You say He is David's son. Fine. Now, how do you square that with what David himself said?" He is about to introduce a second, higher truth that complicates their simple formula and reveals its inadequacy. He is about to show them that while the Messiah is fully David's son, He is infinitely more than that.
The Divine Oracle (v. 42-43)
Jesus then quotes directly from the opening of Psalm 110, a Psalm universally understood by the Jews of that time to be Messianic.
"For David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, “SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I PUT YOUR ENEMIES AS A FOOTSTOOL FOR YOUR FEET.” ’" (Luke 20:42-43 LSB)
This is one of the most important and frequently quoted Old Testament passages in the New. To understand the force of Jesus's argument, we have to see what David is saying. In the original Hebrew, the verse reads, "Jehovah said to my Adonai..." Jehovah, or Yahweh, is the covenant name of God the Father. Adonai means "my Lord" or "my Master." So David, the great king of Israel, speaking by the Holy Spirit, is reporting a conversation he overheard in the courts of heaven. He hears God the Father (Jehovah) speaking to another figure, whom David, the king, calls "my Lord" (Adonai).
Stop and feel the weight of that. The king has a king. David, the highest authority in the land, acknowledges a superior Lord. And this Lord is not Jehovah, but someone distinct from Jehovah, who is in conversation with Him. Right here, in one of the most revered Psalms, is a clear indication of plurality within the Godhead. The Father is speaking to the Son.
And what does the Father say to the Son, David's Lord? He issues a royal invitation and a sovereign promise. First, the invitation: "Sit at My right hand." This is the place of supreme honor, authority, and power. This is not a request for the Son to take a break. This is His coronation. This is the Father installing the Son as the cosmic king, the ruler of all things. The book of Hebrews tells us this happened at the ascension, after Christ "had made purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3).
Second, the promise: "Until I put Your enemies as a footstool for Your feet." This is the language of total and absolute conquest. In the ancient world, victorious kings would literally place their feet on the necks of their defeated foes as a sign of complete subjugation. The Father promises the Son that He will orchestrate history in such a way that every single power that sets itself up in opposition to the Son's rule will be comprehensively defeated and humbled. This is not a promise that Christ will do this after He returns. It is a promise that the Father will do this while Christ is seated, reigning from heaven. His kingdom is a present reality, and the subjugation of His enemies is an ongoing historical process. He must reign until all His enemies are under His feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Cor. 15:25-26).
The Unanswerable Dilemma (v. 44)
Having laid out the text from the Psalms, Jesus now springs the trap. He brings the two propositions together and reveals the contradiction in their thinking.
"Therefore David calls Him ‘Lord,’ so how is He his son?” (Luke 20:44 LSB)
Here is the dilemma. How can the Messiah be David's descendant, his son, and at the same time be David's superior, his Lord? A father is always greater than his son. An ancestor is always greater than his descendant in terms of honor and station. No Hebrew father would ever call his son "my Lord." It would be unthinkable. So how can both be true? How can the Christ be subordinate to David in lineage and yet superior to David in authority?
The scribes are silent. They have no answer. Their theological system has no category for this. Their flat, political, merely-human Messiah cannot solve this riddle. If the Messiah is just a man, even a great man, this Psalm makes no sense. The only possible answer is the one they were absolutely unwilling to consider. The only way for the Messiah to be both David's son and David's Lord is if He is both man and God.
As the son of David, He is fully human, born of a woman, a descendant of the royal line, qualified to be Israel's king. But as David's Lord, He is fully divine, the eternal Son of God, existing before David, worthy of David's worship and submission. He is the God-man. This is the mystery of the incarnation, and it is the only key that unlocks this scriptural puzzle. Jesus is not just another king in David's line; He is David's king. He is David's God.
Conclusion: Who Is Your Lord?
Jesus's question hangs in the air, and the silence of the scribes is their condemnation. They had the Scriptures. They had the prophecies. But their hearts were hard, and they loved their positions of power more than they loved the truth. They wanted a Messiah they could manage, a "son of David" who would serve their nationalistic agenda. They were confronted instead with David's Lord, who demanded their unconditional surrender.
And this is the same question that confronts every one of us. Who do you say that Jesus is? Is He just a good teacher, a historical figure, a "son of David" in the sense of being a significant religious leader? Or is He your Lord? Is He the one to whom you owe absolute allegiance? Is He the one who is currently seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling and reigning over every molecule in the universe, including every molecule in you?
We must see that His reign is not some future, pie-in-the-sky affair. He is Lord now. The Father is, right now, in our day, putting Christ's enemies under His feet. Every tyrant who falls, every wicked ideology that crumbles, every lie that is exposed, every soul that is saved is another part of that great footstool being constructed. History is the story of Christ's progressive, inexorable victory. And our task as the church is to announce this reality. We are to go into all the world and disciple the nations, teaching them to obey everything He has commanded, because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him.
The question Jesus asked the scribes is not a riddle to be solved, but a King to be acknowledged. He is David's son, which means He is our kinsman-redeemer, our brother, approachable and sympathetic. But He is also David's Lord, which means He is our sovereign God, our judge, demanding our worship and our total obedience. You cannot have one without the other. To reject His lordship is to forfeit His kinship. But to bow to Him as Lord is to find in Him the most gracious brother and savior. How do you answer His question?