Well, let's ask the Lord to be
with us. Dear Lord, we pray that you would help us. As we look
into your Word, we pray, Lord, that you would strip away the
pretenses, strip away the false trust that we naturally have
and let us see ourselves in need of a Savior so great and incomprehensibly
able to save and holy that it required even Him to come and
live and die for us, so that we would not trust in ourselves,
but find in Him our all and rejoice in Him too. And Lord, we pray
that you would bless your people today. Lift them up forever,
make Your name great, make Yourself great in their eyes, and give
us, dear Lord, this faith, this faith that is the fruit of Your
Spirit, and love with that faith, that we might love the Lord Jesus
Christ with our heart, with our soul and mind and strength, and
that we might love His people for whom He died. In Jesus' name
we pray, amen. Matthew chapter 22. Now, it's really helpful to have,
in fact, I think it's really necessary to have the context
of Matthew 22 to understand what we're about to look at here.
But I want to read first for you in Matthew chapter 22, beginning
in verse 41. This is the end of the chapter
where Jesus asks the Pharisees a question. And we pick it up
in verse 41, it says, "...while the Pharisees were gathered together,
Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose son
is he? They say unto him, The son of
David." He saith to them, How then doth David in spirit call
him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my
right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. If David
then called him Lord, how is it he is his son? And no man
was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that
day forth ask him any more questions." Now, as we look back, if you
were to read it, and we're not going to take time now, but I
encourage you to do this, look back at Matthew 21 and 22. In 21, there's three parables
given by Jesus against the scribes, the Pharisees, the rulers, the
chief priests, and all these men. and all who followed them. And then they asked him three
questions in an attack upon him. And the three questions, if you
recall, were first by the Pharisees. The Pharisees and the Sadducees,
in the last, in these three questions, and a lawyer, those three groups,
the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and a lawyer from among the Pharisees,
had asked Jesus three questions. They attacked him by finding
the most difficult questions they could think of with the
intent of exposing him as making him really appear small in the
eyes of the people. They thought by doing that they
would have the advantage. And yet, in every question they
asked him, he not only answered them, but he answered them with
such wisdom that they didn't have anything to say. And his
answer always had two effects. One, it silenced them and showed
their guilt. And secondly, it was an answer
of such wisdom from God for his people and their salvation that
it was a comfort to them. So we see in all those three
exchanges there the evil intent of those who opposed Christ and
the good that he brought out of their evil motives. So the first question, if you
remember, is about the tribute money. The Pharisees came to
him and asked him whether or not it was lawful to pay tribute
to Caesar. They thought if he said, you
know, the Herodians were with the Pharisees, they thought that
if he said it was lawful, then the people would despise him.
If he said it was unlawful, then the Herodians could arrest him,
so they thought they had him either way. But he, if you recall
that, he asked them to show him one penny of the tribute money,
and he held it up to them, and he said, whose picture is on
here? Whose image is this? And whose
inscription? And they answered, Caesar's.
And he said, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.
But then he gave the most important part of his answer, and render
to God the things that are God's. And so what we see there is that
he was telling them and telling them rightly that in their insignificant
and superficial focus on whether or not to pay taxes to Caesar,
they overlooked the huge, huge thing that they were not doing.
They did not give God His due. And, of course, that brings us
to the question of how do we give God His due? What is His
due? And that question leads us to the realization that we've
all failed to give God His due. Remember Romans 3.23, all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. We failed to give
God the glory due His name. And yet, in this answer, we actually
see the grace of God. Because when we're driven by
God's Word to the end of what we are and find only at the end
that we're sinners before God, guilty and helpless. Helpless
to save ourselves, helpless to do what we're required. Then
we find in the Gospel that all that God requires of us, He has
provided in Christ and received from Christ. And that is the
life-giving, soul-reviving truth that we find in the Gospel and
we see it here in that first answer. In Hebrews chapter 10,
just for example, in verse 14, it says, "...by one offering,"
the offering of the Lord Jesus Christ, offering Himself to God
with our sins that were made His, it says, "...by one offering
He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified, those who
were given to Him by God in eternal election, set apart by God the
Father, given to Christ, those Christ perfected by His one offering."
That's what Hebrews 10, 14 says. So we see that, that what God
provided What God required, He provided in His Son, although
we completely failed to provide it. And many other scriptures
are like this. For example, Colossians 2 verse
9 and 10 says, "...in Him, in Christ, dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him." There we
have it again. All that God requires is found
in Christ. If the fullness of the Godhead
is in Christ and we are in Him, then we are complete in Him.
Everything God requires of us is found in Him and in Him alone.
And then one more verse, 1 Corinthians 1.30 says, Of Him, of God, are
you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. That as it is written, he that
glorieth, he that boasts, let him boast in the Lord. Let him
seek the glory of his Savior who saved him. And so in Christ's
answer to the Pharisees, give God his due, we find our due
to God is given to us by God in Christ. And isn't that a blessing? And then there was the second
question. I'm just summarizing these things that come before
our text this morning. Jesus answered the second question
with a depth of wisdom that's found only in God Himself. Remember
the Sadducees asked about the resurrection, and Jesus took
them back to Exodus, and He says, God is not the God of the dead,
but of the living. Haven't you read what God spoke
to Moses out of the bush when he said, I am the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God
of the dead, but of the living. So in that we see this huge infinite wisdom of God, that
the way He proved the resurrection, is that He showed these men that
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all those who, like them,
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, were God's people, and by virtue
of Him being their God, and Him being the resurrection and the
life, then they lived. They lived by Him. And so, he
shows himself to be the resurrection. God made himself God to his people. He took them for his own inheritance,
and he made them his adopted sons by the redeeming work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember what it says in Galatians
4? He says, in the fullness of the
time, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law, In fact, let's
turn to that and take a look at that, because it's such a
pivotal truth in Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ, God made
Him and made Himself the God of His people, and He joined
them to the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ redeemed them by His blood
and thereby made them God's sons, the sons of adoption. In Galatians
4.4, He says, "...when the fullness of the time was come God, God
the Father, sent forth His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, made of
a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Christ
was put under the law so that as our Head who fulfilled the
law, then we would have fulfilled it in Him. Just as in Adam, He
was given a law, but He broke it and we fell in Him. So the
Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled God's law and redeemed us by the payment
of His own blood. But then it says in verse 6,
"...and because you are sons," because you are sons, sons by
adoption, that's God's choice, the word adopt means to choose,
sons by Christ's redemption, which is in verse 5, "...He redeemed
us from the curse of the law. God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." And we're
sons by the Spirit of God who teaches us that. So when the
Lord Jesus Christ answered the Pharisees and told them that
The resurrection is proved because God said, I am the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. He's showing that they are joined
to Christ, and they're one with Him, who is Himself the resurrection
and the life. In 1 John 5.12, it says, This
is the record that God hath given to us, eternal life. And this
life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. That's
what God is saying. If God is your God, you live. If God is your God, then He dwells
in you. And He is eternal life. So therefore,
you live. In fact, look at a couple of
verses over there in 1 John chapter 5. We were there in 1 John last
week, and a little bit the week before that. Or maybe it was
the week before that. Look at this here. He says in
1 John 5, verse 12, which I just read, "...he that
hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God
hath not life." But look at verse 20, the same chapter. He says,
"...and we know that the Son of God is come, and has given
us an understanding that we may know Him that is true, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we are in Him that is true,
even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. So life is in Christ. Because
God made Himself God to His people, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all
who like them believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, they live. They live because He lives. John
14, 19, He told His disciples, Because I live, you shall live.
And He told Martha, Because I live, he who believes on me shall never
die." That's the truth of the resurrection. And that's the
truth that Christ gave to these men who tried to attack Him. And so this life that we have
in the Lord Jesus Christ is due to our union with Him. This bond
of union that's made by His eternal love to us. There's so many verses
we could go to, and I don't want to spend too much time on this
because it would be completely going back over that. But I just
want to point out, in one of our songs we sang this morning,
He's My Surety. God helps us to understand our
relationship, our union to the Lord Jesus Christ by these words.
Surety is one of them. And He teaches us what the word
means by showing us in the example He gave with Jacob, and his son
Benjamin, and Judah, his brother, and Joseph. Remember that whole
account in Genesis 43 and 44? Joseph was the governor in Egypt.
Benjamin was the youngest son of Jacob. Jacob wanted food,
but he couldn't have it from Joseph, who was the governor,
unless Jacob sent his youngest son. But Jacob didn't want to
send his youngest son. He was afraid that he would send
his son and he would be accused and taken and put in prison and
die, just like his other son, Joseph, had already been taken
from him. So he was under a great difficulty
and anxiety. And Judah steps forward and says,
I will be surety for him. I will be surety for him. I will
bring him back to you. Judah stood up for Benjamin,
his brother, to his father and said, I will make Benjamin sure
to you, my father, because I will be a surety. And so we find out
what that means. Judah goes down to see Joseph. Benjamin is with
him. Joseph tells his servant, Put
the cup in Benjamin's sack. They find the cup in Benjamin's
sack. They bring him back. Joseph accuses Benjamin. What
have you done? Don't you know this is the cup
that I use to divine? To see things in the future and
understand mysteries? He's accusing Benjamin and Judah,
and he's about to take him and make him his servant. And Judah
steps forward and he pleads with Joseph. He says, who's the governor?
He takes and he pleads his father's love to him. He pleads the fact
that before he came, he made himself surety for his brother
Benjamin. And not only that, but he says,
take me instead of the lad. take me instead of Benjamin.
He answered the accusations of Joseph against Benjamin with
himself. And that's what surety means.
The Lord Jesus Christ became our surety. And I say this because
He is the resurrection and the life to us because in so many
ways God has joined us to the Lord Jesus Christ and we see
that by who He is for His people in His relations to them. And
surety is one of those ways. A surety in the eyes of the law
is one with the debtor. He has to pay the debt that the
debtor owes. The creditor demands payment
from the debt, the one who owes the debt, and the surety also
owes that debt. So he can command and demand
that debt from him. And the surety pays the debt.
It's as good as if the debtor paid it for him, paid it himself.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ is our surety. And in this covenant
that God made with His Son, in eternity, the Lord Jesus Christ
stepped forward and made Himself, just like Judah, made Himself
a surety for His people, to His Father, to bring them again.
And when justice required punishment on them, He steps forward and
He says, in John 18.8, He says, if you seek Me, then let these
go their way. He was the surety, He put Himself,
He interposed and intervened between us and the justice of
God and bore the wrath of God as our surety, bearing our sins. And all this has to do with the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life. Our
life is because He redeemed us from sin and from death. Now,
the third question that was asked the Lord Jesus Christ here, in
Matthew chapter 22, was that the lawyer, a lawyer came forward. Remember, he was from among the
Pharisees, and he came forward and he says, thinking that he
was as wise as the Lord Jesus Christ, that he could outwit
him, he was expert in God's law, and so he asked him a question,
what's the greatest commandment? What is the greatest commandment,
he asks him. Simple question. And Jesus answered right from
scripture. He says, this is the great and
the first and the great commandment. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength,
with all that you are. And the second is like it. Love
your neighbor as yourself. This man thought he was going
to trip up Jesus, but in his answer, The Lord Jesus showed
that this man who had come to Him in order to entrap Him was
breaking the very first and most important commandment of all.
He failed to love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul,
mind and strength. And he certainly didn't love
his neighbor. He was trying to use Jesus in order to elevate
himself in the eyes of all the people. this lawyer was. And so we see that this man completely
failed the very first and the great commandment. And James
2.10 says, if you've broken the least, you've broken them all.
So here we have a man who came to Jesus trying to be an expert
in the law, who had broken the whole law. Hadn't kept it one
time. Continuous law breaker. But then
we ask the question, who of us can stand before God and claim
we've ever, one time, loved God with all of our heart, all of
our soul, all of our strength, all of our mind? Have we? One
time? No. And so in His answer, the
Lord directs our Our attention back to the root and the foundation. What is love? How do we love?
How can we possibly fulfill this commandment? And we find 1 John
4.10 answers that. Herein is love. Not that we love
God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. God's love is holy. He sent His
Son to make propitiation for our sins. It's giving. He gave
His Son. It's saving. He saved us by making
Him. propitiation for our sins. All
the things about love, we learned about that. And then we learned
that our love springs, comes up out of the love of God towards
us. We don't even know love unless
we see it in Christ and Him crucified. And in our hearts, until we believe
Him, we can't come to God. We always think God has something
against us. But when we see that God receives
us in Christ alone, then our hearts are drawn out. When we
see that our sins are completely forgiven us for His sake alone,
and that He finds in Him all of our righteousness, then and
only then do we find in ourselves a true love for God, like Peter. Lord, You know that I love You.
You know that I love You. Even though in ourselves we know
we don't love Him perfectly, our love at best is full of sin,
yet we say, Lord, You love me and gave Yourself for me. Therefore,
I find in myself this attraction to You. I can't leave You. I
need You. And I want You. And I find that
Your glory in saving my soul is the glory I want to be made
known to men and women. And so in this third question,
again we see Christ's answer takes the evil intent of these
men. And He uses it for our good by
teaching us that He Himself is the foundation of all our love.
He is love. God is love. His love is everlasting
and it's unchanging. It never ends. It never had a
beginning. And it's specific. He has a love for His people.
Therefore He saves them. He saves them. There's a verse
in 1 John. Well, I won't go there right
now, but anyway. So, on the heels now, on the
heels of these three questions. These three questions that were
meant to attack the Lord Jesus. Meant to bring Him down in the
eyes of the people. Meant to make Him look like He
was not truly sent of God. On the heels of these attacks
we find where we are in Matthew 22 and verse 41. The Pharisees were gathered together
and Jesus asked them saying, What think ye of Christ? These
men were the Inquisition. They were interrogating him.
And now that he's answered every question perfectly, not only
answered it perfectly, but from scripture, and not only answered
it perfectly, but in the audience of all, actually silenced these
men. Their mouths were stopped. They
were guilty before God, and they were helpless. They couldn't
find a way to get in and break through and find any fault in
Him. His wisdom was perfect, and it
was full of truth. And so on the heels of this,
When these God-haters of the Lord Jesus Christ came to Him
and did that, the pure answers from Scripture that the Lord
Jesus Christ gives turns our hearts to Him. And so it's like
the tables are turned now. You can see the man who is being
interrogated now turns the tables and he says, I'm going to ask
you a question. And every answer he gave, he
silenced them, didn't he? And now he's going to ask them
a question. Because his question is going to pierce their hearts,
just as the scalpel of the surgeon finds no resistance when he inserts
it. The Word of God comes to us,
and the Lord Jesus Christ asks this question, What think ye
of Christ? It's as if the Lord would have
said, I've answered all your questions, and now you stand
before me guilty, exposed, full of sin, hateful, and hating one
another, convicted as hypocrites, and now I want to ask you a question.
So He turns the question to them, and He says, What think ye of
Christ? Whose Son is He? Though their
answers were lacking, they couldn't answer. If they had answered,
they would have had to say, we don't know. But they didn't answer.
They were speechless before him. They didn't answer him one word.
They didn't understand. And if they had understood, the
answer they would have had to give went in opposition to everything
they professed. But he asked them, what think
ye of Christ? Whose son is he? They said, the
son of David. In verse 42. And then he asked
them, how then does David in spirit call him Lord? Saying,
the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I
make thine enemies thy footstool. If David called him Lord, how
is he his son? That's what it says in verse
45. They couldn't answer. They could not answer because
they did not understand. And as I said, their answers
went against all that they held to, all they professed. They
would have had to set aside their false religion, and they would
have had to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as the very Christ
of God. But in His answer, our Lord does
two things. First, He silences His enemies. And second, He makes known to
us that He is both God and man. This quotation that he gives
is from Psalm 110, verse 1. If you want to look back there,
Psalm 110, verse 1. Because it's important that we
see that to develop the rest of the answer of scripture that
he gives. In verse 1 of Psalm 110, it says,
"...the LORD," and if you'll notice, it's all capitals, which
means Jehovah, "...Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my
right hand. This is God, God the Father,
speaking to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as Christ. Because
Jesus is the one who tells us He is Christ, the Lord here means
the one who is Christ. Sit thou at my right hand, until
I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of
thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst of thine
enemies. Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power. In the beauty, I'm sorry, in
the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the
womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord
hath sworn and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever after
the order of Melchizedek. And we'll stop there. So here
you can see that in this psalm, this psalm by the way is quoted
more often than any psalm in the New Testament. This psalm,
I believe that's true, in the book of Hebrews especially, but
in this psalm we see David calling Christ his Lord. And we also
know that he is the son of David. And so when Jesus asked the question
to the Pharisees, whose son is he? And they say, it's the son
of David. That was correct. But he also
asked them, then how is it that David said, the Lord said unto
my Lord, sit thou at my right hand. And so Jesus' question
to them is, if he's David's son, why did David then call him his
Lord? Because David, if you remember,
was the king of Israel. There was none higher than he
was. Why did David call him Lord? You see, if he is David's son,
then he had to be the son of man. And if he's David's Lord,
then he had to be the Son of God. He had to be God Himself.
Because David was a king and the only one higher than him
was the Lord who is the King of Glory. The King of Glory. Isn't that what the Lord Jesus
is called throughout Scripture? It's in 1 Corinthians 2.8. He's called the Lord of Glory. The Lord of Glory. And in Acts
3.15 he is called the Prince of Life. In Psalm 24 it says
he is the King of Glory. And in Revelation 19.16 it says
he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He is the King
of Glory. The Lord of Glory. David called
him Lord because he is the Lord. And so, therefore, he has to
be God himself. Very God of very God. The Lord,
Jehovah, who is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit in one, calls the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Christ,
also Lord, because he himself is one with the Father, one with
the Spirit, as God over all. But he had to also be David's
son. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is God over all, need to become David's son? Why was He
made? Why? And how? That's the mystery,
isn't it? Great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh. 1st Timothy 3.16. How can He
do that? Why would He do that? Well, look
at Hebrews 2.10. It says here in Hebrews 2.10
that God the Father, it seemed good to God the Father to make
Him the Lord Jesus Christ, who was his son, to make him the
captain of his people in order to save them, and to save them
by making him the son of man, David's son, and as the son of
man, suffering in their place. Look at this in Hebrews chapter
2, verse 10. For it became him, that is God
the Father, it seemed good to him, for whom are all things
"...and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory..."
They were his sons before they were saved by the redeeming blood,
because they were sons of adoption. He says, "...in bringing many
sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings." It seemed good to God. Why did it seem good to
God? Because that was the only way
he could, in justice, bring his sons to glory. And so we see
here why the Lord Jesus Christ had to be the Son of David. In
order to save His people from their sins. And that was why
He came. His name is Jesus, that He might
save His people from their sins. He could only save them if He's
Christ. And He could only be Christ if
He's both God and man. And if as man he fulfilled God's
law and obedience by the offering of himself, then he himself cleansed
us from our sins. Now look at Jeremiah chapter
23. This is also brought out there
in the most beautiful way. Why did Jesus have to become
the son of David? in order to save us from our
sins and here we see he is both Lord and he is as God and he
is son of David as man. Jeremiah chapter 23 and verse
5 he says behold the days come saith the Lord, that I will raise
unto David a righteous branch." That means there's going to be
someone who's born to David a righteous branch. "...and a king shall
reign and prosper." That's our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the Christ.
"...and he shall execute judgment and justice in the earth." That's
what he did all the days of his flesh. He executed judgment and
justice in the earth. He preached the truth of scripture. And he did the will of God. In
his days, Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is his name. whereby
he shall be called. What is his name? The Lord, Jehovah,
our righteousness. You see that? How could he be
Jehovah, our righteousness, if he wasn't Jehovah God? And how
could he be the Lord, our righteousness, except he was the righteous branch
that came out of David? It both had to be true. And so
you see that he had to be both God and he had to be the son
of God and he had to be David's So here we have the clearest
and most beautiful prophecy that tells how God saves His people
by making His only begotten Son, the Son of God, the Son of David. Only as God's Son, and only as
David's Son, could He be Christ. Could He be the Lord Jehovah
and establish everlasting righteousness for His people. What is the righteousness? What is the righteousness of
God's people? Well, we just read it. His name
is called the Lord Our Righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ, in His
obedience unto death, is the righteousness of His people.
Remember what it says in Romans 10.4? Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness. To who? To everyone that believeth. Everyone who believes on Him
shows that the Spirit of God has made Christ and Him crucified,
the whole object of their confidence and faith. They look to Him to
save them. They come to God by His blood. And in so believing,
God gives evidence of their being His children, of having made
Christ their righteousness. Look at Isaiah chapter 45, since
we were at Jeremiah. Close by. He says here in verse
22, Actually, let's read verse 21
together. We'll read through 21 through
25. He says, "...tell ye, and bring
them near. Yea, let them take counsel together.
Who has declared this from the ancient time? Who has told it
from that time? Have not I, the Lord? And there
is no God else beside me, a just God and a Savior. There is none beside me." And
then he gives a command. What a gracious command this
is. Who are we to look to? The Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that what he told Nicodemus?
Whosoever believes on him, just as they lifted up the serpent
on the pole and those who were bitten looked to that serpent
and lived. Whoever believes on him lives. Here, that's what
he means. Look to me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth,
throughout the whole world, there's no other Savior. For I am God
and there is none else. Verse 23. I have sworn by myself
The word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not
return, that unto me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall
swear." That's quoted in Romans 14.11, where the Lord Jesus Christ
is being spoken of. And it's proven there that this
is none other than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who says
to all men across this world over, look unto me and be ye
saved. It's a command. A command to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says to me, every knee
shall bow and every tongue shall swear, shall confess that he's
Lord. And look at verse 24. Such gracious
words, surely shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness
and strength. Surely shall one say, every one
of God's people say that, don't they? Even to him shall men come,
and all that are incensed," that means they're so furious and
angry against him, "...they shall be ashamed." Why? Because they
have no righteousness. That's what the Pharisees and
the scribes and the lawyer did. They came to him, they were incensed,
and they went away ashamed. But look what he says in verse
25. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and
shall glory. The seed of Israel, who's that?
It's all those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. They're
the seed of Israel. Galatians 3, verses 26 and 29
prove that. Everyone who looks to Him. The
Pharisees didn't believe Christ. Oh, one more verse in Isaiah.
Look at Isaiah 54. In the Lord, the Lord our righteousness. Isaiah
54, 17. What a beautiful text of scripture
here. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou
shalt condemn. This is exactly what it says
in Romans 8. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is more righteous than the
judge of all the earth? He justifies his people. And
he says, here, no weapon that is formed against thee shall
prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment
thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. It's
clear, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ is the
righteousness of His people. By His death, by His life, He
established for them an everlasting righteousness. And so his answer
to the lawyers silenced them. To the lawyer and to the Pharisees
and to the Sadducees, it silenced them. But when he asked them
this question, he's asking us this question. What think ye
of Christ? What we think of Christ determines
what we think about everything, doesn't it? If we think He's
merely a man, we're not going to worship Him. If we think He's
only God, we won't come to Him. will run from Him, like Adam.
And if we do not believe that He is both God and man, who actually
accomplished the salvation of His people by His own offering
for their sins forever, saving them forever, we will not depend
on Him to save us by His work alone. If we do not see why God
sent Him, that we were helpless sinners, guilty and condemned,
just like these three answers He gave proved these men to be.
If we don't see that, Then we won't need Him. We won't have
a need for Him. We won't receive His word with
gladness. We won't depend upon Him for mercy. We won't call
upon Him for mercy. We won't trust Him who accomplished
our salvation by His work alone. And we will not call upon Him,
as He says in Psalm 35.3 to say, Lord, say unto my soul, I am
thy salvation. We won't say that, will we? Now,
it is the close of the chapter in Matthew 22. We've heard the
interrogations of those who hated Jesus. We heard the perfection
of His answers and His wisdom. And we know the truth in His
answer. And we've seen the three-fold answer He gave to silence His
enemies and to shine His light on them. But now the table is
turned and our Lord takes the place of the interrogator. His question penetrates their
heart. What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? And so it demands
a question from us, or an answer from us, doesn't it? What do
I think of Him? When the Pharisees asked if it
was lawful to pay tribute to Caesar and Jesus said, render
to God the things that are God's, did I find in my heart A need
to run out to Him to find, how can I, a sinner, render to God
the things that are God's? And having nothing, did I look
to Him as my all, and find in Him all that God requires of
me? And did I rejoice to find Him so? What about the question
the Sadducees asked Him? When Jesus answered with the
wisdom of God's Word, The wisdom of the Spirit of God. His own
wisdom. Did I strain to find myself in
Him who is the resurrection and the life? Do I do that even now? Do I seek to find all my life,
even eternal life, before God in Him? And do I look to Him
only and find there in my heart the response of His grace, the
Spirit of God living in me, bearing this fruit of looking to Christ?
Do I find Him to be my all, the Lord Jesus Christ? Do I run out
to Him? And so, believing, do I also
rejoice in Him and rest in Him, who is Himself the resurrection
and the life? Do I find that my life is bound
up together with Him in the bundle of life? That I have no life
but His? And when I heard the question
that the lawyer asked, which is the great commandment, and
I heard Jesus' answer, to love the Lord your God with all your
heart, do I cry out, Lord, I find in me such conflicting hypocrisy
that I find no true love there. What am I to do? Going back through
His own Word and finding that the root of all love, in fact,
love itself, is in God Himself. God is love. And finding that
I can only know God's love in Christ and Him crucified. Did
I do that? Are these things happening in
me? Do I find in Him the cure for
the disease of this sin that forbids me from fulfilling God's
law? And do I find all the fulfillment
of God's law in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Is all that I know
of love found in what God has done for my soul in Him? And
do I see His propitiation and God's justice satisfied as the
forgiveness of all my sins and all my righteousness before Him,
as we've just been looking at in Isaiah and Jeremiah? Do I
therefore find in Him to have loved Me and given Himself for
Me, to even have loved Me from everlasting? Is this the work
of God in Me? What think ye of Christ? Whose
Son is He? Who is He to you? Who is He to
me? Even in this probing question,
do you find when God's Word turns the spotlight on your heart,
that it causes you to run in His own Word to the Lord Jesus
Christ and say, Lord, let me be found in You, not having my
own righteousness. Be my covering for all my sins
and receive me graciously. Do I run to Him even in this
probing question? and bury my needs in His all-sufficient,
saving breast, and find in Him the love of God and the righteousness
of God for me, justifying me, saving me by His power. Me, who
am the sinfulest, is Christ thus, all mine by the Spirit of God,
but He shone me from His Word. This is the way these questions
come to us, aren't they? We saw in Psalm 110 that the
Lord said to him, Thou art a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord Jesus Christ, Christ
means the anointed of God, the one chosen of God. Anointed and
chosen for what? He was anointed and chosen to
save His people from their sins. And how did He do that? He made
Him the eternal High Priest. When did I ever decide that I
needed an offering? When did I ever bring it to God?
How could I ever have done that? My high priest stood up for me.
He came and brought the offering that God would accept and offered
himself for me. That's what the high priest does.
He reconciled my soul to God. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
is the Christ of God as our High Priest. He's the Christ of God
as our King. He's the one who's the King of
Kings, the King of Glory. We've already mentioned a few
verses like that throughout Scripture. In all these things we see that
He is our High Priest. He's our King. He's the Prophet.
Remember what He says in John chapter 12 in verse 49. He says, I don't speak of myself. I speak
what the Father gave me to say. He delighted in His Father's
glory and all that He gave Him to do. That was His delight.
And in all these things, He accomplished all the prophecies in the Word
of God. that He would finish transgressions,
make an end of sins, make reconciliation for the iniquity of His people,
and bring in their everlasting righteous. He is the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the question the Lord Jesus
asks us is this, what think ye of Christ? Do I find Him to be
God's holy chosen King to save His people from their sins? And
do I look to Him as all my salvation? And do I cry to Him? Do I come
to Him? And I find in Him, and in His
sufferings, an empathy with me in my sin, so that I go to Him
and I ask Him, Lord, You suffered for sins. Save me by Your sufferings. I need to hear from God. My soul
thirsts for God. Speak to me. And that is what
the Lord Jesus Christ does for us if we're His. May God give
us this faith, this precious faith to see the Lord Jesus Christ
as everything in our salvation and come to Him that way. Let's
pray. Dear Lord, we pray that we might
know that you are truly indeed. Son of God, the Son of Man, the
Chosen of God, the Anointed of God, the One appointed to save,
the One who actually did save your people, the Great Shepherd
of the Sheep, the One who must bring your people, who would
not fail, who would not have anything less than full success,
to bring those that you had given to Him to eternal glory and eternal
life, because you joined your people, to yourself, in this
everlasting covenant of grace. And because you live, we live
now in you. Lord, help us to look to you
and find the work of your Spirit in us, causing us to believe
and hang on you as sinners needing a Savior and finding our Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ, to be our all before God. Lord, we
pray, bless your people and save us also and lift us up forever.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.