But today we want to talk about
this question that Christ posed to these lost religionists, so
important, so vital, what think ye of Christ? Look at it again,
Matthew chapter 22, look at verse 41. While the Pharisees were
gathered together, Jesus asked them to understand, we know who
the Pharisees were, lost religionists, the moral majority, sincere,
dedicated men, men and women trying to work their way into
God's favor, trying to work their way into salvation. And that
never works. Working your way into God's favor
and salvation never works. Because salvation is totally
by grace, through the Lord Jesus Christ, by faith in Him, and
his blood and righteousness alone. So he said, he asked them, verse
42, saying, what think ye of Christ? Now the idea here is
the Messiah. You know, all the Jewish religionists
were expecting a Messiah. Unbelieving Jews today are still
expecting a Messiah. They do not believe that Jesus
of Nazareth, who's already come and done the great work of the
Messiah, they don't believe he is the Messiah. Now that's why
we have to be careful here. You know, today there's a big
movement called Christians and Jews Together. Well, the Apostle
Paul knew nothing of that kind of thing because he had been
brought out from that false works-oriented Judaism, false gospels, and brought
to repentance of that. We repent of what they now believe,
because that's what we were by nature. We weren't Jews by nature
and physically, but we believed the same thing. We believed that
salvation was conditioned on us, and we could meet that condition
with our own free will, our own decision, or our own works. We believed that, so we were
no different than these Pharisees. So he says, what think ye of
Christ? Well, their idea of a Messiah was the Messiah that was projected
and prophesied in the second coming. And their idea is that
he would come as a conquering king and set up his kingdom on
earth to rule from Jerusalem. And they would be his lieutenants
and his underlings, you know. And he would conquer all their
enemies. And of course, you know, there
are people today who call themselves Christian who believe that, too.
They believe that Christ is going to come and set up His kingdom
on earth. The kingdom of God on earth is the church. Now, understand that. It's the
people of God. And the kingdom of God on earth,
the church on earth, is made up of God's true people called
out of the world by the gospel, the true gospel. And that's how
you identify a true church. It's not by how many they have.
It's not by how much money they have. It's not by how integrated
they are or what they do. It's gauged by the truth of the
gospel that's being preached from the pulpits and the lecterns.
If you go into a building They call it a church or even a Christian
church and they're not preaching the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace in this person that we're gonna talk about and
based upon his work, finished work, accomplished work, successful
work, that works to the salvation of all for whom he lived and
died and was buried and rose again the third day. That's a
false church. And I know people don't wanna
hear that, but that's what they need to hear. This is what Christ
told the Pharisees. When we get to chapter 23, you
think about all he's going to tell them. He calls them blind
fools, dead, open sepulchers. Blind leading the blind. Because
they were preaching a false gospel. And we don't say these things
to be hateful. I don't like, listen, I don't
like to tell negative things to people. But I know the truth. and I can't deny it, I can't
leave it, I can't hide it, it's the truth. And I know that if
God, and I know it's the truth that God uses to bring sinners
to faith in Christ. And he doesn't bring any other
thing, he doesn't save sinners under the preaching of a lie.
So those who do not preach the person and finished work of Christ
to save all of his people, they don't preach the gospel. So the
church, now, it's true that while on this earth, there will be
tares among the wheat, there will be the different hearers,
the wayside hearer, the stony ground hearer, there'll be false
brethren. And Christ will sort that all
out at the judgment. He said, I'll put the sheep on
my right and the goats on my left. And that's what he's gonna
do. So what we need to be concerned
with, just like you've heard the parable of the foolish virgins,
we wanna make sure there's oil in our lamps. Well, what is that
oil? Well, that's the work of the
spirit to bring us to faith in Christ and repentance of dead
works. And so I tell people all the
time, and I've talked to different ones who claim to believe what
we believe, according to the word of God, the true gospel,
the sovereignty of God, and all of that, but they think they
were saved under a false gospel. Well, my friend, there's no oil
in their lamp. The Holy Spirit will not allow a believer to
think that. And that's what repentance is
all about. It's that change of mind. Paul
said, I count it all but loss, but done that I may win Christ.
So this is the important question, what think ye of Christ? Not
only who he is, but what he did, what he accomplished. And that's
why I wanted to repeat this paragraph here, it's so important. He said,
what think ye of Christ? And he said this, whose son is
he? And they said unto him, verse
42, the son of David. Now that is a correct statement.
But that's not the whole story. You see, it goes further than
that. He was and is the son of David, but that is speaking of
his sinless humanity that was created for him in the womb of
the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 10, it talks about how
he says, a body hast thou prepared me. That's the body of Christ.
Remember when he instituted the Lord's Supper, he said, this
is my body, which is broken for you. Yes, he is the son of David,
born of the virgin. And I put these scriptures here.
Look at your lesson. And Isaiah said, these are scriptures
we need to really be adept with. Isaiah 7, 14 is a prophecy of
the Messiah. And it says, therefore the Lord
himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. And I've cross-referenced
there, Matthew 1, 21 through 23, that's where the angel came
to Joseph and said, you shall call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. And then he quotes the prophecy,
his name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. So here, the Virgin
Mary is going to conceive, all right, not by man, not by Joseph,
her husband, but by the Holy Spirit, creating that seed within
her, and she'll conceive and she'll bear a son, a human being,
a sinless human being. And his name not only will be
called Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins,
his name's gonna be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is what?
God with us. Now can it get any plainer? Who
is Jesus Christ? Well, they said he's the son
of David. And he is. Romans one, I think it's verse
four, tells us that he was made of the seed of David according
to the flesh. See, he came through the tribe
of Judah. His humanity did. And then it says he was declared
to be the son of God with power. Well, and then look at Isaiah
chapter nine. I've got this one down here,
Isaiah 9.6. Now, it says, for unto us a child
is born. Well, that's the humanity of
Christ, the sinless humanity of Christ. He is the Son of God
incarnate, made flesh. That's what that means. And as
the Son of God, He's always been the second person of the Trinity.
the son of God by nature, God by nature. His sonship of the
son of God, his deity had no beginning, has no end. That's why he can be called the
alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. He's everything,
he's eternal with every attribute of deity. But now his humanity
had a beginning. It was created for him in the
womb of the Virgin by the Spirit. So for unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his
shoulders. It's Isaiah 9-6 now. What government's
gonna be upon his shoulder? To be upon somebody's shoulder
means they bear the burden. It means it's all upon him. If
God came down here and said, now, I'll save you if you'll
do this or do that, he's putting it on your shoulder to bear the
burden, to meet the condition, see? But that's not the gospel.
The government of God's grace, the government of the church,
the government of salvation was squarely put upon Christ's shoulders. And that was before the foundation
of the world. That didn't start at his birth.
You see, listen, if we're saved by the grace of God based upon
the righteousness of Christ, which he accomplished in time
on his obedience unto death on the cross as our surety, substitute,
redeemer, life giver, preserver, protector, glorifier, if we're
saved by his grace, we are participants in a salvation that was actually
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Isn't that what
2 Timothy 1 tells us? So it says, the government shall
be upon his shoulders, all of salvation conditioned on him,
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty
God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. These are
all roles that he plays in the salvation of his people. And
it says in verse seven, of the increase of his government, the
one that's upon his shoulder, and peace, there shall be no
end. He's not gonna fail. Upon the
throne of David, not the literal throne in Jerusalem, but upon
the throne of the king of kings and upon his kingdom to order
it. Remember David said that I'm part of a covenant that's
ordered in all things. Christ ordered it, you don't
order it. I don't set it in order. Christ did. And to establish
it with judgment and with justice, oh my soul, there is mercy, but
not without judgment and justice. God must be just when he justifies. This is who the Messiah is. This
is what he did. And from henceforth even forever,
the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Now what is
the zeal of God? That's his zealousness to glorify
himself. our salvation and then I've got
Romans 1 there you can read that how Christ was made of the seed
of David according to the flesh declared to be the Son of God
with power look at John chapter 1 and verse 1 there I've got
it written out in the beginning was the Word and the Word was
with God and the Word was God that's talking about Christ The
same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by
Him. He's the creator, along with
the Father and the Spirit. And without Him was not anything
made that was made. And then jump down to verse 14.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His
glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth. All right, now look back at your
text. They said he's the son of David,
verse 42. So Christ posed another question.
Verse 43. He saith unto them, how then
doth David in spirit, and I believe the word spirit there should
be capitalized because what I believe he's saying here, how did King
David, the writer of some of the Psalms, inspired by the Holy
Spirit, call him Lord? call him Jehovah, saying, and
he quotes here from Psalm 110 and verse one, verse 44, the
Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand till I make
thine enemies thy footstool. Now you might notice there that
that Psalm portrays the Messiah not only as a human being without
sin, but as God, and that all of his work is going to be successful.
That's what he says. He says, sit thou on my right
hand. That's the right hand of judgment, the right hand of acceptance.
In other words, his work, his person and work are going to
be accepted before the Father. And you remember at the baptism
of Christ in Matthew chapter three, when he talked to John
the Baptist about baptizing him, he said, suffer it to be so,
suffer it to be so for us to fulfill all righteousness. This
is the language of success. This is not the language of any
failure. This tells us, in the context of the whole of scripture,
that all for whom Christ lived and died and was buried and arose
again the third day shall be saved. He's not gonna lose one
of his sheep. There'll not be one sinner perish
for whom Christ died. And how do you know who they
are? Well, he said, my sheep do what? hear my voice, and I
know them and they know me." What is his voice? It's the gospel
in the power of the Holy Spirit. That's why Paul said, I'm not
ashamed to preach it. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of God. It's the gospel of Christ. It's
the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first, the Greek also, and we know that believing is
a gift from God. I've been thinking about that.
I heard a message by Brother Gary Shepard on, when he says,
without faith it's all sin. I think it's in Romans 14. And I think, I need to do several,
you know, what is faith? What is the understanding of
faith? What does that mean? Most people think that it's a
choice you make out of your own free will, but that's not what
the Bible teaches. Faith is the gift of God. And
by nature, we don't have ears to hear and eyes to see, hearts
to believe. That's why we have to be born
again. And the issue in the Bible, the Bible doesn't teach that,
well, then you believe and then you're born again. No. It says
you're born of God and then you believe. That's the way it is.
It's all faith is the fruit. So he says, sit thou on my right
hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. Success. He will prosper. That's what
Isaiah 52 says. Well, all of these verses that
we're talking about, I've got in your lesson here, it speaks
of Christ incarnation. And that means in flesh. Not
sinful flesh like us. Not flesh played with sin and
depravity. But the perfect flesh, the humanity
of Christ. He's God and man without sin. He's the impeccable Christ, and
we need to emphasize that today, especially with current heresies
that are coming out, even in what people call the sovereign
grace movement. Christ knew no sin, he had no
sin. He was made sin, he was made
guilty, but only by the imputation, the charging, accounting of the
sin debt of his people to his account. That's the only way. And I was listening to another
message somebody asked me to listen to by a fella out west
who was talking about in John 2 there where Christ made water
into wine. And that was his first miracle,
and it was a great miracle. He actually changed the nature
of that water, the chemical makeup of that water, and made it the
best wine. Well, that proves his deity,
doesn't it? He's God, only God can do that, man can't do that.
But anytime, there's a group now, that anytime they go to
the water made wine issue, they always jump to 2 Corinthians
5.21, Christ made sin. And the word made in 2 Corinthians
5.21 is the same word made in John 2 when it says Christ made
water into wine. But it doesn't mean the same
thing. A lot of them imply, now the
guy that I was listening to, he said, well, I don't know how
he was made sin. Well, I do. And it's not because I'm smarter
than that guy or I don't know what his IQ is. I don't even
know what mine is. But the text tells us how he
was made sin. God was in Christ, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. The non-imputation of sin in
the Bible means what? The imputation of righteousness.
Read Psalm 32 and then jump over to Romans 4 and read that and
it'll tell you. Anyway, they always sort of implied
that Christ was made sin in the same way that he changed water
into wine. Well, that's foolish. When Christ was on that cross,
he was made sin when our sin debt was charged to him. He's
our surety. And when he was on that cross,
he didn't become corrupted. His nature wasn't changed. Sin
was not put into him. He had no sinful thoughts. He's
the impeccable Christ, all right? Now, he claimed, and when these
performing of miracles, He performed the miracles, proving He was
God. He accepted worship. He allowed people to worship
Him. When He rode into Jerusalem, just a few days before this,
as we were reading, they cried out, Hosanna! Lord, save us! Now, if He didn't claim to be
God, why didn't He jump off that donkey and say, no, wait a minute,
folks! Don't worship me! I'm not Hosanna! No! He rode in triumphantly. And
that's what He did. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
great I am of scripture. That means he's the author and
finisher of our faith. He said before Abraham was, I
am. And you know what they did when
he said that? They picked up stones that were
gonna kill him. All of that. Well, turn over, well let me
read the rest of this. He says in verse 45, He says,
if David then call him Lord, how is he his son? How could
he be both David's son, offspring, and David's God? And verse 46
says, and no man was able to answer him a word. Now these
fellas claim to be experts in the scripture now. Those passages
that I read from Isaiah there, and other passages in the prophets,
they had read them, just like you have. But they couldn't answer
him a word. Neither durst any man from that
day forth ask him any more questions. They gave up. He shut their mouths. And rightly so. Well, turn over
to Hebrews chapter two. I've got this one marked. What we need to understand is
this. That in order to save us from our sins, and to establish
a righteousness whereby God could be just to justify us. He, Christ,
is the kind of person that it took. He had to be both God and
man. Here's why. The wages of sin
is death. In order to put away our sins
and establish righteousness, he had to die. But God cannot
die. God cannot die. God is life.
God has no beginning and no end. He's eternal. He's unchangeable.
But this person, who is God, he did die. Now, how could he
do that? He's also man. Man can die. Now, there's a lot of mind-boggling
stuff going on here now. I know that. And we've always
said this one, I think it's come from an old writer named John
Owen. He'd say that his death can only
be attributed to his humanity, but it's an act of his entire
person. So that's all I can say. God didn't die, but this man
did die. On the same token, man cannot
create and give life to the dead. He cannot create life, only God
can. And so the fact that he created
life and gives it to his people, that can only be attributed to
his deity, but it's an act of his entire person. Right now,
Christ exists as God, man. And he'll be so throughout eternity.
And that's our mediator. One God and one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus. The God-man. Well, look at this,
and we'll just read, I'm running out of time, so we'll just read
one verse here. I've got Hebrews 2, 9 all the
way to verse 18. You can read that whole passage,
but look at verse 14. Now what it's saying here is
that Christ came and died to save his people from their sins,
the people whom God the Father gave him before the foundation
of the world, the elect. And he identifies them in these
other verses as the many sons under glory, the church, the
ones who are sanctified, the seed of Abraham. And it says
in verse 14, for as much then as the children, they're identified
as God's children, God's sons. And one thing you probably, I
don't know if you can add this to your lesson is Galatians.
If I didn't put it in there, I should have. Well, no, I shouldn't
have or God would have had me do it, wouldn't he? But it's
Galatians 4, four through six. Read that along with it. That'll
help. The children are partakers of
flesh and blood. The ones whom Christ to save
were human beings. Sinful, fallen human beings.
He also himself likewise in the same way took part of the same. That is, he had to be a human
being also. Now, he wasn't born and conceived and born like we
are. but he is a human just like we
are without sin, him without sin. So he took part of the saint
that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is the devil. So in other words, all of this
he had to go through in order to establish what the gospel
calls the righteousness of God. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith." From the revelation of
God's word to the faith that he gives us to believe it, the
just, the justified shall live by faith. And it's all because
it was put upon his shoulders. It's all because he is both God
and man and one person. And I've concluded your lesson
this way. What do his people think of him?
Well, Peter said it in 1 Peter 2, 7. Under you, therefore, which
believe, he is precious. He's everything. Okay.