Matthew 22:34-46 contains two dialogues. One obvious link is “the Pharisees” who have “gathered together” (cf. vv. 34, 41). This detail not only connects these sections, but also references the ongoing strife between the religious leaders and Jesus (cf. Matthew 21:45-46; 22:15). A second link is that the competing parties challenge each other. In verses 34-40, a lawyer posits, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (v. 36). In verses 41-46, Jesus raises a series of his own provocative queries: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he? How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” (vv. 42, 43, 45). when Matthew 22:34-46 is read within the entire scope of the gospel, two aspects stand out: (1) Jesus’ reference to “the law and the prophets” (v. 40); and (2) his query, “What do you think of the Messiah?” (v. 42). To put it differently, these two features not only unite the two paragraphs of the passage but serve to underscore two pivotal themes in the gospel of Matthew.
Matthew 22:34-40 (Mark 12:28-31, Luke 10:25-28) is a controversy dialogue on the greatest commandment, although in Mark it is a scholastic dialogue.[1] In context, this dialogue is part of the next segment so that they construct one controversy dialogue. It shows Jesus as a teacher engaging other teachers in a controversy dialogue.[2] It shows his respect for the Torah.[3] However, for Jesus, the will of God and its fulfillment is in combined and inseparable love for God and love for humanity everything else becoming unimportant. This is the position from which Jesus acts and because of which he gives offense. It shows his concern for the will of God, which contrast with the individual commands or prohibitions.it overthrows a casuistic approach to the faithful life or the life well-lived. Part of rabbinic piety was the idea that the world rests on three things: the Torah, sacrificial worship, and expressions of love. Jesus sets love about the individual commands of Torah and the demands for sacrificial worship.[4] The tendency of religious professions is to make religion complex. Spiritual masters have a way of identifying the heart of a religion. This passage concerns the heart of Christianity. It is a familiar passage, but there is power in the familiar (Fred Craddock). Jesus points to the familiar, the Shema and another text from the Torah, as the heart of Judaism and in doing so has lifted it to supreme importance in reflection upon the Christian life. In this little exchange, Jesus names his center. He names the center of his ministry, of his mission, and even the center of the imminent rule of God he came to proclaim. He reveals something about himself, and in the process also reveals something about God. The law of God is the law of love. Religion is that simple – and that difficult.[5] Matthew relates one of the most familiar teachings of Jesus in the context of a controversy with the Pharisees. However, in the context of Matthew, out of a series of three controversies, here is the first time they confront Jesus directly. The Pharisees were pleased that Jesus silenced the Sadducees, since they had their disputes with them as well. However, this does not stop them from wanting to entrap Jesus. A scribe or lawyer, an expert in the interpretation of Torah, addressed Jesus as teacher (Διδάσκαλε) asked Jesus a question with the motive of testing him. His question is simple: which commandment in Torah is the greatest? First-century Judaism had no qualms about determining which of the 613 commandments were weightier, more important than the others are. The Old Testament has several such summaries. To love justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). Maintain justice and do what is right (Isa 56:1). Seek and love the good and establish justice (Amos 5:14-15). His response in verses 37-40, describing the greatest and first commandment, is to the Shema of Israel in Deut 6:5, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Jesus refuses to operate within a legal or casuist frame of mind. Here is what the faithful Jewish person recited every day, as part of prayer and confession at both morning and evening prayer. Along with the Jews of his day, Jesus undoubtedly recited the Shema. According to the Mishnah, every Israelite male should recite this verse twice daily.[6] The Shema of Israel identified the uniqueness of the Lord and the requirement of total commitment to the Lord.[7] The uniqueness of the God who comes to rule excludes all competing concerns. To those who open themselves to this summons, God already comes to rule. The rule of God is imminent, but it also emerges from its future nature as present. The basis is that oneness of God is the content of this future. The divine rule is the outworking of the divine claim to the present life of the creature.[8] In reciting the Shema, we learn that the God of Jesus is none other than the God of Jewish faith, in according to the witness of the Old Testament, the God whom Israel confesses in the Shema.[9] First, it confesses a profound personal response on the part of each who would confess this truth — to love this God. The Shema confesses a profound personal response on the part of each who would confess this truth — to love this God. The original Hebrew had no need to designate both “heart” and “mind.” “Soul” is spirit, self, will, need, desire. “Strength” is physical. The separation of the faculties is not the key, but a complete response to God. To love God is to obey God in Deuteronomy 13:3-4, 30:16-20, Joshua 22:5, I John 2:4-6, and 5:3a. Loving God with all the heart and soul receives emphasis in Deuteronomy 4:29 (=Jeremiah 29:13), 10:12, 11:13, 30:6, 10, and Joshua 22:5. The point of loving God is to honor God by the way we live in harmony with the will of God. One is to love God with the whole self and being. The demands of this command take on life in every aspect of human life ‑‑ heart, soul, mind and strength ‑‑ and are to permeate "all" (repeated each time) corners of that part of human existence. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus then offers an unsolicited view that the second commandment is like it, referring to Leviticus 19:18b, that you shall love your neighbor, who is a human being just like you are.[10] Leviticus 19 opens with an emphasis upon the holy God receiving proper respect and then requiring justice and respect to “children of your own people.” The parable of the Good Samaritan shows (Luke 10:25-37) shows that Jesus was expanding the notion of neighbor beyond that of a fellow Jew, erasing national and ethnic considerations in its definition. The saying requires on to have a tender regard for the neighbor. Hillel the Elder was a contemporary of Jesus of whom it is recorded:
“A proselyte approached Hillel with the request Hillel teach him the whole of the Torah while the student stood on one foot. Hillel responded, “What you find hateful (or, What you yourself hate), do not do to another (or, your neighbor). This is the whole of the Law. Everything else is commentary. Now go learn that!”
All law seeks to make a form of life that achieves permanence and may even declare a regulation to be normative, so that it must deal with new situations by casuistic extensions or expositions. Freedom characterizes the work of love. Thus, we misunderstand the creative nature of love if, appealing to this passage, we think of Jesus as abrogating the Old Testament law by a new Christian law. Love does not despise orientation to given rules. Yet, agreement with them is always a free act because one does not accept them in every situation. For love, each new situation is an appeal to its inventive powers. In this fact, we find the contrast to the mere following of a law.[11] Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse.
Since fellowship with God along the lines of the love of God commanded in Deut 6:4-5 is possible only in connection with personal participation in the movement of love of God toward the world, Jesus could directly link the command to love our neighbor in Leviticus 19:18 with the love for God that is the supreme commandment.[12] We find here two commands, but primarily, love is not commanded, but living reality, an impulse proceeding from the love of God for the world that lays hold of us and catches us p into its movement. Participation in the kindness of God as Creator ought to be the natural consequence of thankful acceptance of this kindness. To command love and to practice it as the fulfillment of a command is thus self-contradictory because free spontaneity is a constituent of all turning to others in love. With Augustine, love is a motivating force that differs in nature from a command and its observance. Love is a gift of grace that enables us for the first time to respond in our own conduct to the kindness of God as Creator and to the redeeming love of God to participate in them. Yet, if Christian love is participation in the love of God for the world, then we must ask whether we can distinguish at all between love of God love of neighbor. Does not true love consist of sharing in the love of God for the world? In the depth of turning to the co-human Thou do we not also love God?[13] The Scholastic thesis concerned the unity of the act of love in such a way that primarily love of God is an implication and transcendental basis of love of neighbor. Explicit love of neighbor is the primary act of love of God, which in the love of neighbor God is truly if nonthematically in view, and even explicit love of God is still carried by that trusting and loving opening to the totality of reality that takes place in love of neighbor. This does not mean reduction of love of God to love of neighbor. Instead, we free explicit love of God from falsely seeming to represent an exceptional phenomenon of only marginal importance. Because God as silent incomprehensibility is at work in all the relations of humanity, however secular, we can see thematically in the explicit act of love of God what is always already the concern in all human life in co-humanity. The question remains, why this reference must become thematic in and for itself.[14] In any case, many voices in Protestant theology have tended to answer affirmatively that one can identify love of neighbor with love of God. The problem with this is that equating love of God and love of neighbor can easily lead to a moralistic interpretation of Christianity. The relation to God can fade out as a distinct theme, losing it in co-humanity. With Jesus in this statement, one can find no support for absorbing love of God into love neighbor.[15]
Jesus refuses to separate what is inseparable. Jesus ties together two commands that he deemed essential by focusing on the one overwhelming principle that defines God: love. Neither Hillel nor Jesus was by any means the first to tie together the poetic demands of Deuteronomy 6:5, known in the tradition as the Shema, and the compassionate command of Leviticus 19:18.
[Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, around 137-107 BC)
Love the Lord and your neighbor;
Be compassionate toward poverty and sickness. (Testament of Isaacher 5:2)
I acted in piety and truth all my days,
The Lord I loved with all my strength,
Likewise, I loved every human being as I love my children. (Testament of Isaacher 7:6)
They (what distances you from the Law) do not permit people to show mercy to their neighbors. (Testament of Judah 18:3)
Have mercy in your inner being, my children, because whatever anyone does to his neighbor, the Lord will do to him. (Testament of Zebulun 5:3)
Throughout all your life love the Lord,
And one another with a true heart. (Testament of Dan 5:3)
Now, my children, each of you love his brother. Drive hatred out of your hearts. Love one another in deed and word and inward thoughts. (Testament of Gad 6:2)
Of course, the New Testament shares this emphasis on the love of neighbor in Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, and James 2:8.
Then an addition occurs:[16] 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. This dependence expresses the common feature of the two basic presuppositions of a faithful, well-lived life that provides a unity of the human spirit to contrast with the divisiveness of casuistic approach. The details of moral conduct, the individual requirements of the Torah, depend on the command of love. The love of God and neighbor sustains all human attitudes and actions.[17] The dialogue ends with Jesus emphasizing their centrality, for on these two commandments than all the law and the prophets. Jesus did not “come to abolish the law or the prophets;” instead, he came “not to abolish but to fulfill” (5:17). They provide a coherent principle for appreciating and observing the other commandments.[18] They provide us a lens through which we read Scripture. Jesus understood the prophetic tradition and ethical demands considering these two commands. He is aligning his ministry and mission throughout the gospel of Matthew in accord with the two commands.
Jesus speaks of his own harmonious orientation. Jesus joins the two commands, expecting one love expressed in two spheres of life. Such love finds that the Creator points to the neighbor and in the neighbor the one points to the Creator.[19] One cannot withdraw from the neighbor to some special religious sphere. Nor can we allow love of neighbor to absorb love of God, thereby taking away its independent quality.[20] Love to others cannot exhaust itself in love to God. Nor can love to God exhaust itself in love of others. One cannot replace the other. Love to God evokes love to neighbor. One cannot have Christ and not have the neighbor. Therefore, one cannot have God without also having the neighbor. Such love is obedience to the direction God wants to take you.[21]
Here Jesus stresses if not the equality, then certainly the dynamic interrelationship operating between the commands to love God and to love neighbor. Accountability to one is meaningless without accountability to the other. The point is the contrast between Pharisaic legalism and the ethics of love for God and neighbor. The two commandments are not identical. At the same time, the second is not simply appended, subordinate, or derivative. The second is like the first. The passage has reference to God, but also to the neighbor. It has the one dimension, but also the other. It finds in the Creator the One who points to this creature, the neighbor.[22] To love God and to love the neighbor are both commandments of the one God. In both commandments, what concerns us is the claim of the one God upon the whole person. The commandment to love the neighbor in the time and world that now is and passes, we are in fact dealing with a first and a second commandment, a primary and a secondary, a superior and a subordinate, commandment of God. Such love is the only way to maintain faith. There are no higher or impressive ways.
The dialogue ends in Matthew with Jesus emphasizing their centrality, for on these two commandments than all the law and the prophets (Matt 22:40). Jesus did not “come to abolish the law or the prophets;” instead, he came “not to abolish but to fulfill” (Matt 5:17). They provide a coherent principle for appreciating and observing the other commandments.[23] They provide us a lens through which we read Scripture. Jesus understood the prophetic tradition and ethical demands considering these two commands. He is aligning his ministry and mission throughout the gospel in accord with the two commands.
John Wesley connected happiness, holiness, and love, based on this text. What is the source of unhappiness? It may well come from setting our love of creation above our love the creator, our love of self above our love of neighbor.[24] If so, the source of unhappiness is misdirected love. Thus, genuinely following Jesus is neither more nor less than love, for love fulfills the law and is the end of the commandments. Genuine religion is the love of God and the neighbor, by which we mean, every person under heaven.[25] If we can properly understand Christian perfection, love will sum up such a life. Of course, love to God with all that we are, and then love of neighbor in inseparable connection with the first.[26]
C.S. Lewis, in his eponymous essay, suggests that one way to carry the “weight of glory” in a practical application is to hold in one’s mind regularly the eternal worth of one’s neighbor. As he puts it, “there are no ordinary people,” for everyone has eternal significance. “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself,” Lewis writes, “Your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Just as we blaspheme the Holy Spirit if we ascribe the works of God as deeds of the Devil, so we blaspheme the grace of the Most High given for all people when we treat them as means and not as precious creatures in the Lord’s sight.[27]
The love of God summarizes who the children of God are. Jesus addresses the commandment to Israel as part of the covenant and to his followers as part of the people of God. Love alone can correspond to the uniqueness in which God is the Lord. Whatever love may consist in, love will always be the one choice in which a human being chooses God as his or her Lord in the sense in which God has already chosen to be Lord. “You shall,” suggests a commandment from this God. The commandment does not reduce the number of laws but moves against the notion of law entirely. Although we may think it odd to command love only love can make a real demand. The object of the commandment is God. In loving God, humanity has a partner in God, who loves humanity as well. To love means to become what we already are, that is, those whom God loves. To love means to choose God as the Lord, the One who is our Lord because Christ is our Advocate and Representative. To love means to be obedient to the commandment of this God. In every case, love is an accepting, confirming and grasping of our future. In it, this future is identical with the reality of God, who in the fullest sense of the word is for us. This God is our future. People who love God will let themselves be told and will themselves confess that they are not in any sense righteous as ones who love. They are sinners who even in their love have nothing to bring and offer to God. The love of God for them is that God intercedes for them and represents them even though they are so unworthy, even though they can never be anything but unworthy and therefore undeserving of love. How can that have any other meaning than that they are driven to repentance and held there? They can love and will love only as this loving allows this to happen. To love God is to seek God. Now, we cannot seek our own being and activity. Our being and activity as such can only be this seeking. We misunderstand this seeking if we think of it as a special art or striving on the part of those who have already proposed and undertaken the task, or as a wonderful flower of piety that has grown in the garden of those who are already particularly situated and gifted for it. What matters is emphatically not the fact of our seeking, but the direction of our seeking. In all that seeking we are still within the realm of our being sinners. Despite our seeking, we may be rejecting. They rejoice that they have not sought in vain. They are what they are as genuine seekers after God by giving a Yes that comes from the heart, soul, mind, and strength, even when they find God. When the love of God reaches its goal, they hear, feel, and taste afresh that have an incomparable Lord. When they find God, grace meets them, which they then accept into their lives. Grace shows what God does for them. Grace shows that in themselves they are poor, impotent, and empty. It shows that they rebel against God. Grace points them away from self and toward Christ who is the promise of what they can become. Grace does not allow arrogance. Grace reveals the rebellion and imperfection of even the best thoughts and undertakings by humanity. Grace does not allow any arrogance. Grace reveals the lethargy and wildness that lie like a heavy load upon even the best thoughts and undertakings. Grace demands that they live only by grace, and by grace really live. Does the addition “with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength” add anything? The addition is a guarantee against every division and reservation. It means that Christian love is characterized as a total constitution and attitude of humanity. The addition lights up the voluntary obedience given to Christ to love. We shall seek after God only when the commandment to do it has reached all that we are. Such love cannot be lost. Such love is the thankfulness that the believer owes to God in the divine work of revealing and reconciling. [28]
The love of neighbor summarizes the action of the children of God. Love of God is serious only in the context of the love of neighbor. As human beings we live in an historical and social context ordered by God. If we are to love God, we must also love what God has created. We honor and love God when we honor and love what God has created.
The neighbor is the person within the circle of significant relationships we have as social creatures.[29] The neighbor is also the stranger within the gates, the one ignored by our circles of significant relationships. In the context of Luke’s version of the two great commandments in Luke 10 and 11, we have the example of the love to neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan and of love to God in the story of Mary and Martha. Clearly, Luke views the two commandments as separate. The story of Mary and Martha reminds us that love to God includes practices of meditation, contemplation, prayer, and worship. My neighbor is an event that takes place in the existence of a definite person marked off from all other people. My neighbor is my fellow human being acting towards me as a benefactor. Every human being can act towards me in this way in virtue of the fact that he or she can have commission and authority to do so. However, not everyone acts towards me in this way. Therefore, not everyone is a neighbor to me. My neighbor is the one who emerges from among all human beings as this one person. I must hear a summons from Jesus Christ. I must be ready to obey the summons to go and do likewise. I have a decisive part in the event by which a human being is my neighbor. That suffering human needing help directs the children of God to the task that God has appointed for them. God does not will the many griefs, sufferings, and burdens under which we people must sigh. God wills their removal. God wills a better world. Therefore, we will this better world, and a true worship of God consists in our cooperation in the removal of these sufferings. Therefore, our neighbor in his or her distress is a reminder to us and the occasion and object of our proper worship of God. To love means to enter the future that God has posited for us in and with the existence of our neighbor. Therefore, to love means to subject ourselves to the order instituted in the form of our neighbor. To love means to accept the benefit that God has shown by not leaving us alone but having given us the neighbor. To love means to reconcile ourselves to the existence of the neighbor, to find ourselves in the fact that God wills us to exist as the children of God in this way. To love means to find ourselves in co-existence with this neighbor, under the direction that we must receive from the neighbor, in the limitation and determination that the existence of the neighbor means for our existence, and in the respecting and acceptance of the mission that the neighbor has in relation to us. One may flee from love to God to a wrongly understood love of the neighbor. The children of God renounce all movements of flight. The life of the children of God is fulfilled in a rhythm of this twofold love, and there is nothing more senseless and impossible than to play off the one against the other. The children of God abide in love. This applies to both, because they know that, once they have fled to God, they can flee to no other place.
Further, the living out of this faith is the witness to which the neighbor has a claim and which I owe the neighbor. It will be as well not to connect the concept of witness with the idea of an end or purpose. Witness in the Christian sense of the concept is the greeting with which I must greet my neighbor, the declaration of my fellowship with my own brother or sister. I do not will anything that I may not will anything in rendering this witness. I simply live the life of my faith in the specific encounter with the neighbor. The strength of the Christian witness stands or falls with the fact that with all its urgency this restraint is peculiar to it. Neither to myself nor to anyone else can I contrive that someone will give help to one in need. Therefore, in my testimony I cannot follow out the plan of trying to invade and alter the life of my neighbor. A witness is neither a guardian nor a teacher. A witness will not intrude on the neighbor. A witness will not handle the neighbor. The witness will not make the neighbor the object of activity, even with the freedom of the grace of God, and therefore respect for the other person who can expect nothing from me but everything from God. It is in serious acknowledgement of the claim and our responsibility that we do not infringe this twofold respect. I only declare to the other that in relation to him or her I believe in Jesus Christ, that I do not meet the neighbor as a stranger but as my brother or sister, even though I do not know that he or she is such. I do not withhold from the neighbor the praise that I owe to God. In that way, I fulfill my responsibility to my neighbor. I want to offer three forms of this witness. One is that I do not grudge my neighbor the word as a word of help in his or her need, nor in my need. We can fail to bear true witness. One way to do so is to talk about our own sin and need as such, for I am not saying anything helpful to the neighbor at that point. In fact, the narration of such a story runs the risk of placing myself at the center of witness rather than Christ. Another way to fail in witness is to focus upon some experience of help, rather than upon the God who provided the help. In both cases, we are never at a loss for words when we come to speak of our sin and our positive experiences. Either way, we have a rich and certain knowledge. How easy to confuse this knowledge of ourselves with the much less intimate and tangible knowledge of the help itself. Any help we give to the neighbor has the objective of directing people to the God who has helped us. I substantiate to my neighbor by my attitude, the disposition and mood by which I meet my neighbor, which need to be the evangelical attitude of bearing witness to Jesus Christ, what I have to say to the neighbor by word and deed.
At a practical level, most of us will freely admit the difficulty of loving the neighbor. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you would presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less." We are to love without exception, even if most people are undeserving of that love. Their true value is their creation in the image of God, to which we owe all honor and love.[30] The point is not warm affection toward the neighbor, but to have caring and thoughtful actions toward the neighbor. We are to think of their creation in the image of God. Since we owe honor and love to God, we also owe such honor and love to that which God has made.[31]
We love to think about love. We think love is the answer. We can sing that love makes the world go around. We can sing that all we need is love. We search for love. We seem convinced that love can save the world and make life worth living. Yet, we have a looser grasp on love than we think. Love springs from awareness of the other. When you genuinely see the other, you have the potential to love. Without seeing truly, we will love only the person of our memory and imagination.[32]
Yet, in this command to love God, is faith implicit already, the emphasis that Paul would bring to light? Ritschl thinks so based on the idea that faith is itself a form of love. He did so because he moved in a critically against Pietism and the medieval Catholic theology that had defined the relation of faith and love. Yet, in doing so, he did not want in the least to say that love of God must merge into love neighbor. His point was to make a careful distinction between our religious relation to God in faith on the one said and love as the essence of moral action on the other. Yet, the act of trust does not contain all aspects of love, for love does not just link up with the object of trust as trust itself does but is also the power of recognizing what is different, making fellowship possible.[33]
Are we here to find happiness? In a certain sense, we can answer positively. Love is a relationship, and relationships take time.
22:41-46 Controversy Dialogue Concerning the Son of David
Matthew 22:41-46 (Mark 12:35-7, Luke 20:41-44) is a controversy dialogue concerning the Son of David. The dialogue both reveals and conceals the Messiah, a result Jesus would have liked. The saying is an obscure reference to the question messiahship.[34] The dialogue occurs as Jesus engages the Pharisees by asking them a question What do you think about the Christ (τοῦ χριστοῦ)? Whose son is he? The question has in the background that some first century Jews associated the biblical promises of a delivering descendant of King David with the Messiah (Anointed One). The idea was one anointed by the Spirit of God for divine purposes. The equivalent Greek term is “Christ.” The question implies the Messiah is a descendent of David. Isa 9:2-9 refers to the throne of David having a child who will have authority over Israel. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. His reign will be one of endless peace. Righteousness will establish his rule. Isa 11:1-9 looks forward to a descendent of Jesse, the father of David, on whom the Spirit of the Lord rest, granting him wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, and the knowledge and fear of the Lord. He will judge the poor with righteousness and decide for the meek of the earth. He shall judge the wicked. Yet, wolf and lamb will coexist, as will other natural enemies in nature. The reason is that the earth will become full of the knowledge of the Lord. Jer 23:5-6 says that out of the descendants of David comes a righteous Branch, who reigns wisely, justly, and righteously. Israel will live in safety. Jer 33:14-18 offers a similar promise, adding that David shall never lack a descendant who will sit upon the throne. Ezk 34:23-24 and 37:24 promise a shepherd, the servant of the Lord, David, who shall feed them and be their prince. The New Testament asserts that Jesus was a descendent of David in Rom 1:3, II Tim 2:8, Matt 1:17, and Luke 3:23-25. Thus, the idea that Jesus carries a polemic against the notion of a Davidic Messiah cannot be correct, since the New Testament assumes this connection and assumes Jesus is such a descendant. Thus, when Jesus asks the Pharisees whose son the Messiah is, no one would be surprised with their response that he is the son or descendant of David. The surprise comes when Jesus uses haggadic antinomy to refer to Psalm 110:1, in which he assumes the common authorship of the psalm to David. How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44 “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” ’? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? How can his interlocutors designate the Messiah as Son of David given this scripture? Asked differently, since fathers do not customarily address their sons, grandsons or any descendant as “my Lord,” to whom was David referring in Psalm 110:1? Antinomy questions begin from a contradiction in scripture and ask how it is to be explained. The usual answer is that the contradictory details are both valid, but that they refer to different things. The answer to the question about the antinomy between David’s son and David’s lord, which is the left open, would be that Son of David refer to the present and David’s lord to the future. Jesus avoids the title Son of David because of its political connotations.[35] Thus, it could point to a tension between faith in the coming of the apocalyptic Son of Man and hope in the present coming of the Son of David who would organize military forces for political liberation.[36]Jesus questions the assumption that the Messiah was a nationalist. He invites his opponents to question the assumption that the Messiah must be a nationalist who seeks to rally popular support for his military victory. Regardless of the scriptural support for the notion that the Messiah is a descendant of David, Jesus uses another Scripture to suggest that the Messiah is more than a son of David, for the Messiah is also his Lord. It would hint that Jesus is more than the Son of David.[37] It suggests that his opponents must think much higher in their view of the Messiah if David calls him Lord. Messianic hopes must rise above the earthly plane. As Matthew makes clear — from the opening genealogy, the birth announcement to Joseph, God’s call of his son out of Egypt, and Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist so that all righteousness might be fulfilled — Jesus is the son of God, the Messiah, which justifies even King David calling him “my Lord” (cf. Matthew 1:1, 14, 18-25; 2:15; 3:13-17). Matthew uses the expression “son of David” as a synonym for Messiah in Matt 1:1; 9:27; 12:23, in conjunction also with “Lord” in 15:22; 20:30-31; and 21:9.
The brief dialogue ends in a paradox for the entire section, for those who came to trap Jesus he was the one who trapped them. In this case, although they did not answer him, the appropriate answer would have been that though tracing his human origin back to David, there would be something divine about the Messiah to set him above David.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4] Grundmann, TDNT, IV, 535-6.
[5] Lose, David J. “Homiletical Perspective: Matthew 22:34-40.” Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew Vol. 2 (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 203-205.
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10] Amy-Jill Levine. If she is right, then we do not need to go down an explanation I have often heard, where people will say that the second half of Jesus' dual commandment meets us where we stand ‑‑ as self‑absorbed sinners. To "love your neighbor as yourself" means extending to one's neighbor the same self‑centered love and concern we all harbor.
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14] Rahner, Theological Investigations, VI, 264ff.
[15]
[16]
[17] Bertram, TDNT, III, 919-21.
[18] Daniel J. Harrington, "The Gospel of Matthew", from the Sacra Pagina Series (The Liturgical Press, 1991), 316.
[19]
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23] Daniel J. Harrington, "The Gospel of Matthew", from the Sacra Pagina Series (The Liturgical Press, 1991),316.
[24] Albert Outler, Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit
[25] John Wesley, “Wandering Thoughts.”
[26] John Wesley, “On Perfection;” A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
[27] Michael Fitzpatrick, “What Cannot Be Seen,” Journey With Jesus for June 6, 2021.
[28]
[29]
[30] John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.
[31] John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.
[32] Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love (Doubleday, 1992), 96.
[33] Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, II, 103ff, 116ff.
[34] Why would the community produce a saying so elusive? Bultmann believed it came from a Son of Man section of the Palestinian church or Hellenistic circles. It is likely the text comes from a tension between the messiah as the Son of Man and the messiah as the son of David, though there is little evidence for such tension. Most scholars believe the saying is a product of the early community.
[35]
[36]
[37]
No comments:
Post a Comment