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Rev. Carl ROTH
Guest Column
“What do you think about Jesus?” This is a crucial question for all of us. Non-Christian religions have room for a Jesus of their own conception, saying that He was a good man, a great role model, a moral example, a teacher, a prophet, an avatar. Even unreligious people say that they admire Jesus; just consider the T-shirt that says, “Jesus is my homeboy.” Even some who call themselves Christians simply pick and choose what they want to believe about Jesus, deemphasizing that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and Savior of the world and instead focusing exclusively on His moral teachings.
But any form of re-imagining who Jesus is — without taking full account of what He taught in the Gospels — is just another way of rejecting Him. When Jesus engaged with the Pharisees in Matthew 22:41-46, He set the record straight about who He is. Jesus asked the Pharisees, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”
For David to describe the Christ as his Lord means that the Christ had to be in existence before David. Jesus quotes Psalm 110, which is a prophecy about the Messiah, and it says, “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’” This means that the one true God, the LORD of Israel, the great I AM who appeared to Moses in the burning bush and called Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He is the One who says to David’s Lord, “Sit at My right hand,” that is, “Be My right hand Man and rule My Kingdom.” This can’t be any ordinary man! It is similar to the time in John’s Gospel when Jesus tells the Jews that Abraham looked forward to seeing Jesus’ day, and He said, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” that is, I AM the LORD God of Israel.
We are quickly entering some territory that is very difficult to understand, and it centers in the highest mysteries of our Christian faith: that the One True God is the Holy Trinity — Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that the Christ is Jesus, who is not only a true man but is also the only-begotten Son of God. This is the only way that David’s Son can also be David’s Lord. This is the only way that Jesus could be before Abraham.
And when Psalm 110 prophesies that the Christ, David’s Son and David’s Lord, will sit at the LORD’s right hand, it includes all the things that Jesus would do before He ascended to God the Father’s right hand, from whence He will come to judge the living and the dead. This means that God so loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to take on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, that He would live a perfect, sinless life, loving God and neighbor completely, and then He would lay down His life as a ransom for the masses to redeem us from sin, death and hell. And now the resurrected LORD Jesus calls you to trust in Him as your total Savior from God’s wrath and from the assaults of the devil, for the prophecy says that Jesus will sit at God’s right hand and reign over His Kingdom until He puts all of God’s enemies underfoot and crushes them on the Last Day.
So, what should you think about Jesus? Not just anything you come up with on your own, but rather you are to believe, teach, and confess whatever your LORD has told you about Himself in the Scriptures, most of all that He has done all things for you, to rescue you from the damnation and accusations of God’s Law and to save you for an everlasting resurrected life with Him in heaven. And He has not left you or forsaken you but has told you where you can find His presence and full assurance of your salvation: in His Holy Christian Church. Amen.
