Matthew 22:41-46

41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “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?” 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

We’ve been told from the first verse of Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus is the “son of David” [1:1]. Here, Jesus doesn’t dispute that fact, but using Psalm 110 he proves to the Pharisees that though the Messiah is the son of David, he is also greater than David, because David calls him “Lord.”

This argument marks the end of his debate with the religious leaders of Jerusalem, and the final chapters of Matthew show us what it means that Jesus is the Messiah: namely that in perfect obedience to the will of God, Jesus will go to the cross to die, and that his obedience will then be vindicated by the resurrection.