In a previous post, I outlined the way Luke uses Psalm 118 through his gospel. Most of that is collected in the last week of his life. Luke does something similar with Psalm 110, all of which is also located in that last week, in and around the Temple.
Jesus directly quotes from Psalm 110 twice; following three tests that Jesus faces in the temple he turns a question back on his questioners by asking them the meaning of Psalm 110.1 (Luke 20.41–44). If David called the Christ Lord, how can he be his son? The scribes don’t seem to answer the question and instead he condemns them resoundingly. The way Luke presents it, this series of confrontations was instrumental in Jesus’ death, particularly that he claimed that he would sit at the right hand of God.
Jesus other quotation of Psalm 110 is in his trial before the assembly of the elders. They ask him if he is the Christ (using language very similar to Satan’s in Luke 4.3, 9) and again he quotes Psalm 110 to say the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God. Jesus’ enigmatic response to their questioning if he is the Son of God, placing the onus back on the questioner while also alluding to the divine name, is seen by the elders as condemnation from his own lips. In a sense, the way Luke reports it, quoting Psalm 110 is why Jesus is crucified.
The string of questions he faced as he reasoned in the temple were about authority to teach and lead Israel. Jesus tests the scribes in response by demonstrating that the scriptures show that the Christ to come has authority greater than David and will sit at the right hand of God himself. Their inability to answer his question in turn undermines their authority before the people, a point that Jesus drives home in Luke 20.45–47. Jesus is greater than David and the scribes will be subject to him.
Most likely the particularly offensive part of this isn’t that Jesus is making a messianic claim, the Messiah is expected to be a man and the question is then whether this man Jesus is the king to come; rather, what would be offensive is the claim that the Messiah would sit at God’s side. It’s a claim to deity and authority beyond that expected by his hearers. Psalm 110 is in book five of the Psalms, focused on the restoration of Israel after the exile and the future restoration of true Israel by the messiah to come: the Psalm’s placement in the corpus of the Psalms encourages the reading Jesus is giving to it.
I think Luke deliberately uses Psalm 110 to frame this whole section of his gospel because the text is riddled with (relatively) uncommon words from the Septuagint version of the Psalm (the Greek translation of the Old Testament known at the time). We have: the referenalso,o pregnancy in Jesus’ prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem (Luke 21.23) and the pregnant women in Psalm 110.3; the use of the words for nations in Jesus prophecy of the near future (Luke 21.10, 24–25) and the reference to the nations in Psalm 110.6; the references to shattering in Luke 20.18 and 21.24 and the shattered heads of Psalm 110.6, possibly also the reference to heads in Luke 21.18 though that feels more of a stretch; also, the use of power in the triumphal entry (Luke 19.37) and Psalm 110.2. Several of those might be tenuous, but the cluster of words around Jesus’ teaching in the temple, particularly in his eschatological discourse in the temple, lead me to think that Psalm 110 is forming part of the background for that teaching.
What that would suggest is that Jesus’ declaration that the Messiah will sit at the right hand of God in power is a declaration not just of authority over Israel but also of a right to judge Israel. The coming judgement in AD70 and the later coming of the Son of Man in glory (as I read it, Jesus speaks first of near judgement and then of far judgement in his eschatological discourse in Luke) are judgements on Israel. Considering Jesus’ insistence in this part of Luke that Israel is a tree who has not borne expected the fruit—though not no fruit—this is a bleak response to their lack of faith and submission to the one God has sent.
What does this help us see? Three things:
Firstly, as before, we see the beauty of the text writ large. These are carefully constructed texts of detailed internal consistency and deliberate artistry. We should enjoy that in order to inspire us to worship the Lord.
Second, that Jesus’ teaching is not a selection of disparate sayings and Luke’s selection of those saying is not random. There are threads of meaning running through them and the selection has been careful in order to display and determine all that the Lord wants to say.
Third, Luke is often called the gospel for the Gentiles. While Luke was, most likely, not a Jew himself and he clearly explains Jewish customs for the benefit of outsiders, we should notice that the whole of Luke’s gospel is riven through with the Old Testament. Luke loves the Psalms. Luke is the gospel writer who is most explicit in telling us (rather than showing us, as the others do) that the Old Testament is Christian scripture and primarily about Jesus and his work. If we’re ever tempted to suggest that the Old Testament is not that important if you’re preaching to a primarily Gentile audience, read Luke’s gospel through again.
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nuakh 