Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1907-08-08
Whose Son is He?

gathered together, Jesus asked them a
question saying, What think ye of the
Christ? Whose son is he? They say
unto him, The son of David He saith
unto them, How then doth David in
the spirit call Him Lord"'-St. Matt
%: 42-3.
These words, particularly the ques-
ton, "What think ye of the Christ?
Whose son is he?" may fifty suggest to
us the thought of our estimate OF
Christ as the Son of God, and the
ground on which we rest our faith.
From all the Gospels, and particularly
from the fourth, we receive vivid i'm
preston of the running fight of
criticism and controversy which the
enemies of our Lord waged upon Him,
especially when he was in Jerusalem.
The whole issue turned upon his claim
to be the Messiah, or the Christ. The
hope in a Messiah who soon should
come was deeply seated and univer-
sally prevalent among the Jews at the
beginning of our era. In presenting
Himself to the Jews as the Messiah, or
Christ, our Lord was simply making
| use of that idea and term which would
most fully convey to them the reality
that He was. 1t was necessary to put
the new wine of Christ's revelation of
| God into the old bottle of the Messianic
concept.
The Pharisees thought of the Mes
siah as an early monarch, as de-
liverer from foreign oppression and
conqueror of the GENTLE nations. He
was to raise again the splendors of
David, and so to prove himself the son
of David. But they laid equal stress
upon his actual descent from David.
Among the Pharisees the Messiainic
hope had come to be mixed up with a
sort of ligitimism as narrow and ia
natical as that ever associated with
the houses of Stuart or Bourbon. The
Messiah must be a real descendant of
David, able to prove his genealogy to
the satisfaction of all. This legitimist
| demand was an essential part of the
old wine which the Pharisees insisted
should remain in the old bottle. Our
Lords own disciples we're saturated
with the same idea of legitimism,
that is, that the Christ must be a real
descendant of David according to the
flesh; and, accordingly, we fine elabo-
| 70 of tnn Ntcy in fyun nf GnanalG
trace the genealogy of our Lord to
David; but our Lord Himself seems
to have placed about IS much value
upon these well-meant efforts as did
Napoleon upon the efforts of his imper-
ial father.in-law to prove that the
Bonapartes were of ancient royal
descent. The new wine was so differ
ent from the old, the conception of
Messiahship which our Lord had come
to reveal was so different from the
conception held by the Pharisees, that
the question of physical descent from
David appeared in the light of the for
mer as ofvery secondary and trivial
Importance. The question which our
Lord put to the Pharisees had one
meaning and value for them and quite
another meaning and value for Him.
To them the all important answer was
the one which they gave, viz, "the Son
of David". When our Lord turned
} their words back upon them and asked
again, "How then doth David in the
, ! ;.;t I In In, Of
feet saying to them, Your answer does
> not 60 to the heart of the question
: you are dealing with tr.vialities anC
accidents. am not asking about the
8 genealogy of the Messiah; ] am asking
the vastly more important question
as to what the Messiah is in Hill
. inmost nature and character, That il
r what I mean when | ask, What thinl
am not asking about ancestors, bu
4 about character and spirit, about duty
: and mission. Since David in the Spiri
t called him Lord, it is simply irrelevan
to lay emphasis upon the Messiah
descent from David. We must lool
= higher than David if we are to under
stand the personality and nature of tn
Messiah-tne Christ. He may be
son of David, but if He is only that
}. He is not the Christ.
}. To the Pharisees sonship suggested
only the idea of material genealogy
Our Lord used it in an ethical sense
- Our ord paver rafarrod to HE annas
try. He never called Himself the Sol
: of David. He never said, am what
;, am because of such and such descent
e He did call Himself the Son of Man an,
J. the Son of God, but these terms, it i
" evident, express not origin or descent