“But hearing that He had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees were gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, questioned [Him], testing Him, and saying, Teacher, which [is the] great commandment in the Law? And Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second [is] like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments all the Law and the Prophets hang. But the Pharisees having been gathered, Jesus questioned them, saying, What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He? They say to Him, David’s. He said to them, Then how does David in Spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit off My right until I should put Your hostile [ones] as a footstool for Your feet? Then if David calls Him Lord, how is He his son? And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day to question Him any more” (Matthew 22:34-46; underlining mine).
If someone were to argue that these astute, erudite, and highly-esteemed Pharisaical theologians should be given a bit of a break due to some of the cryptic passages concerning identity of the Christ (Messiah), then, well, the request is not reasonable. For even if one were to grant that SOME passages are not “super-clear,” we see that they are quite “clear enough” for them to be considered culpable for not understanding the eternally-weighty significance of Jesus’ question:
“Then if David calls Him Lord, how is He his son?”
Of course Jesus knows that He is the Son of David. And clearly from the above text, the Pharisees had quite the “truncated” theology concerning the identity of the Davidic Son whom the Prophets foretold.
Agrammatos 