Luke 20:43

Although our Lord was shortly about to enter on His Passion, He proclaims His own Godhead, and that too neither incautiously nor boastfully, but with modesty. For He puts a question to them, and having thrown them into perplexity, leaves them to reason out the conclusion; as it follows, And he said to them, How say they that Christ is David’s son?

They are not blamed here because they acknowledge Him to be David’s Son, for the blind man for so doing was thought worthy to be healed. And the children saying, Hosanna to the Son of David, rendered to God the glory of the highest praise; but they are blamed because they believe Him not to be the Son of God. Hence it is added, And David himself says in the book of Psalms, The Lord said to my Lord. Both the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, but there are not two Lords, but one Lord, for the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. He Himself sits at the right hand of the Father, for He is coequal with the Father, inferior to none; for it follows, Sit you at my right hand. He is not honored by sitting at the right hand, nor is He degraded by being sent. Degrees of dignity are not sought for, where is the fullness of divinity.

By the sitting we must not conceive a posture of the human limbs, as if the Father sat on the left and the Son on the right, but the right hand itself we must interpret to be the power which that Man received who was taken up into Himself by God, that He should come to judge, who at first came to be judged.

Or, that He sits on the Father’s right hand proves His heavenly glory. For whose throne is equal, their Majesty is equal. But sitting when it is said of God signifies a universal kingdom and power. Therefore He sits at the right hand of the Father, because the Word proceeding from the substance of the Father, being made flesh, puts not off His divine glory.

He manifests then that He is not opposed to the Father, but agrees with Him, since the Father resists the Son’s enemies, Until I make your enemies your footstool.

We must believe then that Christ is both God and man, and that His enemies are made subject to Him by the Father, not through the weakness of His power, but through the unity of their nature, since in the one the other works. For the Son also subjects enemies to the Father, in that He glorifies the Father upon earth.

There fore He asks the question, and having excited their doubts, leaves them to deduce the consequence; as it follows, David therefore calls him Lord, how is he then his son?

David in truth was both the Father and the servant of Christ, the former indeed according to the flesh, the latter in the Spirit.

We then likewise in answer to the new Pharisees who neither confess the Son of the holy Virgin to be the true Son of God, nor to be God, but divide one son into two, put the like objections: How then is the Son of David David’s Lord, and that not by human lordship, but divine?

Christ knew “the baptism of John, whence it was.” Then why did He ask them, as if He knew not? He knew that the Pharisees would not give Him an answer; then why did He ask in vain? Was it that He might judge them out of their own mouth, or their own heart? Suppose you refer these points to an excuse of the Creator, or to His comparison with Christ; then consider what would have happened if the Pharisees had replied to His question. Suppose their answer to have been, that John’s baptism was “of men,” they would have been immediately stoned to death. Some Marcion, in rivalry to Marcion, would have stood up and said: O most excellent God; how different are his ways from the Creator’s! Knowing that men would rush down headlong over it, He placed them actually on the very precipice. For thus do men treat of the Creator respecting His law of the tree. …

143. Matthew goes on thus: “Now when the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? Whose son is He? They say unto Him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in Spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on my right hand, till I make Thine enemies Thy footstool? If David then call Him Lord, how is He his son? And no man was able to answer Him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask Him any more questions.” This is given also by Mark in due course, and in the same order. …