"A Psalm of David.
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion
your mighty sceptre.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!
3 Your people will offer themselves freely
on the day of your power,
in holy garments;
from the womb of the morning,
the dew of your youth will be yours.
4 The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest for ever
after the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will execute judgement among the nations,
filling them with corpses;
he will shatter chiefs
over the wide earth.
7 He will drink from the brook by the way;
therefore he will lift up his head."
Psalm 110
The importance of this Psalm may be seen from the fact that it is quoted in the New Testament more than any other Psalm; that is one great significance that it has for us as Christians. Furthermore, the manner in which the Psalm is quoted in relation to the Person and work of Christ is also of immense significance, and it invests it with a unique quality. It is a Messianic Psalm, but, while other Psalms are also Messianic in a 'typical' sense, with their primary reference to an earthly king, this Psalm is directly prophetic of the Messiah and of Him only. It is this aspect that our Lord Himself takes up in His refer- ence to the Psalm, and it is here that we need to begin our study (cf Matthew 22:41ff; Mark 12:35ff; Luke 20:41ff). In His conversation with the Pharisees Jesus showed them that their answer to His question about the Messiah - i.e. that He was the son of David - raised a very real difficulty, which He brought out by quoting the first verse of this Psalm, where David, He said, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls the Messiah his Lord. David, then, saw prophetically that the Messiah was to be exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on High, and he called Him his Lord. If so, then how can the Messiah be his son? This was Jesus' question to the Pharisees. And for them it was unanswerable. Not that it was an unanswerable question; there is an answer to it, but it was an answer they could not give, holding the views they did about the Messiah, for they thought of the Messiah merely as a human figure, greater than David but similar to him, a warlike, lion-hearted hero. But Jesus' question - and the Psalm, and indeed the gospel itself - requires the Messiah to be more than merely David's son; he is also Son of God, 'Whose goings forth have been of old, even from everlasting' (Micah 5:2), made of the seed of David, but declared to be the Son of God with power (Romans 1:4).