Having answered and silenced those who were trying, by their questions, to trap Him, Jesus puts a question to them – ‘How can the Messiah be David’s son when in Psalm 110 he calls him Lord?’ This is not about petty theological point scoring but rather a pivotal prophetic witness to the fact that the Jews had a false idea of messiah. The ‘Christ’ was much more than the son of David – he was and is the divine Lord – the Son of God.
It is as the Lord of the Temple (Malachi 3) that He publicly exposes the hypocrisy and insincerity of the teachers of the law and the failure to discern between what is false and what is true. For a brief time the temple is restored to a place where the Lord is present and where truth is proclaimed. As his living temple, we need to know who it is who stands in our midst and listen to His words.