The Most Quoted Psalm in the New Testament

Psalm 110 is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament, used eight times in all, and it only has seven verses! In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus quotes it when He asked the religious leaders, only a few days before His death and resurrection, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” Matthew 22:42, Mark 12:28, Luke 20:41. (other references: Acts 2:34, Hebrews 1:13, 5:5 – 6, 7:17, 21.)

The religious leaders of Israel had been trying to trap Jesus in anything they could find from the very beginning of His ministry. After Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, they intensified their efforts with a barrage of questions. The Lord handled each question in brilliant fashion, silencing them every time.

Finally, Jesus asked them this question about the Messiah, the Christ. It was an easy answer for them. They quickly said, “The son of David.” This was based upon the covenant that God made with David, that his son would reign on his throne from Jerusalem, forever. But then Jesus introduced one of the songs of David concerning God’s Messiah, Psalm 110; “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.’” Then came the follow-up question from Jesus, “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”

The religious leaders knew that Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, David’s tribe. They knew that “son of David” was one of the favorite names that the crowds called Jesus. They knew that Jesus was a great teacher and were jealous of Him because of the great crowds that followed Him. But when the crowds in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday started attributing to Jesus the title of Son of God with their shouts from Psalm 118, “Hosanna…Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord…,” it was too much for them.

When Jesus cleaned house in the Temple that day, turning over the money changer’s tables and crying out “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people, but you have made it a den of thieves.” They thought He was acting like He owned the place (He did! They just didn’t know it.)

But they could not argue with Psalm 110. It was God’s word. David wrote, in the Spirit, of the divine nature of the Messiah, his son. Everyone knew that David sure wasn’t divine! Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet would be the first to vote “no” to that suggestion! But David’s greater son, the one that God spoke of in His covenant with David, would be God’s Son as well as David’s son, the Messiah; our Lord Jesus Christ, fully man, as God intended man to be, and fully God as the eternal Son of God, the Christ, slain before the foundations of the world; in one individual, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is His name given to Mary and Joseph before He was born. This is His name as man, just like us, yet without sin. What an amazing truth, the incarnation, God in flesh, born in Bethlehem.

Oswald Chambers said, “Christianity is unique in the world’s religions not so much with the Fatherhood of God, but rather with the Babyhood of God!” God was born and placed in a feed trough because there was no room in the Inn.

Psalm 110 is the most quoted psalm in the New Testament because of this truth; it points to the true nature of the one-and-only begotten of the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. It means that His life is the only one that fully pleased the Father. Knowing Christ pleases the Father, which is what it means to worship the Father in spirit and truth.

Today, pray and ask God to show you one of the characteristics of His Son in you. As you express more and more of His life as yours, you become more and more a true worshiper, who worships the Father in spirit and truth.