How fearful is the way Caiaphas dismisses this word of prophecy! What will he say to Christ on the day of judgment? What possible defence will there be for actions so wicked, for judgments so false, for presiding over this travesty? What horror will grip his heart at the realisation of what he has done, of what Christ allowed him to get away with it, because he knew this day would come and he could wait for justice? But in the same way, all who have not come to Christ for salvation, who have heard his message and turned away from it, will tremble when they see the one they despised appointed as their Judge.
Luke 22:67-68 tells us there was more to Christ’s answer. ‘And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe: 68 And if I also ask you [a question], ye will not answer me, nor let me go.’ What is that about? When the high priest said, ‘Aren’t you going to answer?’ Christ said, ‘If I did answer, it would serve no purpose. You wouldn't believe me. And if I ask you a question, you cannot answer, and you won't answer.’ What is he referring to? Matthew 22 records that three days beforehand the Pharisees and the scribes and the chief priests came together in the temple to ask him a series of questions. This was his last occasion that they ever questioned him. They put up their best spokesman, and he answered them all, and they could say nothing, and they fell silent. But then he asked them a question. It's a very key question, and this is what he referred to in the trial. They didn't believe Messiah would be God, that the Son of man, when he came, would be divine, that he would be God as well as man. ‘How can this man say he is the Messiah? He is uttering blasphemy. He is only a man’, they said of Christ. They didn’t believe their own Scriptures. So Christ challenged them: ‘Jesus asked them, 42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?’ – what do you think about Messiah? – ‘They say unto him, The Son of David.’ Everybody knows that. He is the Son of David. Why do you ask such a simple question? The Lord then replies in this way: ‘How then doth David in spirit call him Lord’ – speaking under the inspiration of the infallible Spirit of God – ‘saying, 44 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?’ He quotes Psalm 110. ‘If David then call him Lord,’ – supreme Lord – ‘how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word.’ They couldn't answer because the answer, of course, is that both are true. He is David’s Lord, because he is God; he is the Son of God. David is his creation, and yet he also, who is God, became incarnate and is notionally the descendant of David. He is David’s son, and at the same time. he is David’s Lord and David's Creator, and they were speechless. So Christ has already asked this question and they have been unable or unwilling to answer.
In Psalm 110:1 the Father (‘the LORD’) speaks to the Son (‘my Lord’). This ‘Lord’ has obviously been to earth, for he is told, ‘Sit thou on my right hand’ – be my equal – ‘till I make thine enemies thy footstool.’ What does that mean? To make your enemies a footstool means they are lying down. That's what happened in ancient nations. The king conquered an enemy, and the enemy had to lie down in humiliation with his face in the dust, while the conquering king sat on his throne and put his foot upon him, and he became, symbolically, his footstool, his humiliated, defeated one. It is just a figure when used by God, describing all the haters of Christ, the chief priests and scribes and the Pharisees (with the exception of those who turn to Christ). Those who hated him, who called for his death, who solicited Pontius Pilate to execute him, together with all in the history of the world who have been haters of Christ and the gospel, will be humiliated in the day of Christ returns. You could quote exactly the same thing from Daniel 7:13-14.