03.06. Jesus to Be King of the Jews on David's...
CHAPTER SIX Jesus to Be King of the Jews on David’s Throne
DAVID’S THRONE is to be established forever as we have learned in the last chapter. Isaiah and Jeremiah told us about that Branch from the root of David that would restore his throne. No one can dispute that Jesus Christ Himself is that Son of David who will sit on David’s throne and restore again the kingdom to Israel.
There are many Scriptures that mention this Sprout from the roots or stump of David. In Rev 5:5 Jesus is called "the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David," and in Rev 22:16, Jesus Himself says, "I am the root and the offspring of David"!
Jesus to Inherit David’s Throne
Any Christian could not read far in the Old Testament Scriptures without learning that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Seed of David so many times referred to, the righteous Branch that will restore his kingdom, the King who shall reign and prosper. But in the New Testament this is positively stated again and again. When Mary, an innocent Judean virgin, was visited by the angel Gabriel to announce to her that she should become the mother of the Son of God, she was plainly told that Jesus was to rule on the throne of David. Read Luk 1:30-33 and see how definitely and explicitly the literal reign of Christ on earth was foretold.
"And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."
Notice these statements in this Scripture.
- "The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David."
- "He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever."
- "Of his kingdom there shall be no end." The genealogy of Jesus as given through Mary and her father Heli (Luk 3:23-38; Joseph, not the real father of Jesus, was son-in-law of Heli, and as given through Joseph (Mat 1:1-17) both show that Jesus was literally the Son of David and legally the Son of David. Fourteen times in the gospels Jesus is called the Son of David. Therefore Gabriel promised Mary that "God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever." The very words of the Scripture are inspired, and how delicate and exact are the meanings of the words in the Bible! For instances, Jacob had two names, Jacob and Israel.
- "Jacob" was the natural man, a schemer, a trickster, a trader, the thief of his brother’s blessing, the deceiver of his father, the scheming son-in-law of Laban.
- "Israel" was the spiritual name given to the same man when in all night wrestling with the angel of God he learned to prevail and become a prince with God and man.
"Israel" was the man of God, the man of prayer, the victorious Christian. Sometimes Christians like to spiritualize the name Israel and say that all the children of God are spiritual Israelites. But the Scripture here does not say that Christ is to reign over "Israel" but over "Jacob," that is, over literal flesh and blood Jews, the literal, physical descendants of Abraham, the same race over whom David reigned. Had we been told that Christ should reign over "Israel," men would have been quick to say that it meant a spiritual reign in the hearts of Christians. But the Lord caused the angel to use the specific word "Jacob," and the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to write it down so that we might know that the kingdom of Christ on earth will be a literal Jewish kingdom over the house of Jacob on the literal throne of David!
Christ, Like Solomon, to Sit on the Throne of ’Their Father David’ The Scripture tells us that Solomon sat upon the throne of David his father, and the Scripture also tells us that God will give to Christ the throne of His father David. A comparison of these statements in the language of the Bible itself ought to help you to see that Christ will inherit the literal throne of David and will sit upon it literally as Solomon did. For instance, here are some statements of the Scriptures:
"Then sat Solomon upon the THRONE OF DAVID HIS FATHER; and his kingdom was established greatly" (1Ki 2:12).
"He shall be great., and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him THE THRONE OF HIS FATHER DAVID: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luk 1:32-33). The first verse is about Solomon, and the second about Jesus. Solomon sat upon the throne of his father David. The angel said to Mary that the Lord God would give to Jesus the throne of His Father David. If the Bible meant a literal reign in the first case, then why should it not mean a literal reign in the second case?
Any honest interpretation of the Scripture must lead us to the conclusion that the reign of Christ will be on the literal throne of David at Jerusalem, where Solomon reigned. The Genealogy of Jesus The genealogies of Jesus given by the Holy Spirit to Matthew and Luke particularly prove that Christ is the promised Son of David. That genealogy given in Matthew begins with this statement: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Mat 1:1).
Two important points the Holy Spirit makes with regard to this genealogy.
First, Christ is the promised Son of David who will sit upon David’s throne and rule as King of the Jews.
Second, Jesus is the Son of Abraham. This means that Christ is the "seed" of Abraham mentioned in the Abrahamic Covenant (Gen 13:15; Gen 17:7-8). The Holy Spirit calls attention in Gal 3:16 to the fact that the seed is singular, referring to Christ. Christ is THE Son of David. So He is "THE Son of Abraham," and not just one descendant of Abraham. In other words, Christ is the promised King and He is the promised Heir of the land of Canaan with Abraham.
It is an interesting fact that the genealogy given in Matthew is only the official genealogy, not the actual one. The account given in Mat 1:1-16 ends with the statement: "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ" (Mat 1:16). The genealogy given is that of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Then the remainder of the chapter tells how Mary "was found with child of the Holy Ghost . . . before they came together."
Joseph was not the father of Jesus, and the genealogy given is a legal one, but not the actual one.
Now compare with this the genealogy found in Luk 3:23-38 which genealogy starts off with the following words:
"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli."
Mat 1:16 says that "Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary," while Luk 3:23 says, "Joseph which was the son of Heli." Who was the father of Joseph, was it Jacob or Heli? It was Jacob because we are plainly told that "Jacob begat Joseph." Then who was Heli?
Heli was the father of Mary, and Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli.
It would be in accordance with Jewish custom to call him the son of Heli, but actually the words "the son" are not in the Greek, but were supplied by the translators, which they indicated by putting the words in italics. In Luke, then, we have actually the genealogy of Jesus the Son of David and King of the Jews.
Another remarkable difference is shown in these two genealogies.
One is giving the ancestry of Joseph back to David, and the other the ancestry of Mary and of Jesus back to David. Joseph’s line descended from Solomon, David’s son, while Jesus, through Mary, actually descended from David through another son, Nathan.
Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, was a descendant of the last king that sat on David’s throne before the captivity (Mat 1:11). Consider Jechonias, mentioned in Mat 1:11. He is also called Jehoiachin, Jeconiah and Coniah in various places in the Scriptures. Matthew says that Joseph, the husband of Mary, was descended from this Jechonias or Coniah. But Jer 22:30 says of this man that he should be written childless, for none of his seed should ever prosper on the throne of David!
What a wonderful example this is of the inspiration of the Scriptures.
Joseph could not have been the father of Jesus, and Jesus could not have counted His ancestry through the last of the reigning kings of Judah, according to divine Writ. Instead, the literal genealogy of Jesus tells us in Luk 3:31, that He was "of Nathan, which was the son of David." Do not confuse these genealogies nor think them the same; they are not. The two genealogies sometimes have similar names, but they are not names of the same people. The lines diverge at David and come back at Joseph and Mary to prove Jesus the legal and actual Son of David and the Heir of David’s throne.
Wise Men Sought "the King of the Jews"
Those wise men who came from the East to find the Saviour at His birth inquired saying: "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him" (Mat 2:2).
How did these wise men learn about the coming Saviour? They could have learned in only two ways: either they read the prophecies of the Old Testament and understood that Jesus would be the King of the Jews, or they had it revealed to them directly from God. I think they learned it both ways. They were Magi, that is wise men, from the East, most probably from Babylon, since that was the first great nation eastward. And we know from the book of Daniel that a class of great men were there called by such a name.
Daniel, remember, had been the greatest man in Babylon, next to the king himself, through a long period of years and through the reign of several world rulers. His religion and his writings could hardly have been a secret to the scholars of great Babylon. From Dan 9:25, they doubtless learned the approximate time of the Saviour’s first coming so plainly foretold there.
God probably revealed to them through the Holy Spirit something about the nature of this coming Saviour, and gave the star in the East as a sign of the birth of the Child.
We come to the inescapable conclusion that a careful study of the Old Testament by spiritually-minded men led them to understand that the Saviour would be the King of the Jews. The leading of the Holy Spirit confirmed their honest belief. The wise men were right. Jesus is to be the King of the Jews and rule in a Jewish kingdom on this earth. When we read more of the story in Mat 2:3-6, we see that Herod expected the Saviour to rule literally in the land of Palestine, over Jews. His jealousy and fear for his own kingdom led to the murder of all the boy babies who might, he thought, fulfill the promise of God about the kingdom of the Jews.
Read Mat 2:3-6 :
"When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judaea: for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel."
Here we see that "all the chief priests and scribes of the people" agreed with Herod that the coming Saviour would be primarily a King, a Prince of Judah, "a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel."
They proved it by quoting from Mic 5:2! This attitude of all the people expecting Christ to take the literal throne of David and rule in Palestine from Jerusalem over a literal kingdom is shown throughout the Bible. There is not a single indication that any Jew or Christian Gentile in either the Old or New Testament believed otherwise. There were no post-millennialists in Bible times. Every Jew, including the twelve apostles, expected the kingdom of Christ to be literal and that the Saviour should sit on the throne of David. Jesus did not one time rebuke this thought!
Christ Presented as King of the Jews When John the Baptist came as the forerunner of Christ and to announce His ministry, he came preaching, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Mat 3:2). What did he mean?
Surely he must have meant the kingdom which was long foretold in the Old Testament. In fact, the term "the kingdom of heaven" probably was taken from Dan 2:44 where we are told that "the God of heaven" shall "set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed."
John was speaking, evidently, about the kingdom which the God of Heaven would set up, and therefore called it the kingdom of Heaven. A heavenly kingdom on this earth, according to John the Baptist, was at hand. This term "the kingdom of heaven" is used only in the Gospel of Matthew, though the same kingdom is mentioned in many, many other places in the Bible.
Jesus preached the same kind of sermons exactly, in the beginning of His ministry, for Mat 4:17 tells us: "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Just a little later, still in the early part of His ministry, Jesus sent out His twelve apostles as forerunners, not to Gentiles nor Samaritans, and Mat 10:6-7 tells us that He instructed them: "But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." At Hand! What Did Jesus Mean?
John the Baptist and the twelve apostles all preached to the Jews, at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, that the kingdom of Heaven was "at hand." Did that mean it had begun? Did that mean the kingdom would begin unconditionally at some set time, in the immediate future? No, by the exhortation, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," Jesus and His representatives certainly meant that the kingdom of Heaven was now possible and near, in the presence of the King Himself, and that the establishment of that kingdom depended on repentance by the Jewish nation. The kingdom was not "IN hand," it was "AT hand." The term used simply means nigh or near. The kingdom had not begun. If the Jews had repented and accepted Christ as their Saviour and King, then the kingdom would soon have been restored to Israel. In fact, Christ’s coming as Saviour to an individual and as Saviour and King to the Jewish nation are on the same basis. Christ is nigh unto all who call upon Him for salvation. He is "at hand" for every sinner who wants to be saved. That was true then, and is true now about salvation. But concerning the kingdom of Heaven, there is a difference. That kingdom was at hand at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, but after the rejection of Christ as Saviour and King became persistent, malicious and national in scope, then the kingdom was no longer at hand.
Any Jew may trust Christ as Saviour today, for as a Saviour He is still at hand. But Jews cannot have their kingdom until the King returns. Christ can save sinners through the gospel and through the Holy Spirit, and those who are saved are "born of the Spirit" (John 3:6), but Christ cannot reign over Israel in the spirit but must sit in the flesh on the throne of David; for that throne was a literal, physical throne. The kingdom was postponed until the King returns.
Christ Rejected as King The national leaders of Israel, the scribes and Pharisees and elders, were first greatly impressed with the preaching of John the Baptist; and many of them went to be baptized by him in the River Jordan. But they were a self-righteous group and had utterly ignored the command to repent.
John the Baptist called them a "generation of vipers," or snakes, and warned them of the fires of Hell (Mat 3:7-12). These religious leaders were willing to have a king if that did not involve repentance and a change of heart. Actually they were ungodly and wicked; they were Jews outwardly but not inwardly. When Jesus pressed continually the command to repent and denounced their hypocrisy, they began to hate Him. It soon became evident that the rejection of Christ as Saviour and King of Israel was deliberate and national. The last time Jesus had it preached that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand" was in the tenth chapter of Matthew. In the next chapter (Mat 11:20) we are told: "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not." Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum are particularly named as under condemnation for their sins more than Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom, since the latter cities would have repented at the preaching they heard. After this you will find in the ministry of Jesus that His message is not about a kingdom then at hand, for the people refused to repent and the kingdom was postponed.
Some of the common people, without any sincere repentance, would have gladly made Jesus King even by violence, because of His miraculous feeding of the five thousand (John 6:14-15). He Himself said that "the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force" (Mat 11:12. See also Luk 16:16). But as He continued preaching about repentance and being born again, and about His own crucifixion, the Jewish people as a whole, as unspiritual as their leaders, were offended at His preaching and left Him to follow Him no more. "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him" (John 6:66). In John 7:1 we are told that Jesus would not walk in Jewry, that is, among the Jews, "because the Jews sought to kill him." The die is now cast; the Jews have rejected their King, and the story moves on, in the gospels, to the crucifixion.
Christ Crucified as King of the Jews
Christ died for the sins of the world, and we know that God had in mind salvation of sinners when He allowed His dear Son to be crucified. "God so loved the world" that Jesus went to the cross. The plan of Jesus was the same as the plan of the Father. It was no accident when Jesus was crucified. Men did not thwart the plan of God. Christ did not die as a martyr. He Himself said concerning His death:
"Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father" (John 10:17-18).
Christ died as our Passover Lamb (1Co 5:7). "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isa 53:6). In the mind and plan of God, Christ died in our stead and to be our Saviour. But this was not the plan of the Jewish rulers. They hated Jesus because He claimed the right to be King. They accused Him to Pilate and sought His crucifixion on the ground that He claimed to be the King of the Jews.
Luk 23:1-3 says:
"And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King. And Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered him and said, Thou sayest it." When Pilate wrote over the head o£ Jesus, "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews," these wicked enemies of Christ urged Pilate to change the accusation and make it read that Jesus said He was the King of the Jews. But Pilate refused. Christ was crucified as King of the Jews and the crucifixion from their viewpoint was simply a concrete evidence of their refusal to repent and of their rejection of Him as King. The people said to Pilate, "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15). So the Jews rejected their King and the kingdom was postponed. Does that seem unreasonable to you? Then remember that the same plan obtains in the case of practically every sinner.
Christ is offered as Saviour to every man just as He was offered to the Jews. Do you object to the thought that Jews could reject their King, and the kingdom would be postponed and later set tip? Then remember that many a sinner has first rejected Christ, again and again, and then later has received Him as Saviour and Lord. We may safely say that God is willing to save today every sinner who will repent, for the Scripture says that He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2Pe 3:9). But sinners rejected the plan of God as did these Jews.
Many times individual sinners reject Christ too long and so are lost forever. The same thing was true of many individual Jews in the time of Christ, for God has not foretold in the Scriptures that He will save some particular individual. He will save all who put their trust in Him, but individuals may or may not be saved. However, with the nation Israel it is different, for God has plainly promised that Christ shall have His kingdom, and have it He will, when His time comes. But it will be offered them on the basis of repentance; and Israel will repent and be converted, as they ought to have done before. The Church Age, a Mystery Hid in Ages Past
God knew, of course, that Jews would reject their Saviour and King, just as He knows what every sinner will do about the gospel when it is preached to him, just as He knows all things. But that Israel might have the entire responsibility of accepting or rejecting the King of the Jews, most of the events of this present church or gospel age were not made known in the Old Testament times. The prophet Joel foretold the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, but aside from that the prophets of the Old Testament seem not to have had any revelation at all of this entire period of time from Pentecost on through the present to the second coming of Christ.
Jesus Himself did not give revelations concerning the course of this age with its rejection of the gospel, its wars, wickedness, and the worldliness of professing Christians, until after He ceased to preach that the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. To Paul the apostle was first given an understanding of some of the mysteries concerning the church in this age. Eph 3:1-10 tells us how Paul was given this grace to understand and teach how that Gentiles would be in the same body with Jews, the church. And Eph 3:5 expressly says that this mystery was not made known in other ages.
Search all through the Old Testament and you will not find a single reference to the rapture of the saints.
Much is taught in the Old Testament about the second coming of Christ. But mark this, there is no way to tell, from reading the Old Testament alone, that the first and second comings would not all be the same.
Part of the prophecies about Christ’s coming were fulfilled at His first coming. Even more of them are yet to be fulfilled and will be fulfilled at His Second Coming. He has already come as the Lamb of God, but He has not come as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He has already come as the Man of sorrows, rejected, despised, and bruised for our iniquities, as foretold in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. But His. coming to rule on David’s throne, to execute justice on the earth, and with the breath of His lips to slay the wicked, as foretold in the eleventh chapter of Isaiah, has not been fulfilled. The mystery of this present church age coming between the first and second comings of Christ was hidden from the Old Testament prophets. God knew that the Jews would reject their King, but He left the responsibility upon them and did not reveal it until it had come to pass and the kingdom was postponed. This will help you to understand why the prophets of the Old Testament looked forward always to the coming kingdom; and why, in the New Testament Epistles, Christians are again and again exhorted to look forward to the rapture of the saints, before the kingdom, while in the gospels Jesus spoke primarily to Jews and so spoke much about the kingdom but also referred to the rapture (for example, in the parable of the ten virgins, Mat 25:1-13).