Advent: December 14th

Go and tell my servant David, “Thus says the LORD:...‘When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.’” (2 Samuel 7:5, 12-13)
 
In this chapter, God makes a covenant, a solemn binding promise, to King David that after his death he would someday have a descendant whose throne and whose kingdom would last forever. This clearly is not a reference to King Solomon. As great and as wise as he was, his kingdom and his throne did not last forever. In fact, shortly after King Solomon’s death, the kingdom is torn in two by his son, Rehoboam, and his rival, Jeroboam. Jeroboam will rule the northern kingdom of Israel until it’s fall to the Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC, and Rehoboam will rule the southern kingdom of Israel until its destruction by the Babylonian Empire in 6th century BC. Both Solomon and Rehoboam, and every king thereafter who reigns in the southern kingdom of Judah are physical descendants of David, but none of their kingdoms last forever. They all come to an end until…Matthew 1:1. “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew goes to great length to show in his gospel that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise given to King David one-thousand years earlier. Matthew mentions Jesus as the “son of David” no less than ten times. Far more than any other gospel writer. Mark and Luke each mention Jesus as the Son of David only three times, and John never uses the phrase at all. It is Matthew who records the angel speaking to Joseph in a dream saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:20-21). And Luke records the angel saying to Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk. 1:30-33). Christ was born in fulfillment of the promise given to King David, to establish his kingdom, a kingdom that will have no end, a kingdom that has and continues to advance throughout every nation and every continent as the gospel moves forward, plundering people from the power of sin, Satan, and death, and bringing them into the kingdom of God. Advent is a time to remember the birth of our King who will someday dominate and control the entire world!

Photo by Max Beck on Unsplash