PROPHECIES PINPOINT THE
MESSIAH:
He Is The Son
Of David.
2 SAMUEL 7:11b-16.
In
the name + of Jesus.
When the Lord first promised the Savior to Adam and Eve, there was not much information given to identify who he would be. That first promise said much about his actions, but it said precious little about his identity. All that was indicated is that he would be a “he” (Genesis 3:15). The promise was passed on from Adam to future generations. For a long time, no further information was given—at least, nothing that is recorded in Scripture. Although the Bible traces the line leading to the Savior from Adam to Noah, I don’t know if each patriarch in that line knew that the line went through him. Enoch believed the promise. Did he know that the Savior’s ancestry went through him? I don’t know.
Because he was delivered in the Flood,
Noah knew that the promise was upheld through him and his family. When Noah blessed his sons, we infer that
Noah declared the line of the Savior would continue through Shem. Later, the Lord himself narrowed our focus
when he told Abraham, “All of the families of the earth will be blessed in
you” (Genesis 12:3). Prophecies
pinpoint the Messiah. A promise which
could have been fulfilled through anyone suddenly is zeroed in on one man. The promise was then passed on to Isaac, then
Jacob, and then Judah. And once again,
if the men from Judah’s line knew that the promise flowed through them, the
Bible does not say it. Isaiah had
prophesied, “A shoot will spring up from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch
from his roots will bear fruit” (Isaiah 11:1). But Isaiah's prophecy was some three hundred years after Jesse. Did Jesse know the Messiah would come
through him and his line? Again, we
don’t know.
The Lord continued to sharpen our focus
with more prophecies. Did David know
that the line of the Savior passed through him?
If he hadn’t known it before, he certainly became aware of it after the
prophet Nathan spoke to him. Prophecies
pinpoint the Messiah.
Once David had established himself as king
of all of Israel, he arranged to have a palace built for himself in
Jerusalem. He was a king, and he wanted
his residence to look like it. After that,
David recognized that the center of Israel’s government was a palace but that
the center of Israel’s worship was a tabernacle. “Tabernacle” may sound fancy, but it was a
wood-frame structure covered with leather and goats’ hair.
“It happened that when the king was
living in his palace, and when the Lord had given him rest from his
enemies all around, the king said to Nathan the prophet, ‘Look, I live in a
house of cedar, but the Ark of God sits under tent curtains’” (2 Samuel 7:1-2). Having this realization, David was committed
to building a magnificent structure for housing the Ark of the Covenant and for
the worship of the Lord. It was a noble
idea, but God had other plans. The Lord
informed David that he was a man of war and of blood. Therefore, the Lord deemed it inappropriate
for David to build a house of worship for him.
The Lord’s temple should not be akin to a war memorial. It was to be a place that proclaimed and
delivered peace. God did not condemn the
idea, but he deferred David’s plan to David’s son.
The prophet Nathan came to David and
announced God’s will. He said, “The LORD …
declares to you that the LORD himself will make a house for
you. When your days are complete and you
rest with your fathers, I will raise up after you your seed, who will come
from your own body. I will establish his
kingdom. He will build a house for my
name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. … Your house will
stand firm, and your kingdom will endure forever before you. Your throne
will be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:11-13,16).
Prophecies pinpoint the Messiah. This prophecy had a partial fulfillment in
David’s son, Solomon. David had made
extensive plans for the temple and its furnishings. He had stockpiled the materials that would be
used for its construction. But it was
Solomon who oversaw the actual building of the Lord’s temple. After six years of construction, the temple
was dedicated to the glory of the Lord.
So was fulfilled God’s promise: “(Your seed) will build a house for
my name” (2 Samuel 7:13).
The Lord’s promise was also partially
fulfilled in Solomon as the Lord had said, “I will establish the throne of
his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:13).
The Hebrew word “forever” has some flexibility to it. It can mean eternally. Sometimes it can refer to an extended period
of time which does not have a foreseeable end.
It is similar to our expression, “This cold spell is lasting
forever!” True to his word, the throne
of David did endure for an extended period of time. However, it came to an end in 586 BC when
Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple, and deported the royal
family.
When the Lord speaks, he does not
lie. When he makes a promise, it does
not fail. If we pick apart the promise
that God had made to David through the prophet Nathan, some may conclude that
God’s promise had failed. God said that
David’s throne would endure forever. It
certainly does not exist today. Therefore,
God’s promise must find its fulfillment in another son of David. Prophecies pinpoint the Messiah. He is the Son of David.
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke both include
genealogies of Jesus. Both document that
Jesus is of the house and lineage of David.
So, Jesus fulfills that criterion.
But now, let’s consider the rest of Nathan’s words to David, because they
do not seem to find a fulfillment in Solomon, at least not one that is recorded
in the Bible.
This is how the Lord spoke of the Messiah
through the prophet Nathan: “I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he sins, I will discipline him with a rod
used by men and with blows of the sons of men.
My faithful mercy will not depart from him as I removed it from Saul,
whom I removed to make room for you.” (2 Samuel 7:14-15). Again, this prophecy pinpoints the Messiah more
by what he will do than by who he is and where he comes from. He is the Son of David, but David had lots of
sons and daughters. I don’t know how
many people could have traced their ancestry to David’s line as the generations
progressed. So, according to this prophecy,
the Messiah would be known by what he would do—or, rather, by what would be
done to him.
Prophecies pinpoint the Messiah. But what about the phrase, “When he sins”
(1 Samuel 7:14)? We know of Solomon’s
sins. He took many foreign wives. He not only accommodated them by building
pagan temples for their hometown gods, but he also joined them in their
worship. Perhaps he was trying to
appease them, as if to say, “Well, if I expect them to worship my God, then I
should be polite and worship theirs.”
Whatever Solomon’s motivation was, he had strayed from the Lord. If he had been beaten with blows of the sons
of men, the Bible does not record that.
Some have reasoned that Solomon’s book of Ecclesiastes was written as an
act of repentance before he died. I hope
that is an accurate deduction.
Jesus, on the other hand, had no sins on
his record. Many spoke against him, accusing
him of gluttony and drunkenness, of guilt by associating with reprobates, and
of being in league with demons. When he
stood trial before people eager to find reasons to convict and condemn him, no
one could. Nevertheless, God the Father
found him guilty of sin. Isaiah foretold
it: “He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon
him, and by his wounds we are healed. We
all have gone astray like sheep. Each of
us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has charged all our guilt
to him” (Isaiah 53:5-6). Jesus became
sin for us in order to deliver us from its curse and penalty. He was spit upon and scourged. He was punched in the face and pierced in his
hands and feet. He was despised by
priests and damned by his Father. All
this for our sins. All this to save us
from what our sins deserve. He was punished
so that we would be pardoned.
Yet, the Father’s love was not withdrawn from
his Son. For, the Son faithfully
completed all that the Father had given him to do. The Lord had promised through Isaiah, “I
will give him an allotment among the great, and with the strong he will share
plunder, because he poured out his life to death, and he let himself be counted
with rebellious sinners” (Isaiah 53:12).
The Son was faithful to the Father, being counted as a rebellious
sinner. The Father was faithful to the Son,
doing for him what he had promised. He
raised up Jesus from the dead as the conqueror over death. The risen Savior has taken plunder from the devil—which
is you. Jesus snatched you from the
dominion of death and the devil. Now the
dominion of the Messiah, the place where salvation is found, is the Holy
Christian Church. So, as promised through
Nathan, “Your house will stand firm, and your kingdom will endure forever
before you.” (2 Samuel 7:16).
Prophecies pinpoint the Messiah. Jesus, the Son of David, lives and reigns
forever. He has made you subjects in his
kingdom—not to threaten and to tyrannize, but to love and to bless. You are not peasants he takes advantage of. He has made you princes and princesses who
enjoy the benefits of his reign—forgiveness of sins, peace of conscience, and the
promise of future glory in an eternal kingdom.
Prophecies pinpoint the Messiah. The prophet Nathan had foretold it, and the apostle
Paul declared that it has been fulfilled in Jesus the Nazarene. St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “This gospel
is about his Son—who in the flesh was born a descendant of David, who in
the spirit of holiness was declared to be God’s powerful Son by his
resurrection from the dead—Jesus Christ, our Lord” (Romans 1:3-4). The Messiah is the Son of David and the Son
of God who lives and reigns over all and forever more.
Prophecies pinpoint the Messiah to show that your faith does not rest on mindless acceptance. Your faith, your comfort, and your hope rest on promises that are historical record and have been fulfilled with verifiable facts. Therefore, your forgiveness is not wishful thinking. Your hope of the resurrection to eternal life is not fantasy. Prophecies pinpoint the Messiah. The Messiah promises everlasting life. These are trustworthy sayings deserving of acceptance and assuring salvation.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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