DAVID’S SON AND DAVID’S LORD – E129

1 Kings 2

IT SHOULD be noticed, first of all, that the discussion of this question does not relate to our Lord’s pre-existence, but merely to his relationship to the human family. He became related to the human family, as we have seen, by taking our nature, through his mother Mary. Mary’s genealogy, as traced by Luke, leads back to David, through his son Nathan (Luke 3:31*), while Joseph’s genealogy, as given by Matthew, traces also back to David, through his son, Solomon. (Matt. 1:6,16) Joseph having accepted Mary as his wife, and adopted Jesus, her son, as though he were his own son, this adoption would entitle Jesus to reckon Joseph’s genealogy; but such a tracing back to the family of David was not necessary, because, as we have seen, his mother came also of David, by another line.

But, be it noticed that our Lord’s claim to the throne of Israel does not rest upon his mother’s relationship to Joseph, as some have inferred. On the contrary, had he been the son of Joseph, he would have been debarred from any ancestral right to David’s throne, because, although David’s successors in the kingdom came through the line of his son Solomon, and not through the line of his son Nathan, nevertheless certain scriptures distinctly point out that the great heir of David’s throne should not come through the royal family line of Solomon. If we shall demonstrate this, it will be an effectual estoppel of the claims made by some, that our Lord must have been the son of Joseph, as well as of Mary. Let us therefore carefully examine this matter.

The divine proposition, clearly stated, was, first, that unequivocally and unquestionably the great heir of the throne of the world, the great King of Israel, should come of David’s line. Secondly, it was also declared that he should come Joseph is here styled “the Son of Heli,” i.e., the son of Eli, Mary’s father, by marriage, or legally; or as we would say, son-in-law of Eli. By birth, Joseph was the son of Jacob, as stated in Matt. 1:16.

of the line of Solomon, of the reigning family, only upon certain conditions. If those conditions were complied with, he would come of that line; if those conditions were not complied with, he would come of some other line, but in any event must come through David’s line and be both David’s son and David’s Lord.

Note the Scriptural statement:

“The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn him from him: Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. If thy children will keep my covenant, and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne forevermore.”
— Psa. 132:11,12

“And of all my sons (for God hath given me many sons) he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord over Israel. And he said unto me, Solomon thy son shall build my house…. Moreover, I will establish his kingdom forever, if he will be constant to do my statutes and my judgments as at this day.”
— 1 Chron. 28:5-7

“If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth, with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee [be cut off from thee, from the throne – margin] a man from the throne of Israel.”
— 1 Kings 2:4

The promise of the Messianic Kingdom in Solomon’s line, and in the line of his posterity according to the flesh, is thus made clearly and specifically conditional, contingent upon a certain faithfulness to the Lord; and by all rules of interpretation of language, the implication of this is that unfaithfulness to the Lord would assuredly bar the posterity of Solomon and his line from the throne of Israel, as related to the Messianic Kingdom, according to the flesh. The question therefore arises, Did Solomon and his successors upon the throne of Israel “take heed to their way, to walk before me [God] in truth, with all their heart and with all their soul?” If they did not, they are barred from being of the ancestral line of the Messiah, according to the flesh.

We must go to the Scriptures to ascertain the answer to this question. There we find most unmistakably that Solomon and his royal line failed to walk after the divine precepts. Hence we know of a surety that that line was cut off and abandoned from being the Messianic line, and that it must come through another ancestral line, from David. Hear the word of the Lord:

“And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father and serve him with a perfect heart. If thou seek him he will be found of thee, but if thou forsake him he will cast thee off forever.”
— 1 Chron. 28:9

“And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel…. Wherefore the Lord said unto Solomon, Forasmuch as this is done of thee and thou hast not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded thee, I will surely rend the kingdom from thee…. Nevertheless in thy days I will not do it – for David thy father’s sake; but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son. Howbeit, I will not rend away all the kingdom, but will give one tribe to thy son, for David my servant’s sake and for Jerusalem’s sake which I have chosen.”
— 1 Kings 11:9-13

In harmony with this, the record is that the ten tribes were rent away from the Solomonic line, directly after Solomon’s death – ten of the tribes never acknowledging allegiance to Rehoboam, Solomon’s son and successor. But let us hearken to the word of the Lord respecting the tribe of Judah, and its consort Benjamin, which remained for a time loyal to the line of Solomon, and thus apparently associated with the promised antitypical Kingdom, and Messiah, the great King. The last three kings of Solomon’s line who sat upon his throne were Jehoiakim, his son Jehoiachin (called also Jekoniah and Coniah), and Zedekiah, Jehoiakim’s brother. Let us mark the testimony of the Lord’s Word against these men, and his assurance that none of their posterity should ever again sit upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord – actual or typical. We read:

“As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee hence…. Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? Is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? Wherefore are they cast out (he and his seed), and are cast into a land which they know not? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord: thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.”
— Jer. 22:24-30

“Thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, he shall have none to sit upon the throne of David.”
— Jer. 36:30

Concerning Zedekiah we read:

“Thou profane and wicked prince of Israel, whose day is coming, when iniquity shall have an end: Thus saith the Lord God, Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is; and I will give it to him.”
— Ezek. 21:25-27

Here the complete overturning of the Solomonic line is declared: it was the line that was exalted, and which should thenceforth be debased, while the debased or obscure line of Nathan, which had never made any pretensions to the throne, was to be exalted in due time in its representative, the Messiah, born of Mary, according to the flesh.

Who could ask more positive testimony than this, that the Messiah could not be expected through the line of Solomon – all the rights and claims of that line, under divine promises and conditions, having been forfeited by wickedness and rebellion against God? Thus the claim that our Lord must have been the son of Joseph, and thus have inherited his rights and claims through Joseph, are proven utterly false, for no man of that line shall ever sit upon the throne of the Lord.

This changing of the kingdom from the branch of Solomon to another branch of the house of David is clearly foretold in other scriptures, as we read,

“Behold the day is coming, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David A RIGHTEOUS BRANCH, and a king shall reign and prosper… In his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name that Jehovah proclaimeth him, Our Righteousness.”
— Jer. 23:6 (Young’s Translation)

Mary, the mother of Jesus, seems to have caught this proper thought, or else was moved to speak by the holy Spirit prophetically, when she gave utterance to the remarkable song of thanksgiving quoted by Luke (1:46-55):

“He [God] hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their heart; he hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.”

Here the favored family of Solomon’s line is contrasted with the humbler family of Nathan’s line. The diadem and crown were removed from Zedekiah, and from the line of Solomon, to be given to him whose right it is – the Righteous Branch from the Davidic root.

We have seen how our Lord is the branch, or offspring or son of David, and the line through which his genealogy is properly to be traced, and the full accordance of the Scriptures thereto: let us now see in what respect he was David’s Lord. How could Jesus be both the Son and the Lord of David?

We answer that he is not David’s Lord by reason of anything that he was as a spirit being before he was “made flesh,” and dwelt amongst us – no more than he was David’s Branch or Son in his prehuman existence. Our Lord Jesus became David’s Lord or superior, as well as “Lord of all” (Acts 10:36), by reason of the great work which he accomplished as the Mediator of the Atonement.

“To this end Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living.”
— Rom. 14:9

True, the Logos might properly have been styled a Lord, a high one in authority, as he is styled a God, a mighty or influential one. Likewise the man Christ Jesus, before his death, might properly be styled a Lord, and was so addressed by his disciples, as we read,

“Ye call me Lord and Master, and ye do well, for so I am.”
— John 13:13

As the special messenger of the Covenant, whom the Father had sanctified and sent into the world to redeem the world, and whom the Father honored in every manner, testifying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” it was eminently proper that all who beheld his glory, as the glory of an Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, should reverence him, hear him, obey him, and worship him – do him homage – as the representative of the Father.

But, as indicated by the Apostle in the text above cited, there was a particular and different sense in which our Lord Jesus became a Lord or Master by virtue of his death and resurrection.

This particular sense in which the risen Christ was “Lord of all” – “Lord both of the dead and the living” – is vitally connected with his great work as Mediator of the Atonement. It was for this very purpose that he became a man. Humanity in its depraved condition, “sold under sin” through the disobedience of Father Adam, was helpless – under the dominion of Sin and the sentence of death: and its deliverance from these evils, in harmony with the divine law, required that the penalty of Adam entailed upon his family should be fully met. The race required to be bought back from sin, and Christ became its purchaser, its owner – “Lord of all.” For this very purpose he left the glory of his prehuman condition, and became the man Christ Jesus. And the Scriptural declaration is that he “gave himself a ransom” – a purchase price – for the race condemned in Adam. Thus the whole world was “bought with a price, even the precious blood [life] of Christ.”

But though by virtue of his having bought the race, he has, in the eye of Justice, become its owner, its master, “Lord of all,” he did not purchase the race for the purpose of enslaving it, but for the very reverse object of setting at liberty from sin and death all who will accept the gracious gift of God through him. And the very object of the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom is that through it may be bestowed upon the human family the rights and privileges of the sons of God – lost in Eden, redeemed, bought with a price, at Calvary. It was to obtain this right to release man that our Redeemer became the purchaser, owner, Lord of all. Thus by his death Messiah became David’s Lord, because David was a member of the race purchased with his precious blood.