Thousands of years ago, four thousand to be precise, it was prophesied in Genesis 3 that the coming Redeemer would be the seed, or descendent, of the woman Eve, and He was born of the virgin Mary. Her virginity also being prophesied seven hundred years in advance. His direct ancestry would include Noah and one of Noah’s sons, Shem. From Shem, the messianic line would continue and run through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Of Jacob’s twelve sons, it was prophesied that the fourth born, Judah, would be the direct ancestor of the Messiah. Judah was the line of royalty, the ruling tribe. Christ, the Messiah, would clearly come through Judah. Yet, there was another biological necessity before Christ would be born, and it would be one to surface from that same tribe of Judah. He would be nearly a thousand years after Judah and nearly a thousand years before Jesus. Think of him as sandwiched between Judah and Jesus. His name was David, the king. We all know him as the shepherd lad who slew Goliath and did battle with the Philistines.
David was a key figure in the prophesies concerning the coming of the promised Messiah. A fascinating passage is found in Matthew 22, on one of the several occasions that Christ tangled with the Pharisees. The text reads, “Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, ‘What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is He?’ They said to Him, ‘The son of David.’ He said to them, ‘Then how does David in the Spirit call him “Lord” saying, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I put Thine enemies beneath Thy feet.’ If David, then, calls him ‘Lord’, how is He his son?’ and no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question.“ No doubt, this was a passage that was mystifying to the Jews, and it is mystifying to the Jews of our present day. But the mystery is solved, and gloriously so, for the readers of the New Testament. How, indeed, could David’s son also be David’s Lord? It just doesn’t seem to make sense.
Oh, but it does. It makes perfect sense. It also makes perfect predictable sense. In His eternal personage as the very Lord of Lords and King of Kings, He who would come after David was also before David. He was David’s pre-existent Lord before David was ever born. He is the eternal Lord. When one understands the theonthropic nature of Jesus, the Messiah, the solution is simple. Christ, in His humanity, was David’s son. Christ, in His deity, was David’s Lord. Look at all the fulfillments in both genealogies of Matthew 1 and Luke 3.
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