Hello everybody, and welcome in to episode 122 of the Bible 2021 podcast. We are reading Matthew 20 today and our focus is on How is Jesus the Son of David? (I Though His Father’s Name Was Joseph!) We are a daily 10 minute podcast, where we will dig in to the truth of the Word of God by reading one Bible chapter a day and discussing it. Welcome to new listeners in . Thanks for listening! Our goal is to encourage DAILY Bible reading, so you can jump in at any time and join with us. We want to invite as many people as possible to join us in daily Bible reading, so help spread the word and share the podcast Don’t forget about our web-page, Bible2021.com – contact page, show notes, transcript and more– Click here for our Bible 2021 reading plan\
When you find something repeated in the Bible, you can always know, since the Word of God is inspired by the unerring and intentional Holy Spirit, that the repetition is there for a very, very important reason. In Isaiah 6, the seraphim cry ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ not because they have nothing else to say, but because repetition in Hebrew is a way of enhancing and emphasizing. That Jesus, for three chapters in a row, keeps teaching us about greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven being fundamentally and profoundly different from greatness in the eyes of humanity is NOT unintentional. Consider His words, yet again, on the true meaning of greatness:
25 Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. 26 It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Though this is not our focus today, it is such an important teaching of Jesus – one often ignored – that I can’t read through this passage and not emphasize it. Jesus tells His disciples that people in power often revel in their power and abuse it, but for followers of Jesus, we must NOT do that sort of thing. If we would be great, we must be servants. Jesus is our model – He did not come to have people serve Him- He came to serve. So must we model that kind of humility and character.
Let’s go ahead and read Matthew 20, and, as we do, consider the title that the blind men call Jesus.
These amazing blind men – who see better than most – call Jesus the son of David. What does this mean? To understand this, we need to go all the way back to the Old Testament – to David, a man after God’s own heart. in 1 Chronicles 17, we see David declaring his intention and desire to build a temple for God to house the ark of the covenant, and to be a place where God dwells on earth. So the prophet Nathan – a mighty man of God, tells David to do all that he desires to do, because God is with him. However, it appears that Nathan might have spoken a bit presumptuously. Certainly God was with David, but David had been a warrior, and God desired a man of peace to build His house. So God sends a pointed message to David, basically saying that he was not to build God’s house, but his son would build God’s house. As Nathan is explaining this situation to David, God speaks this promise through the mouth of Nathan:
“‘Furthermore, I declare to you that the Lord himself will build a house for you. 11 When your time comes to be with your ancestors, I will raise up after you your descendant, who is one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. 12 He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will not remove my faithful love from him as I removed it from the one who was before you. 14 I will appoint him over my house and my kingdom forever, and his throne will be established forever.’” 1 Chronicles 17:10-14
It is an incredible promise, and David does not seem to be disappointed in the least, but responds by coming into the Lord’s presence, and praying a prayer of thanksgiving. Decades later, King Solomon, son of David, would go on to build a magnificent temple, exactly as Nathan foretold. Except…if you really read what Nathan says, and you look at what Solomon did…you see that Solomon did NOT fulfill this prophetic word fully, only partially. Towards the end of his life, Solomon at least partly fell away from God, and his throne and kingdom were most certainly NOT established forever. Solomon was NOT appointed over God’s house and kingdom forever, and his kingship ended after just a few decades. So- what gives? Was God exaggerating somehow? Absolutely not – this is what we call dual-fulfillment in prophecy. We see it all throughout the Old Testament – a prophecy of God is partially fulfilled, and then completely fulfilled later on. (For instance, the prophecy we read in Isaiah 7 – Isaiah’s wife did indeed have a child, but the prophecy of the virgin conceiving and bringing forth a child was not fulfilled until the birth of Jesus around 700 years later.)
It simply cannot be that God, through Nathan, was talking about the eternal kingdom of Solomon – God was talking about another son or descendent of David – Jesus. And the house that Jesus would build would not be made of brick and mortar, but would be the household of God – the church, the people saved by Jesus.
Around 200 years after the death of Solomon, Isaiah the prophet also foretold the coming of the Son of David:
Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
a Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
a Spirit of counsel and strength,
a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
3 His delight will be in the fear of the Lord. Isaiah 11:1-3
One more amazing thing here – in all four gospels, the only people that identify Jesus as the Son of David are the Syro-Phoenician/Canaanite woman and blind people. A foreigner and people who can’t see are the ones who really and truly see who Jesus is. The Gospel writers do not in any way hint to us about this remarkable truth, but I see it as almost a sort of modern day Easter-egg (that is, a surprising thing hidden in the text) that the Holy Spirit caused to happen.
Bible Memory verses for the month of May: Matthew 28:18-20 18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
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