Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Jesus Christ as King of Kings
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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1 Kings 11:35-39
One of these promises is conditional, while the other is unconditional. » Unconditional promise: "I will tear the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give ten tribes to you" (verse 31). God goes on to explain that He will leave one tribe, Judah, under the Davidic monarchy in order "that My servant David may always have a lamp before Me in Jerusalem" (verse 36). God did this to honor His promise to David that He would "establish the throne of [Solomon's] kingdom forever" (II Samuel 7:12-13). Christ, the last King, descended from Judah and will sit on that throne forever. » Conditional promise: ". . . if you heed all that I command you, walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as My servant David did, then I will be with you and build for you an enduring house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you" (I Kings 11:38). This is a remarkable promise. God says He will establish in Jeroboam a permanent dynasty over ten tribes if he keeps His covenant.
Charles Whitaker
Searching for Israel (Part Five): Solomon and the Divided Kingdom
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1 Chronicles 29:23
Perhaps the most remarkable part of the "key of the house of David" is the ownership of David's throne. This verse records that, after David's death, "Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD as king instead of David his father." David and Solomon sat on God's throne! The Queen of Sheba provides a second witness to this incredible truth. This apparently Gentile woman understood an important fact about Solomon's throne: "Blessed be the LORD your God, who delighted in you, setting you on His throne to be king for the LORD your God!" (II Chronicles 9:8). Remarkably, God twice refers to David's throne as His own. It is God's in the sense that Christ will eventually inherit it. Christ, "the Son of David, the Son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1), will return to earth, claiming His rightful place as "King over all the earth" (Zechariah 14:9). In Isaiah 9:6-7, the prophet Isaiah writes of the "Prince of Peace" who will eventually sit on David's throne: For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. . . . Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. This Child, this Son, whom we know is Jesus Christ, is the Shiloh of Genesis 49:10. There, Jacob prophesies that "to Him shall be the obedience of the people." Christ is of the lineage of David (Luke 3:23-31); He will ultimately sit on David's throne—forever.
Charles Whitaker
Searching for Israel (Part Four): The Kingdom and the Key
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Isaiah 9:6-7
This revelation does little to define the Messiah in His appearance as a human to crush the ruler of this world and free humanity from the serpent's spiritual grip. However, it describes the greatness of His leadership that will be reflected in the wisdom of His works before being enthroned as the ruler of the World Tomorrow. As King of kings, He will be the Mighty God who rescues and then endlessly rules humanity in the peace it has always desired but could never achieve.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part Eleven): Signs
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Jeremiah 23:5
Jesse had at least eight sons (II Samuel 16:10-11), the youngest of which was David. God chose the line of this young shepherd boy to reign over Israel and ultimately to produce the King of kings: "'Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, 'that I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; a King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgment and righteousness in the earth'" (Jeremiah 23:5; see Isaiah 9:6-7). Both of Jesus' human parents were of the line of David (Matthew 1:1, 6; Luke 3:31), and it was well known during His ministry that Jesus was a "son of David" (Matthew 9:27; 15:22; 21:9; etc.). Before His conception, Gabriel tells Mary, "The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David" (Luke 1:32). Paul reminds Timothy of what this means to Christians: "Jesus, the seed of David, was raised from the dead. . . . This is a faithful saying: 'For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him'" (II Timothy 2:8, 11-12).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Born of a Woman
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Matthew 1:1-17
The book of Matthew opens with a stylized genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 1:1-17). Matthew presents the list in three parts—from Abraham to David, from David to the captivity in Babylon, and from the captivity to Christ—each with fourteen generations. The genealogy is perfectly correct in every way. Except one. What Matthew records is not Christ's biological ancestry but His legal one. Verse 16 gives the proof: "And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ." It is Joseph's family tree! Remember, Christ was not begotten of Joseph but of the Holy Spirit. Legally, Christ could trace his ancestry back to David through his "father" Joseph, though He had not one drop of Joseph's—or Jehoiachin's—blood! We must remember a major purpose of Matthew's gospel: to present Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah to the Jews. The Jews were, and still are, very particular about genealogies. Anyone claiming to be the Messiah would have to present a bona fide, airtight ancestry back to David if he were to be taken seriously (see Psalm 110:1; Isaiah 9:6-7; Jeremiah 23:5-6; etc.). Matthew does just that in introducing Jesus in the first verses of his book. Thus, Jesus, untainted by Jehoiachin's curse (Jeremiah 22:30), has a legal claim to the throne of David through His stepfather, Joseph. Such a thing was legally acceptable under Jewish law.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Jesus Disqualified?
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Hebrews 12:2
Our Savior was joyful that He could do this for us, that He could buy or redeem us to be His purchased possession. Obviously, there was not a whole lot of joy in dying on the cross in the way He was crucified—none at all. It was excruciating and terrible, but there was joy in what it produced—that He had qualified to become King of kings and Lord of lords and our High Priest—the Savior of all mankind, of all those who would believe in Him. There was joy that this step in the process of bringing the Kingdom of God to this earth had been fulfilled. There was joy in heaven that the plan of God was moving forward, and God would then have more sons and daughters. The creative process of refurbishing the entire universe had taken a great leap forward. The King had succeeded. The Savior had saved. What joy there must have been in those in the spirit realm who understood that a great milestone had been passed, making it possible for all men and women who believed to be saved.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Parables of Matthew 13 (Part 3): Hidden Treasure
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Revelation 1:4-8
Verses 4-8 comprise an extended greeting to the seven churches in Asia (later specifically named in verse 11, as well as in chapters 2 and 3). As the human author of the book, John includes himself as a sender of the greeting, but the bulk of it reemphasizes the real authors: God the Father, shown as eternal and sovereign, and Jesus Christ, extolled as "the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth" (verse 5). John ensures that we understand that Jesus is the same One who exhibited His love for us by sacrificing Himself for the forgiveness of our sins and made possible our future glorification (verses 5-6). In verse 8, he carries the identification even farther by quoting Jesus' own words: "'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,' says the Lord, 'who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.'" Lest we misunderstand, John makes certain that there is no doubt that Jesus is the Lord of the Old Testament, the first and the last (Isaiah 44:6; 41:4), the Almighty God, who "declar[es] the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure'" (Isaiah 46:10). This extensive greeting certifies, not only that the prophecy has its source in God, but also that it will come to pass. The greeting also includes "from the seven Spirits who [or which] are before [the Father's] throne" (verse 4), a quite controversial phrase. Commentators are divided among four interpretations, which can be summarized as angelic, symbolic, mystical, and Trinitarian. Understandably, the Trinitarian view—that "the seven Spirits" identifies a so-called Third Person of the Trinity—has the support of most Catholics and Protestants. Their primary reason centers on the fact that this phrase appears between greetings from God the Father and the Son of God. They contend that this phrase refers to the sevenfold description of the Spirit of the Lord in Isaiah 11:2. The book of Revelation itself identifies the seven Spirits as equivalent to the Lamb's "seven eyes, which are . . . sent out into all the earth" (Revelation 5:6). These "seven eyes" probably allude to Zechariah 3:9 and 4:10, where they are shown to be "upon the stone," a symbol of the Branch or Messiah, and directly described as "the eyes of the LORD which scan [or rove] to and fro throughout the whole earth." In addition, Revelation 3:1 states Christ "has [or possesses] the seven Spirits of God," and Revelation 4:5 calls them "seven lamps of fire . . . burning before the throne." This may indeed be a description of the Holy Spirit, not as a "Person" somehow divided into seven parts, but as a seven-branched conduit of God's communication to the seven churches mentioned earlier in the verse. Thus, John includes "the seven Spirits" as a source of the prophecy to specify how it was imparted to the seven churches. The apostle Paul pens a similar greeting in II Corinthians 13:14, in which he writes of "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit," meaning that God's Spirit is the means by which Christians can have a relationship with God.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The All-Important Introduction to Revelation
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