Complete Fulfillment, Part 4
God has chosen to reveal his character (and ours) primarily through covenant relationships. This is why covenants form the backbone of the Bible’s story and why it is so important that we understand how they relate to each other and to Christ. The first three parts in this series covered God's covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel (via Moses), and the Levites. Though we’ve admittedly only scratched the surface of our topic, hopefully you are developing a helpful framework for your study of God's word.
Notice in the graphic* at right that each of the Old Testament covenants sits within the ones prior to it and points forward to the one to come. Every human who has ever lived is a party to God’s covenant with Adam at creation. And every descendant of Adam (and Noah) is party to the gospel promise that one day the “offspring” of Eve would deliver a head wound to Satan (Gen. 3:15). In Genesis 12:1 God narrows the focus of his messianic narrative from the sea of humanity to a particular man: through the offspring of Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed (12:3; 22:17-18). Abraham did indeed become the father of many nations, yet only one of them, Israel, would be chosen to carry the Messianic torch (see Gal. 3:8-19).
Within Israel, God again narrowed the messianic focus by entering into a covenant relationship with David. King David had it in his heart to build a great “house” for God, but God had something much bigger in mind:
“Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’. . . Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. . . .Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever’ (2 Sam. 7:5-7, 8b-9; 11b-16, emphasis added).
David would not build God’s house, but God would build David’s house. And David’s son would build God’s dwelling place and reign forever. This is the heart of the Davidic Covenant.
God did indeed raise up Solomon, the first royal “son of David.” And Solomon did indeed build a house for God. But Solomon did not reign forever, nor did his house. After seventeen more Davidic kings (and one queen), the House and kingdom of David collapsed under the weight of its own sin. God did indeed “discipline him with the rod of men.” The kingdom was taken into exile by Babylon. And though God later returned many of the Jews to their homeland, and though they eventually rebuilt Jerusalem and erected a new temple, the glory of the Lord never returned to dwell there, nor was another son of David ever crowned king in Jerusalem.
By the first decade AD, Israel was under Roman rule. King Herod—an Edomite by descent, not a son of David—was a puppet monarch. Israel had been over 400 years without a Davidic king. The whispers of a future Messiah had not died, however. On the day when a firstborn infant son named Jesus was carried into the temple to be presented to the Lord, the hope of freedom from tyranny was still alive (see Luke 1). And soon, thanks to the ministry of John the Baptist, the atmosphere would become electric with anticipation. Could it be that the Son of David was about to come take his rightful place on the throne in Jerusalem and make Israel great again?
The long-awaited Messiah had indeed come, and John the Baptist brought a message of repentance for a reason. The people needed to be reminded why they needed a Messiah in the first place. Rome wasn’t the ultimate tyrant, sin was. In order for the ultimate Son of David to reign supreme, in order for his kingdom to “be made sure forever,” he must first conquer the greatest enemy of all. Unlike all the kings before him, he must not and would not sin. And unlike Israel prior, every citizen of his kingdom would be “taught by the LORD” (Is. 54:13; Jn 6:45).
This Son of David would rule a people cleansed forever from their sin and he himself would become the cornerstone of the ultimate house of God, the church, “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:20-22).
*This graphic borrows several details from Fig. 16.3 in Kingdom Through Covenant, by Peter Gentry & Stephen Wellum. Wellum taught a biblical theology class I audited last summer. When I realized that his book contained a diagram similar to the one I had envisioned, I incorporated several details of his diagram into my own.)
*This graphic borrows several details from Fig. 16.3 in Kingdom Through Covenant, by Peter Gentry & Stephen Wellum. Wellum taught a biblical theology class I audited last summer. When I realized that his book contained a diagram similar to the one I had envisioned, I incorporated several details of his diagram into my own.)