Jeremiah 23:5
Jeremiah had one of the most difficult assignments of any prophet of God in the Old Testament. He was sent to the people of Judah to warn them about the impending invasion of Babylon and the destruction of the capital city of Jerusalem. The people of Judah, especially her leaders, firmly believed that, because Jerusalem was the city of God where the Temple was built and where the throne of David had been established, there was no real threat from any foreign power.
But Jeremiah continually prophesied against the sin of the nation and especially about the sin and failures of Israel’s leadership; the kings who sat on David’s famous throne in Jerusalem. Because of their failure to lead the people back to God, God was going to remove the city of Jerusalem and there would no longer be a descendant of David ruling there. Jeremiah’s ministry lasted right up to the time when the Babylonians came and knocked down the walls of the holy city and carried the king away into captivity in Babylon, leaving the city of David in a state of desolation. For the people of Judah, this was the one thing that seemed to spell the end of their world and all their hopes.
But in all his predictions about Jerusalem’s fall, Jeremiah also gave hope for the future, beyond the period of captivity in Babylon. This would not be the end of the nation. God would not desert them completely, despite His temporary wrath against them. Eventually, another ruler would spring forth from David’s line. He would be a righteous king, approved by God, and successful in all his endeavors. A righteous branch from out of David’s kingly line would come to do what all previous rulers and leaders of Israel had failed to do. The people of Israel were looking for a king who could save them from their troubles and give them peace and security. Jeremiah promised that this king would come, even when this looked to be impossible.
The fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy would require a man from David’s line, a man who was perfectly righteous in the sight of God, and a man who would be a king. The only person who could have fulfilled these requirements was Jesus Christ. The Gospel makes it clear that there was more to this prophecy than just the political fate of Judah and restoring them to their land. God was really leaking something about how His great plan of salvation would finally be accomplished.
The prophecy required that a man come from David’s royal lineage. The righteous branch springing forth from David’s line was fulfilled when Jesus was born. This fact was announced at his birth and then confirmed in the inspired writings of the Gospels. Matthew and Luke are particularly interested in the events surrounding the birth of Christ and in connecting these events to Old Testament prophecies. Both Gospels connect the birth of Jesus to David’s royal succession. The Messiah had to come from David’s family. Both Matthew and Luke give careful attention to the human ancestry of Jesus. In Luke, the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that “the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1.32).
Matthew also focuses on the Davidic lineage of Jesus, but in a subtle fashion. When the holy family is forced to flee from Herod into Egypt, Joseph decides to then resettle in Nazareth. Matthew writes that this fulfilled what was spoken through the prophets: “He shall be called a Nazarene” (Matthew 2.23). But a careful reader of the Old Testament will recognize that those exact words were never uttered by any prophet. Rather than quoting an exact phrase, Matthew is referring to several prophecies about a ruler coming forth from David’s royal lineage. The word from which the town of Nazareth is named means a shoot or a branch. Jesus is a Nazarene, which means that Jesus is the shoot or branch who would come from David to rule over Israel.
The prophecies about the Messiah promised that He would be a physical descendant of King David. The Jews were expecting a flesh and blood Messiah. They understood that much at least. The New Testament makes Christ’s physical descent from David a major point of the Gospel.
In his greatest exposition of the Gospel, the letter to Rome, Paul said he was “set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1.1). The Messiah can be identified by his human genealogy. The Savior was not going to be born a Greek, a Roman, or a Babylonian. He was going to come from the seed of Abraham and from David’s royal family. In the modern world when we want to give our qualifications for a job or position we present a resume. Our resume usually lists our experience and accomplishments which qualify us for the position. But in the ancient world, your resume would have been your genealogy. When the Gospel writers present Jesus’ lineage they are giving us His resume for being the Messiah that God had promised Israel. Jesus has the right qualifications to be the Christ who fulfills the promises and prophecies God made to Israel in the Old Testament.
Gentile Christians often seem to miss the importance of these facts. We often disconnect the Gospel and Jesus from the story of Israel and the Old Testament, as if Jesus just appeared out of nowhere. But the Savior of the world could not have just appeared suddenly, as if from nowhere. Think of how confusing and mysterious that would have been! Instead, God had carefully prepared for the coming of His Son into the world. God set aside a special people and prepared them for what He was going to do in the world.
That is why the Gospel is for the Jew first. They were the people chosen to bring the Savior into the world. Without the whole history of the Jewish people, the birth of the Savior would have had no context at all. Jesus is called the King of the Jews. And He is that before He is anything else to us. Jesus was not born in Rome or Athens but in Bethlehem of Judea. The Savior of the world was and is a Jew. When we become Christians, we are becoming a part of the whole history of God with Israel.
Of course, Jesus is not just for the Jews. He is also the seed of the woman, prophesied by God Himself in Genesis 3:15. Because Jesus is a human being He can be the Savior of all people descended from father Adam. Matthew and Luke both show Jesus’ birth in the context of Judaism and the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. But John begins his Gospel in a more universal context. The old philosophers had always been wondering about the Logos or the meaning and logic of the universe. John picks up this language and uses it. There is a Logos behind the world from which everything has been made. But then John says that the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn. 1.14). John also identifies this Logos as God (Jn. 1.1). The central teaching of Christianity is that a member of the Godhead put on a human body and came into the world to be with us.
If this is a struggle to grasp, you must know that it is one of the mysteries of the faith and has always been difficult. The greatest controversies in the early history of the Church were concerned with the Deity and the humanity of Christ. Where the old heretics went wrong was in denying either Christ’s humanity or His deity. Some of the early Gnostics thought it was revolting that God should have a human body, so they taught Jesus only appeared to be human and would have left no footprints there on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Modern heretics say that Jesus was certainly a man but not God. But the Scriptures hold out both His humanity and His deity. All true Christians believe that Jesus is both God and man and this is something completely unique in history. There is no other religious leader who has claimed to be God.
Unlike other religions that only teach an ethic or a way of life, Christianity is based on the unique identity of the Founder. This means that it is important what we say we believe about Jesus. Of course, we must believe that He was a real man. But simply believing that Jesus was a real, historical person does not make you a Christian. We must believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came to fulfill all of God’s promises to Israel in the Old Testament. We must believe that Jesus was the Divine Word who became flesh. If we receive Him as the Son of God, then He will make us sons of God.
The prophecy not only required a man from David’s line but a man perfectly righteous in the sight of God Himself. Jeremiah’s message was that the leaders of Israel had failed miserably. The people had broken the covenant and were going to be sent into exile. Of course, Israel’s situation was the situation of the entire human race. All of Adam’s children were sinners who had been alienated from God. God’s revealed solution to this problem, as prophesied by Jeremiah and by other prophets of God, was to send a man who would be righteous in God’s sight and because of his righteousness and approval would be able to save the people and restore them to a right relationship with God. And that is what Jesus came into the world to be and to do.
As a man, the Son of God kept the Law of God perfectly. Jesus was the only perfect man, the only perfect Jew under the Law, who has ever lived. Jesus was born under the Law so He could redeem those who were under Law (Gal 4.4-5). We were under the bondage and the condemnation of the Law, but Jesus never was under the Law’s condemnation. We know very little about the first thirty years of Jesus’ life. He appears in the Temple at age twelve and confounds both His parents and the religious leaders. Even at the tender age of twelve, Jesus knew that He had to be about His Father’s business. For the entire span of His relatively short earthly life, Jesus did nothing but the Father’s business. And this is what makes Jesus unique: He was the only man in history to only, always do the will of God. He never sinned. He never broke a commandment. He kept the Law perfectly.
The idea that God is a law-giver, even though it is basic Bible doctrine, is unpopular in our culture. But if God is our creator, then He has the right to give us commands. And when God gives a command it is never a suggestion that is optional. God’s Law must be kept.
The covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai was based on God’s Law, summarized in the Ten Commandments. God’s Law is God’s Word and is an expression of His nature, which cannot simply be ignored or set aside lightly. God made it clear to Israel that if they broke His Law and were unfaithful to the covenant He made with them, He would curse them. Jeremiah and the other prophets came along to tell Israel that they had indeed broken that Law and were to face the covenant curses God had promised.
Breaking a command of God, even one, brings a curse. Adam and Eve had also experienced this reality when they disobeyed God. It is the story of the whole human race, not just for Israel. The whole story of the Old Testament is about the collective failures of humanity. We just kept doing what our father Adam had done in Eden. Israel received a special revelation of God’s Law, but they did not keep it. Everyone, even God’s chosen people, were failures. Setting aside His Law was not an option. The Law had to be kept, but no son of Adam or daughter of Eve could do that. Sin had mastered the children of Adam.
What did God do? God started over. Jesus is a new start, the second Adam. Adam sinned and was cursed. Israel sinned and was cursed. But Jesus did not sin. He was tempted like us, yet He did not sin. So, God could start over in Jesus with a perfect man who was the Head of a new humanity. This is exactly Paul’s argument in Romans when he says: “as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5.19). Adam’s race was condemned, but Christ’s race is accepted as righteous. Jesus succeeded where Adam failed, so Jesus is now the progenitor of the New Humanity. In Adam we were unrighteous, in Christ we are righteous. “Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface, stamp Thine image in its place: second Adam from above, reinstate us in Thy love.”
This is a difficult doctrine in our individualistic culture. The idea that one person can stand in or represent many other people seems unfair. But we are very familiar with this concept, which is called a Federal Head, in the legal process. When people have trouble with the law, they hire a representative, a lawyer, to make their legal case. If you have a good lawyer, you get a good deal in court, even if you are guilty. Jesus is our Federal Head, our representative, who can legally represent us before a righteous God. Even though we are guilty, we get a good deal with God because we have a good representative in Christ. “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2.1). We are not righteous. But He is righteous. We are accepted by the Father in Him.
There was a man in the Old Testament named Mephibosheth. He was the son of Jonathan, King David’s friend. After Saul and Jonathan had been killed in battle and David was made king of Israel, many of Saul’s sons were killed. But David had made a covenant with Jonathan. And so, David found Mephibosheth and invited him to stay with him in Jerusalem and eat at his table every day. There was nothing in this for David personally. Mephibosheth was not a great warrior who could fight in David’s army. Mephibosheth was lame in both his feet. But he got a free ticket to live with the king just because of the covenant David had made with His father, Jonathan. You and I are Mephibosheth. We have been invited to come to God because of the grace of Jesus Christ and His righteousness. Even with the lameness in our feet, our sin, we are still able to come and eat at the King’s table. But it is not for anything we have done or anything that we can bring to the table. It is only because of the righteousness of King Jesus.
It is not hard for us to look at ourselves or at each other and find faults. But if you look at Jesus, you will never find any faults. In fact, Jesus just looks better and better! Most people who object to Christianity usually do so because of the imperfections of Christ’s followers, but seldom because of Christ Himself. That is really no surprise. We freely admit our failures. But we see no failure in our Lord. And neither does God the Father. God is perfectly pleased with His Son. And if we are in Christ, God will be pleased with us and will credit righteousness to our account.
The coming of Christ brought in a new order. We must come to God in Christ. Christ has fulfilled the Law, so we no longer come to God through Law, we come through faith in Christ. The covenant God made with Abraham was based on a promise of blessing through His Seed, not through law, and now that Seed has come. And so, we can all agree with Paul’s desire to “gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Phil. 3.9).
The fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy also required a king to reign. Jesus was born to be a king and that fact was announced before His birth. His royal credentials were presented and confirmed. He was the heir to David’s eternal throne that God had promised to David himself.
David was a shadow of the Christ who would come from his own body. David was the king that God had chosen, not the one that the people had recognized. Saul was the kind of king the people had wanted. The same thing was true of Jesus. He was God’s King, but not the kind of king who could be recognized or accepted by the world. The Romans would see him as an upstart and as a rebel. The Jews wanted a man of war who would kick out the Romans and reestablish their earthly power.
The fact that there was no room for Him in the inn in Bethlehem was a precursor to Jesus’ earthly life. He came to His own, prepared people, but they did not recognize or receive Him. Jesus was going to be made King by God, not by the praise and adoration of men. He came to do the will of God, not the will of men. He came to establish the Kingdom of God, not an earthly kingdom. The world did not and still does not want Him as their King, which was also prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures (See Psalm 2; 110). The world has always been in rebellion against God’s authority and will not accept His choice of Jesus as King. Jesus is a threat to the world and to everyone who wants to live his own life. Of course, you don’t get to vote for who is king. The only vote that counts in this case is God’s choice. God has exalted Him and given Him a name above every other name.
There can be no grey area here. No middle ground is possible. We either accept Him as the king or we are against Him. This kind of absolute truth is what continues to be a stumbling block to our relativistic culture. But the Scriptures make no apologies for calling Jesus the Lord of all. The fact that He is God’s chosen king means that He is everyone’s king. He is not just the King of the Jews. He is the King of Africa, China, England, Pakistan, Russia, and even the United States!
The will of God is absolute, but it is always good. Satan has tempted humanity to believe that God is an evil ogre who is keeping us from really being free and enjoying ourselves. It is the oldest of lies. We have believed that it was better to go out on our own in the world rather than submit to God’s authority. The source of all our trouble and all our insecurity stems from the fact that we have left the Father’s house, like the Prodigal Son, and are trying to make it on our own. When we seek His Kingdom first, then everything else comes with it, and we can rest in His love, like a son in the arms of his father. There is a direct connection between Christ’s authority and our security in God’s love. Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ because Christ is at the right hand of God.
In the musical, The Fiddler on the Roof, when all the Jews are being forcibly evicted from their homes, one of the young men asks: “wouldn’t this be a good time for the Messiah to come?” In all their troubles it had been a question that the Jews had been asking for centuries. But not the Jews only. It is deep in the heart of humanity to want a savior who can bring us out of our troubles and into a place of peace and security. All people continue to look for saviors: political, economic, personal, philosophical and religious. We want someone to save us from our sorrows, insignificance, loneliness, and anxiety. We want to feel that we are secure and that our lives matter and that everything might turn out to be okay in the end. We want hope. We want peace. And we want joy. This is what the world talks about at Christmastime. But every year at Christmastime people look around at the world and wonder why things are still such a mess. What are we doing wrong? Wouldn’t this be a good time for the Messiah to come? But He has come. One of our favorite Christmas songs declares “Joy to the world, the Lord is come!” Why has He come? “He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.” But how do we get His blessings? “Let earth receive her King; let every heart prepare Him room.”
