Samuel 7:12-13 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. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
Second Samuel 7 features God’s promise to raise up David’s descendant Solomon as king, with the promise that he would build the Temple (“a house”) in verse 13. Yet the “house” also means the line of Davidic descendants
At the heart of the Old Testament is the expectation that God will send a unique king, associated with the Davidic dynasty, who will bring God’s blessing to the nations of the world. Significantly, he will sacrifice his life to atone for the sins of others.
The path towards the fulfillment of these promises eventually leads to the Davidic dynasty. Through David and his son Solomon, God establishes Jerusalem as his holy city where he dwells among his people. When subsequent Davidic kings fail to trust God fully, various prophets predict that God will raise up a righteous Davidic king whose reign will be characterised by justice, peace and prosperity.
The Messiah prophesied by Isaiah
The promise of this future righteous king stands in stark contrast to the corrupt Davidic kings who reigned in Isaiah’s day. In a separate oracle, Isaiah announces among other things:
Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this
The Messiah identified by Luke
In his “carefully investigated” account to Theophilus, Luke describes how the newly born Jesus was brought by his parents to the temple in Jerusalem. They encountered a “righteous and devout” man called Simeon, to whom the Holy Spirit had revealed that “he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ” (Luke 2:26). Luke then introduces an eighty-four years old prophetess, Anna, who, on seeing Jesus, “began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).
Luke 1:32-33 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
The Messiah links old and new testaments
Messianic expectations linked to the Davidic dynasty do not exhaust what the Old Testament has to say about Jesus Christ. They are only one strand of a cord of connections between the Old Testament and Jesus, but a very significant core strand.
Romans 1:3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh
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