What does
it mean that Jesus is the son of David?
Seventeen verses in the New Testament describe Jesus as the
"son of David." But the question arises, how could Jesus be the son
of David if David lived approximately 1000 years before Jesus? The answer is
that Christ (the Messiah) was the fulfillment of the prophecy of the seed of
David (2 Samuel
7:14-16 ). Jesus was the promised Messiah, which meant He was
of the seed of David.Matthew
1 gives the genealogical proof that Jesus, in His humanity, was
a direct descendant of Abraham and David through Joseph, Jesus' legal father.
The genealogy in Luke chapter 3 gives Jesus' lineage through His mother, Mary.
Jesus is a descendant of David, by adoption through Joseph, and by blood
through Mary. Primarily though, when Christ was referred to as the Son of
David, it was meant to refer to His Messianic title as the Old Testament
prophesied concerning Him.
Jesus was addressed as “Lord, thou son of David” several times by people who,
by faith, were seeking mercy or healing. The woman whose daughter was being
tormented by a demon (Matthew
15:22 ), the two blind men by the wayside (Matthew 20:30 ), and
blind Bartimaeus (Mark
10:47 ), all cried out to the son of David for help. The titles
of honor they gave Him declared their faith in Him. Calling Him Lord expressed
their sense of His deity, dominion, and power, and by calling Him “son of
David,” they were professing Him to be the Messiah.
The Pharisees, too, understood what was meant when they heard the people
calling Jesus “son of David.” But unlike those who cried out in faith, they
were so blinded by their own pride and lack of understanding of the Scriptures
that they couldn’t see what the blind beggars could see – that here was the
Messiah they had supposedly been waiting for all their lives. They hated Jesus
because He wouldn’t give them the honor they thought they deserved, so when
they heard the people hailing Jesus as the Savior, they became enraged (Matthew 21:15 ) and
plotted to destroy Him (Luke
19:47 ).
Jesus further confounded the scribes and Pharisees by asking them to explain
the meaning of this very title. How could it be that the Messiah is the son of
David when David himself refers to Him as “my Lord” (Mark 12:35-37 )? Of
course the teachers of the law couldn’t answer the question. Jesus thereby
exposed the Jewish spiritual leaders’ ineptitude as teachers and their ignorance
of what the Old Testament taught as to the true nature of the Messiah, further
alienating them from Him.
Jesus Christ, the only son of God and the only means of salvation for the world
(Acts 4:12 ), is also
the son of David, both in a physical sense and a spiritual sense.
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