Prophetic Expositions, vol. 1

V. HIS KINGLY CHARACTER AND DOMINION

1. He is the promised Son and heir of David. That Christ is David’s Son, and the Son of promise, and his Son “according to the flesh,” is abundantly established by Peter, Acts 2:30: “Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.” This promise and oath to David is found, 2 Samuel 7:12, 16: “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. And thy house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee: thy throne shall be established forever.” According to these strong testimonies, David’s throne and house is to be perpetuated eternally in Christ. The temporal succession of kings of David’s line have failed. But the everlasting succession has not failed, nor will it; this, David foresaw, and spoke before of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in. hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. The same flesh that went into the tomb came up, and is now in heaven. And he has “the key of David,” (Revelation 3:7,) signifying that he only has the heirship of that house so long shut, and can open and no man shut, and shut and no man open. That house was shut when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and carried Zedekiah captive to Babylon. God pronounced the doom thus, by Ezekiel 21:25, 27: “And thou profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end.” “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him.” From Zedekiah’s captivity and the ruin of Jerusalem, there has been no king of David’s line reigning in Jerusalem. There never will be, until he comes whose right it is, and takes the kingdom. “The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Luke 1:32, 33. “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and his kingdom, to order it, and establish it, with justice and judgment, henceforth and forever.” PREX1 18.3

2. His reign is to be personal and visible. This is clear from the fact that Christ is the Son of David according to the flesh, and is to sit on David’s throne. That throne was on earth and at Jerusalem. And “The Lord of Hosts [is to] reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.” Isaiah 24:23. “The tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them.” Revelation 21:3. Were he, in his peculiar kingly character, a pure spirit, like the infinite God, without body or parts, his reign like God’s, might be a purely spiritual reign. But not so; for, although all the fulness of the Godhead is in him, he is a man; and in his humanity consists his peculiar and everlasting kingly character; and a period is to arrive in the history of his existence, when in some subjected sense he is to reign as the Son, “and God be all and in all.” 1 Corinthians 15. Being then, a king “according to the flesh,” and of David’s line, and his reign being over the saints, it must be a personal and visible reign. PREX1 20.1

And for this purpose he is to come again on earth, just as he went into heaven, which was bodily and visibly; with a body of flesh and bones. Luke 24:39. If it be objected to this, that Christ did not go into heaven with the same body in which he arose from the dead, but that it was spiritualized when he ascended to heaven; I reply, I shall grant it when the law and the testimony can be produced which declares it. But the Bible not only affords no intimation of such a change, but the whole tenor of its testimony is, that he went up as he arose from the grave, and will come again in the same manner. PREX1 20.2