Trinity Baptist Church

Waiting for Christmas

God’s Covenant with David

Luke 1:67-80

 

We are trying to get into the minds of the Jews who lived before the birth of Christ and what it was like to be waiting for Christmas from that perspective. 

 

We saw in Matthew 1 that there were 42 generations between Abraham and Joseph and that translates into quite a wait.  But actually the wait began much earlier than that as we saw last week from Genesis 3.  The very first promise of a Savior is found in the Garden of Eden at the very beginning of the human experience on the earth. 

 

But today, and for the next couple of services, I want to zero in on Jewish prophecy and what it has to say about the coming of the Messiah, and maybe even more importantly what it says about the character and nature of God.  After all, it doesn’t do much good to make a promise if you can’t be trusted or don’t have the resources to make good on the promise.

 

So today, let’s turn to Luke 1.  If you are familiar with Luke’s narrative, you know that we have some background material to the birth of Jesus given in the first chapter.  Of particular interest to us this morning, we are introduced to a man named Zacharias and his wife, Elizabeth.

 

We are told they are going to have a child, even though they are old and past the time of having children.  Nonetheless, that baby is born and is named John.  We know him as John the Baptist. 

He is a cousin to Jesus and is 6 months older than Christ.  There is also an annunciation by the same angel, Gabriel, to Mary that she also would have a conception miracle, only this conception miracle would be without a human father. God Himself would literally plant life in her womb and as a virgin she would bring forth a Son who would be the Messiah, the Savior.

 

Now all of this is extremely compelling because for 450 years there hadn't been a word from God, an appearance of an angel or a single miracle. There hadn’t even been any prophets sent from God.  In fact, all the Jews had gotten from God was the silent treatment. 

 

And now all of a sudden, two visits from the angel Gabriel right out of the throne room of heaven, two miracle conceptions, and suddenly the silence is broken and God is on the scene. 

 

And as we come to verses 67 to 80, we take a little break in the story and listen to old Zachariah as he just praises the Lord. 

 

Luke 1:67-80

 

Now this song of praise by Zacharias has some critical connections in it, and we are going to look at two of them today and next week.  His son takes us back to the Old Testament and ties us in to three great covenants.  Now catch what I’m saying:

 

The coming of Jesus connects specifically and directly to the Old Testament. It is the completion of all Old Testament promises, all Old Testament covenants, all Old Testament prophecies. 

In particular, he references the Davidic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant.

 

You will notice in verse 69 he mentions the house of David. In verse 73 he mentions the oath to Abraham. And in verse 77 the knowledge of salvation that includes the forgiveness of sins.

 

Those are references to three specific covenants that God established with His people. 

 

Now what that says to me is that Zacharias knows what is happening.  With the birth of that son, Zacharias, that priest, that Old Testament expert who spent most of his time in the Old Testament, most of his time explaining its significance to the people in the little village in the hill country of Judea where he served as a priest, Zacharias knew what was going on.

 

He knew that all Old Testament promise was about to be fulfilled. He knew that his son was the forerunner of the Messiah and the Messiah couldn't be far behind. And he already knew the mother of the Messiah was pregnant, namely Mary. She had just spent three months in their home. He knew the Messiah was coming and with the Messiah would come all the fulfillment of Davidic promise, all the fulfillment of Abrahamic promise and all the fulfillment of the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31.

 

This was monumental stuff. This was that for which every Jew had hoped and dreamed. This is that for which those looking for the redemption of Jerusalem had hoped for so long.

 

This is that for which an old lady named Anna and an old man named Simeon had waited. 

 

This was the coming of the Messiah. This was the dawn of redemption. This was fulfillment of Davidic and Abrahamic and New Covenant promise and all the promises and prophecies that accompanied them. 

 

And with all that in his heart and on his mind, Zacharias begins to sing and the theme of his song is salvation and the verses bring to the ear of the hearer the faithfulness of God as he keeps His covenants with His people! 

 

Now, to be sure, these three covenants are not the only covenants God established.  In fact, there are three other covenants in the Old Testament. 

 

There's the covenant God made with Noah never to destroy the world again by water. There is also a Priestly Covenant in the Old Testament that God would provide for Israel a perpetual priesthood. And there is also the Mosaic Covenant which established the law of God. 

 

But those covenants are not salvation covenants.  The Noahic Covenant promised no more floods, but didn’t say anything about fire.  It had no eternal components as far as salvation is concerned.  The Priestly Covenant had no saving component. And no one can be saved by keeping the Mosaic Law.

 

In fact, the people knew that. But the covenants about which Zacharias sings are salvation covenants. 

 

The promise of God to Abraham would only come true through redemption. The promise of God to David would only come through redemption. And the New Covenant WAS the Covenant that brought salvation.  IT is what opened the door to the fulfillment of both the Davidic and the Abrahamic Covenants.

 

So this is a monumental moment and Zachariah, that old priest, knew it. And what he says is reinforced by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and he launches his praise being filled with the Holy Spirit in

 

verse 67 

 

Notice how he talks about it in the past tense, as if it has already happened. In a sense it has because the child, John, has just been born. In fact, this may well be on the very day of his circumcision, eight days after his birth. 

 

And right off the bat, he blesses God for bringing redemption through the horn of salvation.

 

Now the “horn” speaks of power and it is a common Old Testament reference to describe the Messiah. 

 

And notice that this “horn” is of house of David.  Why is that important? 

 

Because this is the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. He knows what every Jew knew that the Messiah would come in the royal line of King David and would restore the kingdom.  David was the little darling of the Jews.  David was the defining king, the king who was God's king, the king who established the great kingdom.

And even though the kingdom had declined and split and been scattered, every Jew longed for the restoration of the greatness of the Davidic kingdom when Messiah came. And the Jews all expected that to happen.  After all, God had promised it would be an everlasting kingdom. 

 

Now in order to understand what was in the mind of Zacharias and others who knew about the miracles and angels and birth of John and approaching birth of Christ, it is important to go back to the original establishment of the covenant with David. It is recorded for us in 2 Samuel 7.

 

Now as we are turning there, I want you to have in mind that 2 Samuel 7 is one of those most monumental of all chapters in the Old Testament.

 

David, the king, is living a life of comfort in an incredible palace.  He’s got a strong military position and the enemies are resting. Everything’s good for David. 

 

But one day, he said to himself, “I'm in this palace and God's in a tent." He was referring to the temporary tabernacle that was used for worship.  When I say tabernacle understand it was really nothing more than a tent that was designed to be disassembled for easy moving. 

 

And David was concerned because he had this incredible palace and God was in a crummy tent that had been around for a long time and had been basically torn down and set up and torn down and set up and torn down and set up enough that it was pretty dog-eared and threadbare.

 

So he went to Nathan the prophet and he had a conversation. He said, "Now I dwell in a house of cedar, the Ark of God dwells in a tent. This isn't right." And the implication was, “I'm going to build God a house that will put my house to shame.  It’s just the right thing to do.”  And Nathan apparently thought it was a great thought as well as we read in

 

verse 3

 

Well the problem with that was Nathan hadn't checked in with God.  He exercised a little independent authority and told David that that was a great idea, when, in fact, he hadn't sought the Lord at all.

 

So in verses 4 and following we discover God has other plans.  Even though David will be remembered as a great leader, it will not be his responsibility to build a great dwelling place for God. 

 

Verses 11-16

 

In so many words, God says, “David thanks for the offer, but you’re getting ahead of Me.  I’ve not asked you to build me a house.  I’ve not told you I’m dissatisfied with my tent. You’re a great leader and will be remembered that way, but there is someone coming after you who will establish your throne forever. 

 

So what happened?  After David, came Solomon.  And Solomon, David’s son, built the temple.  And that temple was a wonder of wonders. But let me tell you something about Solomon and his temple: 

 

It didn’t last forever.  It doesn’t exist today.  In 586 B.C., the Babylonians reduced it to rubble.

 

In fact, his sin began to eat away at the greatness of that kingdom and it diminished and ultimately split into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom and they only lasted a little while until the northern kingdom became so idolatrous and so sinful that God sent the Assyrians in 722 B.C. and literally swept the northern kingdom away into exile from which they never returned.  And by the time you get to 586 the southern kingdom is destroyed at the hands of the Babylonians and you have no kingdom in Israel at all. 

 

So when he's talking here that the Lord is going to give him a son who will establish the throne of His kingdom forever, it wasn't Solomon.

 

Notice verse 16

 

That is a Messianic reference.  He is the One who will establish a kingdom enduring forever with a throne established forever.

 

And the Jews understood this as the Davidic Covenant. The word "covenant" is not used there, but if you turn to 2 Samuel 23:5 you find it referenced. 

 

2 Samuel 23:5

 

That's the last words of David. David said God has made an irrevocable covenant with me to give me a greater Son who will establish an eternal Kingdom.

There will be a King out of David's line who will reign forever.

There are at least forty Old Testament passages directly connected to these verses.  The Jews knew He was going to come.

 

Isaiah talked about it.  A child would be born, a Son would be given, the government would rest upon His shoulders.  He would be the wonderful counselor, mighty God, Prince of peace and of the increase of His government there would be no end...of His peace there would be no end, and it would be on the throne of David, Isaiah 9:7. Psalm 2 says He will come and He will rule the nations with a rod of iron. Zechariah said He would descend at some point to establish His Kingdom on the Mount of Olives and He would from that point establish a rule over the world. It's repeated over and over in the Old Testament.

 

I think of Psalm 110, "The Lord said to My Lord," that is the Father says to the Son, "Sit at My right hand until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet, The Lord will stretch forth Thy strong scepter from Zion saying, 'Rule in the midst of Thine enemies.'" The Davidic promise said this, there will come a great King who will establish a Kingdom forever, a Kingdom of peace, of righteousness, of safety, of protection. We will be in the land and we will be preserved in the land, protected from our enemies in the land from which the great King will rule over the entire world.

 

That's the Davidic promise. And it's all over the place in the Old Testament and Zacharias knew what was happening. The forerunner of the Messiah had been born just a week earlier and he knew that Mary was pregnant with the Messiah and all of the Davidic promise was about to burst into fulfillment.

The great universal promises were about to come to pass. Zechariah 14:9 says it this way, "And the Lord will be King over all the earth, in that day the Lord will be the only one and His name the only one." That's the summation of the Davidic Kingdom. The Lord, the Messiah will be King over the earth...a literal earthly messianic Kingdom established on the earth.

 

So how can we be sure and why were they sure that Jesus was the One?  One of the reasons was the genealogy of Jesus.

 

Jesus has an unusual family tree.  And the reason God lists His family tree is that His family tree is evidence of prophecy coming true.  God wants to give witness in His genealogy that the prophecy to David has come true. 

 

In fact, He provides it for us in two places.  Matthew recorded it for a primarily Jewish audience.  Luke wrote his gospel for Greek hearers. 

 

So if you examine Matthew's genealogy you find that he starts from Abraham and he follows the line through David down to Jesus through Joseph's family.  We won't read it all, but notice

 

Matthew 1:1 says

 

There is the mention of Abraham again.  We’ll see more about that next week. 

 

God also said to Abraham through your seed shall all the nations of the world be blessed.  He was talking about the nation of Israel producing the Messiah. 

 

So he is showing here that Jesus is the seed of Abraham, but also that Jesus is the descendant of David. 

 

And as you continue reading, he traces the genealogy of Jesus.

 

But notice what happens at

 

verse 16

 

It’s interesting that he does not refer to Joseph as the father of Jesus.  He simply calls Joseph the husband of Mary.  And we know that is because Jesus was virgin born.  That Joseph was not the literal father of Jesus.  Joseph was the legal father of Jesus but not the literal father of Jesus. 

 

God was the Father of Jesus.  Now that is important because if Jesus had no Jewish human father, then how could He be a descendant of David? 

 

If had to come through his mother.  But that’s a problem.  The legal right to rule always came through the father's side.  So legally Jesus was Joseph's son.  While He did not have the literal right to rule, He had the legal right to rule, for Jesus was Joseph's eldest son legally.

 

So He had the legal right to rule in the lineage of David because of His legal connection to Joseph. 

 

Now when we to Luke 3, we find a different genealogy because Luke is writing for the Greeks.  And to the Greeks it was important that Jesus was the son of Adam.  To the Jews it was important that Jesus was the son of David and Abraham.

But to the Greeks it was important that Jesus was the son of Adam.  So where does Luke begin?  He begins with Adam.  He starts with Jesus and he traces the genealogy all the way back through David and all the way back to Adam. 

 

And what we discover when he is finished is that Mary is literally a blood descendent of David. 

 

Luke 3:23

 

He begins with Joseph and he gives two commentary statements about Joseph.  First he says, Jesus is the supposed son of Joseph.  That’s what everyone thought, but it wasn’t true. 

 

Second, he identifies Joseph as the “son of Heli”.  Heli is actually the father of Mary.  Joseph is his son-in-law. But since women weren’t typically mentioned in genealogies, Luke inserts Joseph as the supposed father of Jesus and then goes on to provide the bloodline of Mary.

 

And by the time he’s finished, he’s gone all the way back to Adam, and in the process he identifies Jesus as a blood relative to David through Mary’s side of the family. 

 

So Jesus has a double right to rule on the throne of David.  He has a legal right to rule and He has a royal or blood right to rule.  And therefore He fulfills the Davidic covenant that God made with David.

 

And old Zachariah was excited about this with all those who had been looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. He was thrilled about it. He knew Jesus was the promised Messiah. 

Now he didn’t know about how the King would come and be rejected and crucified and establish the church.  He didn’t know about the 2,000 year gap between His first Coming and second coming. 

 

He didn’t know all the prophetic details and nuances, but he knew a King was on the way, and he was now a part of that monumental moment in history. 

 

This moment they had been waiting on for 42 generations is now here and the promise is about to be fulfilled. 

 

This is it. The greatest moment of redemptive history is now imminent and Zacharias knew that.  His newborn son who would be the forerunner to the Messiah has been born.

 

The Messiah is already conceived by God in the womb of this young virgin girl.  And soon everything that had been prophesied would be coming to pass.

It’s hard for us to imagine how high the anticipation must have been. 

 

What did they expect to happen in the Davidic Kingdom?   Look at

 

verse 71

 

That's right out of Psalm 106:10. It's exactly what was promised. When the Messiah comes and establishes His Kingdom, what it means is salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

 

 

You see, they thought, first of all, the Messiah would come and knock off the Romans. They were weary of the hostilities and the assaults and the attacks and the oppression and the murderous intent of Gentile nations against them. They wanted their independence. They wanted their freedom. They wanted the pagans out of their land.

 

They felt that when the Messiah comes He's going to establish the Davidic Kingdom and He will rule and all enemies will become subject to Him as He establishes the Kingdom of peace all over the globe. They were excited. This was a great moment for Zacharias and everybody else who knew what was going on.

 

But it wasn't just the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant.  In verse 72, he references the Abrahamic Covenant.  We will look at it in detail next week, but let me just touch on it as we’re passing by. 

 

The Abrahamic Covenant was a covenant God made with Abraham and repeated it to his son, Isaac, and his son, Jacob. In fact, it is reiterated eight times in the book of Genesis.

 

And what did it promise? It promised them a great nation, a land which they would possess, abundant blessing to them and through them to others. 

 

Now watch how they flow together:   The Davidic promised them salvation from their enemies through a King Who would rule and reign. 

 

The Abrahamic Covenant focused more on blessing.

 

 

So in their mind, the covenant with David promised them that being delivered from the hand of their enemies, they would be set free to serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him in all our days. Then because of the covenant with Abraham, they would enjoy the blessing and usefulness and service that God designed for them to have. 

 

And in the mind of Zacharias and others who were like-minded, they were thinking, “Oh boy!  Not only are we going to have a king and the freedom to live as God designed, but we're going to have blessing and we're all going to be serving God the way He should be served and He's going to pour upon us holiness and righteousness all our days.

 

This is what he thought, and rightly so because this is what God promised.  Now in reality, neither of the covenants have seen their ultimate fulfillment on the earth.  God is still unfolding the future for those wonderful people of Israel.

 

But don’t miss this:  The promises of the covenants are extended to you on a personal level and can be realized today. 

 

Because of the coming of the Messiah, you can know salvation and freedom from your enemies. And because of the coming of the Messiah, you can know the joy of being blessed and being a blessing to others. 

 

 

 

 

And one of these days, along with Zacharias and every other Old Testament saint and New Testament child of God, you will be a part of the millennial kingdom when King Jesus returns to earth and brings the ultimate fulfillment of every prophecy and promise that God made. 

 

It begins today with your confession of Jesus as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

 

You might be thinking, “How in the world could I ever be accepted in the family of God”?

 

Let me show you something from these genealogies:

 

Remember I told you a moment ago that it is highly unusual to find the names of women in genealogies.  There are, in fact, four who are identified in Jesus’ family tree. 

 

And without exception they are examples of less than pure women.  There are actually five if you include Mary and the rumors of her out-of-welock pregnancy. 

 

In fact, I daresay, if these women were members of your family, they probably wouldn’t get mentioned much unless it was in judgment. 

 

But the Holy Spirit puts them out their proudly because the Holy Spirit wants to demonstrate the grace of God and the love of God and how God will accept anyone on the basis of grace.

 

The first one is a women named Tamar and we find her mentioned in Matthew 1:3. 

Now this is not Tamar, the daughter of David.  This one goes back to Genesis 38.  Hers is a sordid tale.   She was a product of an incestuous relationship. Her dad was Lot and he wound up having a relationship with his daughter while she was drunk.  And as a result, this baby girl was born.

 

As Tamar grew into womanhood, she wanted a child.  Her husband wouldn’t agree, so she disguised herself as a prostitute and approached her father-in-law as he made his way down a path.  He had relations with her and she became pregnant.  And she is one of the ones who shows up in the lineage of Jesus.  She is in that family tree.

 

Then you find Rahab.  Rahab was also a prostitute.  She lived in Jericho during the days of Joshua.  Rahab was a pagan but she had heard about all the good things that Israel had done and how God was with them. 

 

And because of that she was afraid for herself and for her family because the Israelites are now approaching Jericho as they possess the Promised Land.    

 

And you may remember that Joshua sent some spies to check out Jericho, and she wound up hiding them and not telling her people where they were. 

 

And because of her kindness to Israel, they instructed her to hang a scarlet cord from her window to indentify her home so it could be protected and spared. 

 

 

And because of that, she wound up marrying a Jew, and there she is in Matthew 1:5 in the lineage of Jesus. 

 

And then you have Ruth in the same verse. Ruth was a Moabitess.  The Moabites believed in child sacrifice.  They threw little babies into the burning arms of the God Moloch. And little babies by the thousands, particularly little baby girls who were thought as worthless were thrown into the arms of a fiery, burning god as a sacrifice to their god. 

 

Deuteronomy 23 forbids Moabites from even entering the temple for 10 generations.  They were the arch-enemies of the people of God. 

 

And yet, Ruth married a Hebrew man and she heard about the one true God, Jehovah.  And after her husband died, she moved to Israel with her mother-in-law, fell in love with a man named Boaz who was a descendent of King David, wound up marrying into the lineage of King David and she became the great, great, great grandmother of Jesus Christ.

 

And then number four is Bathsheba. You find her name at Matthew 1:6. Most all of us know Bathsheba as King David’s illicit lover.  David sees her bathing, desires to have her, arranges for the death of her husband.  They wind up marrying and having the baby, but the baby dies.  It’s a well-known series of event. 

 

What you may not know is that Bathsheba is also the mother of David’s son named Solomon.  And of all the sons that David had, Solomon was the best of all. 

No doubt, he had his faults, but he goes down in history as one of the great kings of Israel due in large part to his mother. 

 

How do I know?  I listened to what he had to say about his mother in Proverbs 31.  Although it is identified as the words of King Lemuel, ancient Jewish tradition says Lemuel is Solomon and the virtuous woman who is the envy of every Christian wife and mother is most likely Bathsheba. 

 

And there she is in the lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

All of that to say, no matter what you’ve done or been, there’s room in the family of God for you.  These ladies are simply demonstrations of the grace of God.  You do not have to be perfect to be accepted of God or to be used of God. 

 

Our God is a covenant keeping God.  He has promised through His Son, Jesus Christ, salvation, deliverance from your enemies and His blessing. 

 

They are yours today for the asking.

 

Let’s pray