Reading With the People of God #10 Kingdomنموونە

Focus of the month: (Kingdom)

7 Now, therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be prince over my people Israel, 8 and I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 9 And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall waste them no more, as formerly, 10 from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will subdue all your enemies. Moreover, I declare to you that the LORD will build you a house. 11 When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. 12 He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, 14 but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.’ ”.- 1 Chronicles 17:7-14

The Shepherd Who Was a King - II Samuel 5

Three major events are recorded in this one chapter; the first two are monumental in Biblical history. The first event is the anointing of David as king of Israel. The kingdom had been split and David had been anointed as king of Judah, now the northern part of the kingdom, known as Israel, sought out David and wanted to unite all of Israel under David’s leadership. David then became king of the entire nation of Israel, north and south, a fulfillment of Samuel’s anointing of David as a young man. Verse 2 foreshadows Jesus, our good shepherd, in the statement that David was a shepherd who became a ruler. Now, according to verse 3, they would be united by a covenant, made before the Lord, like a marriage, it promised that the two parties would always be loyal to one another. It reminds us of Ephesians 5 which shows marriage as a covenant relationship between Christ and the Church.

The second monumental event was the taking of Jerusalem. It was a fortress built into a mountainside and held for centuries by the Jebusites. The first mention of Jerusalem is in Genesis 14 when Abraham met Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem, later called Jerusalem. The priest-king, Melchizedek, was a type of Christ and ruled from Salem. The upper part of the city was often called Mt. Zion, and the lower part of Jerusalem was on Mt. Moriah, the area where Abraham brought his son Isaac to offer him to the Lord as a sacrifice. It would be on Mt. Moriah that Solomon would build the first Temple.

Jerusalem became the capital of the Davidic kingdom and later the center of worship for the Israelite people. From this point on in the Bible, it seems that Jerusalem is the center of the world, and all things are written from this perspective. The terms Mt. Zion and Jerusalem are interchangeable in the Bible, and often, Zion is also a reference to heaven.

It was in Jerusalem that Jesus initiated the Lord’s Supper, He was crucified outside of its gates, rose on the third day, ascended, and where the Holy Spirit began the Church on the Day of Pentecost.

The third event, the victory over Israel’s old enemy the Philistines, is to show us God’s sovereignty and His grace toward David and also foreshadows Christ. Several verses in both Testaments declare that God will make Jesus’ enemies a footstool for His feet.

A Cross the Bridge - John 19:17-37

This is one of the most dynamic and meaningful passages in the Bible. The cross is the bridge between the fulfillment of the Old Covenant and the meaning of the New Covenant. It is the reason Jesus came to earth and the answer to the sin problem, it is the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15.

It’s fascinating that Pilate was determined to place a notice on the cross in three languages that proclaimed Jesus as “King of the Jews.” Three decades earlier, the Magi came from the East seeking a baby, the King of the Jews. Jesus entered this world and left this world, proclaimed King of the Jews. Zachariah foretold a Jewish king riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Indeed, under the Davidic covenant, Jesus was the King of the Jews, but they did not receive their King.

A critical point is that Jesus was crucified outside of the city gates of Jerusalem. In Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, the word for the Hebrew Golgotha is Calvary. The crucifixion took place outside of Jerusalem and is meaningful because in the Old Testament, the body of the sin offering is taken outside of the city to be offered to the Lord. Hebrews 13:11-13 tells us that Jesus is the fulfillment of that offering. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might receive His righteousness.

When we are told to take up our cross to follow Jesus, it has a profound meaning. To take up a cross meant certain death, an end to the life lived. When we commit to Jesus, we are called to die to our old self to begin the new life we have in Him.

In verses 28-37, we read of Jesus fulfilling prophecies written about in the Old Testament. In Jesus’ life and death, He fulfilled over 300 prophecies from the Old Testament, and in His resurrection, many more and more to be fulfilled at His second coming. Jesus truly is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

*Primer contributed by: Jinet Troost