Psalm 132:11
Under the solemnity of an oath that would not be annulled, God promised to David a descendant to sit upon his throne. The oath reads: “The Lord has sworn in truth to David; He will not turn from it: ‘I will set upon your throne the fruit of your body.’” There are those who believe this psalm was written by Solomon and was to be sung at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. Be that as it may, Peter applies this verse to Christ. More than applying it to Christ, Peter states unequivocally that David himself knew this promise was about Christ: “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” (Acts 2:30).
Christ was in the loins of David genetically when the promise was given to him. To illustrate, consider Hebrews 7:9, 10: Levi, the great-grandson of Abraham, was in his loins when at that time Abraham was childless. Levi was in Abraham genetically. So the human nature Christ inherited was from David.
Paul, while at Antioch in Pisidia, preached to the Jews that from David’s “seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus” (Acts 13:23). The word “seed” in the language used by Paul is spermatos, from which our English word sperm comes. The sperm of David was the reproductive cell by which the traits of his human nature were passed on from one generation to the next down to the humanity that Christ would inherit from His own mother, Mary.
Consider briefly the design and function of sperm. Within the sperm are chromosomes—threadlike linear strands of DNA and associated proteins in the nucleus of the cell that carry the genes and which serve in the transmission of hereditary information.
Within the chromosomes is located the “recipe” for our hereditary traits. A gene is a hereditary unit that occupies a specific location on a chromosome and determines a particular characteristic in an organism. Transmitted from parent to offspring are the colors of skin, eye and hair, and all other physical characteristics. Hereditary mental and moral weaknesses are likewise transmitted through the genes. However, genetic tendencies to sin are not to be construed as excuses for bad conduct.
That which is inherited through birth is termed nature. Mental and moral limitations, which enfold man without conscious volition, are part of this legacy. The physical structure with its established tendencies, received from previous generations, is included in this legacy. Heredity is the law of transmission. You and I are everything that our ancestors contributed and delivered to us mentally, morally and physically at conception, combined with prenatal influences up to the time of birth. We all, without exception, were born with a fallen human nature inherited from our parents and the rest of our ancestors, reaching all the way back to Adam and Eve.
Our first parents were created with sinless natures. All their tendencies were toward goodness and purity. It was in their nature to be and to do good. Had they remained faithful to God, their offspring, through the law of heredity would have inherited only righteous tendencies. But because of their sin, all of their offspring without exception were and are born with tendencies to sin. Adam, Abraham and David could not give to any of their descendants a higher nature than they possessed.
Some persons blame “bad genes” for their sins.
Included here would be alcoholism and homosexuality. Genes can predispose one person to getting drunk more readily than another person, but those genes do not force that person to drink alcohol. The same principle applies with regard to homosexuality. Genes may give some males fewer androgens (steroid hormones that develop and maintain masculine characteristics) than others, but those genes do not make anyone engage in homosexual behavior. Nor does a limited number of androgens cause that kind of conduct.
In writing to the Corinthians, Paul stated: “I keep under my body” (1 Corinthians 9:27). He recognized that if his body was not kept under control, its hereditary claims would make unreasonable claims. The inherited desires and impulses and passions were severely disciplined by the power of God in cooperation with his choices. The flesh, or fallen nature, is to be “crucified with all its affections and lusts.” This is accomplished only by the grace of God in putting to death the temptations to sin that come from within our hereditary make-up. Every thought, every desire, every impulse, is to be brought into “captivity” to Christ. His life becomes the vitalizing power in the life of the believer, and thus the temptations that assail us from within and from without are resisted and overcome.
Full of significance are the words, “from [David’s] seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus” (Acts 13:23). Paul in his introduction to Romans takes up this same thought and presents Christ as “born of the seed of David according to the flesh” as “the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1-3). The gospel is the good news about the genealogy of Jesus. Not only is this a great theological truth. It is also a most comforting thought for frail, erring mortals. God’s power was manifest in our human heredity, in Christ, when He became incarnate. This is the good news—the gospel of God.
The New Testament introduces us to Jesus through His genealogy (see Matthew 1:1-17). This is “the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” David had all the passions of fallen human nature through the law of heredity. We will take a brief look at the ancestry and the posterity of David. This is the line from which Christ came as to His human nature. Concentrated in Christ were all the weaknesses of humanity, especially of the line of David from the family of Judah. The fact of Christ’s fight of faith and consequent victory gives hope and comfort to mortals weakened and bowed down with hereditary weaknesses.
Of the men mentioned by Matthew, several were extremely wicked: Jacob—selfish, crafty, deceitful; Judah—a man of licentious conduct, whose children were born of an impure woman (see Genesis 38); David—an adulterer and a murderer; Solomon and later Manasseh, brought into Israel the idolatrous worship of Molech (the national deity of the Ammonites who offered their children in sacrifice to him. Manasseh practiced this abomination. See 2 Kings 21:6). Ahaz was a leader in apostasy. Of Rehoboam, Abijam, Jehoram, Amon, and other kings of Judah, the record is about the same. Some of these men had not one redeeming trait in their characters.
At one time the royal line was nearly eliminated by Ahab and Jezebel’s daughter. Joash, the last rightful heir to the throne, as a baby was hidden in the temple for six years. (2 Kings 11:1-3; 2 Chronicles 22:10-12). Satan knew that Christ would have to come through this line. Thus he moved the worshippers of Baal to try to destroy the royal line of Judah. Having failed to destroy it, he proceeded to corrupt it. Although Judah’s descendants ruled in Israel and later in the kingdom of Judah, they lost all ability to control themselves. Notwithstanding that they were kings, they were the weakest of the weak, morally. This was the royal line of Judah. Royal, but royal rogues! From such an ancestry Jesus came.
Search His ancestry for a Daniel, an Isaiah, an Elijah, a Moses, or a Jeremiah. They are not there. They are conspicuously absent.
There are four women (other than Mary) mentioned in Matthew’s account of the genealogy of Jesus. Of the four, two were adulteresses, Tamar and Bathsheba. One was a harlot, Rahab. Ruth the Moabitess was from a race that was the offspring of incest between Lot and his oldest daughter (see Genesis 19:30-38). From such an ancestry Jesus came. He chose to come from such an ancestry.
Can you fathom such love as this?
Truly, Christ became one of us. Mary was not an “incubator,” she was His mother. And He is not ashamed to call us “brethren.” This should give us all encouragement regardless of the hereditary background from which we originate, and of which we had no choice.
God, by an oath to David, swore that from his loins must come Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of man. David was given the gospel in that oath concerning Christ as the fruit of his body, as recorded in Psalm 132:11. That good news continues to ring in our ears as we hear it. God was morally and ethically bound to send His Son to the lost human race in order to save it. Christ came and fought and conquered sin in our nature. “In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:17,18). Because He “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” we may know that He is “touched with the feelings of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15, 14).
Whether we are weakened by ancestral infirmities or with sins that we have habitually practiced, we can know that we have a complete Savior. He, burdened with inherited weaknesses, was also weighted down with the committed sins of the world. These were all placed upon Him. Having never sinned, yet He knows what we go through. And He knows just how much divine power we need when we are tempted for He received power from on high, by faith, while He walked this earth as a man.