Part 6: Luke's list: the prophetic 'bookends'
Aug 13, 2016 11:02:15 GMT
Post by Colossians on Aug 13, 2016 11:02:15 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
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LUKE’S LIST: THE PROPHETIC ‘BOOKENDS’
Luke’s and Matthew’s lists coincide from Abraham to David, so it is not this section of the lists in which we are particularly interested, but the section from David onwards, where apart from a couple of coincident names, the lists differ markedly.
And so and commensurately we are compelled to point out that when we see declarations such as that at Luke 1:32 that God would give His Son the throne of His father David, we understand David to be the consummate type of (for) Christ, and that it is in this sense that the ‘bookends’ of the section of Luke's list in which we are interested are in fact one and the same: the section in which we are interested is in fact inclosed at each end by Christ.
And so it should be, for He who is the Alpha and Omega must have the pre-eminence in all things. Commensurately, we understand that David’s being a man after God’s own heart (1 Sam 13:14) was by virtue of Him who lived within him: Christ would be David’s seed according to the flesh, for sure, but that same David would nevertheless in the Spirit refer to such seed as “Lord” (see Mt 22:41-45).
An all-too-neglected aspect
When in Christian circles we speak of the prophets we almost invariably mean Isaiah, Joel, Ezekiel, etc: David comes rarely to mind. But David is in fact one of the chiefest of the prophets, for it is in David that Christ’s kingship is acutely promised and proclaimed, and nothing is more chief than a king.
Even rarer is our acknowledgement of Christ as a prophet. But it is clear that the Jews understood His roles as Messiah and “the Prophet” to be interchangeable: they are two ways of saying the very same thing:
“Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet.1 Others said, This is the Christ” John 7:40,41.
1 See Deut 18:15,18.
And so we note:
“the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” Rev 19:10.
A Prophet to end all prophets
Note what the writer to the Hebrews has to say about the matter:
“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” Heb 1:1,2
: Christ would sum up all the prophets: the Perfect that should come should properly supplant the partial.2
And so Zechariah the prophet:
“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment 3 to deceive: But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth” Zech 13:4,5.
2 Paul also gives witness to this: although his declaration at 1 Cor 13:10 speaks primarily to the consummation of all things at the end of time, the perfect to which he refers is nevertheless declared extant at time of writing by reason of the fact that we fight on the basis of the finished work of Christ. That is, in the kingdom of God the parts are not being assembled unto the whole but are rather the whole revealed in retrospect.
3 See Mt 3:4; Luke 16:16; Mt 11:11,13.
Conclusion
Luke’s list, in particular the section from David down, is in fact a succession of prophets.
We shall subsequently prove this to be so.
Amen.