The Doctrine of Revelation: The Storyline of Scripture (Part 15)

The birth of a child changes everything. I remember thinking that Krista and I were pretty well prepared to have kids. We had read books, asked good questions, made all the proper preparations for a newborn, etc. But then that day comes and you realize you have no clue what you’re doing! I panicked every time my daughter coughed (I was certain she was choking to death). Our lives, of course, were forever changed by the arrival of a baby. But the birth of one baby changed more than just the lives of his parents. The Birth of Christ changed history forever! Jesus’ birth breaks into the storyline of Scripture and begins a process of fulfilling all that we have already read.

Even at the very moment of his birth Jesus is fulfilling the promises God made to Israel’s forefathers. Matthew’s Gospel begins with these words, ” The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham”
(Matthew 1:1 ESV). Here Matthew is doing something very important theologically. He is connecting this child with the Kingship of David and the Covenant of Abraham. In fact Matthew makes this point even more clear throughout his genealogy. In his list Matthew includes four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. This is a strange thing to do because it was uncommon to list women in a genealogy unless a father was unknown. Much debate has surrounded why they are mentioned the most obvious answer seems to be that each was used by God specifically for the purposes of his divine messianic plan, despite their irregular unions. God used them to bring the messiah’s storyline to this point when he would again use an irregular woman to fulfill it.

Mary, of course is an important piece to this theological point too. For Mary was a virgin when she conceived and bore Jesus. The Scriptures don’t tell us how this can be, only that it is. But this points us backwards to the Garden of Eden where God threatens Satan that a child born of the “seed” of a woman would crush his head. The language here is tricky. Women do not have “seed” and so the hint is to some strange manner in which the child will be the product of a woman but not a man. This of course is the story of Jesus foretold many centuries prior. Jesus is the serpent crushing child born of a woman. Isaiah makes this point too.

In Isaiah 9 we read that a child is born who bears some remarkable epitaphs. We read:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

There was never such a king in Israel’s history prior to Jesus. And even still, no king ever bore the title “Almighty God.” This is a unique king. He is a king in the line of David, and yet utterly different from David, for he is God himself.

He was born into a promise, into a hope, into a story of which he was the central figure. Jesus’ birth is only the tip of the iceberg, and yet even here Jesus is fulfilling the storyline of Scripture. The Son of David, the Son of Abraham, the Son of Adam, the Son of God! Jesus fulfills the story that has been building for centuries…because only he can!