Lineage of David

 The Lineage of David

By Richard P. Joseph

12/21/2024

The Catholic church holds to the doctrine of Apostolic Succession.  They claim that they can trace the papal seat all the way back to Peter.  One of the things I find funny about that, among other things, is that Peter never claimed to be the bishop of any church.  In fact, if there was a bishop of Jerusalem in the first century, it was James, the brother of Jesus, not Peter.  That in itself is odd too.  Why would James be the bishop of Jerusalem and not Peter?  To make things more interesting, it is recorded in the writings of Eusebius and others that when James was martyred in 62 AD,  they found another blood relative of Jesus, Symeon, to replace him.  

Does anyone but me see a problem here?  This “line of David” seems to have been an attempt to reestablish a physical Davidic kingdom on earth that had nothing really to do with Jesus except to exploit his popular name.  James, of course, wrote a wonderful epistle and we don’t really know how exactly he was chosen instead of Peter to take that position but it just seems odd to me.  

Of course there were several persons by the name of James mentioned in the New Testament.  One was James the brother of John, one was James the son of Alphaeus, and one was James the son of Mary, or in other words Jesus’ brother.  So, my question here is, why was a relative of Jesus chosen to guide the church of Jerusalem instead of an apostle?  And when James was martyred in AD62, why was another obscure relative of Jesus (line of David) chosen as his successor?  It also appears that the Judaizer sect tended to be followers of James.  James, however, was not a Judaizer as he led the way for Paul to evangelize the gentiles without forcing them to be circumcised.  So back to the question of why James and others in the lineage of David were being chosen to lead the church especially when the apostles were still alive.

I can only speculate at this point but I think that some of them just didn’t get it yet.  It is almost as if they still believed that physical “Jerusalem” was going to be an earthly kingdom replete with a Davidic King, but gentiles will also be able to worship there too.  If we place ourselves in their culture and in their times, that isn’t a far fetched idea.  It would be hard to think out of the box.  Furthermore, even after the fall of Jerusalem, most Christians still were waiting for the second coming and it might just be for this very reason; that they were still waiting for a physical kingdom just like the futurists of today are waiting for.  Add to that, if a rapture did occur in AD66 and transport the faithful remnant into heaven then the new church would be fully void of inspired apostles.  That is why I have no problem today understanding that we may need to reconstruct the historical record from years of neglect.  Besides that, in today's computer age, we literally have more information at our fingertips than all of the ancient historians combined.  For example, we can clearly see that the physical Davidic lineage has ended and will never be reestablished again.  However, the spiritual Davidic kingdom has been established in Jesus Christ and will never be removed, replaced, superseded or extinguished.  It is an everlasting kingdom and is completely out of the reach of any human effort to thwart it.  Even Gabriel understood that the kingship is completely fulfilled in Jesus alone and no other.  

Luke 1:26-33            26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; [e]blessed are you among women!”

29 But [f]when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. 30 Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

This kingdom is here and it is now.  Rejoice and live.

Thousand Years

 A Thousand Years

By Richard P. Joseph

2 Peter 3:8 New King James Version (NKJV)

8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

When I was young someone asked me “when was the war of 1812?”  I can’t rightly remember if I got it right or not but most people have to stop and think for a while and end up saying “I’m not sure”.  Then they feel embarrassed when they find out it was in 1812.  Of course it lasted a few years but the joke goes on.  That leads me to my question; “How long is 1,000 years”?   

Whenever I talk to futurists (those that believe that the return of Jesus is in the future) they inevitably go to 2 Peter and say that a thousand man years are equal to one day in God years, as if this is some sort of mathematical equation.  Well, maybe this question will help us figure it out; “How many cattle does God own”?    Psalm 50:10 reads; For every beast of the forest is Mine, And the cattle on a thousand hills. 

So, all you would need to do is use this mathematical equation to figure out how many cattle God owns:

How many cattle can fit on a hill X 1,000 = the amount of cattle God owns.  

Or you can google it and use the equation that I found there:

The phrase “the cattle on a thousand hills” conveys God's ownership of all creation and His limitless resources.

It is sad when google has a better biblical understanding than what most Christians do.  

In Revelation 20:2 John tells us that:

 He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years;

So, was Satan bound for exactly one thousand years?  

Even though the number thousand appears many times in scripture it can mean different things.  It can mean an exact number but is used more as an estimate, and many times as the number of “an undisclosed period of time in which something needs to be completed”.  For example, God owns all of the cattle, or in other words, God needs nothing from us because he is complete and has an abundance of what he wants.  As far as 2 Peter is concerned, God is not bound by time limits like we are.  It has nothing to do with the number of years when Jesus would return.  When the work that the apostles needed to complete then Jesus will return, which happened in 66-70 AD.  Satan was bound at some point in the first century until God’s plan was completed for him (or it).  Then he would come out and wreak havoc to complete the plan.  The idea of one thousand is arbitrary.  It is the idea that God is in control of all things and is sovereign over all.  

Numbers, in ancient Hebraic culture, don’t always mean “amount”, it can mean other things and that is why we must attempt to understand 1st century Middle Eastern culture before we can rightly divide the scripture that was written at that time.  Therefore, Peter was not saying that the second coming was thousands of years hence, he was simply telling the scoffers of his day that the Parousia will happen exactly when God planned it to happen and that God is not on our timetable.   It did happen and God’s plan was completed exactly when He said it would be.