Lesson 1: Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham and David

Matthew, the writer of the book of Matthew in the New Testament, wrote his book specifically with the mission to show the Jews that Jesus was in fact the Messiah. This is why his account includes the most references to Old Testament scripture out of all four of the gospel accounts. For this reason, Matthew is the perfect book for us to start in.

The first prophecy can be read in Matthew 1:1: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” This may not seem like a prophecy, but the reader must understand the significance of Jesus being the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Let us start with the significance of Jesus being a descendant of Abraham. Let us go to Genesis 15:1-5:

“After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.”

And again, in Genesis 22:17-18 “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”

Let us first go to how the New Testament authors interpreted this scripture and applied it to Jesus Christ in their day.

Peter interpreted it in Acts 3:25 saying “You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.”. 

Speaking to the Jews, Peter refers to this “seed” of Abraham as the one who would bless all the families of the earth, and in the next sentence, he connects this to Jesus, saying he was sent to bless them by turning them away from their iniquities.

Paul interpreted this in Galatians 3:16: 

“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”

Again, Paul refers to this “seed” as if it is speaking of Jesus since God did not say “seeds”.

So the New Testament writers believed that the Messiah had to be a descendant of Abraham in order for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham; therefore, they wouldn’t have believed anyone was the Messiah if they were not a Jew. And the early Christians believed Jesus fulfilled these promises because he was in fact the seed of Abraham, and the way the New Testament writers perceived the blessing he would be to all nations was by Jesus turning everyone from their iniquities. 

What did the Christians believe God was promising to Abraham when He said that all nations would be blessed through his “seed”? Is this reasonable?
Do you think this promise sounds national (for Israel only) or global (for all humanity)? Why?
Why do you think it would have been important for the Messiah to be a descendant of Abraham?

Next, let’s speak on the significance of Jesus being a descendant of David. Let’s go to 2 Samuel 7. David desires to build a temple for God, but God does not allow him to and instead sends a prophet to him to tell him that God would raise up seed after David to build a house for God. 

2 Samuel 7:12 “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”

The promise was given that God would set up David’s “seed” after him and establish the throne of his kingdom.

God says he would be his father and this “seed” would be his son.

And finally he says that David’s house and his kingdom would be established forever.

So we see that this future King would have to be David’s descendant, God would be his father, and his kingdom would stand forever. Now we can see this partially fulfilled in Solomon, David’s son, who does go on to build the first temple but we see one thing lacking in fulfillment if God was speaking of Solomon: The throne of Solomon’s kingdom did not stand forever. And today, if we look through history, we can see that David’s throne, if God was speaking of a physical one, has not stood forever. 

So this leads us to an important conflict: Either Gods word is false and therefore also the Jewish belief or this promise was fulfilled another way. And this other way is what the first-century Christians claimed to be Jesus.

How did the New Testament writers claim this to be fulfilled in Jesus?

In Luke 1:32-33, an angel appears to Mary, who was a virgin, and he says in verse 30, “Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”

The angel says Jesus would be called the “Son of the Highest.”

God would give him the throne of his father David

And his kingdom would never end.

So in this sense, it makes sense for the Christians to say Jesus was the “Son of God” because it was promised to David that one of his future descendants would be God’s son, and he would be to him a Father. 

A man named Peter in the book of Acts 2:25-36 declares this message before the Jews, showing us what these first Christians believed: “For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. 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; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, Until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Peter finished these verses quoting from Psalm 110, saying, “The LORD said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool”. David is stating that the LORD said to his promised descendant, “my Lord”, sit on my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Though he was a descendant of David, he referred to him as “my Lord”. And Peter is making the claim that David, being a prophet, recognized this promised descendant of his would be much greater than him and even calling him his “Lord”. So Peter finished by saying, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Meaning, Peter is stating, Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise given to David or, in other words, “you have crucified the King you have been waiting for”.

Therefore, if Jesus had not been a descendant of these two men, Abraham and David, nobody would have paid him any regard as to whether he was the Messiah. Therefore, it was the fulfillment of Old Testament promises that the New Testament writers depended upon as the basis of their authority to claim Jesus was the Messiah.

What does it mean that Jesus is described as seated at God’s right hand?
Do you think fulfillment of earlier promises is a reasonable basis for identifying someone as the Messiah? Why or why not?
How does this method of establishing a religious movement differ from other methods we see through history?

Even in this first verse in Matthew, we find something incredible. The Christians believed that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham and the fulfillment of the promise given to David. After 2000 years of giving a promise to Abraham and a thousand years after giving a promise to David, the Christians believed God was still concerned with fulfilling it and the Christians believed that God fulfilled these promises through Jesus. So who is Jesus in this lesson? He is the fulfillment of Gods promises to Abraham and David.

The first Christians did not claim that Jesus started a new religion, but it began with the claim that God fulfilled the promises He had already made centuries earlier in the Jewish religion. This is important because it tells us there is more to Jesus than what somebody could have simply fabricated overnight. And this is important for us because through this we can examine these early Christian claims and determine whether we think their connections between Jesus and the Old Testament prophecy are reasonable.

Though many religions of the world begin with an individual claiming private revelation such as visions, angelic encounters, or hidden knowledge, early Christianity presents its initial claims to be rooted in publicly accessible historical records and widely believed and read ancient documents.

The earliest Christians did not merely claim that they had received secret revelation about God; rather, they proclaimed a man named Jesus is the Messiah based on his fulfillment of promises from the Old Testament. Because of this, their claims could be examined, questioned, and tested by those who lived at the time and by us today. And early New Testament writings even celebrated those, saying there were “more noble” who did not simply take the Christians’ word for what they reported but went home and sought out for themselves whether the things being proclaimed about Jesus truly aligned with the scripture they had. 

Acts 17:11 “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”

They had a healthy amount of honest skepticism. And this is what we are here to do in The Jesus Study.

Before this study, how would you personally have answered the question: Who is Jesus?
Has examining Jesus through Old Testament promises changed or challenged your understanding in any way?
Why do you think Christianity began as a claim of fulfilled promises rather than a completely new religion?
If God truly fulfills promises across centuries, what would that suggest about history and human purpose?