Why did Jesus have to be born of a virgin?

What does it mean for Jesus to be the Messiah?

The Meaning of the Names

Messiah = מָשִׁיַח

Christ = χρίστος

Meaning = Annointed one

Anointing with oil could mark an otherwise ordinary thing for God’s unique purpose (Gen 28:18 Jacob’s Ladder; Exodus 40 the Tabernacle was anointed.

There were three offices that could be anointed in Ancient Israel: Prophet, Priest, and King

Prophets could be anointed

Psalm 105:15 NKJV

Saying, “Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm.”

Priests were anointed

Exodus 40:15 NKJV

You shall anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may minister to Me as priests; for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.”

And of course Kings were anointed. This was customary in general, whether or not God was involved.

1 Kings 19:15 NKJV

Then the Lord said to him: “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria.

Now for God to anoint someone King of any other nation, he merely needs to name it. In Fact, that’s exactly what he did

The King of Israel will Rule the World

Psalm 2:7–8 NKJV

“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession.

So the question that the whole world ought to be asking is this:

Who is the Rightful King of Israel?

Now of course God anointed Israel’s Kings. That alone is what made them the rightful King of God’s People. God authorized Israel’s first King, Saul (1 Sam 9), by ordering Samuel to anoint him. For God to reject Saul and pick another King, God had to get Samuel to anoint another one (1 Sam 16), in an elaborate ruse so that Samuel wouldn’t be executed for treason.

But David’s line was different. After David God could not replace David’s line with anyone else. The reason for this is that God made a covenant with David (2 Sam 7:11-16) that

2 Samuel 7:16 NKJV

And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.” ’ ”

Now this promise has three aspects

David’s Kingdom is established forever. This means that Israel must exist forever, and that at some point she must inhabit the promised land forever. Exile was also promised by God already, so this means that Israel must retain her identity as a nation and be returned to her land someday.

David’s Throne is established forever. The Throne is the authority to rule. The authority to rule must be derived from David’s line, and cannot be supplanted by someone else.

David’s dynasty is established forever. This means that David’s descendants must occupy the throne. it also means that the only way this can happen permanently is for a descendant of David to occupy the throne forever. If David’s children keep passing the throne to their descendants, someone someday will transgress so badly that they will lose their right to the throne.

It is interesting that Solomon had his throne and kingdom established, but not his house 2 Sam 7:12-13 .

This probably didn’t seem important at the time. After all, how can Solomon have an eternal throne without an eternal dynasty [House]? Remember how I said that if David’s descendants kept passing the throne down to their descendants, someday someone would sin so badly that they would lose the right to the throne? Well, it happened. Jer 22:24-30.

Coniah is also known as Jeconiah 1 Chron 3:16 or Jehoiachin, the next-to-last King of the nation of Israel

2 Kings 24:8–9 NKJV

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done.

This means that no one descended from the line of Coniah could ever reign as King. However, the kingdom doesn’t just pass to any son of David. It passes to the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, etc. So this effectively dooms the entire line, since the throne and the kingdom must be Solomon’s, but the one eligible for the throne can’t have it. How can anyone fulfill God’s promises to David now?

How is Jesus the Rightful Heir?

The answer, as you might expect, is the virgin birth. Joseph was in the line of Jeconiah (Matt 1:1-16). So he was the current heir to the throne of David and therefore heir to the Davidic Covenant. However, as he was also the offspring of Jeconiah, he could never have the throne of David his ancestor, either. But Jesus was not the offspring of Joseph. Matthew makes that clear in v.16. We get down to Joseph, but Jesus is not the biological son of Joseph. “of whom Jesus was born” is a feminine pronoun in Greek. Meaning that Matthew is stating that Jesus was born of Mary, but not Joseph. Matthew’s next account demonstrates this.

Now Joseph is sometimes called the adoptive father of Jesus, but Jesus did not have to be adopted. As Jesus had no biological father, no one else besides Joseph had a legal claim to be Jesus’ father. When Joseph obeyed the angel and fulfilled his marriage covenant with Mary, he became the legal father of Jesus. So the throne and kingdom of Solomon passed down to Jesus, just as God said. Solomon’s throne and kingdom are indeed forever, since the heir to that throne is the eternal Son of God.

However, God also promised David an actual biological descendant. So how can Jesus claim to be the rightful King of Israel? The answer is found in Luke’s genealogy (Luke 3:23-38). Now genealogies always trace the male line. That’s the custom. But Jesus has no earthly father, so this presents a bit of a problem for one listing his ancestry. There are two possible solutions. One is to record his legal ancestry by giving us Joseph’s line, then making clear that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. That’s what Matthew does. The other way is to give us Jesus’ actual nearest male ancestor. That’s what Luke does. Notice that Luke’s genealogy is a bit different than Matthew’s. It goes backwards from Jesus back to Adam. But look closely at the first link in the chain (23). It’s different. Luke qualifies Jesus immediate father with “as was supposed.” Now if you compare Matthew and Luke, you will notice something - Joseph seems to have two fathers.

Matthew 1:16 NKJV

And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.

Luke 3:23 NKJV

Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli,

So who is Joseph’s father. Jacob or Heli? The answer is found by looking more closely at Luke’s statement. Now we need to remember that punctuation is not inspired. The original text had no punctuation or even spaces between the words like this:

beingaswassupposedthesonofjoseph

The punctuation was added by publishers to make the text easier to read. I’m very glad they did. However, that means that we can question the punctuation. If we change the punctuation slightly, we get this:

being (as was supposed the son of Joseph), of Heli.

being supposedly the son of Joseph, but actually the son of Heli

Being supposedly the son of Joseph, but actually the grandson of Heli

Translation: People thought, incorrectly, that Jesus was the biological son of Joseph. But he wasn’t. He was actually the son of Heli, who was Mary’s father. In Israel, your “son” was any of your descendants, either sons or grandsons. So since Mary’s father was Jesus’ nearest biological male ancestor, he is put into the genealogy, and Joseph’s name is added for the missing male in Mary’s generation.

Now the important thing about Mary’s line is that she too was descended from David, as Gabriel alluded

Luke 1:32 NKJV

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.

She is descended through Nathan, one of David’s other sons. So her line was also a royal line, but she did not inherit the royal line, as she did not descend from Solomon.

The conclusion: Jesus is the final Son of David who has the legal right to the throne. He possesses the legal right to the throne through Joseph. As the legal son of Joseph, no one else can claim to be the rightful heir. He has the throne and Kingdom of Solomon. But since he is not Joseph’s biological son, he does not inherit the curse of Jeconiah. However, since Mary is also in the line of David, Jesus is still the biological son of David. So he also is part of David’s House. The virgin birth gives him a unique claim to the kingdom that no one else will ever be able to match. So he can legitimately bring in the promised kingdom, and still fulfill all of God’s promises to Israel.