How does the Messianic kingdom relate to the throne of David?
You mean, for instance, in the words of the angel to Mary? He should give unto him the throne of his father, David (see Luke 1:32)? Well, I myself think that that lies in the future. I shall be quoting as a key verse, given us by our Lord for the understanding of these things, Psalm 110:1 where God, Jehovah, says to the psalmist's Lord, that is the Messiah, 'Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' So in that verse quoted by our Lord, there were three phases. There was the phase first of his incarnation. Had the Messiah for ever been seated at the right hand of God there would be no point in God's inviting him to come and sit at his right hand. That very invitation presupposes a time when he wasn't sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. 'Come sit at my right hand', a verse quoted many times in the New Testament of our Lord's ascension and accession at the right hand of God. Now, secondly, the Psalm says, 'Sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.' This present dispensation, to use a technical term, was foreseen in the Old Testament: there was to be a period between our Lord's ascension and the accession at the right hand, on the one hand, and then his enemies being put under his feet when he comes again.
So the final fulfilment of those prophecies—he was to sit on the throne of his father David—I understand then to relate to his coming again. It is a very different thing from what James mentioned, about the restoring of the tent of David which has fallen down (see Acts 15:16). The tent of David is not the temple in Jerusalem. It is, rather, David's house and dynasty, and with the coming of our Lord, born of the seed of David according to the flesh, now exalted at the right hand of God, he is the Son of David, par excellence. I don't think therefore that David's house has collapsed, but the time of his being manifest to sit upon David's throne might be still in the future.
