The result was that Solomon was proclaimed king, and the rest of David's sons were

set aside so far as succession to the throne was concerned. Throughout the Gospel of the

kingdom, Matthew, the title "The Son of David" is reiterated, for Christ as the Son of

David was born to sit upon the throne of David (Luke 1: 32).

When we turn from the Gospel of the Kingdom to the epistles of the church we do not

find Paul speaking of Christ as the `Son' of David; he goes deeper and calls him "The

Seed of David". As the `Son', Christ was the rightful king of Israel, but this title and rule

did not comprehend all that was conceived by God at the beginning. Paul does not

obtrude into the epistles to the church a title that would confuse these two departments of

the redemptive purpose: he omits the kingdom title and uses the deeper and more

significant title "The Seed of David". Not only so, he uses this title when writing the

epistle to the Romans (Rom. 1: 3) and he uses it again after the dispensation of the

Mystery had come in (II Tim. 2: 8), and Timothy is called upon to `remember' this

relationship, and that it formed an integral part of that which Paul called especially `my

gospel'. In both passages the resurrection is prominent. While therefore David's son

Solomon and his successors are the heirs to the throne, Christ as David's SEED carries

the great primeval promise of God to its glorious consummation.

The Syro-Phoenician woman was made to realize that in Christ as "The Son of David"

she had no place (Matt. xv.22), but the Seed of David was declared to be the Son of God

with power by the resurrection (Rom. 1: 3, 4) and the good news associated with Him in

that capacity was addressed to both Jew and Gentile. While the succession to the throne

came through Solomon, Mary's line descends through Nathan, Solomon's brother, and so

in Matthew we have `The son of David' with special reference to the king and kingdom,

whereas in Luke 3: we have "The Seed of the Woman" descending from David,

through Nathan and Mary. Luke was the evangelist who laboured so faithfully with the

Apostle Paul. It is Luke's account rather than Matthew's that stresses "The Seed", and

there are some commentators who believe that what Paul speaks of as `my gospel' is

actually this gospel according to Luke. In like manner Christ is called "The Son of

Abraham" (Matt. 1: 1) but it is never so called by Paul, for just as we found that Paul

speaks of Christ as the Seed of David, so also does he speak of Christ as the Seed of

Many of the reference books that have been consulted make Paul here quote from

different passages in Genesis. The Companion Bible refers the reader to Gen. 21: 12

"In Isaac shall thy seed be called". This passage is most certainly quoted in Rom. 9: 7,

and it has one item that attracts it to Gal. 3: 16, and that is, that the word `seed' here

must be understood as being singular, because of the singular verb that follows it "it shall

be called". Turpie's book on quotations refers Gal. 3: 16 to Gen. 22: 18. We feel

however that Paul would remind us that he actually cited the word "And" `And to thy

seed', and consequently we must refer to Gal. 3: 16 to such texts as Gen. 17: 7, 8 or

to Gen. 24: 7 which in the LXX agrees with the words quoted in Galatians. This is