25. What is necessary to the bringing forth of a perfect government, and so what other fact was God’s law through Moses meant to show the Israelites?

²⁵ In order for a perfect government to come forth there has to be a perfect source of the government. The only perfect source is God. The law of God as given to the Israelites through Moses was meant to show the Israelites more than that they were imperfect, sinners needing redemption by the perfect human sacrifice that God would provide through his Son. God’s law through Moses was meant also to show the Israelites that they needed a perfect government. That divine law was meant to point the Israelites not only to the Redeemer whom they needed to lift them out of sin, imperfection and death, but also to their King. God’s law through Moses ordered them: “You should without fail set over yourself a king whom Jehovah your God will choose.” (Deut. 17:14, 15) “Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you,” says the prophecy of God.—Zech. 9:9, RS.

26. Besides a perfect government, what else can God provide, and when did he promise to do this?

²⁶ God, the perfect Source, can not only bring forth the perfect government but can also provide the necessary perfect ruler for that government. He has promised to do this. More than nineteen centuries before the Christian era he called the faithful patriarch Abraham out of the Mesopotamian land of Chaldea into the Promised Land in the Middle East. God said to faithful Abraham that he would make Abraham a blessing to all the families of the earth and that in him and in his seed, in his offspring, all the families and nations of the earth should be blessed. (Gen. 12:1-3; 22:17, 18) It was when Abraham was a hundred years of age and his wife Sarah was ninety years of age that God miraculously gave the patriarch Abraham a son named Isaac. Isaac never became a king. But when God told Abraham that he was going to give him this son by his wife Sarah, God said that Sarah was to become the ancestress of kings, yes, rulers, governors, royal monarchs: “I will bless her and she shall become nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” This was why her name was changed to Sarah, meaning Princess. (Gen. 17:15, 16) So this Seed whom God said he would in due time produce and in whom all the families and nations of the earth would be blessed was to be a royal Seed; it was to be a King! There was to be a royal government!

27. Whom did Jehovah form into a nation with an established government, and through which section of this nation was the promised King to be brought forth?

²⁷ The patriarch Abraham had twelve great-grandsons. These produced the twelve tribes of Israel, and Jehovah God formed these into a nation. He established a theocratic government over them. As their divine King and Lawgiver, he gave them the Ten Commandments. (Deut. 33:1-5) Out of those twelve tribes of Israel God selected a particular tribe through which he would bring forth his ruler for blessing all mankind. It proved to be the tribe of Judah when this blessing was pronounced by his father upon Judah: “The scepter will not turn aside from Judah, neither the commander’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh [the great Peaceful One] comes, and to him the obedience of the people will belong.” (Gen. 49:10) So, which descendant of Judah would become King?

28. In whom did God’s royal promise to Abraham and Sarah really begin to be fulfilled, and what did God’s solemn contract with this one really mean?

²⁸ The promise that God made to Abraham and his wife Sarah, that eventually kings would come from her, really began to be fulfilled in David, the shepherd lad of the little city of Bethlehem. David was the eleventh in the line of descent from Judah. In due time David was anointed king over the twelve tribes of Israel. Soon he established his seat of government in the holy city of Jerusalem. God’s holy ark of the covenant was brought there and lodged near King David’s palace. Then God made a covenant or a solemn contract with King David, that the kingdom would never depart from his family, from his lineage, from his house, from his line of descent. (2 Sam. 7:12-16) In the 89th Psalm God said that he had made this covenant with David and that he would never profane it, for which reason the perfect king that would come forth from David would have a throne that would endure just as long as the sun and the moon would endure, that is, it would be eternal, never having an end, never needing to have a successor in government.—Ps. 89:3, 4, 19-37.

The Perfect Ruler for Man’s Government

1. How, without a kingdom today at earthly Jerusalem, does God nevertheless have his promised King, and why was he born where he was?

WHAT, then, about this perfect eternal king that was promised to come in the line of descent from King David of Jerusalem? After these thousands of years of human experiment in government, we see today no kingdom at the city of Jerusalem in the land of Israel. Nevertheless, God has his promised King! Also, he has come through the royal line of King David. In support of this fact we turn from the Hebrew Scriptures to the Christian Greek Scriptures, and the very first words that we find in them read this way: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (Matt. 1:1, AS) Ah yes, this line of descent of kings that was to run down from Abraham through King David found its climax in Jesus Christ and goes no farther than him. Not by accident, this Jesus was born in the same city where King David had been born, in the city of Bethlehem. This was in fulfillment of Jehovah’s prophecy.—Mic. 5:2; Matt. 2:1-16.

2. How was this one born there really a “Son of Heaven,” and how was he then identified as the one to become the promised King?

² True, this Jesus had the patriarch Abraham and King David as his ancestors, but he really had a heavenly Father, and his virgin mother was, of necessity, human. She was the one who was in the line of descent from Abraham and through David. (Luke 3:23-34) So this Jesus who was born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of Bible prophecy was really the “Son of Heaven”; he was really the Son of God, whom his heavenly Father sent down to earth by a miracle in order to provide a perfect ruler for mankind. No perfect king was to be found from among imperfect, sinful, dying mankind itself. Let us recall that when this child Jesus was born in Bethlehem the angel from heaven announced to the shepherds out in the fields: “There was born to you today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in David’s city.” That angel who brought “good news of a great joy that all the people will have,” called this child who was there born the Christ. That is to say, he was the Messiah, the Anointed One; he was the one to become king in fulfillment of prophecy.—Luke 2:8-11.

3. Where did this child grow up, and what did he become there?

³ This child escaped being killed by King Herod, who reigned in Jerusalem as representative of the Roman Empire. After Herod’s death Jesus was taken to the city of Nazareth. There he grew up to manhood. He became, not a shepherd as his ancestor King David had been, but a carpenter. He lived and worked in the city of Nazareth, in obscurity, leading, as it were, an underground existence.

4. What got Jesus out of his shop, and how was his next step shown to be not a false one?

⁴ What, then, was it that called Jesus out of his carpenter shop? What set him on the road to the kingdom over all mankind? Ah, it was the proclamation of God’s kingdom. At that time Jehovah God had raised up the prophet John the son of Zechariah, and in due time John the Baptist came preaching repentance of sins and baptism in symbol of such repentance. He told the Jews to repent because God’s government was at hand. John’s proclamation was: “The kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.” As soon as the news of John’s proclamation reached Jesus there in the carpenter shop at Nazareth, he gave up shopwork. He laid down his tools and went to John the Baptist and was baptized by him. This was no false step by Jesus of Nazareth, for as soon as he came up out of the water following his baptism in the river Jordan, there was an announcement from the heavenly King of eternity, Jehovah God. Picture the scene as the faithful Record says: “After being baptized Jesus immediately came up from the water; and, look! the heavens were opened up, and he saw descending like a dove God’s spirit coming upon him. Look! also, there was a voice from the heavens that said: ‘This is my Son, the beloved, whom I have approved.’”—Matt. 3:1-6, 13-17.

5, 6. (a) How did Jesus’ anointing differ from that of David? (b) What did selfish Jews want to make Jesus, and why did he refuse?

⁵ Centuries before that, David had been anointed with oil to be king over Israel; but this Jesus was anointed from heaven with the spirit of God to be the king in the promised kingdom, the perfect government for all mankind. The apostle Peter reports: “God anointed him with holy spirit and power, and he went through the land doing good and healing all those oppressed by the Devil, because God was with him.” (Acts 10:38) He was acknowledged by his followers to be the “Son of God,” the “King of Israel.” (John 1:49; Matt. 16:16) He went through great tests. He endured great