Craig Blaising reminds us that “the incarnation is not just the union of God and humanity; it is the incarnation of the Son of God in the house of David as the Son of covenant promise. From a human standpoint, Jesus is not just a man, or generic man; he is that man--that descendant of David.”*  The Christ of faith, the Messiah of the Bible, is more than just a Jew, and even more than God incarnate as a Jew. He is the union of deity and humanity in the Son of David.

Blaising emphasizes how the Apostle Paul twice names the Davidic Sonship of Yeshua as central to the gospel he preached:

However, in Scripture, not only the Jewishness of Jesus, but also his Davidic lineage are central features of the Gospel. For example, Paul, in Romans 1, summarizes the gospel in this way:

The gospel of God which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is the gospel that he says in Romans 1:16 is to the Jew first and also to the Greek. In 2 Timothy 2:8, he writes, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel.”*

Many in the Congregational/Missions Movements will protest, “Or course Yeshua is the Son of David! He could not be the Messiah if he were not the Son of David! We always teach this!” But is that all? Is his being the Son of David simply a matter of lineage, a bit of genetic evidence that he comes from the right family? No. “Son of David” is Yeshua’s office. It names his role as the anointed King, that descendant of David destined to rule forever, that unique one chosen by the Father to shepherd Israel and the nations to their predestined consummations.

Imprinted by classical Dispensationalism, some will hold that Yeshua’s office as the Son of David will only be actualized in a future millennial reign when the Messiah rules from Jerusalem. Yet there are many, including Progressive Dispensationalists, who will argue instead that Scripture portrays Yeshua as the presently reigning Son of David.**

*  Blaising, Craig A. 2001. "The Future of Israel as a Theological Question." (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 44, no. 3: 435-450), 445.

** Walter C. Kaiser, Jr. is one of those scholars who hold that Yeshua’s reign is “already” even if there are aspects of that reign which are “not yet.” “There is a ‘now-already’ aspect of the kingdom’s appearance, as well as a ‘not yet’ future part of that same kingdom. . . . Thus, while the King is not yet visible in his kingdom, the kingdom nevertheless has begun and is effectively and powerfully operating through Christ’s disciples and his church.” Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Recovering the Unity of the Bible: One Continuous Story, Plan, and Purpose (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 137. See also Darrell L. Bock, “The Reign of the Lord Jesus,” in Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church, ed. Craig Blaising and Darrell L. Bock (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 38.

     When he told the woman at the well, “We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews,”  Yeshua was including himself in the “we” that is the Jewish people. The woman had no difficulty herself identifying him as such, saying, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a Samaritan woman, since Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” Although neither Yeshua nor the woman were confused about the matter, a survey of history demonstrates that Yeshua’s Jewishness is not so apparent to others.

    Examine the church’s artistic and literary legacy and you will discover its amnesia concerning the Jewishness of Yeshua. The church embraces a generic Christ, the cosmic Savior, the Man for Others, the Metaphysical Hero, or even a chameleon Redeemer who blends in perfectly wherever he is placed. In its paintings, icons, weavings, drawings, and sculptures the church in every culture makes Jesus over in its own image.

    Thus we will find the Gentile Christ with the aquiline nose, the rugged white Anglo Saxon Marlboro Man Christ, the black Christ, the Asian Christ, the Indian Christ,    Swinburne’s conquering pale Galilean, varieties of Latin American folk Christs, and countless other variations on the theme.    Somehow the church forgot to remember what was so obvious to the Samaritan woman: Jesus was, is, and evermore will be a Jew. This is crucial, because the Christ of faith and the Christ of history only intersect in the very specific one who became incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Our faith in the Messiah is groundless when we lose contact with this flesh and blood specificity.

Bernard Dupuy named this sickness and its remedy in 1974:

        We have to get back to the One who became incarnate as a Jew among the Jews; to the One for whom being a Jew was not some kind of throw-away garment but his very being. . . . It was in becoming incarnate in the Jewish people that Jesus offered himself as savior to the entire human race. We can acknowledge Jesus only as he appeared to us: as this particular Jew, this just and suffering servant; it is thus that he reveals himself in order to reign over the world.” *

    Still, none of the historic creeds and confessions of the church make any reference to Yeshua’s Jewishness: not one. The Man from Galilee has become the Son of Man Without a Country.  This being the case, we in the Messianic Jewish Congregational or Jewish Missions Movements (hereafter Congregational/Missions Movements) will be tempted to congratulate ourselves on our emphasis of this fact so widely neglected by the church.    However, to do so would be premature. Like the church, we too have proven ourselves blind and mute concerning something closely related to Yeshua’s Jewish identity, something equally foundational to the faith we profess. We are often blind and mute concerning his role and status as the Son of David.


* Dupuy, Bernard. “What Meaning Has the Fact that Jesus was Jewish for the Christian?” in Kung, Hans and Walter Kasper, eds., Christians and Jews. Concilium: Religion in the Seventies, Volume 98. New York: Seabury, 1974: 74.

We who claim Yeshua the Son of David as both Lord and Messiah should be recruiting all Israel to the regathering of the seed of Jacob to the Land (aliyah), Jewish unity, repentance-renewal, allegiance to the Messiah the Son of David, Torah-based covenant faithfulness, the communal experience of the Divine Presence, and the vindication of God’s name through the accomplishing of these things.

What we need is a gospel of continuity and consummation for the Jewish

People. Here is a good approximation of it:

• The Messiah has come and He is coming again. His name is Yeshua, and he is the best possible news for the Jewish people

• Through Yeshua the Son of David, the God of Israel, who has been with the Jewish people in all their afflictions, has come to rescue us again in greater manner and greater measure than ever before, as the prophets said He would (including talk of the atonement, the resurrection of Yeshua and its connection to the resurrection of the dead, of Israel as a nation (Ezekiel 37), of the Gentile world from the grave of idolatry, and Israel’s full restoration as in the New Messianic Jewish Agenda)

• In him, all of God’s promises to the Jewish people are being fulfilled

• Come join with us, to serve the God of Israel by advancing his agenda for His people in the context of Torah obedience and allegiance to Yeshua, the Son of David