EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
3/4/2026 7:33 PM
My
Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “The
Divine Child”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference:
Luke
1:31-33
Message of the verses: “And behold, you will conceive in your
womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son
of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father
David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will
have no end.”
I want to continue from where I left off this
morning. Now the true measure of Christ’s
greatness may be seen in His sharing of God’s glory—of which God declared, “I
will not give My glory to another” (Isa. 42:8).
Now referring to Isaiah’s vision of God’s majesty and glory (Isa.
6:1-10), the apostle John wrote, “These things Isaiah said because he saw
His [Christ’s] glory, and he spoke of Him” (John 12:41). John could say that when Isaiah viewed God’s
glory in the temple, he saw the glory of Christ, and the reason is because He
shares the Father’s glory. That glory,
though veiled in His human flesh, was nonetheless manifested during Christ’s
earthly life. The apostle John wrote, “The
Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the
only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And for a brief moment on the Mount of
Transfiguration, Jesus’ majestic glory was unveiled to Peter, James, and John
(Matt. 1:17 1-8).
John MacArthur writes “Christ
possesses the glory of God because as the Son of the Most High (cf. 1:35,
76; 6:35; Acts 7:48) He possesses the nature of God. Most High (hupsistos) is the
Greek equivalent of the frequently used Old Testament title for God El Elyon
(Gen. 14:18-20; Deut. 32:8; 2 Samuel 22:14’ Psalm 17:17; 9:2; 21:7; 46:4;
47:2; Isa. 14:14; Lam. 3:35, 38; Dan. 4:17, 24; 5:18, 21). It is a title that refers to His position as
the supreme sovereign ruler. To identify
Jesus as the Son of the Most High is to affirm that He is of the same
essence as God. In the words of the
writer of Hebrews, ‘He [Jesus] is the radiance of His [God’s] glory and the
exact representation of His nature’ (Heb. 1:3; cf. Matt. 1:23; John 10:30;
Phil. 2:6-9; Col. 2:9).
This amazing Child would be God
incarnate, perfectly righteous in everything He thought, said, and did. He would die as a sinless sacrifice,
providing Himself as a substitute for sinners, offering His atoning death to
save them from their sins. But that is
not the end of the story. He would not remain
dead, but would rise to reign. The
culmination of Christ’s work will come when the Lord God gives Him
the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob
forever, and His kingdom will have no end.
As noted above, the Lord Jesus Christ was the rightful heir to the
throne of His father David through His legal father, Joseph. Gabriel’s words emphasize both the Jewish
character of Christ’s kingdom, since He will rule over the house of Jacob
(Isa. 65:17-19; Zeph. 3:11-13; Zech. 14:16-21, as well as the rest of
mankind; cf. Dan. 7:14, 27), and its eternality, since His kingdom will have
no end (Rev. 11:15). “15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and
there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.’”
MacArthur goes on to write: “The promised kingdom is not limited to
Christ’s present spiritual reign, as amillennialists advocate. The Bible teaches that Satan will be
bound during the millennium (Rev. 20:1-3); yet now, as Peter warned, he ‘prowls
around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour’ (1 Peter 5:8). Therefore, the present age cannot be the
millennium. Nor does the church usher in
the millennial kingdom, at the end of which Christ returns, as
postmillennialists postulate. Jesus
Himself posed the rhetorical question, ‘When the Son of Man comes, will He
find faith on the earth?’ (Luke 18:8).
“The Lord Jesus Christ clearly did
not establish His kingdom at His first coming.
As John noted in the prologue to his gospel, ‘He came to His own
[Israel], and those who were His own did not receive Him’ (John 1:11; cf. 11:53;
Matt. 9:34; 12:14; 21:37-43; Mark 6:3; 16:14; 1 Thess. 2:14-16). The Jewish people (particularly their
leaders), ‘recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which
are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. And though they found no ground for putting
Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed’ (Acts 13:27-28; cf. 2:23;
7:52; Matt. 27:22-23; Luke 23:13-24; John 19:12-16).
“Jesus Christ rules spiritually in the heart of every
believer (cf. Col. 1:13), and that spiritual rule will last forever because
salvation is forever. But that does not
preclude the future literal, earthly, millennial kingdom. During that blessed time, Jesus Christ, ‘the
root and the descendant of David’ (Rev. 22:16; cf. Isa. 11:1, 10; Matt. 1:1;
Rom. 15:12), the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5), will sit on His
glorious throne, judging the nations with a rod of iron (Ps. 2:9; Rev. 12:5;
19:15) for a thousand years (Rev. 20:4-5).
At the end of that time, God will uncreate the universe and create a new
heaven and earth that will last for all eternity. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
15:24-28,
“24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the
kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and
power. 25 For he must reign until he has
put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For “God has put all things in subjection
under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is
plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the
Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection
under him, that God may be all in all.” (ESV)
“Gabriel’s message to Mary
introduces the pivotal point in redemptive history. How people respond to the Child of whom
Gabriel spoke will determine their eternal destiny. As Simeon would later say to Mary, ‘Behold,
this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel’ (Luke 2:34), and
the rest of the world as well. And as
the Child Himself would warn, ‘Unless you believe that I am He, you will die
in your sins’ (John 8:24), since ‘there is salvation in no one else; for
there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we
must be saved’ (Acts 3:12).”
This section ends the fourth chapter
in MacArthur’s commentary on Luke, the first of four commentaries on Luke’s
gospel. Lord willing we will begin
looking at the introduction of the fifth chapter in tomorrow mourning’s SD,
which as I look at it is fairly long so it may take both the morning and
evening SD’s to complete it.
3/4/2026
8:22 PM
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