1 Chronicles 28:6-7 - A conditional promise.

In 2 Samuel 7:12-16, God promised King David that He will establish his kingdom forever. In 1 Chronicles 28:6-7, God made a similar promise to King Solomon - but this time, with a CONDITION. God's promise of an eternal kingdom would only be fulfilled if Solomon was unswerving in carrying out God's commands and laws. As we read through the events of Solomon's reign, we see that Solomon did not always obey God's commands and laws. As a result, the Lord Jesus was not born into Solomon's line, but into Nathan's - another son of David (Luke 3:31). Note, however, that the genealogy of Matthew 1 records that Christ was indeed born into Solomon's line. There are many differences between the geneaologies of Matthew 1 and Luke 3, but it appears that Matthew's geneaology records the succession of Kings and follows the royal line. Luke's genealogy, on the other hand, follows the actual biological line. The two geneaologies appear to "meet" when they reach Shealtiel. Matthew states that Shealtiel was Jeconiah's (also called Jehoiachin) son (Matthew 1:12), whereas Luke states that he was the son of Neri (Luke 3:27). It appears that although Jeconiah had sons, they were probably killed by the Babylonians (as happened to Zedekiah's sons cf. 2 Kings 25:7). Therefore, Jeconiah most probably adopted Shealtiel (who was a direct descendent of David, through Nathan) as a son to continue on the royal line. Note also that Jeconiah was cursed by God (Jeremiah 22:24-30). The Lord declared that none of Jeconiah's offspring would prosper and that he would be recorded as if being childless. None of his descendants would ever sit on David's throne. This would be a problem if Shealtiel was a son of Jeconiah, because Christ was a direct descendant of Shealtiel and He is destined to reign of David's throne forever, fulfilling the promise God made to David. But, as already mentioned, Shealtiel was actually the son of Neri, not Jeconiah. These events demonstrate that many of God's promises and blessings are conditional. God has a master plan and He wants to use us to bring that plan to fruition. But if we do not obey, He will simply find another way or another person to fulfill his purposes - as He did in choosing Nathan's family to bear Christ, instead of Solomon's. Our choices have real consequences and if we do not obey God, we will miss out on his blessing and we will become useless to Him.

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