Where is the throne of David?

And did the Apostle Peter really say that the throne of David has now been moved to heaven?

(Acts 2:30-36)

One of the core teachings of supersessionism (replacement theology), amillennialism, and post-millennialism centers around the idea that God does not have to tangibly fulfill his promise to David to seat his messianic descendant on his throne in Jerusalem (2 Sam. 7:11-16), because after the resurrection of Christ this Davidic promise was fulfilled when Jesus took his seat at the right hand of God the Father in heaven.

In his famous work on supersessionist hermeneutics, Hans LaRondelle summarizes this view.

He states:

"God restored the throne of David in the resurrection, ascension, and inauguration of Christ Jesus as Lord and Redeemer of Israel (Acts. 2:36; 5:31). [...]"

"As the Davidic kings were sitting 'on the throne of the LORD' (1 Chron. 28:5; 29:23), so Christ is now seated with His Father on His throne (Rev. 3:21)."

"The Davidic throne is no longer unoccupied or ineffective, but is transferred from Jerusalem to the throne room in heaven, where Christ is presently the Davidic King (Acts 2:34-36; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20-22)."

(The Israel of God in Prophecy; 149)

We see here that LaRondelle, and for that matter nearly all supersessionists, amillennialists, and post-millennialists, believe that the Davidic Covenant now has only a spiritual fulfillment in Christ, and does not point forward to a future millennial reign when the Messiah will fulfill the OT promises by sitting on the throne of David in the place where it was originally established, namely, Jerusalem.

This view is based on Peter's famous Pentecost sermon in Acts 2, and though appealing to many for a number of reasons, it fails to discern the primary message Peter was communicating to his Jewish audience in the first century AD. So what was Peter actually saying in this text? And how can understanding his sermon help us develop a more biblical eschatology?

Here are 4 key points:

First, Peter's primary point in Acts 2 is not that the throne of David has now been moved to heaven, or that the Davidic promises are being completely fulfilled through the resurrection and ascension of Christ.

Instead, Peter is saying that through his death, resurrection, and ascension, Christ has earned the right to the Davidic throne on the earth.

To understand why Peter is approaching his apologetic in this way, one needs to first grasp that in first-century Judaism the idea that the Messiah would die, be raised from the dead, and then go to heaven was not widely accepted. Some Jewish texts contain traces of this idea (see Daniel Boyarin's book The Jewish Gospels).

But by and large, the common coinage of Jewish messianic expectation in the first-century was that the Messiah would arrive and immediately destroy Israel's enemies and set up his kingdom in the Promised Land (cf. Acts 1:6).

Because of this widespread belief, Peter's primary task in Acts 2, starting in verse 22, was to defend the idea of the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of the Messiah from Scripture.

Basically, Peter had to prove from accepted Jewish texts (i.e. the OT) that before the Messiah could reign on the throne of David in Jerusalem, he would first have to be crucified, rise, and ascend to God's right hand in the heavens.

Peter is doing evangelism to a Jewish audience in Acts 2, and in this context he implicitly affirms their hope in the Messiah's future reign from Jerusalem.

But at the same time, he must also correct their limited and incomplete understanding of God's messianic plan, in particular by telling them that some other things were prophesied to happen first, prior to the reestablishment of David's throne in the holy city.

Second, Peter's evangelistic context in the midst of a Jewish audience explains why he focuses on Psalm 16:8-11 and Psalm 110:1-2 at the end of his sermon.

Psalm 16, which Peter quotes directly in Acts 2:25-28, implies the death and resurrection of the Messiah when it says:

"For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever."

In other words, David, the Psalmist, based his personal hope of resurrection on the resurrection of God's "Holy One," the Messiah.

David prophetically saw that God would not allow the Messiah to be abandoned to the grave, and this indicated that the Messiah would actually have to die and rise again, which was the first point Peter needed to prove.

Thus, Peter follows up on his quotation of Psalm 16 by saying:

"And so, because he [David] was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses." (Acts 2:30-32).

Then, towards the end of his sermon, Peter makes the equally important shift to Psalm 110, which teaches that before the Messiah could reign on the earth, he would first have to ascend to the right hand of God in heaven.

Psalm 110:1-2 reads:

"The Lord says to my Lord: 'Sit at My right hand

Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.'"

From Peter's perspective, this Psalm has so much apologetic value because in it David plainly states that his Lord (i.e. the Messiah) would first sit at God's right hand, and then, only at a later time, initiate the final judgment and the full establishment of the Messianic Kingdom on earth.

In other words, this particular Psalm was the perfect corrective to oversimplified first-century Jewish eschatology, which only believed in one coming of the Messiah, after which point the Kingdom would be immediately established in Israel.

Peter sees, and his Jewish audience would later see, that right there in the Hebrew Bible the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of the Messiah were clearly predicted (Ps. 16; 110), which implied that there would be an intervening period of time between the appearance of the Messiah and the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel.

Consequently, Peter says:

"Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth that which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says:

'The LORD said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.''" (Acts. 2:33-35)

Again, at this point, Peter's goal is entirely evangelistic. He is trying to win his Jewish brothers to the Messiah through a strategic use of biblical prophecy.

Peter never says the throne of David has been moved to heaven, or that Jewish eschatological hope was ill-conceived because it suggested that the Messiah would reign from the throne of David in Jerusalem.

He is simply trying to show that Jesus is the one who will one day reign from Jerusalem (Acts. 2:30), because he has fulfilled the prophecies that the Messiah needed to fulfill before he could actually take up his throne on the earth.

This is why Peter ends his sermon by saying:

"Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ--this Jesus whom you crucified." (Acts 2:36)

Crucifixion -> Resurrection -> Ascension -> Reign from David's throne in Jerusalem.

This is the basic outline of events that Peter highlights to win his Jewish kin to the messianic faith.

Third, other NT texts outside of Acts 2 confirm that Jesus will reign from David's throne in Jerusalem.

In his next sermon, Peter reiterates that he accepts basic Jewish eschatology, including the idea that the Messiah will reign in Jerusalem, but also, just like in Acts 2, Peter adds the qualifier that this full inauguration of the Kingdom would be preceded by the fulfillment of prophecies that concern the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of the Messiah.

Peter says:

"But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled."

"Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."

"And that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time." (Acts. 3:18-21).

Notice how Peter follows the same basic outline here as in Acts 2:

First the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, then the "restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time." (v. 21)

Peter gives no indication here that he believes the prophecies of restoration, which would include the establishment of the Messiah's throne in Jerusalem, will not be fulfilled literally, as written.

Instead, he simply wants to make clear that before this can happen, "heaven must receive" the Christ for a period of time.

This was the pastoral approach that allowed his Jewish brethren to both look forward to the Kingdom and accept the Gospel.

Likewise, in Luke 1:32-33, Luke says of 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.”

Does Luke say here that the "throne of David" has been moved to heaven, or that the promises to David have only a spiritual fulfillment through Christ's ascension?

Of course not.

He simply states that God will give Jesus "the throne of His father David," which will lead to him reigning over "the house of Jacob."

Though there is certainly a partial or spiritual fulfillment of the David Covenant through the birth and ascension of Christ, this does not nullify the core substance of the Davidic promises.

In multiple places, the Apostles affirm that Jesus has been made Lord and Christ of Israel through his literal fulfillment of some biblical prophecies, which will culminate with the literal fulfillment of other prophecies later on. (Acts. 3:21)

Fourth, to argue for a strictly spiritual fulfillment of the David Covenant through Christ's ascension, requires one to accept an untenable and inconsistent approach to Bible prophecy.

To understand this point, let's go back briefly to Psalms 16 and 110 in Acts 2.

In this passage, Peter argues for the literal fulfillment of OT prophecy in the life of Christ, and without this literal fulfillment of prophecy the core tenets of the Gospel could not even be maintained.

Psalm 16 predicted the death and resurrection of the Messiah, and this prediction was literally fulfilled in the life of Christ.

Psalm 110 predicted the literal ascension of Christ to heaven, and this prediction was literally fulfilled as well.

These examples prove that the New Testament itself validates the literal fulfillment of prophecy, and there is no evidence that prophecies that pertain to the Second Coming will not be literally fulfilled in the same way as these prophecies that pertain to the First Coming.

For example, right after it predicts the ascension of Christ to heaven, Psalm 110 also says:

"The Lord will stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying, 'Rule in the midst of Your enemies.'" (v. 2)

"The Lord is at Your right hand; He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations, He will fill them with corpses, He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside; Therefore He will lift up His head." (vv. 5-7)

If all can agree that Psalm 110 has a partial and literal fulfillment through the ascension of Christ, it would be illogical and self-defeating to not also accept that everything else in this prophecy will be literally fulfilled as well:

Namely, the Messiah reigning with his "scepter" from "Zion" (i.e. Jerusalem) among his "enemies," judging the nations, shattering kings, and filling the earth with corpses as he wages a military campaign and drinks form the "brook by the wayside." (vv. 2-7).

The entire argument Peter makes in Acts 2 about the messianic credentials of Jesus depends on the literal fulfillment of prophecy, and we cannot, on our own authority, selectively choose which prophecies have a literal fulfillment and which ones do not.

This is the core problem with supersessionism, amillennialism, and post-millennialism:

These systems force the interpreter to decide, on completely arbitrary grounds, which prophecies have a literal fulfillment and which prophecies have only a spiritual fulfillment.

And not surprisingly, they almost all choose to take only prophecies about Christ's first coming literally while relegating any future prophecies that speak of Zion and Jerusalem to the realm of a spiritual fulfillment!

This is pure bias, and there is no basis for approaching Scripture in this way. An internally consistent hermeneutic requires that Jesus will reign from David's throne in Jerusalem, just as David, Peter, Luke et al. predicted.

Supersessionists, amillennialists, and post-millennialists assume that the throne of David has been moved to heaven, and that the ascension of Christ fulfills the Davidic promises.

But the biblical text never says anything of the sort.

These assumptions are merely being read into Scripture for polemical and theological ends, without enough attention being paid to Peter's real purpose in Acts 2-3, which was to recalibrate, but not completely reject, Jewish eschatology for evangelistic ends. - Travis M. Snow