PAPER 122: Section 4.
Joseph's Dream
P1347:3, 122:4.1
Joseph did not become reconciled to the idea that Mary was to become the mother
of an extraordinary child until after he had experienced a very impressive dream.
In this dream a brilliant celestial messenger appeared to him and, among other
things, said: "Joseph, I appear by command of him who now reigns on high, and
I am directed to instruct you concerning the son whom Mary shall bear, and who
shall become a great light in the world. In him will be life, and his life shall
become the light of mankind. He shall first come to his own people, but they
will hardly receive him; but to as many as shall receive him to them will he
reveal that they are the children of God." After this experience Joseph never
again wholly doubted Mary's story of Gabriel's visit and of the promise that
the unborn child was to become a divine messenger to the world.
P1347:4, 122:4.2
In all these visitations nothing was said about the house of David. Nothing
was ever intimated about Jesus' becoming a "deliverer of the Jews," not even
that he was to be the long-expected Messiah. Jesus was not such a Messiah
as the Jews had anticipated, but he was the world's deliverer. His
mission was to all races and peoples, not to any one group.
P1347:5, 122:4.3
Joseph was not of the line of King David. Mary had more of the Davidic ancestry
than Joseph. True, Joseph did go to the City of David, Bethlehem, to be registered
for the Roman census, but that was because, six generations previously, Joseph's
paternal ancestor of that generation, being an orphan, was adopted by one
Zadoc, who was a direct descendant of David; hence was Joseph also accounted
as of the "house of David."
P1347:6, 122:4.4
Most of the so-called Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament were made
to apply to Jesus long after his life had been lived on earth. For centuries
the Hebrew prophets had proclaimed the coming of a deliverer, and these promises
had been construed by successive generations as referring to a new Jewish
ruler who would sit upon the throne of David and, by the reputed miraculous
methods of Moses, proceed to establish the Jews in Palestine as a powerful
nation, free from all foreign domination. Again, many figurative passages
found throughout the Hebrew scriptures were subsequently
misapplied to the
life mission of Jesus. Many Old Testament sayings were so distorted as to
appear to fit some episode of the Master's earth life. Jesus himself onetime
publicly denied any connection with the royal house of David. Even the passage,
"a maiden shall bear a son," was made to read, "a virgin shall bear a son."
This was also true of the many genealogies of both Joseph and Mary which were
constructed subsequent to Michael's career on earth. Many of these
lineages
contain much of the Master's ancestry, but on the whole they are not genuine
and may not be depended upon as factual. The early followers of Jesus all
too often succumbed to the temptation to make all the olden prophetic utterances
appear to find fulfillment in the life of their Lord and Master.