O Key of David: A Most Joyful O Antiphon
“Key of David” isn’t a title of Jesus that we sing much about. Make that “O Key of David, or in Latin, “O Clavis David,” as in the fourth O Antiphon.
The one who holds the key decides.
Keys symbolize authority and control, possession and rights. As the owner of a house key, it’s my prerogative to choose who comes in and who does not. I own the house and I have authority. I decide.
Jesus holds the most important key ever.
O Come, O Key of David, Come
I mean the key we sing about in the most ancient carol we all still sing,
O come, thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heav’nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Have you ever sung that verse? I happy to report in made the cut in my hymnal. It’s the fourth and final. It is important.
For Us & Our Salvation, the Key Came Down
The one who holds the key to the palace decides who gets into the presence of the king. For us and our salvation, to bring us to God, the Key of David came down.
This O Antiphon comes from a prophecy in Isaiah 22:22, announced by the prophet more than 700 years before the Key of David was born:
“And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David. He shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.”
Do you wonder how we know that these words spoken about Eliakim the governor of King Hezekiah’s household also pointed ahead to Jesus?
I did, and I found an answer.
But before I share it, what about “David’s house”?
A Key to David’s House
Hezekiah and other kings of Judah were descended from the royal line, the house, of David. This line would lead all the way to King Jesus. (See the “Rod of Jesse” post.)
But there’s more. King Hezekiah gave his faithful servant Eliakim the key to the palace. In possessing the key to the house of David, it meant that Eliakim determined who could be admitted into the palace and the king’s presence—and who would be kept out.
But how do we know these words refer to Christ?
The True One, Who Has the Key of David
Jesus wrote letters to the seven churches to open the book of Revelation. Each message includes a reference to himself.
Revelation 3:7 is the answer.
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
Here Jesus Christ takes Isaiah’s description of Eliakim on himself.
The Key on His—Where?
But what of the odd location of the key of David in Isaiah 22:22?
Do you remember where the keeper holds the key? It’s not in his pocket, not on his waist, or in his hand. This key on his shoulder.
We don’t keep keys on our shoulders. They’d fall off. But this ancient key is not a little house or car key.
Pastor Kevin DeYoung shed some welcome light on that,
You have a long wooden beam across the palace door. And so a key in the ancient world would be placed on your shoulder because it was a giant lever that would fit right into some sort of latch and you could prop open the barricade, the bolting beam, and lift that open and then you could open the gate and people could come into the palace.
What DeYoung offered next floored me. I didn’t see it coming.
I don’t know if there’s meant to be a connection here with Christ and the Crucifixion, but it’s not hard for us to imagine as Jesus carries a large wooden beam on his shoulders, that too is a type of key, that key which will open up the gates and fling wide the doors…into God’s house.
The Key of David Will Return
During Advent, we remember the one who came to claim the key of David, the one who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens (Revelation 13:7).
He was born at Bethlehem that he might go down into the grave for keys to open a way for sinners. “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore,” he declares, “and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev. 1:18). He traveled over land and sea, from heaven to earth, from greatest riches to humiliation and poverty — that we might become rich. He traded fortunes for flesh, splendors for skin, his life for ours.
But Advent is about the gap. It’s about fueling our hope while we walk between Christ’s first and second coming.
Because Jesus will come again.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
We rightly cling to our Lord’s words in John 14:3. Jesus opened up our heavenly home and in his death—nailed to that wooden beam of a key he bore on his shoulders—and in his resurrection.
But Jesus is more than the key. He is also the way and the door (John 10:9; 14:6). He is the key that made “a new and living way through his flesh” (Hebrews 10:20)— a door that no one can ever close.
Beyond the Closed Doors
I’ll close with a single application from F. B. Meyers,
Down a long corridor of closed doors we may sometimes have to pass. It seems heartbreaking to see doors labelled, Friendship, Love, Home shut against us; but beyond them there is the one unclosed door through which we shall enter into our true life. Oh do not lose heart and hope in useless weeping over the closed doors of the past. Follow Him who has the keys.
The more doors that shut in my face, the more thankful I am for Jesus Christ, the Key of David.
Because at the end of life’s hall is one marvelous, wide-open door. No matter what anyone does to you, no matter what doors of opportunity slam in your face, no matter what chances for “a more satisfying life” pass you by, none of these can keep you from coming to God.
Jesus opened that door. And what the Key of David has opened, no one can shut.
Merry Christmas, friends! I appreciate you.
Will you thank Jesus, “the Key of David,” for opening a door? Or maybe your Christmas gift to Jesus is to trust his love behind a closed door.
