Son of David: part 2
by James Lincoln on December 11, 2005
One of our goals, this Advent, is to discover what the gospel writers meant when they said that Jesus is the son of David. When you read the songs and narratives of the birth of Jesus, the name, David, comes up over and over again. In fact, the very first title given to Jesus in Matthew 1:1 is the phrase Son of David. When the angels made their announcement to the shepherds they say to them, "to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior." Gabriel says to Mary in Lk.1:31ff, "He will be great the son of the Most High and the Lord will give to him the throne of David. He will rule the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will have no end." Gabriel took this right out of 2Sam.7.
So, here's the deal: Unless you get the story of David you won't get the story of Jesus. If you want to honor someone you want to honor them according to who they are. So there needs to be an agreement between our understanding and the essence of the one you are honoring. So, here's my question, "How would you celebrate the arrival of the son of David?" What does that mean?
The Promised Hope of a King: Last week we introduced this idea by looking at Hannah. And I began with Hannah for several reasons. When Mary was told that she would give birth to the Lord Jesus she identified with Hanna and paraphrased her prayer. Also, Hannah represents God's pattern of salvation. God likes to begin His saving acts with a miracle of grace upon a woman in an impossible situation. Hannah and Mary were both in a long line of women who had impossible births. All the wives of the patriarchs were barren and needed a miracle of grace to have children. So did Hannah. This is why we are told several times that God closed her womb. Unlike many today, the Biblical writers aren't at all concerned that this might reflect badly on God. The truth is that God was about to call her to be one more honored illustration of the way He goes about saving His people. And that is, of course, that He saves us by coming to us from the outside and saving us through a miracle of grace. Her barrenness sets her up for such a miracle of grace.
Also, through Hannah we see again that one obscure, rural and marginalized woman matters to God. She shows us that the God who put the galaxies in place cares about you and me no matter who we are. The God of whom the Milky Way is just a piece of lint loves you and me as individuals and He cares about you. Peter said, "Cast all your cares on Him because He cares about you." That's an amazing thing and an amazing hope is it not? In 1Sam.2:8 she says, "He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap. To make them sit with nobles, and inherit a seat of honor." And that's just what He does for all who put their faith in Jesus.
She hoped for a Messiah / King. Now Hannah's hope was the same hope that those who loved the Lord had from the beginning. That hope was that God would raise up a king to make things right. She wanted a son - not for herself and her own use - but for God and His purposes. That is evident in the vow she made not to cut his hair. That is code for the Nazarite vow found in the book of Numbers. Her son, of course, couldn't be the king. He was not of the tribe of Judah. But perhaps God would give her a son who would make the way straight for a king to come. She sings about this king in 2:10. "He will give strength to His king and will exalt the horn of His anointed (or Messiah) ." This is a clear reference to her hope in the coming king.
From the beginning God placed this hope for a coming king in the hearts of His people. You can see it in Gen. 49 in the prophecy of Jacob who said, "The scepter will not depart from Judah." The scepter is a clear reference to kingship. We also see it in God's covenant promise to Abraham in Gen.17 (cf. 35:11) when God said, "I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings shall come forth from you." We see it again in the covenant God made with Israel in Deut.17. There God gave provisions for His king to come. God's king was to follow the Lord, not raise himself above his brethren and not multiply horses or wives. In the days of Saul Israel wanted a king, but not so that they could follow God and be like Him. They wanted to be like the other nations around them and share in the glory, status, power and wealth. There was nothing wrong in desiring a king per se. God had given this hope. What was wrong with it was that Israel wanted a king on her terms and not on God's. Israel was not at all interested in a covenant relationship with God and submitting to Him.
Hannah ached for God to fulfill His promise and bring about His anointed who would rule after God's justice, righteousness and compassion. Her barrenness symbolized the barrenness and fruitlessness of the nation. Peninnah's abuse symbolized the mocking intimidation of the nations surrounding Israel. She ached for God to raise up a king to make herself and her nation fruitful.
God answered Hannah's prayer and gave her a son. She calls him Samuel, fulfills her vow and sends him to live at Shilo with Eli and the other priest. If you think sending you children to public schools takes faith try to imagine what it was like for her to send Samuel to Shilo with Eli and his sons. However, Samuel, like John the Baptist who was also born to a barren woman - prepares the way for the king.
Saul: Now because I want to talk about God's promise to David I have to race past Saul. But just note that Saul was the kind of leader the people like. He's handsome, tall and impressive. Today Saul would be called, "A Rainmaker". He has all the skills and competencies of a natural born leader. He's one of those men who walk into a room and immediately everyone knows he's there. He's the favored choice of the people and God gives Israel what she wants. Note... be careful what you pray for. God just might give it to you. And He'll do it to demonstrate that your desires are at times foolish. Although Saul does bring some solidarity and military victories he ends up rejecting the Lord and Israel's covenant relationship with Him. Saul had no heart for God. Now let's turn to the covenant God made to David.
2 Sam.7: Now, for hundreds of years, during the period of the judges, Israel was an easy mark for her enemies. Occasionally, God would raise up a judge that would give some temporary relief but for the most part Israel served the nations around them, especially the Midianites and the Philistines.
Then through king Saul and later king David God gives Israel a season of rest. That meant Israel enjoyed a season of economic strength, social and civil stability. David himself now had enough money to build himself a house of cedar which was expensive, fragrant and kept the moths from eating away at his nice clothes. Debby and I don't have cedar walls but we do have small cedar blocks we put in the containers that hold our winter clothes. This was just a way of saying that David and the nation had begun to enjoy some prosperity and security (at least David did.)
So David calls Nathan in and says, "Look, this isn't right for me to live in the lap of luxury while God's house is this old musty moldy old tent that is hundreds of years old. Listen, I want to build God a house." Nathan, like most ministers who would like to see the House of the Lord kept up says, "That's a great idea. Do what your heart desires." However, in v. 4 we're told that night the word of God comes to Nathan, "It's not my plan for David to build me a house."
Why not? Let me point out three reasons
1. God never asked him or anyone else to build him a house. 2 Sam 7:7:
"... did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, "Why have you not built me a house of cedar?"
So let me ask you this, Is it possible to get more preoccupied with our plans that God's plans? Do you put what God says above the things you want to do? I'll leave that there.
2. The Incarnation Principle
In v. 5, God asks David, "David, are you the one who should build me a house to dwell in? For I have not lived in a house since I brought you up from Egypt." This leads us to the second reason why David wasn't supposed to build the temple. It's the principle of the incarnation. Although God had given David a temporary calm in the storm, God's people are still not at rest from their enemies. There are still enemies to be defeated. The capitols of Philistia and Moab have not yet been captured (cf. ch.8). Israel is not yet secure and safe. That safety, security and prosperity wouldn't come to the nation until the days of Solomon; "So Jacob and Israel lived in safety, every man under his vine and his fig tree from Dan to Beersheba all the days of Solomon's life."
In other words, David was not the man to build God's temple. He was a man of war. David's calling was to fight to bring about that peace. The Temple had to be built by a man of rest and peace in whose reign Israel would enjoy peace and quietness. God wouldn't have a house built for him to rest in when Israel was not yet at peace. God tells David, "Look, I haven't dwelt in a house since I brought Israel up from Egypt and even now I move about in a tent." In other words God is identifying himself with the wondering, restless and vulnerable circumstance of Israel. He says, "I'm not going to be identified with security, luxury and prosperity when my people are still at risk, impoverished and insecure. That day will come but today is not that day and David, you're not that man. Your job as a warrior and Israel's champion is to secure the peace and prosperity for the people. Another will enjoy the blessing of rest: prosperity. But I'm not ready to be identified with, prosperity, luxury and security yet. My people don't yet enjoy these things, why should I? I'll rest when they do. I'll live in a place of security when they are secure. I'll live in a place of prosperity when they do.
This may have been a gentle rebuke to David who under the covenant was not supposed to raise himself up above his brethren.
God is so awesome and amazing! Where will you ever read about a God or a king like this? He doesn't desire to live or rest in the lap of luxury in a building that represents prosperity and security when His people don't yet have those things.
The same was true of Jesus. Jesus didn't rest until after He secured our rest and our peace. He didn't go home to sit on His throne in heaven until after He rescued us from all our enemies. And the fact that He has been raised and now sits at the right hand of the Father shows us that there is now no authority in heaven or on earth that can ultimately harm us His people. He's our champion who sits down because His saving work is finished and he now rules over all. As Paul said, "If God is for you who can stand against you?" No one. In Christ, God is for you! So To Him be honor , glory and praise forever.
3. But there is another reason David couldn't build the Temple. And that is the grace principle. 2 Sam 7:8: "Now therefore, thus you shall say to My servant David, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts," I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be ruler over My people Israel.
God says, "Look I have a better idea. When I called you, David, you were following sheep. That is what you were good for. David, I made you ruler. You have been on the receiving end of My will and my grace. Instead of you doing something for Me, I'm going to do something for you. Instead of you building me a house, I'm going to build you a house.
In ancient days it is was typical for a king who had a measure of success to build a temple to himself or to his god. Typically the priest would come with an oracle saying something like,
"O Tutmos, pharaoh of Egypt, built a tempt to the god, Amon Ray. Tutmos the 3rd, since you have built my dwelling place and outstripped all other kings in building my monuments now I will establish your throne unto distant days."
Ancient kings built their god a house and then the god would establish the king's power and reign and make him victorious. David is about to do the same thing and what does God say? No! The way every other religion works is that you build god a house and then god will bless you. You do something good for God and then he'll do something good for you. In every other religion the blessing is first achieved conditionally. But with the God of the Bible blessing is received as a gift. In other words God is zealous that our salvation is not a quid pro quo. Jehovah God will not owe anyone anything anytime. Every other religion has something for you to do to get God to love you. Whether it be the Five Pillars of Islam or the Eight Fold Path of Buddhism. Every other religion has a way for you to merit God's grace. Jehovah God will have none of this. Salvation belongs to the Lord. He will not let David think that he has had anything to do with meriting his place with God or doing God a favor.
"God is wholly opposed to what every other religion tells you about how to approach God. David was just about to cross the line between being full of God to being full of himself. He was approaching the thought that he was ready to do God a favor. If any of us develop an identity in which God and his grace is less important to who we are than what we can do for God then our ability to represent Him is utterly ruined."
- Eugene Petersen
Now, Petersen may be saying more than was in David's heart. But his point is well taken because any of us can be tempted to rely on what we do and how we live compared to others instead of relying utterly on the grace of God. God may very well be protecting David from becoming puffed up with pride.
At the least we can say that God's counter proposal was that David not build Him a house but that instead God would build David a house. Isn't this grace? Paul says, "It is not by works of righteousness that we have done but by His mercy He saved us." God says to David, "You will not build me a house instead I will build you a house". But when God says this to David, God doesn't mean the same thing David did. God means by the word house: a dynastic kingship. God says, "I promise to make your descendents a dynastic kingship. I promise to establish and fulfill this covenant promise forever and death will not break it...sin will not break it...time will not break my commitment to keep this promise.
It is irrevocable and eternal.
Death will not cancel it.
Look in v. 11b-13,
The LORD also declares to you that the LORD will make a house for you. 12 When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever." NAS
Even when David dies God is still committed to His promise to raise up a descendent after him to sit on the throne.
Sin will not cancel it out (14-15).
"I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; (God will be His father but many sons will not fit the bill.) when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, 15 but My loving kindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you."
Even when some of your descendants sin and commit iniquity I will punish those who do. But I will not let their sin cancel out my promise to raise up one of your descendents to sit on the throne. Walter Kaiser Dean at Gordon Conwell Seminary:
"Yes an individual can invalidate the benefits of the covenant, but it cannot affect the transmission of the promise to the lineal descendants. That's why God would staunchly affirm His fidelity and the perpetuity of the covenant to David in spite of the succeeding sinners who would appear in his linage. He does find fault with men but not with His covenant ( Jer. 31:32 & He.8:8).
We find the same thing in promissory land grant treaties of the Hittites and the Assyrians. These unconditional gifts were explicitly protected against any subsequent sins made by the recipient's descendants. In these treaties the grant of "land" or dynasty may be delayed or individually forfeited; however it must still be passed on to the next in line instead of being granted to someone outside the specified family." The same was true for David. Sinners there would be but the blessing would never be revoked from the family: Thus it was an everlasting covenant."
2Sam.7:16: Death won't cancel it; sin won't cancel it and even Time won't cancel it. Six times David's kingdom has been declared eternal (13,16,24,25,26,29) God says that it is forever. Ps 89:28-37:
"I will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant with him will never fail. 29 I will establish his line forever, his throne as long as the heavens endure. 30 "If his sons forsake my law and do not follow my statutes, 31 if they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands, 32 I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging; 33 but I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my faithfulness. 34 I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered. 35 Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness--and I will not lie to David - 36 that his line will continue forever and his throne endure before me like the sun; 37 it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky. Selah"
Oh, how the faithful had to hang on to this promise! What men do can never frustrate the promise of God or cancel out or negate in any way the promise of God. If people sin and fail to live up to their responsibilities God will simply raise up someone who will follow Him.
And one of his Descendants will not have just a kingdom but The Kingdom. David rejoices in this in Ps. 110:1ff:
"The LORD says to my Lord: "Sit at My right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet." 2 The LORD will stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying, " Rule in the midst of Your enemies." 3 Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power; In holy array, from the womb of the dawn, Your youth are to You as the dew. 4 The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind,"
When this happens Ps. 96 says that the trees will sing and dance before the lord. So, if the trees will sing and dance what will you and I do? If what appears to be voiceless will sing and anchored to the earth will uproot and dance like Tolkien's ents of Fanghorn Forest we can only imagine how freely in that day...those who have voices and those who have legs we will be able to sing and dance in worship to Him. One of David's descendants will rule and reign over everything.
Now here is what is amazing. The gospel writers are telling us that Jesus is that King. The baby born in the manger was a son of David. He is The King not just a king. Jesus literally overcame death when he rose from the grave. He literally conquered sin when He died on the cross and paid the debt the human race owed to justice. He literally triumphed over time. He's not just the son of David He is also the son of God. God is His father. But, there is no iniquity in Jesus.
Jesus fulfilled the incarnational principle. Jesus was Immanuel or God with us. Not in a palace of luxury and safety but among the people, poor, sick, needy, obscure, marginalized, restless, and sinners like you and me. He literally became poor, saying that foxes have holes and birds a place to rest but not the son of man.
He fulfills the grace principle. Jesus says, "Look, you don't have to build a house for God; God builds you a house." Every other religion says, "You give god a good record and he'll bless you. Jesus says, "God gives you His record and then blesses you to become more like Him." He lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died and He gives us both the record of His life as ours and the record of His death as our punishment ...in our place.
Jesus is the promised Son of David. He is the hope of Israel and of the ages. No, He has yet to make every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that He is Lord but someday, dear friends, He will. Either willingly or unwillingly, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. He is not just a savior, He is the King of creation.
How do we receive a King? How do we receive the King of kings and Lord of lords?
1. We serve Him. A king is to be served. And Jesus is worthy of all our service. Do you serve Him? Do you submit to Him? Are His plans and commands yours?
2. We do what He says. He did the impossible for us. He marched into Hell for us. He only asks us to some difficult things for Him.
3. Trust: He is worthy of our trust. One of Martin Luther's friends, Philip Melanchthon, was quite a nervous and anxious person. Luther used to tell him that to worry means to doubt that Christ is ruling the world well. He would ask Philip, "Are you so certain how history has to be? Are you certain that God is not going to get it right?" When he would greet him and see that he was frozen with anxiety, Luther would say, "Philip, let Philip cease to rule the world." If Jesus is the son of David then you can trust Him. He rules well and does all things well. You may not know how that is but you can know that He does.
4. Expect Joyfully: It's so easy to get jaded and cynical in this world. There are so many ways that things can go wrong. But Jesus is the son of David. He says that He will build you a house. He says that He will keep you. He says that He will lose none the Father has given Him. He says that He will finish the work that he began in you. He says that eye can't see nor mind behold what the Lord has planned for those who love him and His appearing. He says that He is coming back and will take you to His Home in heaven to be with you forever. The King will return and put things to rights. This is joyful news!
This Christmas are you receiving a king?