Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom
R. Beacon
Table of Contents
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 1
From the call of Abram to Joshua's victories in the promised land, the great lessons of faith—separation, pilgrimage, God's patience with man, judgment of sin, resources of grace for a perverse people, the sacrifices and ordinances connected with the tabernacle, the functions of the priesthood—all, while for the people then, and pointing to the foundation and ensuring their future blessing, are yet, as we learn from the Epistle to the Hebrews, more for the instruction of Jewish believers than for the nation when going through the wilderness. That Epistle was to detach believing Jews from the carnal observance of these ordinances and to point them to Him in whom they believed as the One who filled the eye and mind of God when the tabernacle was setup, and the priesthood established; but not to the exclusion of Gentile believers, who enter into all the joys and privileges of the common faith, learn the value and significance of all the offerings, and glory in the excellencies of the Great High Priest who abideth forever. Although the argument, point, and power of the Epistle were specially addressed to Hebrew Christians, it gives the true position for the believer whether Jew or Gentile, outside the camp. It marks out the path which only faith can follow and therefore peculiarly instructive to Israelites; but it is ours as well as theirs as disciples of the same risen Lord.
He who now speaks is the Son, who is God. None but He was worthy to bring such a message of grace, none but He able to declare it perfectly. He as man was the appointed Servant, and is therefore the appointed Heir of all things. Yet by Him the worlds were made; He is both Creator and Heir. This is the joining of two glorious names which the wisdom of the world would never have imagined. The Epistle to the Hebrews opens with the great fact of the Person of the Christ, the Son who is Creator and Heir. The “worlds” which He made are not confined to the mere material world: there is a moral idea contained in it, the ages of the dispensations, and the relationship and responsibility of man to God, as seen in all the phases of His dealings with the earth. In all Christ is the object—by Him and for Him, for His glory. He was from eternity the appointed Heir. Therefore His was the appointing and ordering of the dispensational ages, or worlds. And whether in the world of types and shadows, or in the coming world of millennial glory, the Christ, the Son is the One Object in all.
God rested on the seventh day. Sin came in, and God began to work again. The Lord Jesus bears testimony to this. “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” Before God appeared, and in a sense began the world over again in the person of Noah, He allowed space for man, now fallen, to show what he was. Left to himself he filled the earth with violence and corruption, and became a prey to the angels that kept not their first estate. The whole period since his expulsion from Eden to the flood was preparatory to prove the necessity for God (in grace) to work if His divine purpose in creation—His own glory—was to be fulfilled. Not that He left Himself without witness; grace was active in Abel, Enoch, and Noah. But the solemn fact remains, man without government ended in the deluge. The next step in God's dealings is government entrusted to man, wherein is given another proof that God must work. The first governor had been a preacher of righteousness; but as soon as he was in the responsible and new position of governor he got drunk. God did continuo government by man in the earth, but his unfitness to wield the sword of justice was proved in his first act. And the failure—which coming so soon and so marked proved it to be inevitable—is not in a man of the world, but in a saint; not in a man with no knowledge of God, but in one who knew His power and had seen it in the overthrow of the antediluvian world, and had preached righteousness. Here indeed is proof of man's incapacity, but by this is declared how he needed the interposition of God, and so the way was cleared for the coming of the Man of God's right hand.
The idea of government was not lost upon the earth. But the one notable instance in that early day was Egypt, the first-born of the nations, and the expression of the world's strength. The king is found in proud defiance of Jehovah, “Who is Jehovah?” he said. If the saint as governor failed, what else could be seen in a proud heathen but sturdy rebellion against the authority of God? Of course it was only crushed by unsparing judgment. But God was carrying on His purpose, and bringing to view that man at the best was a failing creature, and, when invested with power and authority, used it against God. It was right that man should be made manifest and be set aside to make place for the Only Man who is able to rule. To this end Pharaoh was raised up so that in him the power of the world should be set aside. “And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee My power, and that My name may be declared throughout all the earth” (Ex. 9:16).
Meantime God was preparing a people as a platform whereon to display His purpose of having two great companies, the one heavenly and the other earthly. The people from whom the earthly company is formed are the first called, but not to enter at once into their own special place. They are led through circumstances which become means of instruction for the second company which was to be formed ages after. Every trial, every difficulty, every failure of Israel, is recorded as warning for the saints of the church. All the grace and resources of God to meet the need of His people as displayed in the functions of Aaron, and in the various offerings, are to declare to us what a fullness resides in Christ who is both God's Lamb and High Priest. All no doubt was to maintain Israel in the way; but let us take the heavenly standpoint, and what a flood of light is cast over all, from the passover to the possession of the promised land! Now we see what Moses could not see. The hidden mystery revealed through Paul may not be discerned, but there is heavenly provision for more than earthly need. The wilderness was surely a fitting preparation for Israel to possess the land; but how much more does it express the Christian position—pilgrims lately come out of Egypt, on our way to God. How fitting, we may surely say, that the pattern of good things to come should be given in the wilderness, which itself is a type of our place in this world; of what it is, or should be, to us. When Moses was about to set up the tabernacle, God gave him a heavenly pattern for all that belonged to it, “And look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount” (Ex. 25:40; 26:30; 27:8). The pattern was heavenly; why a pattern of heavenly things if only for an earthly people? The apostle so reasons of the whole service and priesthood connected with the tabernacle in the wilderness, in his Epistle to the Hebrews. And now that the, heavenly things themselves do appear—Christ and the church—those who still cleave to the figure, for the time then present, cannot be perfect as to conscience! and, again in stronger language, “We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle” (Heb. 8:5; 13:10).
Israel having passed through the desert and at rest in the land (Josh. 23:1), not the rest that fulfills the purpose of God (see Heb. 4:8), but rest front war during the remainder of Joshua's life and his contemporaries, sufficient for the then purpose of God, Israel at that time affords a type of the Christian’s highest position short of being actually in the glory with Christ. It is an image of the church sitting in the heavenlies in Christ, which is revealed to faith while yet here below.
It is not only God's purpose to have a church, but also that Messiah shall have an earthly kingdom; and the same people who have already served specially for the future needs of the church, themselves also participating in the results of the death and priesthood of Christ, though not so fully as the church, are now to be prepared for the advent of the kingdom of Messiah, as distinct from His kingdom of the whole world as Son of man. And it was necessary for the glory and honor of Messiah that the people should know that none but He could reign, and establish them in righteousness and in blessing. Though called the people of God, and by that name distinguished from all other nations of the earth, they are for a season allowed to manifest their own evil before David, the man of God's choice, is called to reign, that they might know in the age to come that all their blessing and their greatness is due to God's grace, yea, to Him whom they rejected and crucified, Who alone bears up the pillars of the earth. And therefore the topstone of their greatness will be brought with shoutings of grace—grace unto it (Zech. 4:7; Psa. 118:22, 23).
Sad picture in the book of Judges of what man becomes even with highest privileges if left to himself! Soon Israel became like the worst of the heathen. From the closing chapters it may be said of them, as of the men before the flood, they filled the land with violence and corruption. Nowhere is depravity more exposed. The hatred of man to God culminates in the cross; but as yet he had not the opportunity to show it. But so far as the goodness and patient forbearance of God appear, so far does the incurable evil of man appear; the longsuffering of God only brings out in clearer lines his wickedness, and the absolute necessity that by stern discipline and righteous judgment the people should be trained to say when Messiah comes to reign, “Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Luke 19). How much there was, and is needed for this! How long a time for evil to increase, which could only be surpassed by the mercy of God who will accomplish His purpose of grace to man and of glory in Christ!
But the book of Judges does not contain images of the heavenly things now revealed; no allusion is made to it in the epistle to the Hebrews save the brief mention of a few names, exemplars of the power of faith (11:32). Truly there is much for individual saints, as indeed every where, but nothing which points to the special truths for the Christian. These special lessons are ended, and a new chapter opens of God's ways with Israel. If the church was before the mind of God in the ordinances given to Israel in the wilderness, not less is the kingdom of Messiah before Him when Israel is in the land. God is preparing the people for the kingdom of the Son of David; as the antediluvian age was preparatory to the intervention of God in government, and as the times of the Gentiles, when world-power was given to Nebuchadnezzar, are preparatory to the universal kingdom of the Son of man. In each case the disorder and wickedness of man proves the necessity of His intervention for the fulfilling of His own counsels.
Throughout this book we see nothing of the rule and power of the priest of God. It was the idol-priest that swayed the people, and idol-worship prevailed in the land. God gave them up to their enemies. In mercy deliverers were raised up and a temporary respite afforded. Here and there a passing beam of light, but soon to go out into deeper darkness. It is a descending scale of iniquity. They became lawless, each one doing what was right in his own eyes (Judg. 17:6), and the result was civil war, when one tribe was nearly exterminated. In those who were raised up temporarily as judges there wore characteristics and marks which (looked at as symbols) proved them to be imperfect and unfit to rule. Nor was it God's will that they should. They were only instruments in His hand to do His will, and then to be put aside. And all of them to a certain extent are a reflex of the condition of the people. When the true King comes, He will not reflect them, but they Him. He will come as God's First-born; the first judge we read of was a younger son. Another had an oxgoad which truly proved the power of God, but was no fitting emblem of kingly power. Barak was a weak man and gave the place of honor to a woman; of the coming King it will be said His own arm brought salvation. And how patient God was in teaching Gideon to have faith, who truly reflected the condition of Israel when he cowered behind the winepress threshing wheat, and himself the least in his father's house. Jephthah—whose faith was marred by a heathenish vow; provision was made in the law for thank-offerings: why imitate the heathen? But Jephthah was the son of a harlot, Samson, the unfaithful Nazarite. Yet these are instances of faith, cited by the Holy Spirit. How many others, like treacherous Ehud, or whose names are only mentioned, or not even this? God is sovereign in the choice of His instruments. Indeed all of them were only raised up for special deliverances; and, when their given work was done, they passed away leaving no power behind them and after each, the people fell back into their old evil of idolatry, yea, worse than before.
Such were the people who ere long are to be a holy nation, every one taught of God. What a triumph of grace when this stiff-necked and rebellious race shall be obedient, and in a position second only to the church in glory! From the opening of the Book of Judges to the end of the reign of Solomon is one connected chain of events, and so given as to show that all as different parts form one whole, or as the bright and darkest colors of the same picture, the preparation for, and the establishment typically of, Messiah's kingdom.
From the beginning God allowed man to follow his own will first, and then according to His infinite wisdom made man's wisdom to be a means, or used it as an occasion, for the accomplishing of His own purpose. Mark the successive steps in this fresh chapter of God's ways; sin abounding, judges forgotten, the priest rejected, man's choice of a king, God's choice persecuted; but the man of the world perishes, the man of God is exalted. It is an epitome of the world's history.
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 2
As with the antediluvians, so with Israel, God, leaves not Himself without witness. Among them He called out Abel, Enoch and Noah, and now He elects Ruth, having given her a position in a family of Israel. The time was not come for a Gentile testimony independent of the ancient people. But this little remnant—Elimelech and his family—is marked off from the nation, their history is not given incorporated with that of the guilty people but in a little book by, itself. It hints at the purpose of God to separate His own from among the mass of the ungodly. He has a separate book where He writes the names of His saints, even the book of life. This family failed in faith, they lost sight of the fact that the land they were leaving was God's gift to them, and let the famine be ever so grievous, He knew how to provide. Elimelech looked at the famine and had faith enough to perceive that it was judgment upon Israel, but forgot the power that was able to keep those that trusted in Him. This man and his household depart into a foreign land to dwell among the enemies of God. Would it not have been far better to have abode where God placed him? to have suffered even with guilty Israel, than to flee, as it were, from His presence and seek relief where surely the want of faith led him? To him, as an Israelite, the consequences were most distressing; he died away from his inheritance, in the midst of a people that of old sought Satanic aid to destroy Israel. And his two sons, sinking deeper in disobedience, marry daughters of Moab. The chastening hand of God finds them out, and they die. Naomi is left alone with her daughters-in-law. Husband and sons gone, who are now to provide for Naomi? All is lost, what can she do in a strange land? In these distressful moments did she regret the want of faith which led them so far from home? Ah, it was with her as with many another of God's chosen ones. Far better wait to bear heavy trials where God, has east our lot, than to seek a way of escape by human means, which are always the fruit of lack of confidence in God, and bring spiritual loss. Naomi left the land because of famine. Husband and sons die, and though there be no famine in the land of Moab, it is still famine for her.
The God of mercy steps in, the news comes that Jehovah hath visited His people in giving them bread, and she is brought back to the land which ought never to have been left. The loving-kindness of God never fails, His mercy endures forever. Mark the overruling wisdom of God; if the chosen witnesses fail in testimony for God, His grace raises up a brighter witness for Himself in the person of a Gentile. One of the daughters of Moab will leave her kindred, and her people, and her nation's gods, to follow Naomi into a strange land, saying, “Thy God shall be my God.” Here was a witness for the true God raised up from among the idolatrous Moabites to be His brightest witness among the feeble remnant in the land. Truly not one of them had made such sacrifices as Ruth made. And how great the reward! she enters the line of David's ancestry, yea, of David's greater Son. But what a rebuke in the simple faith of Ruth for Naomi who left the land not submitting to God! yet a rebuke in the form of restoring grace, crowning her in her widowhood with tender mercies and loving-kindness. It is the manner of His love; and saints now bear testimony to the same manner. Ruth comes in among the people, who, though so guilty, were still owned as God's people. He visited His people with bread. (1:6.) She knew them to be His people, and though her faith was veiled under strongest attachment to Naomi, she says not merely, “thy people shall be my people,” but adds, “thy God shall be my God.” Thus, amid the violence and corruption of Israel, a little company bears testimony to the God of Israel. It is but a brief sketch, yet is the hand of God as visible in marvelously providing for the well-being and honor of Ruth—and through her for Naomi—as it was in the judgments that fell upon Israel. In the midst of the darkness God gives a bright scene of family and household piety, to which we turn with gladness from the surrounding national and social wickedness. What a contrast to the impiety of the idolatrous household of Micah's mother! (Judg. 17) The book of Ruth, however, is but a passing and transient gleam. Still it proves that in the worst times God never left Himself without witness, it declares His faithfulness to the weakest of saints, it manifests His power that all things must bow to His will and subserve His purpose of grace; for a Moabitess is brought in, through Elimelech's failure, to partake in the highest honor which could then be conferred upon any woman of Israel.
At the close of this book (Ruth) God unfolds His purpose, the end He had in view, and the means thereto—to bring in David. But two more generations must come and go, for the time was not yet come, the iniquity of Israel not yet ripe, ruin beyond human remedy must be visible ere God sets His king upon His holy hill of Zion. David closes his chapter of God's dealings with Israel, giving a foreshadowing of even greater iniquity and of a mightier deliverance, when the Son of David shall sit upon His throne. Israel's sins and sorrows will then be over.
The elders and people (4: 11.) pronounce a blessing upon Boaz, but the Spirit of God leads them to use words which can only be fulfilled when Messiah comes. “Build the house of Israel.” Their Messiah is our Lord Jesus, He will build their house and in the future day do infinitely more than restore the glory of Solomon, so that the nations shall be amazed, and say, like the queen of Sheba, that the half had not been told.
The book closes with the genealogy of David. Is it not remarkable that this record should begin with Pharez? That the elders and the people should take the house of Pharez as a pattern of blessing for the house of Boaz? “Let thy house be like the house of Pharez”? Who was Pharez? Let Gen. 38 answer. Why not begin with his father, Judah? His was the greatest of the tribes of Israel. But it was through Pharez, son of Tamar, the promised blessing must come. God led His line of promise through base things of the world, and took up those that man would spurn. This was to magnify His grace and exalt His name. How unlike man, by whom the greater the object before him, the better the means used. Not so with God; base things, and things that are not, characterize the instruments, or the channels, to accomplish His word. Truly, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith Jehovah” (Isa. 55) At that moment, Israel, according to the righteousness of law was ruined, and could have no valid title to any one thing on the ground of obedience and fidelity to God. They had joined themselves to idols; they were then morally in the condition of Pharez, children of transgressions, as the prophet said long after (Isa. 57:4). Their own ordinances shut them out, for God had said by Moses, “A bastard” shall not enter into the congregation of Jehovah” (Deut. 23:2). But in a world of sin, where even saints fail, there can be no other ground, save judgment, than absolute grace, and then sovereign grace. It forms and carries out its own purposes, and chases its own way; and so it comes to pass that, if the beginning be Pharez, the end is David.
At this point, according to the book of Judges, we see the nation as such, to be idolaters; in the book of Ruth, a little remnant failing in faith, and the grace of God abounding and pointing onward to greater blessing.
We may consider this the first stage in the preparation for the coming kingdom. What is the second?
The Holy Spirit leads through scenes of greater evil and worse abomination, yet ever keeps before us the increasing necessity of His kingdom; His great object, the in-bringing of God's King. The next downward step is the failure of the priesthood. The sons of Eli were a greater abomination before God than that recorded in Judg. 19. The priest was the connecting link between Jehovah and the people, he was the appointed means, and no other dare assume his functions. But when the priest wickedly departed from God, and used his position to increase the dishonor of God, then the appointed means of communication with God, and of restoration to Him, were gone. Hophni and Phinehas made the people sin. The indulgence of the father was as fatal as, if less criminal than, the iniquity of the sons. Judgment overtakes the wicked sons: they are slain in battle; the father dies under the hand of God. Yet sinfully lenient as he was to his sons, his heart was true to God. Not their death, but the loss of the ark, is the immediate cause of his death. The dishonor to God was more to him than family sorrow and disgrace, and he felt that there was no possibility of approaching God in the appointed way while the ark is in the hands of the Philistines. Ichabod is pronounced upon the people: what is to become of them? There was another beside Eli who felt the extreme gravity of Israel's condition; the wife of Phinehas would not be comforted, and the name of her son bears testimony to her grief. How could they any longer be called God's people? God steps in and provides a new link between Himself and them. Samuel appears, a prophet, the only possible means of recalling guilty Israel, and of communicating to them the word of God. Such means were not needed so long as the normal link of the ark and the officiating priest subsisted. The advent of a prophet was proof that all else was gone. A prophet came to Eli (1 Sam. 2:27), but his was a special message to one man, not to supply the place of the lost ark and of the guilty priest. This was the position of Samuel, who stands out prominently as the first of the prophets, as it is said, “All the prophets from Samuel” (Acts 3:24, of Psa. 99:6), God thus naming him as the first of that line of messengers to a people utterly rebellious, as “Moses and Aaron among the priests.” For the first time the prophet is the link between God and Israel.
But how inveterate the evil of this people, and how unsparingly exposed! They soon reject him and avow their desire to be like other nations and have a king. They had broken the old connection, God brings in a new one. The old office of judge and priest was seen for the last time in Eli; a new position is seen in Samuel, who is judge and prophet. The people refuse the intervention of grace, and prefer connection with the world, and to have a king like other nations. In truth it was the rejection of God, not only of His prophet.
The intelligent reader of God's book cannot fail to see how every recorded sin has been the means of accomplishing God's predetermined will. The purposes of men have been only clay, and the divine Potter has molded it according to His own will. Everything—even wickedness—is made subservient to His purpose. And in the detail, what wisdom! yea, what grace!
Awful as it was to deliberately reject God as their ruler, desiring a man as their king, it is an immense step in bringing to pass the purpose of God. Only it must be man’s king first, then the King of God's choice. As priest he had failed, and after the short transitional period of prophet rule, his failure as king is still more evident. Indeed, whether priest, prophet, or king, there is only One Who could not fail. And the ruin before us in this sad history through the failure of man is the preparation for the coming of that One, and demonstrates the necessity of, it. Man must be tried in every way; every proof is given that nothing short of sovereign grace can bring in the promised blessing. Israel from the first were a rebellious people; but mark the controlling power and wisdom of God: He makes their rebellion now take the form of the blessing about to be given them, the form of Kingly rule. It was His deliberate counsel that a king should reign over Israel, but it must be His King, the Man of His right hand. Man's choice is sure to be worthless. God sanctions their choice for a time, but only to make manifest, that, however good apparently it may be, his failure is inevitable.
And so we have Saul, whose beginning was so auspicious and seemingly prosperous. A bright future lay before him; the providential acts of God clear the way to the throne, and the prophet anoints him. Success attends ere long his first essay in war, and there is great rejoicing among the men of Israel. All this but confirms the testimony against man, that with every advantage he invariably fails. Saul was raised to the throne of Israel to prove, among many other witnesses, the great fact of failure stamped upon human nature, as men put a trade-mark upon their goods and merchandise. I say for this purpose, as well as to prepare the way for David, the chosen of God. Again, look at the marvelous way of preparation: it was by treachery, hatred, and at last open persecution; just like what the world—the Jew—did to Christ, the Son of David.
Saul began to fail from the first. He had the witness of God's presence with him, he was told that if he were obedient his kingdom would be established; every motive was supplied for faithfulness; but he sank lower and lower till he reached the lowest depths. And when he sought aid from the witch of Endor, he hears his doom; he dies by his own hand and drags down the kingdom which God had entrusted to him into hopeless ruin. Then God intervenes, and the man who had been prepared of God comes to the rescue, and Israel is raised to power and glory more rapidly than they fell into degradation and servitude.
Apart from all human responsibility—for Saul was responsible for the right use of his advantages and high position—we can trace the over-ruling hand of God in bringing Israel to such a condition as would most of all exalt His own power and grace in establishing them as chief among the nations. No sooner does the man of His choice take the reins of government, than the enemies on every side are subdued; the Hebrews despised of the Philistines become the mighty kingdom of David. And what we see in the kingdom of Israel will be yet more gloriously displayed when the Son of Man takes possession of the kingdom of this world. All hangs upon the mighty arm of Him who will be not only God's King upon the holy hill of Zion, but the MAN ordained to rule over the world.
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 3
Saul's first failure was not when he impatiently offered a burnt offering (1 Sam. 13:8, &c.). This intrusion into the priest's office was open to the eyes of all; the most untaught of the people would know that the functions of the priesthood did not pertain to royalty. The first proof of his unfitness comes in guise of a human virtue, or quality not a little esteemed, and the unobservant reader of his life would fail to discern under the amiable exterior a heart without confidence in God, and consequently disobedient. When he should have appeared before all Israel to be publicly inducted into his high position, we may say his coronation, he was not to be found, but hidden among the stuff (ch. 10:22). This to human eyes had the appearance of modesty, a very lovely feature in any character; but it must be judged in the light of its surroundings.
Three very notable circumstances had just before transpired whose significance was unperceived by the most interested, for they were tokens confirmatory of his call to the throne. First, two men tell him that the asses are found, brought home, not by his diligence, but by the providence of. God. Then three men meet him with offerings, going up to God to Bethel; and of these Saul has his portion as the anointed king. After that he comes to the hill of God, and there a company of prophets meets him with rejoicings. Saul himself comes under the immediate power of the Spirit of Jehovah, he prophesies and is turned into another man. “All these signs came to pass that day.” They were foretold by Samuel, and were witnesses of the truth of his word. A godly man would surely have recognized the hand of God and sought to understand. But no lasting good effect was produced in his soul; much less could he read in them the deeper intimations of God's goodness in store for Israel. For do we not read in them that Israel who had strayed away from God should be found and brought back to their home? Yet not Saul found his father's asses, neither was it he who shall give even a passing image of Israel's future restoration; this was reserved for David. Saul only scattered and caused deeper ruin. Again, when Jacob, the banished from his home, was nearing it, he was led to Bethel, and there becomes a worshipper; so should Israel return and worship God with meat offerings and drink offerings. The “going up to God to Bethel” reminded of past mercy and is the pledge of future restoration. And though at the time of this typical prediction the hill of God was held by the Philistines—they had a garrison there—it did not prevent God giving to Saul this foreshadowing of blessing which might have been his own (see 13:13, 14), but which will surely come to pass in a day yet future. But the sketch of blessing is not yet complete: the picture is crowned by a company of prophets, who, are exulting “with a psaltery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, before them.” How the tide of blessing swells as it rolls on! First, two men; then three; last a company of prophets. First, restoration, then worship, then exultation and. the presence of the Spirit of Jehovah. And the day is not far distant when the true King shall come to His throne, and shall be met with songs, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he that cometh in the Name of Jehovah.” And then will the Spirit be poured out upon all flesh (cf. Joel 2). And when this prophecy is fulfilled, it will be said of the whole nation, as was said of Saul, that it was turned into another man.
Alas! Saul had neither eyes nor ears for God's teachings, and these foreshadowings of grace were lost upon him. And having no faith he failed to reap the immediate blessing. All were to him mere circumstances. He was only a natural man; even his acquaintances had no high thought of him from his previous life, for when he prophesied they were amazed, and said, “What is this that is come to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” These indications of grace, vouchsafed to him at the outset of his career, found no response in his heart, and, as the sequel of his life proves, not simply from want of attention to the teachings of God—as many a saint may now lament in his own case—but from utter incapacity to understand his own position, and to know the mind of God. Hence his hiding among the stuff was but the shrinking of a common man from this sudden and unlooked-for elevation to the throne. It is the index of his soul. Utterly dark as to Israel's condition before God—save perhaps as to the outward aspect—and ignorant of God's mercy, confidence in Him was foreign to his heart. With the timidity of nature the anointed Saul shrinks from the place to which he was called. The timidity of the flesh is not so offensive to us as its boldness, but both are mere nature, and opposed to God. Neither of these appeared when David was called.
Saul held his peace, when the children of Belial derided him (ch. 10:27). Apparently he would wait till God should by some public act confirm him yet more in his position. Nor has he long to wait. God had already touched the hearts of a band of men who followed him to his home in Gibeah; and next gives him victory over Nahash, the Ammonite, which would be all the more impressive because of the circumstances of Jabesh-gilead, and the cruel condition of life Nahash would impose upon the inhabitants. God puts His seal upon Saul by this victory; for the Spirit of God had come upon him, and his message to the people was made effectual by the fear of Jehovah falling upon them, so that three hundred and thirty thousand men come at his call. But in all this there was no test of obedience; Saul was only clay in the hand of the Potter. On this as on other occasions when the Spirit came upon him, he was turned into another man. Yet this remarkable first victory sheaved how God would be with him if he were obedient.
At this point a most important moral question is settled. Israel has a king, and he is crowned with victory; but how does Israel now stand before God? This question has its solemn answer in ch. 12. There Samuel reminds the people of past mercies. When their fathers sinned and came under the power of their enemies, they cried to God, they did not ask for a king, and God sent deliverers. Now, says Samuel, When ye saw Nahash the king of the children of Ammon come against you, ye did not cry to God, but said to me, “Nay, but a king shall reign over us, when Jehovah your God was your King.” They were worse than their fathers. Jehovah thundered upon them, and in terror they own their sin, “We have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king.”
God, while vindicating His own title to be King, allows their choice to stand—for the accomplishment of His own purpose. At the same time by the mouth of the prophet He declares their responsibility and the danger of this new position. Priesthood had connected them with God from Aaron to Eli; that link subsists no longer. The people have chosen royalty not as a new link between God and Israel, but to be like the nations. Such choosing was their sin, it was in truth rejecting God. Nevertheless royalty, was God's purpose, and is henceforth to be the connecting link between God and His people. For so He will be exalted in Israel, and in the world. But the establishment of a king must be in God's way, and the man must be of His choosing. This necessity is proved by the failure of man's way and of mane king. The divine principle of God acting upon man, is ever “first that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual.” Christ's exaltation in the earth is dependent—if we may use such a word—upon the utter inadequacy of man to meet the purposes of God's glory.
Samuel tells the people the consequences of disobedience, “If ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.” The continuance of the king here depends upon the people not doing wickedly; afterward, in David's line, the prosperity of the people depended upon the king's doing that which was right in the sight of Jehovah. Saul never connected the people with Jehovah. But God would make this people His own by no mere human tie, so that His purposed glory in them might be beyond the reach of human failure, or Satanic power. Saul's advent to the throne is but the solution of man's problem, “Is he fit to govern?” and the answer is, “Not fit.” God brings in His Man, His own Son, and when that Perfect One sits upon His throne, then Israel's blessing will be perfect. The difference between man, and God's own Son, is shadowed in Saul and David. Yet David was but a failing man, though so highly exalted as to be chosen the type of Him who will soon fill the earth with His glory. A glimpse, and only a glimpse, is given in the united glories of David and Solomon, nothing like it before, nor will be, till the reality comes, and then will be seen how immeasurably short of it was the glory of the images seen ages before.
Now established by his victory over Nahash—for the carnal heart of Israel would think more of that than of the anointing oil—Saul is, in a manner, left to himself. After two years he is put into the crucible and tested. Is there any gold? Nay, all is dross! Is this the man to be king? Nay, all is failure! In the energy of faith Jonathan, not Saul, smites the garrison of the Philistines at Geba. They are aroused, and Israel is in a strait; there is no faith in Saul to meet the emergency. The people are scattered; for him God is nowhere. No wonder if his difficulties made him too impatient to wait for the prophet. He had lost the sense that the people were God's Israel, and he calls them “Hebrews,” the name applied by the Philistines. Impossible for such a one to answer to God's mind concerning Israel. Here in his first trial he is found wanting, and the kingdom goes from him. God has found another whom He has commanded to be captain over His people.
Though sentence is pronounced, judgment waits till the cup of iniquity is full. God lingers over the fallen king, and another and a graver opportunity is afforded. Can he retrieve his position and avert the threatened judgment? Nay, he only increases his guilt. Growing opposition to all that bore evidence of God marks his course ever after. What a lack of intelligence in his rash curse upon any that might take food at a time when to eat was specially needed! God at that very moment was working by Jonathan. Saul mars the victory of faith, and threatens death to the man of faith. In intent he slays his son. Is not this opposition to God? It may be called ignorant opposition; but Satan, who was leading the wretched king to his doom, was not ignorant of the dishonor to God if Jonathan were slain. The people deliver him, and though Saul had said, “Thou shalt surely die, Jonathan,” they say, “As Jehovah liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground.” The power of the people and the authority of the king are in conflict, and the people prevail. The determination of the people to save Jonathan proves that Saul's authority was gone. King now only in name, he submits. His enmity against Jonathan after that was nearly as great as his hatred of David, when he was brought forward. But the appearance of David closed the trial of Saul.
Remark that in ch. 14:45 is given the first instance in scripture of the democratic element rising and overcoming constituted authority; and in this instance we can truly say, Vox populi, vox Dei. But to argue from this that the source of human authority lies with the people is contrary to the word of God. Consider the circumstances here—Saul was not God's choice; ruin was settled down upon the people; only one man of faith in Saul's army; this public witness Saul would destroy. God will maintain the testimony for Him, and as Sovereign Ruler uses the people to save Jonathan. He steps aside from his ordinary course to preserve His witness, and convicts Saul of sin; makes him feel powerless, and verifies the prophet's word that the kingdom is taken from him.
One other instance we may point to where authority collapses before the energy of the mob. It was when the voices of the people, led by their priests, prevailed against Pilate. And I would say to Christians, those who seem to favor the uprising of the “masses” in this present day, that if the first of these two instances be the manifest interposition of God in the exceptional circumstances of that day, the second is no less the power of Satan who rules far more by the “masses” than by kings. Ever since the cross, the vox populi has borne the impress of the prince of this world.
We have said another and a graver opportunity was afforded to Saul. It is the last, like all the preceding, misused, leaving a heavier weight of guilt upon his soul. He has a direct command to utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, until they are consumed. A little while before when God was at least showing how deliverance was to be obtained for Israel, when Jonathan and his armor-bearer through faith overthrew the garrison of the Philistines, Saul showed himself to be without intelligence, without faith, and without the sphere of blessing. Now to all these he adds positive disobedience. The man who afterward so persistently sought the life of David, whom he knew to be God's chosen, spares the life of Agag, whom God told him to destroy. And when charged by Samuel with disobeying God, he affirms that the people—not he—took the spoil. Yet he tried to excuse them under the plea of piety; the sheep and the oxen were spared “to sacrifice unto Jehovah thy God.” Samuel will not accept this excuse. Saul was responsible, and he far more in this case than the people, for the command (ch. 15:3) was direct to him. To offer sacrifices to Jehovah is good, but when it is presented as an excuse for disobedience, it is positive sin. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” In the end, after all his protestations, Saul confesses, “I have sinned,” and in extenuation pleads his fear of the people. Poor king!—he admits his authority is gone. What the value of his confession is, appears from his wish that Samuel should honor him before the people. Self was uppermost. “What will the people think of me?” that was his care. Samuel acceding to his wish only confirmed his rejection: it was too late for any more warning. In his eagerness to retain Samuel he rends the prophet's mantle, a circumstance used by the prophet to repeat his words, that the kingdom was rent from him; and from that moment Saul is given up. Samuel returns to his home at Ramah, and came no more to see Saul until the day of his (Saul's) death. That was a fearful hour. The powers of darkness were present in the witch of Ender but held in check by the presence of the prophet. That hour brought the sentence of immediate death, and blank despair, upon the soul of the wretched king.
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 4
“Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” (Luke 24:26) Every believer knows the necessity of Christ suffering for salvation, but they were necessary for making good His Messianic, glory. He was made a little lower than the angels on account of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He should taste death for everything. It was Christ's glory to exalt God in respect of sin, His especial glory to manifest God's righteousness in such a way, that the utmost mercy, so far from impeaching divine justice, serves but to exalt it the more. The justice is never more clearly seen than when God justifies the ungodly; for then is seen how perfectly Christ has met all the claims of divine righteousness against the justified one. To bring these two together, viz. eternal justice and fullness of grace, yea, each to magnify the other, was the great work of Christ. The cross is the witness of both the justice and the grace, but it also testifies how they unite and blend together to carry out the purpose of God. It is the glory of Christ to have done this. “It is finished,” He said, and delivered up His spirit. There was no other way to enter into His glory; and to exalt God and to vindicate His name was the primary object for which Christ came. Then, God being glorified, redemption follows. Unsparing judgment upon the guilty would vindicate the majesty of God, but that excludes all mercy; and such judgment became necessary immediately on the commission of Adam's transgression. Mercy stepped in, and the transgressor was spared. But from that moment it behooved Christ to suffer. In due time He came to suffer; but the necessity for suffering and for death arose at that moment, not only that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name among all nations, but first that the character of a holy God, and the inflexibility of His righteousness should be upheld and maintained. There were ages
during which “that righteousness was not declared; nor during that time could mercy so brightly shine. When the righteousness was established by the cross, there was no further restraint upon the full out-flowing of grace. God had, in His wisdom, other purposes, subsidiary and preparatory to fullest grace, to disclose before He, was revealed in Christ. And one was that man must first be proved without strength and ruined, so that Christ may be seen as the Savior God, and that not in a partial but in an absolute sense. The proof of man's ruin, was not necessary for judgment. The one transgression was enough for that. That was truly and in itself irretrievable ruin; but God would have proof sufficient to convict man at the bar of his own conscience. Proof to this extent was necessary for salvation. The trial lasted from Adam to the cross. With the cross man's probation ended; then was the due time, and unsparing judgment and infinite mercy combine, and are displayed in Him whose soul was made an offering for sin. There, on the cross, mercy and truth met together; there, righteousness and peace kissed each other; there, in being made sin and forsaken—there, where perfect judgment of sin, and compassion for the sinner are seen in His death, is the highest moral glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it is only through His death that God can declare Himself to the whole universe—the Savior God.
But this highest glory had no place in the thoughts of the two disciples going to Emmaus. Their aspirations were confined to Israel; they “trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel.” The nation's degradation, not their sin, was first in their minds, and all hope seemed crushed by the cross. Yet the third day was come with its wonders; angels tell certain woman, and these tell the disciples, that He is alive. Some of the company go to the sepulcher and verify the report of the women; but where is the corresponding exultation? Not in the hearts of the two; they were sad. The tidings that He was alive astonished and bewildered them. Evidently they did not fully believe the goodness; for, as they walked, they communed together in sadness. Hence the Lord, as yet to them an unknown stranger—for their eyes were holden, says, “O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” The Lord Jesus is here answering their thought, and we learn that His sufferings are not only necessary for the preaching of repentance and the remission of sins, but equally so for the entering into His glory on behalf of Israel. Truly, Israel needed the atoning sufferings and death of Christ as much as Gentiles. But, while the cross sends the message of mercy to all the world inasmuch as He tasted death for every man, or everything, the sufferings of His whole life as well as of death on the cross are “not for that nation only.”
Isaiah (53:1-4) presents the sufferings, of Christ from and for Israel apart from atonement, which is unto all. As their Representative He was bruised for their iniquities, the chastisement of their peace was upon Him; but it is by His stripes they were healed, for Jehovah laid on Him all their iniquity. As Representative He necessarily became their Substitute and had to bear their stripes, and “was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of My people was He stricken.” The glory of His person makes it impossible to separate propitiation from substitution in His death; nevertheless they are distinct ideas. In the latter part of this chapter there is atonement proper—His soul an offering for sin. The result is not the being cut off and having nothing, but seeing the fruit of His travail, and victory over His foes. His being cut off are the sufferings which, through the condition of Israel and the righteous judgment of God, Christ must bear in His way to the throne of Israel. He, the Christ, began to bear the blows of scorn, hatred, and contempt long before He came to the cross. The crowd took up stones to stone Him, they led Him to the brow of the hill to cast Him down, the chief priests sent officers to apprehend Him. Were not these, with other indignities, buffets to Him who was the true and only Heir to the throne of David? Was not all this that He suffered really judgment upon the people? It was their King who was so treated. But He is more than their King, and His atonement on the cross gives a value even to non-atoning sufferings which they could not otherwise have. But the remnant in the latter day will say “by His stripes we are healed.” Righteousness demanded these stripes for Israel, grace gave an atonement for them and for the world.
No wonder if the hearts of the two disciples burned within them as the Lord opened to them the scriptures which declare the necessity of His sufferings and death, but thus establishing the glory of the kingdom upon an immutable basis, and doubtless proving to them that Israel must be saved from their sins, sprinkled with clean water before the glory shines forth.
Generally the unbelief of the Gentile has a different aspect from that of the Jew. Gentile unbelief either ignores Him altogether, saying that the Gospels are only a fabulous story invented by the cunning of priestcraft to maintain the authority of a sacerdotal caste, or else, while acknowledging the historical truth of the Gospel record, denies the Godhead of Christ and the absolute inspiration of the record. Of Gentile as well as of Jew it can be said, “they esteemed Him not;” but of the Jew alone is it true that he “did esteem him, stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” On the contrary Gentile writers are found who give Him the foremost place among the great reformers (!) of the world, not that He suffered under the wrath of God in judgment of our sins. It is reserved for the blindness of Gentile infidelity to talk of Christianity as a blend of all that was good in paganism and Judaism, with it presenting a code of morals, and imparting a better tone to the inner life of man, i.e. to the world. To esteem the Lord Jesus as merely a good man, even the greatest and best of men, while the Gospels attest that He claimed and received divine worship, is one of Satan's master-strokes in dishonoring Christ and deluding souls. The Jew esteemed Him smitten of God and afflicted, and despised Him. The Gentile affects not to despise Him (save the vulgar infidels of this and all time), does not believe Him smitten of God any more than suffering to atone, but denies the true glory of His person. “We beheld His glory, the glory as of an only begotten with a Father.” This is said of the Word Who became flesh. When He came, the Gentiles did not know Him, the Jew would not receive Him; it is not said (John 1:11) the Jews did not know Him. Certainly the Jew, though more guilty, is more logical than the Gentile. Blasphemy characterizes the former, guilty ignorance the latter.
When the angel announced to Joseph the birth of Christ, he said, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins.” The Pharisees said, We have no sin. Therefore their sin remained, and barred the kingdom; for they could not be saved from the sins they refused to confess, nor could the kingdom come before they were saved. Christ came to save first, and as His mission became more manifest, so Jewish hatred became more intense. Even the hated Roman was preferred to Christ, their true King. “We have no king but Caesar” How true! that “He was despised.”
How could Christ reign over such a people save to dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel? that is, to judge them as the heathen (see Psa. 2) But then what about the promises made to the fathers, to Abraham and Isaac, and renewed to Jacob? What about the word spoken by the prophets, if Israel be entirely and forever cut off through sin? All the earth is to be blessed through the exaltation of Christ as King of Israel. Where will the earth's blessing be without the kingdom? But where the glory of the coming King if the fairest portion of His earthly domains be not according to the original promise? Isaiah has only Israel before him when he says (9: 6), “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulders; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” Israel's condition must be changed before Christ could be to them Father of the age to come. He would ever be the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Mighty God, were Israel swept from the earth; but how then to them the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace? The kingdom must be established; and when the people are gathered out of the lands from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south (Psalm evil. 3) Messiah says, “Behold I and the children which God has given me” (Heb. 2:13). The apostle in proving that the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one, inasmuch as (they partaking of blood and flesh) He took part in the same, calls the Hebrew believers “children” (not here children of the Father, which is common to all believers now, but) as part of the godly remnant saved before the kingdom comes, quoting (Isa. 8:18), where the “children” are the remnant for whom Messiah waits while Jehovah hides His face from Jacob. The “children” are correlative to “the everlasting Father.” The King will reign in righteousness, in righteousness He will judge the nations. To Israel He is the Prince of Peace and the prophet continues, “Of the increase of His government and peace, no end.” How the Prince of Peace to a nation rebellious from the beginning?
There is another and a precious name which the prophet does not mention it, Jesus the Savior, was reserved, for the evangelist (Matt. 1:21). The prophet declares the glory of the King, the evangelist announces the blessing of the people. The first question with God was their sin. No glory even for Messiah as King before that was established. It was the one thing needful for the people. No purging, no glory. Therefore the immediate need of the people is given in Matthew. Christ was born King of the Jews, but He must be a Savior before He reigns. At His birth prominence is given to this Name; for all His glory, His special glory as Son and Heir of David hangs upon His being first of all a Savior. He could Dilly be such by the suffering of death. But the glory is decreed (Psa. 2)—He must reign. If the glory of His kingdom can only be attained through death, “ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” With the two disciples it was simply a question of power, with God it was a question of sin.
If David be the type of Christ the King of Israel, he also must pass through suffering before he ascends the throne. The type is, as every type must be very imperfect; but it is not a partial type. Anointed at the beginning, then for a time unknown, afterward brought out, but only to feel the persecuting power of the wicked king, and not till this king is slain does David sit upon the promised throne. I do not say this is a dim shadow of Messiah's path through the world, but here, as in all types, we must see the substance before we can understand and admire the shadow. Now that we have seen Christ we can trace Him in the shadows of David's life. Doubtless all the experiences of David were in Connection with his own responsibility as a saint of God. Some of his trials he brought upon himself, and more than once was in danger through want of faith and of dependence upon God. On such occasions he is the contrast of Christ. But there were other occasions, and not a few, where he truly had his own proper experiences, but which are the reflected experiences of our Lord reflected in the mirror of mere earthly material, where the imperfect surface blurs somewhat the perfect beauty of the original; yet sufficient is seen to lead us to admire the wisdom of God in thus presenting beforehand the sorrows of Messiah and the glories that follow. It is because of this special position, being chosen for that end, that David is called the man after God's own heart (1 Sam. 13:14).
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 5
“Though he were Son, yet learned he obedience from the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). Messiah's sufferings were not necessary to teach Him to obey; He was by nature obedient, for He was holy. He never walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of the scornful, but delighted in the law of God. And whether He was like the well-watered tree, or as a root out of a dry ground, as He looked in the eyes of the unbelieving Jew, His obedience would ever have been perfect. He had no opposing will. He came into the world not as the first Adam, at once a man, but born and passing through all the phases of humanity from a babe to a full-grown man. He advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man (Luke 2), that is, there was a growth mentally and physically. If the Son were only a man such a statement is needless; if He were only God, it is incomprehensible. But the Sod is perfectly human and perfectly divine. As man He suffered, and increased in wisdom yet though made like unto His brethren He alone could say, “Before Abraham was, I am.” But having taken the place of man, He condescended as such to learn obedience. Oh, how perfect His obedience! He alone could say, I do always the things that please my Father. He did not seek His own will but that of the Father. This is the perfection of obedience. It was practiced in a path of suffering, the appointed path to the throne. There was no other way possible.
Learning was part of His humiliation when He deigned to become man. The humiliation was deepened when He learned from suffering. The depths of suffering and sorrow were due to Israel's sinful condition. They had learned disobedience, not through suffering, but in the midst of blessing. Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. They were a perverse nation, and had become enemies. When the Son dwelt among such a people, suffering was inevitable. If He had come clothed with the thunders of Sinai, the suffering must have been theirs; but He came meek and lowly, and riding upon an ass, and the Jews despised Him. The suffering was His. A Messiah, Heir to the throne of God upon the earth, He was lifted up; but His own people rejected and crucified Him. He was cast down.
Messiah took all this from God; not in the mere sense of God permitting it, but as the direct and immediate appointment of God. “The cup which my Father giveth me shall I not drink it.” Thus He learned obedience. Suffering was a moral necessity both or His present path, and for His future glory.
When David was anointed, why was not Saul removed from the scene, and the man of God's choice seated at once upon the throne? If Messiah's path was necessarily through suffering, there was equal necessity for David, of else how could he be a type? It is David's glory to be in a measure suffering as did Messiah. He needed training for his coming exaltation. Saul had no such training; he had warnings as well as signal favors from God. But he was God's instrument for teaching David that he might learn obedience from the things which he suffered. And herein is the essential difference between the type and the great Antitype. David learned because he was taught. Christ learned without being taught. When the evil spirit came upon Saul, there was more than discipline for David; it was that he might answer somewhat to Him who endured the malice of Satan as well as of man. Saul henceforth is the symbol of Satanic hate.
Saul is now definitively rejected; and Samuel is sent to anoint another. Here let us pause and look at Samuel. He who so faithfully rebuked the wicked king, now fears to do Jehovah's bidding. No doubt there was in Saul a nascent hatred as a crouching tiger, waiting for its prey, ready to pounce upon the man whom God should. choose. Samuel knew this, and also that every one who, knowingly or not, assisted David would be exposed to the same murderous hate; as Ahimelech afterward proved. Hence Samuel says to God, “How can I go? if Saul hear of it, he will kill me.” Is this the language of confidence in God? Faith would have said, “What can Saul do against God?” This moment of feeble trust in Jehovah was followed by the mistake of judging from appearances. So clearly is one failure followed by another. Samuel seems to have been much impressed with Saul's magnificent stature. And when he looked on Eliab, who, though he was not of such commanding presence as Saul, was evidently a man of no mean appearance, Samuel admiring the man says, “Surely Jehovah's anointed is before him.” But God's choice of a man to be king depends not upon the adventitious advantages of nature. God had provided Himself a man from among the sons of Jesse, but had not named him to the prophet. The mere qualities of nature are nothing to God. “He taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man” (Ps. 147:10). Samuel is rebuked, and we are instructed. “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him; for Jehovah seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but Jehovah looketh on the heart.” The calling of God is not according to human preferences. Here we have an instance of the truth declared by the apostle that God chooses the things that are weak and despised by man (see 1 Cor. 1:27, 28).
The first word to Samuel was, “Fill thine horn with oil and go; I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided me a king among his sons.” Samuel is afraid. God has compassion on His timid servant, and then says, “Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to Jehovah, and call Jesse to the sacrifice.” As if God said—since you have not sufficient confidence in Me, but fear for your life, I simply bid you call Jesse to a sacrifice, after that “I will show thee what thou shalt do, and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee.” God does not change His purpose, but all that Saul or others need know is that Samuel is gone to Bethlehem to sacrifice. The prophet's fears are allayed. But this was not to his honor. Often we ask for, and obtain, a smoother path; but we lose honor and reward.
But what a condition of Israel's when his coming made the elders of Bethlehem tremble. They knew who he was, and they had conscience of sins. He quiets them. “I am come to sacrifice to Jehovah: sanctify yourselves and come.”
Seven sons passed before Samuel, none of them chosen. David was the eighth. This number is connected with resurrection and glory. It was a national life of glory, a quasi-resurrection when David came to the throne. When the true David comes to reign there will be a moral resurrection and a new national life for all Israel. Their dry bones shall be brought together again, and the breath of Jehovah shall make them a great army. But this glory is not yet. As night before day, so suffering before the glory. David was not in much honor in his father's house; the chosen one of God was unthought of by his father, who had to be questioned before he remembered the youth away keeping the sheep. Who would have thought of him?
Although David is no type of Christ as Head of the church, but only of Messiah the King (though here and there in his life are circumstances which are characteristic of the church), yet the sufferings he endured from Saul mark the path of Him who is Head of the church as well as King of Israel. If suffering was a necessary introduction to the kingdom, it cannot be less so to the higher glory of being Head of the church. The glory of the kingdom is for and in the world—the age to come. The glory of the church is separation from this present world in which the church now is. The sufferings of the church take a deeper, (should we not rather say a higher character?) in having fellowship with the sufferings of Christ, the Head, than those of the remnant with Christ the King? The church is a witness for Christ in this world. If there be no suffering from this world, it has lost its true position, and has a different path from the Master, being no longer a true witness for Him.
Saul's anointing is annulled. There cannot be two anointed kings before God. The effect is immense for both Saul and David. From that day forward the Spirit of Jehovah came upon David, and an evil spirit from Jehovah came upon Saul. Upon David the Spirit was abiding, upon Saul the paroxysms of the evil spirit seem intermitted, though he was the constant instrument of Satan. And Saul, when the Spirit of Jehovah departed from him, did not fall back into the ordinary and common condition of man; he was as marked from that day forward as David. But how awful the difference! In the two men, as in types, we see the personal conflict between Christ and Satan.
Now God brings David prominently on the scene, and makes him from that day forward the point round which all else revolve; in every detail he is the central figure. Whether it be David the fugitive; or David the king, he is the object before the eye of God. Nor could it be otherwise, for David is showing, as far as an imperfect man could, the path of the Only begotten of the Father to God's throne.
The nation had failed under priest-rule and under prophet-rule. God is about to establish a king, and their sin and guilt will henceforth be measured by the way they treat Him. And David in this very thing is the type of Christ. The sin of the Jew is measured by the presence of Christ among them; all previous guilt is as nothing compared with their rejection of Him “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin” (John 15:22). The judgment of the Jew, of the world, was involved in His presence; both Jew and Gentile united in refusing Him, and the solemn word is uttered, “Now is the judgment of this world.”
Little did Saul imagine that the youthful player on the harp was then taking his first step in his way to the throne; or that, when he sent for. David, he was sending for the man whom God had anointed to be king. As little did David know when he was soothing by his melodious strains the spirit of the man who would soon become his bitterest enemy, that he was entering a path where he must be disciplined for his high calling, and where in a higher aspect he was to be a type of Messiah. At first Saul loved him, greatly; but when he learned, which he soon did, that David was the chosen of God, then he hated him even to death.
How wondrous and wise the ways of God; how perfectly suited the means to accomplish His purposes, manifold as they are! The troubled soul of the king is refreshed, and for a time David remains in the royal household. But how soon man forgets those who have been in any way a means of good to him! only let self-interest stand in the way, and gratitude and honor, which man boasts of so much, are often cast to the winds. All is forgotten, and on the next occasion when David appears before the king, he inquires who he is. Abner might be excused, but Saul ought to have remembered who had played before him. But forgetfulness of his benefactor was not the greatest of his sins; this is simply human; he willfully opposed the known purposes of God.
The true David, even Christ, has played on His harp to the refreshing of many a troubled soul. He has played to many a sinner on the harp of His great salvation, and refreshed him with His grace. Wondrously sweet to Legion, to Mary of Magdala, when the evil spirits departed from them; and also to the weeping father when He not only commanded the evil spirit to come out of his afflicted son, but added, “and enter no more into him.” And how eventually He plays to troubled saints, refreshing them, and encompassing them with songs of deliverance. Alas, how soon we forget all His benefits! But here David causing the evil spirit to depart from Saul (it was only for a season) is a picture of Christ before Whom demons fly.
At first David was rather in a private capacity. But God's time for his public display soon came; it was in presence of the armies of Israel and of the dreaded Philistine. What a proof then was given that the Spirit of Jehovah was upon him. The giant foe defies the armies of Israel, and Jehovah the God of Israel. He comes in all the might and pride of man, with all the adjuncts of the world, a helmet of brass, a coat of mail, greaves of brass upon his legs, a target of brass between his shoulders, with a spear like a weaver's beam. It is material power of the world in array against the power of faith. This man is the expression of the world's might. His stature nearly ten feet; he is invulnerable before and behind. All is useless, for faith overcomes the world.
How in the pride of conscious strength he boasts against Israel! Saul, higher by head and shoulders than any in Israel, is cowed, and all flee from him. How the Philistines most have gloried in him, a confidence equaled only by their terror when he was slain. In his boast against the servants of Saul he did not reckon upon the God of Israel, Who, whatever Saul might be, would vindicate His own name, and in His own way. Not by opposing worldly means to worldly power, as Saul attempted to do when he clothed David with armor, as if faith in Jehovah could use like weapons as the world. Faith puts them off and goes to meet the foe in the name of Jehovah of hosts. That name was David's shield, and nerved his arm, and gave him victory. This manner of fighting raised the scorn and contempt of the world's power, and made the giant yet more insulting. “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah.” His Spirit was upon David, and with the (in appearance) contemptible means of a sling and a stone, as against a dog, the giant falls, and receives his death-stroke from his own sword. The battle is won. The victory is by the Spirit of Jehovah. Israel does not contend, but pursues a flying foe, and reaps the fruit. But it is David the anointed, who becomes the cynosure of all eyes, the wonder, and for the time, the praise of Israel. Saul might slay thousands, but David his ten thousands.
The women of Israel meet the returning army with songs. Their higher praise of David connects him in Saul's mind with the kingdom; for he knew from the prophet that it was given to another. Therefore from that day and forward he eyed David: the chosen of God as such draws upon himself the fiercest and most implacable hatred of the rejected king. So did the Jew treat Christ. Upon His Holy Head fell the concentrated hate of the rulers. Nor is there any more cruel hate in this world than that of the rejected of God upon the faithful.
At this moment there is a bright gleam; the army is victorious, the women are jubilant. It is but a sample of the achievements of Messiah when He comes to reign. Here, as in other portions of the word, men by their action show the energy of the spirit within them, the women, the position resulting from the action, or conduct of the men. Here it is a scene of joy, of exultation; which gives a glimpse of the future, when all Israel will return with singing.
This is not the first time the women of Israel are prominent in song. Miriam and the women of Israel with instruments of music answered Moses and the men of Israel singing to Jehovah over the drowned Egyptians. Deborah was foremost when she and Barak sang at the destruction of Jabin's army; and here they come forth to meet Saul and his army. Though women are restricted from certain functions in service, both under the law, and now by apostolic command, certainly cordiality in praise was never forbidden them. And it was a grateful thing to the army to meet with a joyful welcome where all united in gladness, save one whose heart was filled with jealous rancor against the man whom God had chosen as the instrument of this glorious victory. The poor wretched king, outside the joy common to all beside, soon turned the glad scene into one of deepening distress and woe. As it were, the slain Philistine revives, and the end is the death of the rejected Saul but the triumph of the chosen David.
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 6
As the victor over Goliath David enters at once into public life. From, the humble position of shepherd he rose to be really the chief in Israel. Saul might still be chief nominally, but it was by David that Israel was raised from the depths of despair and fear, and a song of triumph given them. Even so will Messiah at the right time raise Israel from lower depths and give them a more triumphant song. He had already been anointed, and the Spirit of Jehovah rested upon him. The same Spirit led him to the battle and gave him victory. Jesse had no thought but to inquire after David's brethren, but the thoughts of God were far above the thoughts of Jesse.
So the Lord, our David, after He was anointed by the Spirit descending as a dove and abiding upon Him, was likewise led by the Spirit into the wilderness to meet in single combat the antitype of Goliath in his defiance of Israel and of God. And even as Goliath must first be slain before Israel could rejoice in victory, so must the devil first be vanquished before blessing and reinstatement in highest earthly privileges can be brought, to Israel. If David be the type of the Messiah, no less is Goliath a symbol of Satanic power. Christ's victory in the wilderness was His first act in His path of service, even as David's first public act was the slaying of Goliath. The great enemy, though not yet banished from the scene of Messiah's glory, must he made to know the power of Israel's future king. In the wilderness the Lord Jesus Manifested His power and gave the pledge of His future triumphs. There it was overcoming the tempter, as in resurrection breaking the bands of him who wielded the power of death: pregnant presages of His coming kingdom and power and glory.
But that which gives us a practical lesson even in our every-day life is that both David and Jesus our Lord overcome the foe by the sword of the word of God. The same sword abides for us, and faith nerves the arm to use it. “It is written,” said the Lord. “I come to thee in the name of Jehovah,” said David. God had written His name on Israel's banner, and that was David's Confidence. The sure word of God gives us victory in every conflict. Faith rests upon it, and by faith we overcome the world and its prince.
David's victory was in presence of Israel and of their human foes. Christ's victory was unseen by human eyes, but in the presence of God and of the angels—He was seen of angels. Perhaps even the demons beheld the defeat of their Chief, as they did afterward confess His Person and His power, “I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.” But the day is coming when men shall be eye-witnesses of His power and glory, and all then shall know that He is Jehovah.
When the Lord Jesus returned from the wilderness, it was not to receive the praises of men, but their hatred. They did wonder for a little moment, for there went out a fame of Him through all the region round about, and at first He was glorified of all (Luke 4). David was met with acclamations of joy, but the hatred of Saul prevailed. And with the Lord the scene immediately changed, His path was quickly marked with sorrow. Herod had put John the Baptist in prison, the one who claimed the position of a “friend” (John 3:29). And His first recorded preaching after His return from the wilderness was in Nazareth where they sought to throw Him from the brow of the hill. A similar path awaits David. It was after his victory over the defier of Israel and of the Jehovah of Israel, that he entered upon that special path of suffering, and tasted of that cup which Messiah drank to the dregs. David might taste, and for that must be sustained; a greater than he drained the cup.
But we must repeat a remark made before, that while David's path of suffering as a whole is typical of Messiah's rejection by the Jew, when we come to details we find how blended is the imperfection of the saint with that which prefigured the perfect path of the Lord in similar circumstances. To distinguish between these surely needs the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Yet, even the saint's imperfection only serves, by contrast, to place in brighter light the absolute perfection of Him who was ever the Faithful and True Witness. David failed quite enough to have been set aside as a type of the Perfect One. But we see in his course the sovereignty of grace towards a much-tried saint, as well as the foreshadows of God's purpose concerning Christ and the supremacy of Israel in the coming age. And though in many points of his life the “type” is most distinct and clear even there let us never forget the saint's responsibility. It is even so with us now. Not that we are types in any sense whatever, but we may be instruments of God as the channels of blessing, and of conveying truth to others; ourselves, like David, perhaps not conscious at the time of the purpose of God in thus using us. Yet in every case a certain amount of moral responsibility rests upon us measured by our intelligence in the ways of God. David as a type of the Messiah, and as a saint with whom God is dealing for his present and immediate profit, must both be before our minds, or we shall fail to learn what God has written for our learning now, and the unfolding of His purposes in Christ for Israel's glory; perhaps lose altogether the blessedness of being called “friends” (John 15:15), to whom the Lord discloses the counsels of the Father.
As during the life of Saul the sufferings of David prefigure those of Christ, so does Saul set forth the unrelenting hate of the leaders of the rejecting and persecuting nation. There was no open idolatry during the king's life; he maintained more or less the external order of the appointed worship. The priests, if not the prophet, were with Saul. But in his heart was hatred of God's anointed. And during our Lord's sojourn here below, there was the absence of idolatry, and with the Pharisees, the dominant religious faction, a hypocritical zeal for the law in external duties and ceremonies, but with that a fiercer hate of Him who is greater than David. The house was swept of its idolatrous abominations, but garnished with hypocrisy (see Matt. 23). Saul at first pretended to be zealous for God, at the same time that he, as in the case of Agag, disobeyed His commands. At first he would extirpate those who had a familiar spirit, at the end he sought their counsel. The Lord foretells that in a similar way the guilty nation will fall again under the power of the unclean spirit, and with it seven other spirits still more wicked. The downward course and miserable end of Saul are a picture of the evil generation that, rejects Christ their Messiah while David and his company, who are eventually exalted, show the portion and destiny of the few that followed Christ in His rejection (Matt. 12; 25).
Israel's praises of David brings Saul's hatred to a point and gives it form. With the quick eye of jealousy he sees David as the future king of Israel, and thereupon seeks to kill him. The wise men from the East came to worship Him who will born King of the Jews, and Herod is troubled, and devises means to slay the young child at Bethlehem. Deceit and treachery marked both Saul and Herod, and each sought to slay God's anointed, whether the type or the great Antitype. Saul told David to fight Jehovah's battles and to be valiant. But he hoped that David would fall by the hand of the Philistines. Foolish Saul! Had he forgotten that David slew Goliath? Herod told the Magi to bring him word when they had found where the young child was. Worship was on his tongue, but death in his heart. Both seemed to feel instinctively the advent of the true and rightful King. Saul tried by means of his two daughters to bring about David's destruction. With the second he imposes what he thinks an impossible task. David brings double the number required; whereat Saul is yet more afraid of David. He proceeds to give a direct command to his servants and even to Jonathan, that they should kill David. How strikingly: similar many of the circumstances here recorded are to those which the Lord passed through. The Pharisees gave commandment to their adherents that if they knew where Jesus was they should take Him. They also consulted to take Him by subtlety.
For a brief moment (19:7) David had respite. Not for long; the evil spirit again dominates the miserable king. David seeks shelter from the king's fury in his own home, but as quickly leaves it; for even there the hate of Saul would reach him; he flies to Samuel. Three times messengers were sent to slay him, and three times God interposed in a wondrous way. The messengers of death are turned into prophets. Saul dares the manifest power of God, as if he said that God might turn aside his servants, but should not turn him! No act of his rebellion went beyond this. The mightiest man is only a reed in the hands of the Almighty. Saul must prophesy, he is no stronger than his servants, though his evil heart still retained his purpose against David. But God put a hook in his nose and turned him in a way he would not, as He did the Assyrian in a later day (see 2 Kings 19:28).
The officers that were sent to take Jesus (John 7:32) came under a similar power, and were also turned from their purpose. Astonished they return, saying, “Never man spake like this man.” We do not know that saving efficacy accompanied in this case the words of the Lord any more than it did the constraining power of the Spirit in the case of Saul and his messengers. In each we see God using the enemy to bear testimony to His power according to His will. What a vain thing is man! When the rulers take counsel together against God's anointed, He has them in derision. For the decree is gone forth: God's king must sit on the holy hill of Zion. David is under the panoply of God, nor can Messiah be touched till the appointed time. David must be preserved all through, he must suffer but not die, for he had not life in himself. Christ had, and was able to go through death in His way to the Throne. How very partially each type can set forth either the depth of His sufferings, or His power and glory. There was that in the path of Christ where no man could go, a cup which none but He could drink, a baptism which was His alone. Death under judgment was His. Many have followed Him in death, but not in judgment. These were not typos but disciples. The Master must be first and alone; “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterward” (John 13:36). He bore away the judgment; then others, His disciples, could follow through death. As regards types Isaac came nearest for he was actually bound and laid upon the altar, but there is essential difference between the figure and the reality of death. It was only in figure that Abraham received his son from death (Heb. 11:19).
Returning to David, how suited to the circumstances is his deliverance. He was with the prophet whose function is not to fight with the sword, but to bear testimony and, if need be, suffer! God delivers David in an extraordinary way. Saul becomes another man, foregoes his purpose, and in appearance and according to the uninstructed voice of the people is numbered with the prophets, as of the same company with Samuel and David. Not to the discerning eye, for his behavior savored rather of the frenzy of the prophets of Baal. Here is no providential mode of escape for David as when surrounded by his pursuers in the wilderness of Mann, Saul is called away by tidings of the invasion of the Philistines. Saul; himself under the direct and immediate hand of God, becomes the instrument of deliverance. May we not say here as Samson when he found honey in the lion's carcass, “Out of the eater came forth meat” God delivers His saints in unexpected ways, ever for His own glory, yet always in keeping with the position and circumstances of His saints.
Jonathan's love (ch. 20.) was an oasis to David in the desert of persecution which he now feels in its acutest form. Driven from home, a wanderer, a fugitive, he had nowhere to lay his head. The power of Israel wielded by Saul is against him. So it was with the Lord Jesus. Foxes had holes, birds of the air had nests, the cunning and the unclean had a place in this world; He, the Lord, had none. Yet to Him there was a house at Bethany, a little green spot where He could meet with hearts that responded to His own. Of them it is said, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” Of only one other is this intimacy of affection spoken-of the disciple whom Jesus loved. Precious to the Lord was this communion of love in His path of sorrow. The loves of David and. Jonathan are but shadows of the Lord's love for that family, and of their love for Him. Yea, however close Jonathan's love to David may be to their love to the Lord Jesus, David's love to Jonathan can be only a faint image of the Lord's special love for these highly favored ones at Bethany.
In this sorrowful yet deeply interesting meeting of David and Jonathan there is more than their mutual love. In Jonathan we see the godly in Israel owning their king. They confess Him before they see His glory; and they are themselves weak and in fear. Simeon, Anna, Nathaniel, confessed Him; but Nicodemus is most like Jonathan, for he also, for fear of the Jews, came by stealth to the Lord Jesus, as Jonathan to David, fearing his father, and unknown to him and to the nation at large. He acknowledges David as the king of Israel. He had before stripped himself of the emblems of royalty and given them to David. Now he acknowledges that his life is in the hand of David. It is complete and perfect submission. There could be no fuller confession of David's rights as king of Israel, for he pleads not only for himself, but also for continued kindness to his house forever. He expected to see David's greatness. “And thou shalt not only while yet I live show me the kindness of Jehovah that I die not; but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house forever; no, not when Jehovah hath cut off the enemies of David every one from the face of the earth,” “and I shall be next thee.” Jonathan entreats, but his entreaty is in accord with the counsels of God, and therefore his prayer has a prophetic aspect. We see in this the covenanted blessings of the saved remnant in the age to come; not of those who share in the rejection of the Lord, the Messiah, to whom He said, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” David's company became princes in the kingdom. Jonathan never took that place, he returned to the city, and did not follow David. None loved David, more than he; but he is used, and (I believe) it was so ordered by God, that he should thus prefigure the future remnant of Israel who never know the reproach of Christ, that will he brought back to the land in “the kindness of Jehovah,” and of God's counsels concerning them. The promise is given, repeated, and confirmed with an oath—two immutable things.
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 7
Though dimly, “as in a glass,” yet surely in this scene (ch. 20.) historically so sorrowful, we have a glimpse of the coming glory, i.e., of Israel's part in it. Jonathan confidently looks onward to David's exaltation, and the subjugation of all his enemies; and, while mistaken as to his own place, foreshadows the position of the remnant that will be brought to inherit the land. Now, “for a little while, David is, as it were, to be hidden till Saul is removed, and the purpose of God is ripe for fulfillment. So Jehovah says to Messiah, who is now hidden from Israel, “Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool.” True, Christ is hidden now in the glory whither He went when He left the grave; but they who are His representatives here both suffer and are hidden as David. God through all. David's sorrow was preparing his way to the throne, as even at this moment He is preparing the way for the advent of the King of Israel, and for judgment upon His enemies. Then Messiah will reign and take vengeance upon them who would not that He should reign over them (Luke 19:27). “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.” As upon a footstool so shall He tread them down. And then shall the same remnant be exalted and have the chief place among the nations of the earth, next to the King in His millennial glory. Such is the position which Jonathan personally aspired to; his desire prophetically pointed to the future standing of the restored and purged nation, of which Jonathan is here the type.
Looking at these two men, not as types of Messiah and of Israel respectively, but as saints, there is much to be learned for our profit. The full light which now shines was not then given, and that which seems unnoticed with them is now seen most inconsistent with a life of faith and truthfulness. These two men are not caught up out of their human sphere, but while types of coming glory and blessing for Israel, are still saints and responsible as such. God allows their failures to be seen. They are, earthen vessels while holding the future blessing, They were as the prophets of whom Peter speaks; that is, they signified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow, in which on earth the godly remnant of Israel have the chief place. Neither David nor Jonathan could read, in the prayer of the latter, the then hidden counsel of God. It is now revealed, and we rejoice in Christ's glory and the consequent exaltation of Israel, inasmuch as it is one of the many crowns which will adorn the brow of the King of kings and the Lord of lords in that day.
Since He came the true Light shines upon every page of Israel's history. Before the cross the moral light was but little more than the prophetic. The necessity for truth in the inward parts seemed unknown to David and Jonathan. There was a little plot between them to deceive Saul. No doubt David was in great fear and showed but little faith. We cannot boast against him, for since that day many a saint has, with more light and less cause for fear, done worse. The Holy Spirit does not hide their failure though He uses them in His wisdom. No command was given to David by his brother to be present at a sacrifice in Bethlehem. It was a story invented by David and repeated by Jonathan. “Therefore he cometh not to the feast.” Nay, he feared Saul, therefore he cometh not to the feast. There was untruthfulness; and neither seemed to have had any conscience about it. These were the times of ignorance: now the full truth is revealed, and holiness is demanded in accordance with the measure of light. If God passed over (I do not say sanctioned) their duplicity, it is not an example to be followed, rather a warning to judge the secret springs of action and see that all is consonant with truth in the inward parts.
We discern the same want of conscience in the next scene. Truly the love of truth is not acquired in a moment. With some there is seemingly a natural love of truth, while others appear to be without it. But the natural love of truth always fails when tested in the things of God. To buy the truth and sell it not is only by the Holy Spirit working in grace upon the heart, and without Him there is no true love.
David fleeing from Saul comes to Ahimelech who fears, seeing David alone. Not unlikely he had heard of Saul's hatred, and of David's distressful circumstances. “Why art thou alone and no man with thee?” Alas! untruthfulness comes out in a more definite form. “The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know anything of the business whereabout I send thee, and what I have commanded thee; and I have appointed my servants to such and such a place.” Having begun with deception he gets deeper into its toils. Circumstances are invented (so to say) to supplement his first assertion. The king had appointed servants to expedite the business entrusted to David! Was it in remembering this and similar instances, that be afterward sang of the blessedness of the Man in Whose spirit there was no guile? Well, even this shows the perfection of Him of Whom pre-eminently and absolutely it is said, “Neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).
David's guile brought sad consequences for Ahimelech and his house. Indeed, on the previous occasion it nearly cost Jonathan his life. Saul was far too shrewd a man to accept the story of a sacrifice at Bethlehem, and in his anger threw his javelin at Jonathan. His jealousy and hate made him keen of perception. David succeeded in deceiving the priest, who fell a victim to the king's wrath. Perhaps, had David told the whole truth, the priest might have oven then cast in his lot with him, as Abiathar his son did later. Full trust in God would then have doubtless uttered the words of faith which afterward David said to the son, “With me thou shalt be in safeguard;” even as we are with our David spite of Satan's power and the world's hatred. As it was Ahimelech boldly maintained David's integrity; though was there not a gentle rebuke to him for his want of truth in the words, “Thy servant knew nothing of all this, less or more?” The effects of one man's sin are seldom confined to himself, and in some instances defilement is the consequence which is always the case when sin being known is not rebuked in faithfulness to the Lord. But here Ahimelech was not defiled. In his simplicity he accepted David's statement. The effects touched him even to death, but he was guileless. David was the indirect cause of his death, and he afterward admitted it; for at the time he suspected what the fatal result would be when he saw Doeg. Should he not then have made a full disclosure of his true position? False shame sometimes engenders guile; the effects spread far and wide. Upon Ahimelech is brought destruction, upon his family and the city. Yet wicked and cruel as Saul was, there is more than human revenge. He was the guilty tool of Satan's malignity against all who in any way befriended God's chosen king, and Doeg was the willing tool of Saul. And when the Lord Jesus came, Satan found other willing tools of his hate. The priests were his tools, and Pilate (though he was unwilling) the tool of the priests. In Saul's day the priests were the sufferers, for they were owned of God. In the Lord's day the priests, then disowned of God, are in the place of Saul, and urge, yea, compel the Roman governor to crucify the Lord Jesus.
Again observe how the typical man is interwoven with the failing saint. Historically a fugitive, and flying for his life, and weak in faith, yet connected with this he appears a type of the Rejected One who gives to His disciples the bread of heaven. The shewbread was priests food. Believers are priests unto God; and we live on hallowed bread. In the circumstances of that day the sanctity of the shewbread was annulled, for God's king was cast out. Of what use the ordinances, or even priests' offerings, from a nation that rejected the man of God's choice? All became void. The bread is in a manner common. The Lord refers the Pharisees to David's act, when He was in the cornfields with His disciples. He, rejected, declares that the Sabbath had lost its legal sanctity, and with it all else fell. But while to Israel, the Jew, the holiness of the shewbread was gone and was become common as any other bread, it has become to the church the symbol of a blessed truth. To eat together is the sign of companion, and we, made priests to God, have fellowship one with another, as we eat of the bread from heaven. And there is more than fellowship one with another it is holy, hallowed bread, and in it we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. This bread is to us “common,” the common privilege of all believers. But the enjoyment of this high communion with the Father and the Son cannot be without separation from the world. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols,” are the last words of the aged apostle. Are the young men pure? ask the priest. They are, said David. It was not enough to follow David (in profession), but is there practical holiness? To such the bread is common. But this looks rather to the church than to the kingdom.
David flees to Achish. Here are three things so closely linked together as to be like cause and effect. Indeed, failure in trusting God is the root of all departure, now as then. There was deception attempted upon Saul, a bolder aspect of untruthfulness to Ahimelech, and now degradation before Achish. And in this backsliding course the fear of man grows, and trust in God seems quite gone; for how else would he seek refuge with Israel's bitterest foes? It was as giving up his inheritance in Israel, forgetting his anointing, forsaking his God. David sinks very low in the presence of Achish. A saint seeking refuge from fear of trial by going into the world is sure to increase his difficulties and sorrows. So it was with David. Is fear removed? Nay, it only takes a different form, and he is now in real danger of his life; for he had no right to claim the protection of the God of Israel. But mercy is above all, and his great danger is the means of driving him back to the land which he ought not to have left. God even uses the Philistines to remind him that he was the anointed king, and how he was honored in the memorable fight with Goliath. “And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David, the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him in the dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?” They recognize him as the “king of the land,” and well interpreted his triumph over Goliath, and the song that greeted him when the women of Israel met him with music and dance. David was ten times greater than Saul. Is it not strange that enemies—the world—are better interpreters sometimes of circumstances than saints? Ought they to be? Alas! how soon believers forget in whose keeping they are. Faith is both the most hardy and most delicate plant of God in the heart, most hardy where unhindered, most delicate where fear of man or other phases of the flesh appear. Both Saul and the Philistines were enemies. Saul said, “I know thou shalt reign.” The Philistines call him “king of the land.” The only effect of their word is to make David sore afraid. Want of faith leads him to attempt a human means of escape. God in sovereign grace overrules, and Achish sends away a “madman.”
Unfaithfulness brought David into a position where his enemies called him mad, and he gave them cause for so saying. Faithfulness and truth brought upon the Lord Jesus the same reproach, mingled with blasphemy. His enemies said, “He hath a devil and is mad.” Oh, what a contrast between the type and the Antitype! And why wonder? Here is the Perfect One, there the failing saint. Here is the Christ in all the power of grace and truth, there the saint overcome with fear, and feigning madness in order to escape, the degrading sight of a man scrabbling on the gate. Achish had reason for what he said; the Pharisees knew better, they blasphemed because they hated.
David escapes and finds a temporary shelter in the cave of Adullam. In his own country, and hiding in a cave! Never so low before, he never felt more the effects of Saul's hatred; but it is the moment when his brethren and all his father's house come to him. They would share in his sorrows. Doubtless it was no small comfort to the hunted man. Again we turn to Him in Whom all was fulfilled, Who felt far more deeply both the sorrow of rejection, and joy in the few that followed Him. These were to Him “brother and sister and mother,” they were of His Father's house and did His will. It is when David is manifestly a fugitive that his brethren join him; and when the Lord is seen as the rejected One, publicly and with scorn by the rulers (Matt. 12), He, in words that exclude the nation, declared who were then in nearest relationship to Him. But there is more to be seen in this cave of Adullam. If the brethren and the father's house be taken as the remnant that now are hidden through the love of their Messiah until the fury of the oppression be quenched in His judgment, who are the outcasts that find refuge and shelter with David in the same hiding place? Israel in the coming day will be as outcasts, but they are also brethren and of His house after the flesh. Is there not here the intimation of the coming in of Gentiles while Christ is yet hidden above? David's brethren and the outcasts become one company, even as now grace makes of the twain (see Eph. 2:11-15) one new man. Christ the head; a much closer tie than being Captain over them, as David was to his company. The distressed, the indebted, the discontented, in the cave of Adullam is a striking though imperfect figure of the grace of the Lord Jesus, Who received sinners and did eat with them: the lepers, paralytics, blind and impotent, publicans, and sinners, all that came were received, none refused.
David's followers were not those whom the world called respectable; in the estimation of the wise and prudent, it was a disreputable company. Quite true, and there was but one redeeming feature among them. But that was everything in God's sight: they were with David, and he was their captain. The disciples of the Lord have since borne similar reproach. For the most part they were numbered with the base things of the world before they were chosen, and afterward had to bear the world's contempt. This we accept: it was His while here. Even men of position (though not many wise, mighty and noble, are called, 1 Cor. 1), having a place in the world, have been content to become fools for His sake, whether in following Him then in view of the kingdom, or now in view of heavenly glory. To Nicodemus they said, “Art thou also of Galilee “art thou one of that base company? But in the cave of Adullam were found the precursors of those to whom the Lord said, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 8
We may but briefly note the remaining events of David's life, and those only as they prefigure the Messiah. In all there is much for profitable study, much instruction for our walk as saints. Indeed there is nothing either before law or under law that does not take the form of admonition or of encouragement for saints now. And all point to Christ, though some less directly than others. The wisdom of. God has made prominent in David's life those events where we may trace a likeness (only in measure) to the sufferings and grace of Christ, and thus would lead our thoughts to Him Who was before the mind of the Spirit when He inspired the historian to write the life of David. Christ was the Object; it is He whom we see, and David, interesting as is his history, is but, secondary in the mind of the Holy Spirit.
David is brought out of his difficulty which he created for himself in fleeing to Achish, and now in the land, his true place, becomes the center of all that God owned. The priest and the prophet come to him and join the feeble company, and he becomes captain over them; and, above all, the power of Jehovah is with him. But what a scene is presented to us! Saul with the might of the nation, the acknowledged king of Israel, and here the leader of the religions world, the opposer of God's counsels, the enemy of God's king on the one side; and on the other God's anointed one persecuted, his life hunted, in distress fleeing from one place to another; yet with him the power of God which in due time seated him on the throne, and raised the despised ones with him to be princes, and honorable, and mighty men of valor.
Saul said to his servants, “Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds;” He had distributed his favors among the men of his own tribe, but now appears to distrust them, and appeals to their self-interest. Would the son of Jesse enrich and honor them? No, not the followers of Saul, but his own who followed him and shared in his sufferings, whatever their former condition and character, these David appointed to the honorable places in his kingdom (2 Sam. 21). Again, we turn to the words of our Lord, which He spake to His suffering chosen ones, “Ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28). And again, but including the church's more blessed portion, “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.”
Though he had sought refuge among the Philistines, David's heart was true to God and to Israel. He hears that the Philistines are robbing the threshing floors of Keilah, and he immediately prepares to go against them. But he first inquires of God. And here, as ever, when faith seeks to know and to act according to the mind of God, it is met with objections and doubts. How natural the fears of David's men! Human wisdom and prudence endorsed their objections. The effect upon David is to send him again to God, and his faith is confirmed, and victory assured. Saul—religious Saul—hearing that David is in Keilah, hastens to destroy him, saying, “God hath delivered him into my hand.” He thought there was no escape for David, and said God had done it! What a fool man becomes when he attempts to understand the ways of God with His saints, he himself being an enemy! Yes, God did bring David to Keilah, but He also knew how to bring him out of it, not for Saul, but for His own glory and for Saul's confusion. The base men of Keilah would have delivered him to Saul. But he again seeks and finds direction. God led him both to befriend the roan of Keilah, and to flee from their ingratitude. The Lord Jesus met with the same ingratitude from those that He befriended. Among them is the impotent man (John 5) whom the Lord so graciously healed. He told the Jews “that it was Jesus who had made him whole.” It was the spirit of betrayal, only he had not the opportunity. The hour was not yet come. This base man was of the generation of the men of Keilah. Doubtless David felt keenly when assured from God that the men whom he had delivered, forgetful of his kindness, would deliver him up to Saul. But how much more did the Lord feel from a baseness and an ingratitude still deeper! Listen to His words of sorrow, “Yea I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy” (Psa. 7:4). And, yet a more touching cry when the betrayal is accomplished— “Yea, mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me” (Psa. 41:9) words of which the historical occasion was the defection of Ahithophel, but which pointed onward to the greater sin of Judas (John 13:18).
Then follows a glimpse of the grace which without interruption marked all the life of our Lord. Circumstances, which seemed to have brought David into extremist peril, in reality put Saul in David's power. But he will not avenge himself, on the contrary he appeals to Jehovah; let Him “therefore be Judge and judge between thee and me, and see and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand.” So also the Psalmist where we see the Spirit, of Christ, of Him who would not save Himself, but committed all to God, “Plead my cause, O Jehovah, with them that strive with me; fight against them that fight against me,” &c. (Psa. 35). The same cry for help and deliverance again, “Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; oh deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man” (Psa. 43:1). Saul's better feelings prevailed for a moment, but deceit in some form or other always has marked the persecutor; perhaps even deceiving himself, for not long after a very similar scene occurs (see 26.). But there was a transient effect produced, for even the cruelest heart may have its seasons of relenting, though generally succeeded by the same old, if not a greater, hatred. It was so with Saul, in whom we see the persistent enmity of the natural heart, spite of known truth. “I know well that thou shalt surely be king.” Yet after this he sought David's life.
A different picture is presented now (chap. 25.), which, while not dissevered from the kingdom, looks to a higher thing which is called into existence when every outward link with Israel is broken. And so this chapter fittingly opens with the fact of Samuel's death. He was the visible link of the people with God, after, the death of Eli, the priest. There was a new link preparing, but he was in the wilderness of Paran, as yet not received by the nation. While still the rejected king, the Holy Spirit brings before us the story of Abigail and her ultimate blessing. She is not the type of the church as a whole, but seems to prefigure church position during this present time. In her we see those of the remnant who as a kind of first-fruits were joined to the Lord, and were added to the church (Acts 2) soon to share as the Bride in the exaltation and glory of the Bridegroom, though now for a season despised. Some of the characteristic marks of the church are found in her. She renounces her own position, whatever it was after Nabal's death, to share in the sorrows of David, whom Nabal (Israel) despised, but whom she knew to be chosen of God. David's present circumstances has no weight with her. He was suffering because God had called him to the throne, and that was enough for Abigail's faith.
To partake of the sufferings of Christ is our privilege, though how little our measure. We all, more or less, fail individually to follow in His path of sorrow; shrinking from the cross, but loving the blessing.
If Abigail represents the few that clave to the Lord, before the great apostle of the Gentiles carried the word to them, Nabal, making merry in his own house and refusing David, is a symbol of the despising Jew, boasting of his riches, vaunting his own-righteousness, resisting the grace of God, and denying the title of Jesus, the Messiah. Abigail acknowledged and bowed to David as the King. She is as it were reproduced in Nathaniel, and in the thief on the cross, who both confessed Christ as King of Israel. Nathaniel's confession went farther than the kingdom; the omniscience of God was there in the Person of the Lord, and he bows before Him as Son of God; but He was also King of Israel.
There is a remarkable “touch” in the supplication of Abigail to David, and in the prayer of the thief. Their common thought is, the kingdom and the coming king, but the faith of the dying thief is higher than that of Abigail. For though David was at that moment a persecuted man, derided by all the Nabals in Israel and hiding from Saul, yet he was at the head of six hundred men, and able to chastise the churlish ingratitude of Nabal. If Nathaniel saw Jesus to be Son of God as well as King of Israel, the thief saw quite as clearly that the question of death had nothing to do with the certainty of Christ exalted as King (save as the appointed way). Abigail saw not a dying man, but one with energy and power, and she says, “When Jehovah shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine, handmaid.” David's answer is not, I have accepted thy gifts, but thy person.
There was no external circumstance which could have given the remotest probability to the mind of the dying malefactor that “Jesus of Nazareth,” on the cross—as he says “in the same condemnation” —was the true King; but there was a divinely given faith which pierced the covering of sorrow and shame, and saw His glory, and he says, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.” Neither Abigail nor the thief had to wait for the kingdom, there was immediate honor and blessing for both. She became David's wife before he came to the throne, and to the thief the Lord said, “This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.” How beautiful to see in the briefest recorded circumstances how the grace of the Lord was prefigured ages before He was manifested.
Yet with the resemblance contrast is intimately connected. David had vengeance in his heart, his purpose was not to leave a single male alive. He was arrested in this by the submission of Abigail, and vengeance was delayed. When the Lord accepted the person of the thief, and promised him more than he asked, His heart was full of love and pity, He was accomplishing redemption. His errand was grace, not judgment. Vengeance will come, will overtake the murderers and despisers of God's King, when He appears the second time. But first He came to save, not to, judge. David's purpose was set aside by Abigail, the Lord's purpose of grace was abundantly proved and manifested when He accepted the thief.
Two facts are now given (vv. 43, 44) which, if the Holy Spirit had merely meant to show how wonderfully David had been delivered from all his foes, might have been omitted without detriment to the record of God's grace and loving-kindness. But the primary object of the Holy Spirit is not David but Christ. And every event must be brought into His life if we would learn the thoughts of God. “David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel; and they were also both of them his wives. But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David's wife, to Phalti, the son of Laish, which was of Gallim.” Abigail and her attendants may represent the remnant of Israel which clave to the Lord before the church began. What then is Ahinoam, for she also was wife to David? I judge they both together (two witnesses) point to the remnant in the days of our Lord, and to those converted by the preaching of Peter, before the special position of the church was declared. For though the church was formed on the day of Pentecost, Peter's preaching goes not beyond the gospel of the kingdom. Upon their repentance Christ would bring in the times of refreshing and restore all things. It is Paul who begins with the foundation truth of the church, Christ the Son of God; nor is the union of the church with Christ set forth by David's union with Abigail and Ahinoam. For they are two, the church is one. The church is called the Bride, the Lamb's wife, but she has not yet made herself ready. (Rev. 19:7). The church is as yet a chaste virgin. David's two wives cannot typify the church’s present position, for the marriage of the Lamb is not yet come, neither are they typical of the future position, for Christ will then appear in His glory. David was still a wanderer when he took them. They are the remnant, the few which followed Christ when here, and swelled to five thousand through Peter's preaching (Acts 4.) and then, losing their special standing as “godly remnant,” are merged in the new thing—the church of God, at that time declared, but again to appear as a remnant when the church is gone, and to pass through great tribulation, till they come forth as the restored nation, i.e., Michal brought back to her first husband.
Ahinoam was of Jezreel, a place early associated with the enemy (Jud. 6:33); afterward prominent for iniquity, being stained with the blood of Naboth, nor less marked by the judgment of wicked Jezebel. The prophet Hosea declares the gladness of the land in the millennial day; the blessings that come from Jehovah the source reach the utmost, even to Jezreel (see 2:22). This seems to put Jezebel in the lowest place; but the blessing descends in the same way as the cry went up, and Jehovah and Jezreel are again connected. For His blessing will reach the limits of Israel. Ahinoam is not the figure of this fullness of blessing, but she and Abigail give the position of the remnant before the king reigns, and more than anticipate the joy and glory of the kingdom, inasmuch as they shared in his sufferings (see 30:5). So the line of believers that runs through Israel share in the sufferings and rejection of their Messiah, though the same sufferings have a higher character, as of the church, and therefore higher glory awaits them, as awaits us all.
Hence the words of Abigail (25:24-31) go beyond the thoughts of the remnant in the latter day. There is the deprecation of revenge, taking the iniquity upon herself, the blessedness of simply trusting in Jehovah, and of being bound up in the bundle of life. All this partakes of church character. Abigail shows the faith of those joined to the Lord before He reigns; the Jezreelitess the moral condition out of which they were taken. During this time Michel is given to another; the outward link between Messiah and Israel is broken, but only for a time. When the blessing from Jehovah reaches Jezreel, Michal—the separated wife—will be brought back (Hos. 2:19, &c.).
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 9
Up to this point David has given us a glimpse of the path trodden by Messiah when He was presented to the Jew. And the remnant that then believed in Him, separated from the nation, sharing in His rejection, but to enjoy a more blessed position, were taken out of the natural position of Israelitish remnant, and with believing Gentiles, after the cross form one body, the church, where they that are nigh, and those who were far off, the middle wall of partition broken down, are made one “new man.” This position of the godly ones of Israel—for God always maintained a testimony for Himself in Israel whether in the former or present dispensation—Abigail and Ahinoam represent. During the time that this body is forming by the Holy Ghost, Israel as a nation—Michal the first wife being separate from her husband—become Lo-ammi.
The chapter that follows gives the trial of David's faith as a saint. For honored as he was, he was but a man, and his faith must be tested as that of every other believer: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:7). But, besides this proving of David's faith, is there not an analogy between his forsaking the land and making a home among the Philistines, and the professing church forsaking its true place, forgetting its standing and making for itself a home in the world, so as to avoid the consequence of the cross, hatred and persecution from the enemies of Christ? Many of the true children of God are carried away through false teaching, the fruit of unbelief in the word of God. God has kept for Himself a few faithful ones; but the mass of profession is mixed with the world, and rapidly sinking into Laodicean apathy and pride, notwithstanding the seeming zeal seen in the highest and lowest aspects of profession, which is comparable to the unhealthy, because feverish, energy of a sick man. As a whole the professing church is living contentedly in a kind of spiritual Ziklag, until God permits the enemy to overthrow it. Ziklag is burnt not by the Philistines—the world within the pale of profession—but by the Amalekites—the world, outside profession. The Amalekites did not burn a city of the Philistines but the refuge which saints had made for themselves in the world. It is righteous judgment, but withal great mercy. For God will bring His people, those true in heart to the person of Christ, out of every false position. The church though broken will be compelled to return from their Ziklag to their true place, individually if not corporately. For us it is waiting for the Son from heaven. For David it was returning to the land of Judah.
David's failure in faith, and Saul’s inability to withstand temptation, are the two things next before us. And we learn that not only is the natural man powerless against temptation, and therefore incapable of ruling well and presenting in his high vocation an image of the Great King, but even the saint fails, and in the first principles of trust in God. David's failure brought him into circumstances which well nigh proved fatal. It was only the intervention of God in grace, that opened the door for his escape from the dishonoring position in which lack of faith placed him. One aspect of God's dealing with him at this time is His mercy. Of course we may say, looking at God's purpose in him, that he must be delivered; but this in no ways lessens—nay, rather increases—his sin in going again to seek refuge among the Philistines. But this all the more exalts the compassion and grace of God. For his going over to Achish and settling down in the country of the Philistines, and pressing his service on the Philistine king when marching against Israel, was putting every possible hindrance and doing all he could, against his ever sitting upon the throne of Israel. Could he be the one chosen to be king? As a responsible man he forfeited all the privileges and honor of his anointing. But when did failure in responsibility ever turn aside the flow of God's grace to His saints, or bar the fulfillment of His purpose? God had spoken, and neither David's fear of Saul with its consequences, nor Saul's active opposition, could set aside His word.
In Saul we see the natural man's attempt to forsake evil and his sure failure. There may be an appearance of having succeeded, and so long as no temptation assails him he may maintain the appearance. But when the opportunity comes, the power of evil breaks down every barrier of good resolves and intentions? all which are found to be as tow touched with fire; and with increased impetus the undelivered slave of sin rushes into the same courses from which he seemed delivered. This is the history of many a soul, and it by no means proves the want of sincerity. Many a circumstance may happen to make a man review his past ways with shame and disgust: with such a feeling it is an easy matter to resolve to abandon them. A reformation that has no deepen root than the mere accidents of human life afford, or what man calls gratitude, cannot endure when the tempter and favorable opportunities combine. It may be the reproaching of conscience, for the natural man has a conscience which sometime will speak until it be seared as with a hot iron. In such cases there is no real sincerity; and if there were, sincerity is not power. It is simply self-delusion, and the man is the victim of his deceitful heart.
This was the case with Saul. He recognized (ch. 24.) the kindness and forbearance of David; and it so touched him that he “lifted up his voice and wept.” He is convinced that David will baking, and prays him to swear that he will not destroy his name out of his father's house. David gives the required pledge, and Saul returns home—doubtless with the thought that he would no more seek David's life. But Satan does not leave his captives alone. A little time may elapse, so that Saul's sense of gratitude and his good resolutions may evaporate, when he would be as ready as ever to follow the path in which Satan was leading him. His hatred was only smoldering till it was fanned into a flame as fierce as before.
For here is very much more than Satan accomplishing the ruin of a soul. Saul was his tool in his enmity against Christ. Saul only saw David. Satan saw in him the type of Christ who is the Son of David. If Satan could only destroy David, where would be the Son and all, the promises bound up in Him? not only the future blessing of Israel and of the earth, but the bruising of Satan himself, and wresting from him the world of which through sin he had become the god and the prince? It is Satan's antagonism to Christ which alone fully accounts for the persistent and unnatural desire of Saul to slay his daughter's husband. It began with jealousy, but David's submissive conduct, so invariable, was quite sufficient to have removed all such feeling so unfounded (but therefore with deeper root), had that been all. Satanic wisdom discerned in the youthful slayer of Goliath the power of God, and the progenitor of Him who was to be the bruiser of his head, and the conqueror of Death and Hell. Therefore it was that Saul's jealousy ripened into Satan's hatred. And all through the scenes the real contest is between the opposing forces—if we may thus speak—the power of God on one side, and, on the other, the power of Satan.
This opposition dates from the garden of Eden. To the serpent, God said, The seed of the woman should bruise his head. From that moment, Satan's constant aim was to destroy the woman's Seed, whenever He should appear, and if possible to prevent His appearing. To this end he made Cain a murderer. Eve thought he was the man; perhaps it was also Satan's thought. A mightier effort followed: he corrupted the whole race, and the deluge came. Satan did not calculate on the race being continued through Noah. Nor was there any clue given (save vaguely in “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem") till long after to show in what line the promised seed would come, till Abram was called, and upon him Satan immediately fixed his eye. He essayed on three different occasions to swamp the separated line with the nations outside. Twice was Sarah exposed, first, in the house of Pharaoh (Gen. 12:14), then in the house of Abimelech (Gen. 20). His third attempt, for the same object, was with Rebecca (Gen. 26), only that God would not permit her to be taken into the Philistine's house. Isaac's sin was the same as Abraham's. If Satan succeeded in corrupting the old world, why not in corrupting also the chosen line? All this was to prevent the coming of the true Seed.
Again, Satan knew that the line ran through Jacob; therefore he led Isaac to give the blessing—in intention—to Esau. The sad story of Dinah shows the hand of Satan for the same end. When Jacob's children were in Egypt, he instigated Pharaoh to decree the destruction of every male child, i.e. to destroy the race. Again, he sought the corruption of the chosen people when he brought the daughters of Moab into the camp (Num. 25). David appears, and Satan quickly discerns that the promised Seed will come in this line. The sphere of his plotting is narrowed and his efforts are directed against this chosen man, and Saul is his willing instrument. All these are Satan's attempts to frustrate the purpose of God; for if, he could prevent the advent of the promised Seed, he would remain undisputed master of the world. But neither man's sin, nor the saints' failure, nor Satan's opposition, can set aside or annul God's decree.
From this point of view—God's purpose—there can be no doubt as to the issue. Satan may seem for a moment to drive the chosen man to the last extremity; and the chosen one himself may fail in faith, and in despair give up all. But this in the end only makes the interposition of God more pronounced and the discomfiture of Satan more complete.
Saul goes home, and apparently relinquishes all intention of pursuing David any more. Satan bides his time, and at the fitting moment find's means to re-awaken the slumbering enmity in Saul's heart. “And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gilead, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon? Then Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Ziph having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph” (26:1, 2). Possibly he would never again have gone after David but for the Ziphites. Poor soul no master of himself. Again he sets out with the same hate, the same purpose, and with the same select force of three thousand chosen men. But a deeper humiliation awaits him.
David does not forget his place in presence of Saul whom he constantly honored as the anointed king. David says of himself, only “a flea"; that to pursue him is “as when one doth hunt a partridge in the mountains.” What need of such an army as Saul had to seek David with his little band of at most six hundred men! So great means to attain so (apparently) small an end! How very determined the will of Saul against David, yea, against God! He who sits in the heavens has man in derision. He sends a deep sleep upon Saul and his army; and they are all in the power of David, whose reverence for the order of God alone stays his hand. But is there not also a touch of sarcasm in David's words, “The king of Israel is come out to seek a flea"? For the “flea” had been in the king of Israel's camp and had taken away his spear and the cruse of water; i.e. his means of warfare and the necessaries of life. In a word, Saul was powerless. What greater proof than this, that Saul was the “flea,” and the power of God, the strength of Israel, with David?
Did he think to come unawares upon David? David knew Saul better than Saul knew himself, and he “sent out spies” and understood that Saul was come in very deed. Appearances might seem fair at first, but David did not trust them, and he sent out spies; and soon proof was given that no confidence could be placed in Saul. And now the interposition of God is very plain. The sentinels who should have watched while the king slept are themselves asleep. God thus, as it were, prepared them for David's nocturnal visit, and led by the hand of God he in the boldness of faith goes straight to the sleeping king. In this moment of triumph his dependence upon God is tested and not found wanting. His follower advises the slaying of Saul. This would have been sin. He would not avenge himself. Saul might be a wicked man, but he was Jehovah's anointed, and David would not take the matter in his own hand. “Jehovah liveth,” he says, and that is enough for David. “Jehovah shall smite him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall descend into battle and perish.” Would it not have been a continual reproach that he had slain the king while sleeping? Faith committed it to God. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves.” But how manifestly the craft of Satan is defeated! Whether Saul slew David, or David slew Saul, either way would have suited Satan's purpose, and have been a hindrance to the purpose of God. The object of David's visit to the camp was accomplished in taking the spear and the cruse of water; and proved unmistakably that a power above Saul was David's guide and preserver.
Saul wakes up to find a further proof of his folly and his impotence. He is compelled to make a confession with deeper shame. “I have sinned; return, my son David; for I will no more do thee harm, because my soul was precious in thine eyes this day; behold, I have played the fool and have erred exceedingly.” He would no more do David harm! Too late, he never again had the opportunity. His race of evil and enmity was run. The Philistines are gathering their armies for battle, and to bring ruin upon his house, a judgment which, if delayed, is sure, the fearful end of man's chosen king. As David had said, “he shall descend into battle and perish.” The hour was come, the battle imminent. Visibly forsaken of God who answered him not, “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by the prophets,” he thinks of Samuel and employs Satanic agency to bring him, as if Satan had control over departed spirits—a delusion not unknown in these days. But now, as then, the apparition of the departed spirit would terrify the cunning rogue far more than it would the poor dupe. In despair Saul seeks through the familiar spirit the answer God would not give. Samuel appears, far more to the terror of the witch than of Saul. To her, he was unexpected; Samuel was not her familiar spirit. He appears, not to give counsel, but to pronounce the king's doom. This is the end of the king whose beginning was so promising. The living prophet anointed him with oil, the dead prophet—but sent of God—pronounces his doom. He sought aid and counsel through an agency that he formerly sought to destroy. What will not despair bring a man to? Saul puts himself in the hands of Satan, for well he knew her source of rower. Conscious of his inconsistency in seeking counsel of one whom a little before he would have put to death, he disguised himself, and would see her secretly. But the truth is brought out, and the king becomes an object of pity to the witch of Endor. Could he fall lower And mark, that notwithstanding his former zeal to extirpate witchcraft, its practice still existed, and his immediate attendants knew it, and they hid it from the king. For when in his dire extremity he asks where a woman with a familiar spirit may be found, they are able at once to say, “Behold there is a woman who hath a familiar spirit at Endor.” What an index is this to the condition of Israel!
There was a dark fear of his impending doom weighing down his soul. No doubt he wished to see Samuel; but the means he used were, none the less, enlisting the power of Satan to withstand the purpose of God. Conscience told him that God's judgment was near; and he would if possible turn it aside, not by repentance, but by the aid of Satan. This carries our thoughts onward to the day when the Beast will make war with the Lamb. The difference is that the future antagonist of will not disguise himself; he will have no need to seek Satanic aid in the gloomy recesses of a witch's cave, undercover of the night; he is the bold and open enemy endowed with power and authority from the dragon. He is the only man up to that time—ever clothed with power not from God; for the powers that are now are ordained of God. Saul and the Beast are alike in this, that they are personal antagonists to the Anointed of Jehovah, and also that both fall by special judgment from God: the Beast, by the direct power of Christ when He appears; Saul, by the Philistines who are the executors of God’s wrath.
What a scene of despair when the inhabitants forsook their cities and fled All hope was gone; their king slain, and David in. exile, their only prospect was continual bondage to the Philistine. What a judgment upon them when the Philistines came and dwelt in the cities that God gave to Israel—! All that they could read in these outward signs of God's feeling was that He had departed from them; and the dying words of the wife of Phinehas would be remembered only to confirm the despair of the hoar, “Ichabod, the glory is departed from Israel.”
We have dwelt upon Saul ignominious end, not because it marks the downward cause of a soul always rebellions, and increasing in iniquity till he died by his own hand, but because the ruin that he brought upon Israel was a necessary preparation for the advent of David as the type of Messiah; foreshowing the still greater ruin and worse condition of Israel when Christ comes to reign over them. And from this point of view it is no question of individual salvation. Clearly Seal was a wicked man; and he was a wicked man possessing power and using it against God's anointed One. Like Pharaoh centuries before, he was raised up for the purpose that the power of God might be seen, that the flesh in the fairest form, with every advantage, could never be a channel of blessing, and least of all of the promised blessings of God. He was as those who having stumbled at the truth are appointed to a certain niche in the framework of the dispensations for the fulfilling of God's purposes of glory (1 Peter 2:8).
Another point is that when a king took the place of the link between God and the people and displacing the priest, the prosperity of the people depended upon him; and such a king, who can stand ever before God accepted and beloved, must be a man of God's own giving and preparing. Saul was a choice Specimen. of humanity and nothing more, till he became king, and then he was an enemy. David in type is the man accepted and beloved. In reality, and in substance, it is Christ the Man of God's right hand.
We have said that this ruin of Israel was as necessary for the coming kingdom of David, as the sufferings and sorrows of David himself. If the man must be disciplined to sit upon the throne, so must the people to rejoice in him. And as the world will be prepared for the kingdom of Christ by passing through tremendous judgment—the vials of His wrath poured out upon them who have rejected God’s chosen king, so is Israel prepared for the kingdom of David by passing under a judgment heavier than any before.
The triumph of the enemy however was very brief. It is measured by the rapid rise of David from the condition of an exile, first to be king over the house of Judah, and soon after of all Israel. It was just long enough to show that Israel had lost all power and was ruined, that their ruin was through and owing to the man of their own choice, the fruit of their rebellion against God, in wishing to have a king like the nations. No circumstances could be imagined affording stronger proof of this; and this misery of guilt is brought upon the people that the sovereign grace of God in raising them up might be gloriously manifest, and Israel raised to a higher position than before.
It is characteristic of God's ways at all times with these whom He is about to bless abundantly. The fruits of sin are allowed to ripen; then when all is apparently lost, God appears and gives beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. How astonishingly all this will be the experience of Israel when re-established in the land David's kingdom with all its renown is but a shadow of the flame kingdom under Messiah; the Son of David. From, every tongue shall be heard in praise to Him the words already prepared for them. “Blessed be the LORD for evermore. Amen and Amen.”
But where was David during this crisis in Israel’s history?
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 10
Dark was the day for Israel. The king, terrified by the doom pronounced upon him in the cave by the prophet, goes with its impress upon his brow into the battle, with despair in his heart and with a nerveless hand. A day whose last hour would behold him dead, and his sons with him; a day when the power of Israel would be broken, its armies dispersed, fear and dread upon all! Wondrous prelude to the glory and power of the coming king and the peaceful supremacy of his son. It was God's wise way of bringing in His chosen king and of preparing the kingdom, so that all Israel might acknowledge Him to be the source of all power and glory.
But if the kingdom be thus prepared for David, the same God must also prepare David for the kingdom. The way to the throne is open: nothing now remains but for David to take possession of the crown that has just fallen from the head of Saul. Yea, God has something more to say, and has been saying ever since he went to Gath, before he wears the crown. The man called to occupy the throne of Israel, and to present to us in the wisdom of God an image of the circumstances which would usher in the day of the coming king, must be disciplined according to the requirements of the wisdom of God, and of his own need. And he had a deeper need than he had yet learned. Thus, while God is dealing with Israel and their rebellions king, David is in a foreign land, under the influences of the place, and sinks to the level of his surroundings. When hiding in the cave of Adullam or elsewhere from the fury of Saul, he never thought of joining in war against his own people, but, having chosen to dwell in he breathes the Philistines' spirit. If this is the time of a sad fall, it is likewise the time of grace. For here David was taught a lesson concerning himself which had laid bare his own personal unworthiness. Nor was the teaching of grace without discipline; yet was the discipline—the loss of all his possessions—the stepping stone to the restoration of his soul to renewed communion with God, where he could but learn that the recovery of wives and cattle then, as the possession of the throne afterward, was the free gift by God. What lower depths could he fall into, anointed for the kingdom as he was, than to fight against Israel? Had such a thing been presented to him in his most trying times, he would doubtless have repudiated the thought and said as Hazael said to Elisha, “But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” Some saints have to go down very low before they reach the depths of self. But what a mercy, when the lowest is reached, by grace leads them to abhor and judge as did Job. For then God appears in the power of restoring grace. It was degrading to feign madness before this same Achish. It was far worse than madness now to feign willingness (if it was pretense) to go up against Israel David had to learn that he was in himself only a broken reed, and his call to the throne simply according to the grace and the purpose of God. Do we not learn from this that the honor God may put upon His saints cannot be taken invariably as the gauge of their faithfulness'? The honor of being king of Israel was little compared with being a type of Christ both in the kingly dignity and in the previous suffering. Blessed as David was, his faithfulness did not rise to the level of this high honor. When God calls a saint to any special post of honor, it may be the honor of suffering for Christ's sake, He gives special grace to bear, and to meet the responsibilities of the place, and to walk worthily therein. But when did any earthen vessel fully respond to the grace it contained?
Let us note also that trust in God is not put to such a test when engaged in the activities of, faith as when, in comparatively quiet obscurity we have simply to wait, to stand still and see His salvation. When openly and actively withstanding the forces of Satan in the world, we, are in danger of not duly estimating the enemy's power which it is unwise to forget or depreciate. On the other hand when it is only to endure without any energetic action, the danger is to overrate his power, or to forget the power of God. This latter condition, i.e. patient endurance, is far more characteristic of Christian life than the former and more prominent one. God truly has His servants whom He places in the front rank to hear the shook of the enemy's onsets, and the brunt of the battle. But endurance, quiet patience under contempt and suffering, is more or less the common lot of all. The saint who may be used for the display of faith's energy is not thereby exempted from the common lot of suffering and endurance.
It not unfrequently happens that the endurance of faith is tried immediately after the most wonderful deeds wrought through the power of God. The public act of faith may be brilliant and may excite the wonder of men; but God looks into the heart for the strength of faith, a place which the eye of man cannot reach. Perhaps no more remarkable instance of the collapse of faith than is given in David at this time. He had just won a grand moral victory over Saul; he heaped coals of fire upon his head. David's trust in God raises him above the hatred of the king, David is superior to his opportunity and the king humbles himself in his presence. What an impressive scene is before the whole army! Suddenly aroused from their slumbers, they hear David talking to the king. Why not rash to take him? Nay; the power that held them in deep sleep when David entered the camp holds them in check while David and his attendant standing on the hill-top challenge the general and taunt him with carelessness. Saul at the head of three thousand men owns himself conquered. Who is the hero here? Yet not by his own power: “through faith he wrought righteousness.” Jehovah was on the side of David. Was there one in Saul's army that bowed in heart to the Jehovah of hosts?
Yet immediately after this the victor sinks into despondency and forgets God. He says in his heart, “I shall surely one day perish by the hand of Saul.” The heart is the birthplace of unbelief; but also the place where God creates true faith; “if thou shalt believe in thine heart.” He gives way to dishonoring fear; then in forgetfulness of God he looks about for a place of safety; and a sorrowful choice he makes! In his judgment the best; there was nothing better than to flee to the Philistines! The heart that distrusts God naturally turns to the world and inevitably makes the worst choice. Mark it well, dear reader, the evil began secretly in his heart, and ended in taking the position of an open enemy. When his heart first yielded to fear, there was no thought of fighting against Israel; but see the result! Is not the heart deceitful and desperately wicked? The chosen king is ready to fight against his own people. What solemn teaching is here for us! The antitypes of Saul and of the Philistines encompass us on all sides; to whom shall we flee for security? Let us jealously watch the issues of our own hearts.
David's victory and succeeding failure stand side by side with those of Elijah, who in the power of God and in faith so mightily triumphed over the prophets of Baal; and immediately after fled from a woman who threatened his life on account of that deed wherein he had so gloriously vindicated the name of Jehovah; and in his despondency he prayed for death. Not so great a sin as rushing into the arms of an enemy, but an equal want of faith. For David in effect says that the Philistine king is a better protector than God. Is not this the true character of his act, and therefore a great sin? Not so heinous in man's eye as Uriah's matter but more dishonoring to God. The latter crime was falling through sadden temptation, but the fleeing to Achish was with deliberation. For after a seeming calculation of the best means to escape from Saul, he looks apparently at both sides of the question and comes to the conclusion that the best thing was to go to Achish the Philistine. Is this mere history? Is it not practical teaching for us in this day?
In fleeing to Achish, David is no type of Christ; our thoughts turn to the Perfect One, but to see the contrast between Him and the man honored to be the type. All through his life he was pre-eminently a vessel of grace but an earthen vessel, and the quality of the vessel appears. As a type he is carried through scenes according to the purpose of God, but as a man, a saint, his faith must be tested. Wonderful combination of foreshadowings of Christ and the walk of faith! But here, in this matter, it is failure, the last and the greatest in his life of exile. There was on earth but one perfect MAN; but He was not a mere earthen vessel, only made in men's likeness. He was a sinless humanity, not merely that He did no sin neither was guile found in His mouth, but His human nature was intrinsically holy. He was incapable of sin. God sent Gabriel to testify to Mary concerning the “holy thing” that it should be called the Son of God. God's delight in the sinless Man He declared at His baptism and repeated on the mount of transfiguration, when even the brightest of Old Testament lights vanish in presence of His supremacy and of the Father's infinite good pleasure in Him; and Jesus was left alone. There is nothing of which God is so jealous as the glory of the person of His Son.
The person of the Lord has ever been a mark for the attacks of Satan, and of man instigated by his malice. The Pharisees at last head the list of blasphemers; but there have been some since their day who, with the additional facts of death and resurrection, have dishonored His person, not with Pharisaic blasphemy but with errors equally fatal. An early attack upon Him was the denial of His true humanity, the Gnostic philosophy, which well nigh swamped the early church, asserting that His body was simply an appearance, a phantom. Then there was no real death, nor real resurrection! Thus the apostle (1 Cor. 15) is a false witness and we are yet in our sins! If the Lord's body was a mere shadow, and therefore intangible, the foundation of salvation is gone, and, what is of far greater moment, the righteousness of God is not declared. But compare Luke 24:39, with 1 John 1. “Handle me” says the risen Lord; “which we have looked upon and handled,” says the glad disciple. This deadly and stupid heresy, even if it yet exist, is hidden away in the dark corners of Christendom; but the kindred blasphemy of denying His Godhead is shamelessly advanced in open day.
The reader may call this a digression. Granted. But is there not a cause? In the present day a peculiar form of dishonoring the Lord but found with some who call themselves Christians. They do not oppose the Deity of the Lord, nor His humanity, but say that as man He was born under the curse! that it was only by prayer, by a holy life, and by His baptism in the Jordan, that He emerged from that condition! It is now asserted that He was—at one period of His life—a leper! In a word, all these really deny His Godhead and humanity. These antichrists admit the holiness of His life in word and deed, but affirm that He had a nature capable of falling! I venture to say that a man with a nature liable to fall, and notwithstanding perfectly holy in word and, deed, is an impossibility. But supposing it were possible, Jesus son of Mary might be a man without an equal, but how could He be God? Jesus is God the Word, the Son: not only was the fullness of Godhead pleased to dwell in Him but also that “holy thing” which was born of Mary should be called the Son of God. Manhood in Him was united to His divine person.
The apostle (Heb. 10:33) exhorts those who were the companions of suffering saints, he commends them; the sufferers and their companions formed one company. As we should now, express it, they were in fellowship together. In like manner the companions of—in communion with—those who are tainted with this evil doctrine must share in their judgment. It is of no avail to repudiate the evil personally; the question is, Are you a companion of such? Brotherly love for godly brethren is the plea for such companionship. I deny real godliness and true divine love in any assembly where the truth of Christ's person is not the first, if not the only, ground of communion. If brotherly love (so called) is preferred to His honor, such brotherly love becomes sin. It is no less defiling to sit at the Lord's table in company with a fornicator, a drunkard, or a thief, than with a “companion” of such evil; it is even more a deadly affront to His person.
To return to David. His unfaithfulness finds imitators in those who shirk the fight of faith and seek shelter where there is no trial of faith. Our faithful God always breaks in upon the quiet of an unfaithful saint, so that the staff upon which he leaned pierces his hand. Saints have attempted friendship with the world as well as sought its protection yet this in no way modifies the enmity of the carnal mind against God, or of the world against the people of God. David's presence did not prevent Achish from making war with Israel. It may have been an incentive. But saints that have fallen into this position have even joined with the world in persecuting those who have remained faithful. David was ready to do this thing. The exigencies of his position into which he was entrapped through his fear, of Saul, and, from which no worldly wisdom could deliver him, demand that he should follow Achish, Was David, sincere in his pleading to follow the king? Why not? He had forgotten God; to forget Israel was all in comparison. Having committed the greater sin, he, would, without any conscience easily fall into the less. The one is the natural consequence of the other, He had neither the power nor the will to free himself. But God was watching over him, and used the natural jealousy and not unreasonable fears of the Philistine lords to deliver David from his evil position. There is no recorded instance where the overruling power of God is more seen, accomplishing His, own will both in object and manner, yet not interfering with the responsibility of the saint, or with the apparent freedom of man. It was impossible that David should be present in the battle now imminent either with Achish or with Saul. With the former he would be fighting against his own people if with the latter, the Philistines could not have had the victory, for God would not permit the enemy to triumph over His chosen one. And if the Philistines had been defeated, where would have been God's righteous judgment upon Saul? What of the divine testimony that Saul was rejected of God? Israel would have been confirmed in their choice of Saul, and David still an outcast. The overruling hand of God is manifest. The hour was now come for Saul to go into battle and perish, and Israel that followed him must share in his judgment. This is the result of man desiring a king and rejecting God. No other result could be righteously. The special question at this juncture was between God and the rebellions king, and so David was kept aloof. But David's will and the human motive which led him into seeking shelter in Gath—the apparent reason why he was away—was not according to the mind of God Who knows how to make the unfaithfulness of man subserve His purpose.
What a wonderful drama has passed before us in which Saul and David are the two principal actors: such hatred in the one, and dutiful submission in the other, as leads one to ask—What does it all mean? For there is more than human hatred, though it has its seat in a human heart; and a loyal submission is exhibited not found in any other mere man. God Himself was behind the scenes; and every movement of the actors was controlled and shaped to carry out His purpose. It is the religious world’s hatred of a rejected Christ that we see in Saul (who was a religious man); in David a picture (though faint) of a greater Sufferer to appear in due time.
Israel's Preparation for Messiah's Kingdom: 11
Millennium: Setting up the Kingdom
In bringing these papers to a close let us take a glance at the establishment of the kingdom. And it can be but a glance, such as is afforded by the might of David and the splendor of Solomon, which are but shadows in comparison of the power and brightness of Messiah when He takes the kingdom. The fullest type necessarily falls short; He must be present before we can see His glory. Even as in the past, David may have felt the sorrow of being hunted by Saul and in the end driven to seek shelter among enemies, far more than any that were with him sharing his toils; but what were his sorrows compared to the sorrows of the Lord? And as His sorrows were deeper so will His glory be greater. But here we are met with the fact that when looking at David the type of the rejected Messiah, we had Messiah Himself before us in the Gospels, and so could read the type in the Antitype; for it is He Who throws light upon the type, not the type upon Him, and the contrasts stand out in sharper outline than the analogies. Indeed the closest analogy is never without proof that the image of the coming King was looked at through a defective medium; yet enough remained to His glory to call forth our praise. For it is Christ's life in the Gospels that throws a halo around the wanderings of David.
In looking still at David now on the throne as type of Messiah, whose kingdom is not yet established in the earth, we have not its glorious reality whereby to judge of the type under David's reign. All that we know of the fixture kingdom of Christ must be gathered from the prophetic word, the lamp which we must use to read of David the King. We must wait for the advent of the kingdom to see the application and the importance of many things in David's reign, and also in Solomon's; for, as typifying the kingdom, David and Solomon must be considered as one; and indeed they are so presented historically, for Solomon was on the throne and crowned before David died. For not as a mere historical fact is it recorded, but to give one complete picture of Christ's kingdom on the earth, in one unbroken reign, David's death not interfering with its unity.
Though many a detail may be dark as to its typical application, the great truth is clearly read, that all enemies shall be destroyed, and that Messiah will begin to reign before peace is brought in—that there will be in fact a David, and a Solomon aspect of His reign.
In the history, the kingdom of David immediately succeeds the death, of Saul, which involved the ruin of Israel. A greater ruin has now befallen Israel, and the kingdom of Christ is not yet established. There is nothing between Saul and David that points to the lapse of nearly nineteen centuries during which Israel remains ruined and scattered beyond the wit of man to say where. In this interval, unnoticed in type or prophecy, the hidden purpose of God is revealed, and the exhaustless wonders of grace made known in the church. The church was revealed only by its presence when the Holy Ghost was given at the day of Pentecost. Even when the risen Lord ascended from the mount of Olives, it was the kingdom that filled the mind of the disciples, and to the kingdom the answer of the two white-appareled men alone refers. Not the least allusion do they make either to the calling or to the rapture of the church. Prophecy overlooks this long parenthesis, and therefore in the typical presentation of Christ as rejected, and then reigning in power, the one follows the other without a gap. The church of God is no part of the course of the ages which carries the idea of government either direct from God, as when He ruled in Israel, or when they were dispersed and government entrusted to the Gentile, where the intervention of God among men was by no means so marked as when Israel was publicly His people. Both Israel and the Gentile are now thrust aside—both having failed—to make room for the church; the times of the Gentiles still run on, but modified through the calling of the church. When the church is gone, God will resume the government of the world, in spite of the dragon and his slaves, and by judgment will prepare the earth for the advent and reign of His Son, to Whom Jehovah has said, “Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. Then He comes. Meanwhile He is waiting. The sufferings and the glory are in the prophetic word joined together. Grace to the lost, and going beyond all previous revelation has placed an interval between the sufferings and the kingdom glory, and has formed a sphere outside the limits of prophecy and above its range. “They are not of the world,” said the Lord. This a true of us dispensationally, it ought to be equally true of us morally. We do not belong to the ages of the world, but are a separate people.
Nor is there, in the history we are looking at, any foreshadowing of the judgments of which the prophetic word is full, and which will take place at the close of this present age after the church is caught up.; that is, before His appearing. While these judgments are being poured out upon the earth, Christ is still hidden until He appears for the destruction of antichrist, “the king.” There is nothing analogous to Christ's sitting at the right hand of Jehovah in the history of David, who with one step rises from the place of rejection to the throne. When Saul is removed, David immediately is presented to the nation; unless Saul be considered as a type of “the King,” for then Christ begins to act in power. When He appears, it is not by one great victory that peace is brought to the earth. He rules in the midst of enemies till they are all subdued, and this is the characteristic of David's reign. As it is said, “Jehovah shall roar out of Zion.” After “the king” is destroyed, there will yet remain nations to be subdued, and a re-arrangement of them according to God. For the landmarks and divisions, which the pride of man and his lust of power have made, will be annulled, and the original divisions, as God divided the nations, will again appear (see Gen. 10). And by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood (ver. 32). The world is marked by families, and nations, and races, and in this day each is asserting itself according to its power; but the final settlement will only be when Christ reigns.
The first effect of Christ taking His power will not be peace. He will in fury tread down His enemies. This is the preliminary or David aspect of war, not the Solomon display of glory which is properly the millennium. It is not according to His purpose by one stupendous act to put down all authority and power—which of course He could do if He pleased—but during a certain limited period, after the sudden and instantaneous judgment of the beast and of the false prophet, and a little later of the Assyrian, to use Israel as His instrument in breaking to pieces the opposing Gentile power. But Messiah will Himself personally appear in the judgment of these three at least. The brightness of His presence, and the breath of His nostrils, slay the wicked, but these are cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone (Rev. 19:20). He will also personally meet the king of the north, the Assyrian, whose doom overtakes him in the same terrible manner as it fell upon the western beast and upon antichrist. The Assyrian falls not by the sword of a mighty man, nor by the sword of a mean man, but by the voice of Jehovah shall he be beaten down. That is, his will not be the destruction which falls upon his armies whose bones Israel will be seven months in burying, but he shall be cast alive into Tophet. To an Israelite no more appropriate word could be used, or so significant of his end. Tophet is the place where the Israelites burned alive their children to the god Moloch; the word is closely associated with, and carries the idea of being burnt alive (2 Kings 23:10). Tophet was prepared for him and also for “the king.” “The breath of Jehovah like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it” (see Isa. 30:27-33; also Ezek. 38; 39; Zech. 14:1-3)
Messiah rules in Zion before His kingdom is established over the whole earth, not as sitting upon His throne, but His power will be manifested, and will proceed from Zion as from a central point. “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron” (Psalm “Jehovah shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion; rule thou in the midst of thine enemies” (Psa. 110). His enemies shall be broken to pieces as a potter's vessel, but His people, “thy people,” shall be a willing people. See also Psa. 118:6-16, which so clearly expresses the condition of the inhabitants of Jerusalem when the hosts of the king of the north are besieging the city. It is the introduction to the reign of peace by the noise of war, by the sword and the spear, not by the soft and persuasive voice of the gospel. The rebellions Jew with the Gentile share in that destruction. “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me” (Luke 19:27). This period answers in general to David's reign who was a man of war from his youth, and on that account was commanded to leave the building of the temple to his son. It will be when all Israel are gathered and all nations subdued, that Ezekiel's temple will be built, and the healing waters flow. When the heathen know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, and after they have borne their shame and are dwelling safely in their land, and Jehovah's word is given that He will no more hide His face from them, for that He has poured out His Spirit upon the house of Israel (Ezek. 39:23-29), then comes the description of the temple, in which Jehovah will dwell, Whose presence will be its glory. When Judah comes back in unbelief, they will build a temple, but the abomination of desolation will stand in it. Of the temple of Ezekiel, yea, of the whole city, its very name from that day shall be, “Jehovah is there.”
David reigned seven years in Hebron, and thirty three in Jerusalem, together forty years—a number always used to express the sufficiency and completeness of that of which it is spoken. And Messiah's rule in the midst of enemies will be till all are put down. But how to divide the era of judgment, from the first seal to the last mighty act of vengeance upon the Assyrian, is not revealed. To diligent faith God will give intelligence; but any attempt to arrange them so as to make the events of David's reign, and the course of judgment in the future dovetail into each other, will inevitably result in mistakes. The light of Christ in His lowly path shines upon the previous life of David; the light of Christ's exaltation in the earth is not yet come. We have as yet as regards the kingdom, only the lamp of prophecy, which though only a lamp, as compared with the Day-star, distinctly foretells a time when Christ will rule out of Zion before the millennium begins. When that time comes, Christ in glory will, rise upon the world. The Day-star risen in our hearts now reveals our heavenly, position in the coming kingdom and glory. But neither David nor Solomon points to the place grace has prepared for us.
It was the Philistine, Israel's most persistent and formidable enemy, who felt more than any other the weight of David's arm. Again and again were they smitten, and it was over them that David's mighty men won their renown. Only among them were the giants found. But all, great and small, pay homage and tribute to David, and to Solomon, for David's reign is blended with that of Solomon. The “David” character is not quite gone when Solomon begins to reign. David yet lives till after the last straggle of the enemy, as seen in the attempt of Adonijah to possess the kingdom, and with him are found Joab, the chief of the army, and Abiathar the priest, up to that moment head of the priesthood. But he is now thrust aside, according to the word spoken to Samuel long before, yet historically owing to his own act and deed; so marvelously does God blend man's responsibility with His own counsels. Zadok is called to anoint Solomon.
Adonijah said, “I will be king.” Did he not know that Solomon was the chosen of Jehovah? (1 Chron. 28:4-6). Here is willful rebellion, and, considering him typically, he is an antagonist of Christ. It is said of “the king” that he shall do according to his will. Does Adonijah in any measure present “the king” to our eye? We discern one or two of the same features in each, yet scarcely sufficient, taken with other circumstances, to say that Adonijah is a type of “the king.” The similarity is that both do their own will, and that neither is an external enemy; they are both in Jerusalem. But there is this difficulty, that “the king” as Antichrist is destroyed immediately at the appearing. The conspiracy of Adonijah, Joab, and Abiathar is at the close of David's reign just before his death, i.e., before Solomon, the man of rest reigns alone, and, as to time coincides rather with the judgment of the king of the north, who has the same mark of will upon him. It may be that the session of judgment closes with his being cast into Tophet. For at the time that Jehovah lays His rod upon him “in battles of shaking,” there will be with Israel “tabrets and harps.” The inhabitants of the unwalled villages where they dwelt in peace, at than same time, “shall have a song as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept” (Isa. 30:29, &c.).
The Assyrian, looked at through his type, Antiochus Epiphanes, who is the king of the north in his day, does “according to his will” (Dan. 11:16). Was the Holy Spirit looking at the future Assyrian through Adonijah? At most it is but a faint shadow, for self-will is the common mark of all that oppose Christ. Adonijah is spared for a brief moment till a more subtle attempt is made against the authority of Solomon, which brings judgment, and Adonijah is slain.
In these three men we see, in Adonijah the authority of the world, in Joab the executive power, in Abiathar the religious power, all combined against Christ. They are the representatives of the three great moral forces of the world. In the midst of their revelry the shouting of the people is heard; sudden fear seizes them, and destruction soon overtakes them. So it will be at the end.
The next prominent event we notice is the building and dedication of the temple. The glory of Jehovah fills it. It is a picture of the millennium. Solomon's prayer looks onward to it, but takes up also the intervening time. He, as it were, counts upon the coming glory, and pleads for mercy in view of it; he sees the scattering of rebellions Israel. His prayer is a divine forecast of their history, couched withal in the language of supplication. Grace will restore the nation to the role and glory of Christ. And even as it is grace, so it will not be limited to Israel, but the glory will be displayed to the world. The queen of Sheba—as representative of the nations—comes to learn the wisdom and see the glory of Solomon. And thus it will be when Christ reigns, not only King of Israel, but also King of kings and Lord of lords.
Moses said, “Show me Thy glory.” To us as to him, our faces are covered with His hand till the glory passes by; then we as he, shall see the back parts. When the glory of the kingdom shines over the whole earth, we shall be able to trace as we cannot now the lines of purpose and glory, the responsibilities of man and the dispensational dealings of God with him, all converging upon Christ. God has been pleased to foreshadow the, coming glory for Israel and blessing for the world. We adore though seeing dimly. The church of God has not to search amid types for her peculiar glory. It is summed up in this—with Christ; and like Christ; and forever.
R. B.
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