Preparing for the story of Solomon leads us to one of the most sublime, and most tragic, presentations of the gospel in the entire Bible. Yet many people have difficulty "seeing" the gospel in the OT because many people think that OT activities were under the law only and had no grace and gospel available to them. We are all familiar with stories of the gospel in the life of Jesus and in the life of Paul but many of us do not look for gospel stories in the OT. Yet wherever sin abounded grace did much more abound. Romans 5:20 We know that sin was a present issue all through the times of the OT, including the times of David and Solomon therefore grace must have been available as well. The Bible states clearly that the gospel was in the OT, Hebrews 4:1-2 and Galatians 3:8 and was in fact preached to Abraham and to Israel. We also know that Jesus’ sacrifice was available by promise from the beginning of the world. Revelation 3:18 So with these thoughts in mind let us look as the start of the life of Solomon and see what wonders Jesus has in store for us.
Solomon’s story starts with his parents – David and Bathsheeba, what a sad start to a wonderful life. We remember the Bible story in II Samuel 11 of how David saw Bathsheeba bathing on the roof of her house. He inquired who she was and was informed that she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, a convert to Israel and a member of David’s mighty men II Samuel 23:39. David sends for Bathsheeba to come and visit him and she agrees to the visit. We have no record of her protesting in any way the invitations of David and thus she is as guilty of adultery as is David. Deuteronomy 22:23-24. In the process of their relationship Bathsheeba gets pregnant and David calls for Uriah to come home and David tries to manipulate him into having sexual contact with his wife so that David and Bathsheeba can attempt to hide their sin. But Uriah testifies of his love for David and will not have normal sexual contact with his wife while the rest of David’s men are out risking their lives for David. In this story Uriah is protesting against taking sex, and warfare as casual events. He, the convert, is more serious than David the man who grew up knowing Jesus as His Saviour. Finally David gets frustrated with Uriah’s integrity and contracts with Joab to have Uriah killed in the battle. Then David feels free to take Bathsheeba as his wife and feels secure in his sin.
But Jesus, the Lord of Israel, has other plans for David. Jesus will not allow David’s secret sin to go uncorrected. Jesus, send His prophet Nathan to share a story with David. Nathan presents how there was a rich man with many female sheep but the rich man steals the one ewe lamb from his poor neighbor. David is incensed at such callousness and rightly judges that the thief should pay back four-fold and the thief should die. Once David condemns himself then Nathan proclaims that David is the thief and the murderer. By David’s righteous judgment David himself should die for the Bible says "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Ezekiel 18:20. Romans 6:23 says the same thing in a slightly different manner "The wages of sin is death…"
We now have the setting for the gospel presentation. David, as all of us have, had come short of the glory of God. He has an abundance of everything but he chose to covet the wife of a trusted servant and then to cover his tracks he plotted out and murdered this man in order to have his wife. As King of Israel he was in a high position and the true Ruler of Israel Jesus declared that this sin would bring disrepute upon His name and upon the name of His kingdom. In addition Jesus loved David and wanted to do everything possible to deliver David from this terrible sin, which if not dealt with would kill David sooner, or later. So Jesus confronted David and praise God David recognized that he was indeed the sinner and he repented of his sin. We know this because of the heart felt testimony of Psalms 51 and of his testimony in II Samuel 12:13. As a result of his confession David would not die but the child born unto him by Bathsheeba would surely die and that the impact of David’s sin would be felt through the loss of 3 other sons of David and great chaos in the kingdom.
David should die but because he repented someone else would have to die. What a tragedy and yet what a promise. All through the Bible this story is repeated. Adam learned this terrible thought in promised death of Jesus in Genesis 3:15. We see this concept acted out in the death of an animal to prepare the coat of reconciliation in Genesis 3:21. We see the introduction of the sacrificial system in the time of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4:1-8. We see the sacrifice of the 7th animal of all of the clean animals at the end of the flood in Genesis 8:20-22. We see the central thought of the death of Jesus, symbolized in the blood on the door post of every saved family in the Exodus from Egypt and the crimson thread of promise in the story of Rahab in Joshua 2:9-21. We see it in every sacrifice offered for every sin until the death of Jesus on Calvary confirmed this promise, promised from the foundations of the word, by the physical suffering, death, and resurrection of the True Lamb of God, and the cessation of all animal sacrifices after Calvary.
Back to the Solomon story. David recognized that his son would die for him in the Bathsheeba story. David interceded for his son but Jesus allowed the child to become sick and to die. Thus David had this principle ingrained in his experience. To sin means that something has to die in your place. Jesus offered that to David and David accepted it. David also had some small intuition of the coming sacrifice in that David was allowed to prophesy about the Messiah to come and all of His sufferings in Psalms 22. Abraham also was allowed to see Messiah through the offering of Isaac on Mt Moriah. Genesis 22:1-18; John 8:56-58; Galatians 3:6-9.
But Jesus had even more for David in that after his son died, Jesus gave him another son. David comforted his wife Bathsheeba, he lay with her, and she conceived another son and David named this son Solomon – peaceable, thus Solomon’s connection to this wonderful story. The Bible says that Jesus loved this son. II Samuel 12:24 Jesus then sent His prophet and renamed the child and called him Jedidiah – Beloved of the Lord. It is my belief that Jesus wanted to expressly state His love for Solomon – the son of David and Bathsheeba and to communicate to David that David, the repentant sinner, was "Beloved of the Lord" as well.
We are not told expressly how Solomon responded to this story of his beginnings or how he viewed his parents. We do know that Solomon had a tremendous response to Jesus in his initial years, turned away from Jesus in his older years, and then came back to Jesus in his last years. We do know that Jesus will do everything in His power to work with every soul to save them from sin. As Jesus loved David, and loved Solomon, He loves us as well. He died to save every human being in the history of this planet. II Peter 3:9 The Bible says that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16
What a wonderful start to the life of Solomon, to be a part of this gospel story must have been a great encouragement to the experience of David. By faith, I believe that this story had a tremendous impact on the life of Solomon. I also believe that this story must have had an impact on the life of the Son of David according to the flesh Roman 1:3 when He came to be incarnated and learned the lessons of His fathers as His mother and father read to him the great Bible stories that Jesus Himself had selected for His own instruction as a child. We to can learn these fabulous lessons and have the opportunity to apply them to our lives. And thus Jesus offers you another glimpse of His great gospel that you to may become sons and daughters of God. John 1:12-13
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment