Introduction
As it regards David, the great apostle, Paul, said the following in his address to those in the synagogue in Antioch, Pisidia, “And when he (God) had removed him (removed Saul), he raised up unto them David to be their king (David was meant to be the first king of Israel, but the people jumped the gun, so to speak. They demanded a king and got Saul, which proved to be a disaster); to whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will” (Acts 13:22). The great apostle also gave this statement concerning David, which puts David in a category all to himself. In fact, nothing could be said that is greater than this following statement, “Of this man's seed (David’s seed) hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus: (proclaims the apostle now introducing the One who is the cause and reason for everything. He is the only Savior)” (Acts 13:23).
David and the Great Son of David
David’s name is the first human name given to us in the New Testament. It says, “The book (account) of the generation (lineage) of Jesus Christ (Savior, Messiah), the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Actually, in His earthy ministry, Our Lord was referred to as, “the Son of David” (Matthew 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30, 31; 21:9, 15; 22:42). No higher accolade could be afforded any human being than to have The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the crowned Prince of Glory, the Creator of the Ages, and the Savior of Man take that person’s name as Our Lord did David. The question becomes, how could this be, considering some of the horrible sins that David committed? To be sure, other than blaspheming the Holy Spirit, there could be no sins greater than adultery and cold-blooded murder, of which David was guilty. We will address ourselves to this in detail to a greater degree in the heart of this volume. Despite David’s sin and failure, our Lord, the Prince of Glory, was not ashamed to call him brother (Hebrews 2:11). Considering all of this, I think it can be said that no man rose to higher heights spiritually than David or sank as low as did the “sweet singer of Israel.” However, there was one great thing that David ever did which makes him great. He took his sins, his failures, and the terrible committed iniquities to The Lord. He did not take them to man, always to The Lord. 142 chapters and Psalms are devoted to David in the Bible, with him probably having written several others of the Psalms as well. This gives him more space in the Word of God than any other man, that is, if we count chapters and Psalms. This, within itself, speaks volumes.
What Can We Learn from David?
“What cannot we learn?” This might be the more proper question. This man is outsized in every situation in which he finds himself. In other words, there really is not any other individual that we could use by comparison. As stated, there is no one who knew such heights and lows. Incidentally, as David’s name was the first human name given to us in the New Testament, likewise, his name is the last human name given to us in the New Testament (Revelation 22:16). Through foreknowledge, God knew what David would do in all situations in which he found himself. God knew that David would fail and fail miserably, but yet, the great position afforded him by The Lord was never forfeited. Suffer? Most definitely, this great king of Israel suffered and greatly so. Sin carries with it a deadly penalty. Even though the Lord will instantly and graciously forgive upon request, still, no one gets by with sin, even David. But yet, despite the somberness of the theme, the Bible never loses a note of hope and optimism when dealing with sin. The heart of the Bible is its witness to God’s mighty offensive against sin in His Historical Purpose of Redemption, centered in Jesus Christ, the last Adam, God’s Eternal Son and the Savior of sinners. Through the whole work of Christ, the Son of David, His miraculous birth, His life of perfect obedience supremely, His death on The Cross and resurrection from the dead, His ascension to the right hand of The Father, His reign in history, and His glorious return, sin has been overcome. Its rebellious, usurping authority has been vanquished, its absurd claims exposed, its machinations unmasked and overthrown, the baleful effects of the fall in Adam counteracted and undone and God’s honor vindicated, His holiness satisfied, and His glory extended.
The Cross of Christ
In Christ, The Son of David, and what He did at The Cross, all on our behalf, God has conquered sin. Such are the great glad tidings of the Bible. The appellative, “Son of David” has to do totally and completely with the incarnation of Christ, God becoming Man. This had to be in order for man to be redeemed. The price would be high, in fact, higher than could even begin to be imagined in the heart of man. But yet, it was a price that God Himself would pay, the sacrifice of His Only Son. To know how bad that sin is, we only have to look at the price that was paid to eradicate this monster. The predictions of the incarnation, God becoming man and for the soul purpose of redeeming mankind, come down to us in many and varied ways. With each prediction, more and more information is given. Some of these predictions are:
- Immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, The Lord spoke to Satan through the serpent. He said, “And I will put enmity (animosity) between thee and the woman (presents The Lord now actually speaking to satan, who had used the serpent; in effect, The Lord is saying to satan ‘you used the woman to bring down the human race, and I will use the woman as an instrument to bring The Redeemer into the world, Who will save the human race.’), and between thy seed (mankind, which follows satan) and her seed (The Lord Jesus Christ); it (Christ) shall bruise thy head (the victory that Jesus won at The Cross [Colossians 2:14-15]), and thou shalt bruise his heel (the sufferings of The Cross)” (Genesis 3:15). In this statement, The Lord merely says that He is going to send a Redeemer. No information is given other than that.
- Now, we find that The Lord will raise up a people for the express purpose of giving the world His Word and to serve as the womb of the Messiah. They will be called Israelites and will develop by the means of Abraham and Sarah. Concerning this, the Scripture says, “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith (proclaims the Word of God as the foundation of all things), preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed (Genesis 12:1-3)” (Galatians 3:8). He then said, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made (to all those who are brought into salvation by faith in Christ). He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ (Abraham’s seed was Christ, and Christ is both God and man; therefore, the covenant cannot be broken)” (Galatians 3:16).
- Now, we have the tribe of Israel, through which The Redeemer will come. “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah (the ‘sceptre’ is defined as ‘the staff of office and authority’, which pertains to Christ), nor a lawgiver from between his feet (refers to the fact that Judah was meant to be a guardian of the law, which they were; the temple was in Jerusalem, which was a part of the Tribe of Judah and which had to do with the law), until Shiloh come (when Jesus came, typified by the name ‘Shiloh’, Who, in fact, was and is the true Lawgiver, He fulfilled the law in totality by His life and His death, thereby satisfying all of its just demands); and unto him shall the gathering of the people be (the only way to God the Father is through Christ The Son; the only way to Christ The Son is through The Cross; the only way to The Cross is through an abnegation of self [Luke 9:23-24)” (Genesis 49:10). So, we are told in this Prophecy, given by Jacob, that The Messiah would come through the tribe of Judah.
- Then, The Lord told David, who was in the tribe of Judah, that The Messiah would come through his family. Hence, the Master being called “Jesus, The Son of David.” “And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies. Also the LORD telleth thee that he will make thee an house (In Genesis 49:10, as stated, through Jacob, The Lord promised that the Messiah would come from the tribe of Judah, and now, He selects the family in Judah which will bring forth the Messiah, and David is clearly chosen. David had thought to build The Lord a house, but instead, The Lord tells him that He [The Lord] would build David a house). And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom (This speaks of The Lord Jesus Christ). He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever (as stated, this is an unconditional promise; it will most definitely come to pass)" (2 Samuel 7:11-13).
- Then, through the great prophet Isaiah, who was about 200 years after David, The Lord gave the manner in which all of this would be brought about. We speak of the incarnation. He said, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (Without a doubt, this prophecy is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, in the Bible.
“In Hebrew the word ‘virgin’ is ‘haalmah’, which means ‘the virgin the only one that ever was or ever will be a mother in this way.’ The ‘son’ who would be born would be the ‘Son of God.’ The word ‘Emmanuel’ means ‘God with us.’ Such was fulfilled in Christ. This prophecy was given by God as a rebuttal to the efforts of Satan working through the kings of Syria and Israel to unseat Ahaz, the king of Judah. In other words, their efforts to make void the promise of God given to David would come to naught)” (Isaiah 7:14). - Then, through the prophet Micah, which was about the time of the prophet Isaiah, The Lord spoke and gave the name of the town in which Jesus would be born. He said, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting (The question could be asked as to why the Holy Spirit would give these prophecies in this fashion, having little or no chronological order. The answer probably falls into the same category as to why The Lord, in His earthly ministry, mostly spoke in parables [Luke 8:10]) ‘But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah,’ speaks of the birthplace of Christ. ‘Though thou be little among the thousands of Judah,’ signifies a small place, though the birthplace of David as well. ‘Yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel,’ speaks of Christ coming from the tribe of Judah. This was prophesied by Jacob long before [Genesis 49:10]. ‘Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting,’ is meant to portray to any and all that it is not just any person but, rather, as Isaiah prophesied, ‘Emmanuel, God with us.’ [Isaiah 7:14])” (Micah 5:2).
The Manner of His Life
The great prophet Isaiah also told us the manner of life concerning the coming Messiah. He most definitely would not be of the aristocracy but, in fact, would be a lowly peasant. He said, “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? (‘Our report’ refers to this very prophecy as well as the other Messianic prophecies delivered by Isaiah. To Israel was ‘the arm of the LORD revealed,’ and to Israel is ascribed the ‘unbelief’ which destroyed them. “A revelation of ‘the arm of The Lord’ requires the eye of faith to see it. Unbelief can always assign the most plainly providential arrangements to happy accidents. It takes faith to believe the report that is revealed.)”
No Beauty that We Should Desire Him
“For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. (To God’s eye, Israel and the entirety of the earth, for that matter, were, ‘dry ground,’ but that eye rested with delight upon one tender plant, which had a living root. It was Jesus!
“The Hebrew verbs in these verses [through verse 7] are to be regarded as ‘perfects of prophetic certitude.’ This means that, in the mind of God, all has been finished before the foundation of the world and done so in the divine counsels (1 Peter 1:18-20).
“The words, ‘before him,’ mean ‘before Jehovah,’ under the fostering care of Jehovah. God The Father had His eye fixed upon The Son with a watchfulness and tenderness of love.
“The ‘sapling’ from the house of David shall become the ‘root’ out of which His church will grow. The Messiah will be a fresh sprout from the stump of the tree that had been felled, i.e., from the destroyed Davidic monarchy.
“The words, ‘he hath no form nor comeliness,’ refers to the fact that He had none during His sufferings, but now, He has it more than anyone else except The Father and The Holy Spirit [Ephesians 1:20-23; Philippians 2:9-11; Colossians 1:15-18; 1 Peter 3:22].
“The words, ‘there is no beauty that we should desire him,’ referred to His sufferings, which include His peasant upbringing and, as a consequence, His poverty, as well as His lack of association with the aristocracy.)”
Despised and Rejected of Men
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Him being ‘rejected of men’ means ‘one from whom men held themselves aloof.’ Why? He was pure holiness, and they were pure corruption.
“‘A man of sorrows,’ refers to Jesus taking all the sorrows of humanity upon Himself.
“‘Acquainted with grief,’ actually refers to diseases and sicknesses, for that’s what the word ‘grief’ in Hebrew means. It doesn’t mean that he became sick, for He didn’t but rather, that He paid the price for our healing.
“'And we hid as it were our faces from him,’ describes the treatment of the Servant by his fellow men. Again, why? He was not the type of Messiah they wanted!
“'He was despised, and we esteemed him not,’ refers to the fact that the religious leadership of Israel esteemed Him not at all. He came to deliver men from sin, but that wasn’t the type of deliverance they desired!)” (Isaiah 53:1-3).
The Price He Paid for Our Redemption
Once again, the great Prophet Isaiah tells us what Christ suffered in order that we might be redeemed. He said, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” (Twelve times within the space of nine verses, the prophet asserts with the most emphatic reiteration that all the Servant’s sufferings were vicarious, i.e., born for man to save him from the consequences of his sins, to enable him to escape punishment. In other words, Jesus did this all for us.
“'Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted,’ proclaims the fact that, because He died on a cross, Israel assumed that He died under the curse of God because Moses had said, ‘for he that is hanged is accursed of God’ [Deuteronomy 21:23].
“What they did not understand was that He was not accursed, neither in Himself was accursed but, in fact, was ‘made a curse for us.’
“Israel assumed He was ‘smitten of God,’ and, in a sense, He was. He suffered in our stead, actually, as our substitute, which means that the blow that should have come to us, instead, went to Him. But yet, it was not for His sins because He had none but, instead, was for our sins. He was ‘afflicted’ for us. As stated, He was our substitute.)
“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (’He was wounded for our transgressions,’ pertains to the manner in which He died, which was the price He paid for the redemption of humanity.
“'He was bruised for our iniquities’ means that what He suffered was not at all for Himself but for us. It was for our iniquities. Look at The Cross and then say, ‘my sin did this.’
“'The chastisement of our peace was upon him,’ means that, if peace between God and man was to be restored, all which Adam lost, then Jesus would have to bring it about. Here is the simple doctrine of The Gospel, the death of Christ. All other founders of religions base their claims upon their life and their teaching. Their death was a calamity and without significance. But the death of Christ was His glory and forms the imperishable foundation of the one and only salvation. His purpose in coming was to die.
“'And with his stripes we are healed,’ definitely pertains to physical healing but is far greater in meaning than that. Its greater meaning refers to being healed of the terrible malady of sin.)”
The Lord Has Laid on Him the Iniquity of Us All
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Sheep without the shepherd get lost easily. Man, as sheep, has wandered from the right path. He has become so hopelessly lost that it is impossible for him, within his own means, to come back to the right path. Therefore, The Lord had to come from Heaven down to this wilderness called Earth and, thereby, seek to save man, who is lost.
“'We have turned every one to his own way,’ refers to the fact that the whole world, collectively and individually, has sinned and come short of the glory of God. This ‘erroneous way’ has led to death, suffering, sorrow, heartache, loneliness, despair, and pain. This is the reason that everything that man touches dies, whereas everything that God touches, lives. So man desperately needs God’s touch, i.e., the atonement of Calvary.’
“'And the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all,’ refers to the total price He paid for our salvation. The penalty for every sin for all of humanity and for all time was laid on Christ. God The Father, as the primary disposer of all things, lays upon The Son the burden, which The Son voluntarily accepts. He comes into the world to do The Father’s will, and The Father’s will is to secure the salvation of man, at least for those who will believe.)”
As a Lamb to the Slaughter
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." (The first phrase refers to all that was done to Christ in His humiliation, suffering, and agony. He could so easily have vindicated Himself from every charge; therefore, He self-abased Himself.
“It seemed like an admission of guilt and, in fact, was but not His guilt but the guilt of those who were accusing Him as well as the entirety of the world.
“Of all the Levitical offerings [five total], the ‘lamb’ was the animal most used; hence, John the Baptist would say, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world’ [John 1:29])” (Isaiah 53:4-7).
He Would Be Sold for Thirty Pieces of Silver
The great Prophet Zechariah, who lived about 500 years before Christ, predicted that Christ would be sold for thirty pieces of silver. He said, “And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.” (The first phrase refers to The Lord speaking, even though He uses the prophet as His instrument. The Lord is speaking in the person of The Great Shepherd. He asks His hire of the flock because the flock represents men.
“'And if not, forbear,’ means ‘I leave it to you to decide.’ The phrase, ‘so they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver,’ proclaims what Israel thought of their Messiah and His care through all the many centuries. They valued Him at thirty shekels, the price of an injured slave [Exodus 21:32].
“It is amazing that the pharisees, who claim to be such sticklers for the law, would read these words, especially after the act had been performed, and still not relate it to themselves. Such is the marvel of unbelief!)” (Zechariah 11:12).
The Potter
It was also predicted by Zechariah that this thirty pieces of silver would be used to buy a “potters field” where people were buried who had no means of support. The Lord said, “And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.” (‘And the LORD said unto me,’ now refers to His response to their actions. This was all prophesied about 500 years before it would actually take place. The phrase, ‘cast it unto the potter,' implied the contemptuous rejection of the paltry sum; at the same time, it intimates the ultimate destination, i.e., a field in which to bury the penniless [Matthew 27:3-10]. This was fulfilled to the letter by the action of Judas Iscariot.
“'A goodly price that I was prised at of them,’ is used as sarcasm. Such was the ‘price’ that they valued Him. The pronoun ‘them’ is used strongly by The Holy Spirit and of contempt. It speaks of the leadership of Israel at that time.
“'And I took the thirty pieces of silver …,’ is quoted in Matthew 27:9. The phrase, ‘and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD,’ represents that all of this took place in the temple.)” (Zechariah 11:13). Thus, they did to the Son of David!
David