Covenant Theology 5: God's Covenant with David (2 Sam 7:8-16)

 

God wants a relationship with you. Relationships are partnerships. In our partnership with God, he is the mother and we are babies. As babies, we do not contribute much to the partnership. Babies sleep, eat, cry, and dirty diapers. We sleep when we are not actively blessing others. We eat when we are so consumed by our own needs and desires that we forget others matter. We cry when our prayers are self-centered. We need a diaper change when we get caught up in our sin. We are saved by grace, so we cannot contribute to entering into a relationship with God. However, all of us can work on having a healthy relationship with God. Babies grow! We partner with God by focusing on him and allowing him to guide us. We let him work in our lives so that if we ever do anything good, he gets all the glory. If we want to improve our relationship with God, we will find ourselves praying for others, giving in secret, calling that family member who does all the talking. As we love God more, we love his word more. Our desire to share the gospel and make disciples comes naturally to us. In this series, we study the story of God’s relationship with humanity to understand how being Christian fits in God’s plan for the world. It helps us understand what we are saying when we call people to repentance and follow Jesus. We will study God’s covenant with David. David is not in the Bible to teach us God will help you fight the giants in your life! The story of David and particularly God’s covenant with David points to Jesus and the Gospel!

So far, we have seen that God’s purpose for the world is that his glory would fill the earth through us, his image-bearers. Adam and Eve lived in the paradise of the Garden of Eden. They were to have children who had children who had children. We should imagine that as the Garden of Eden became overpopulated that it would expand until it reached the whole earth. Instead of trusting in God’s wisdom, the first humans sinned.  Along with them, the whole human race fell. No one is able to please God, because his standard is perfection. But God promised a savior in Gen 3:15. The Covenant with Noah teaches God punishes sin and he provides a way to avoid judgment. The rainbow in the sky is still a sign to us of God’s grace and his patience. For Christians, the rainbow points to Jesus. It teaches that God does not punish us for our sins, since Jesus took our punishment. Through Adam, the whole human race fell from righteousness. In Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed. Abraham was pronounced righteous in God’s sight because of his faith. Faith is the foundation of any loving relationship: friendship, marriage, and our relationship with God to this day. The blessing in Abraham is the solution for all. Its fulfillment is mysterious. In Gen 17:6, God promises that kings will come through Abraham’s line. In Gen 49:10, we read, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” So, we learn that the king among Abraham’s descendants will be from the line of Judah. The family of Abraham becomes the nation, Israel. God enters into a covenant with Israel. They were to be a kingdom of priests. They were to teach the world what it looked like to have a relationship with God. God also used them for his saving purposes. In this covenant, we learn more about the coming king. Num 24:17 connects the coming king, with the one who crushes the head of the devil. Deut 17 has instructions for the future king. Deut 17:18 presents the king as an exemplary citizen, “he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. ¹⁹And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them.” In God’s project of salvation, we know before Israel ever has a king that God will use a descendant of Judah not only to lead God’s people in righteousness, but this king will be the way of salvation.

This is how we get from Moses to David. 

The people of Israel conquer the Promised Land with Joshua. In Judges, we see that unstable leadership leads people to sin and idolatry. The message is clear. Israel needs a king to lead God’s people in righteousness (Judg 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). In 1 Sam 8:4, the people ask for a king to be like the other nations. God had planned for them to have a king, but their request is sinful. Wanting to be like their neighbors misses the point. God delivered Israel from Egypt so that they would be his special people, different from the nations. Ill/Appl. We were saved by Christ to be holy, separate, and different. When the culture is racist and segregated, the church unifies. When our country is at war, the church prays for its enemy. Why does it seem like there is more racism in the church that the rest of the culture? There are some rare instances of loving our enemy, but tragically we tend to be just like the rest of culture. Some churches try to entertain, like the world. Others promote wealth and health, like the world. Some look to politics for a savior, like the world. The Church needs to be different. We must celebrate diversity as we will in heaven. We must live like sin is the world’s worst problem, to which only Jesus offers a solution. We must value people above all things because we cannot take our stuff with us to heaven. Israel wanted a king like the world and they got Saul from the tribe of Benjamin. Saul doesn’t last. The Lord rejects Saul for his disobedience. David is the next king, “A man after God’s own heart” (c.f. Acts 13:22//1 Sam 13:14). God enters into a covenant with David.

This is the Background to the Covenant with David. 

The ark of the covenant was a box with the Ten Commandments. It belonged in the most inner part of the tabernacle. It represented the presence of God. From 1 Sam 4 to 2 Sam 5, the ark of the covenant was taken by Israel’s enemy, the Philistines. It was only after David was anointed king in 2 Sam 5, that God allowed Israel to defeat the Philistines and recover the ark. In 2 Sam 7, David wants to build a temple for God. The idea was that instead of living in a tent (tabernacle), God would have a permanent home. God responds to David’s desire by entering into a covenant with David and promising to build him a house instead.

This is the covenant between God and David in 2 Sam 7:8–16. 

8… I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. 9And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. 10And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, 11from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. 12When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’”

Here are some parallels with earlier covenants. God promised David a great name (2 Sam 7:9), as he did to Abraham (Gen 12:2). In the same way God put Man in the garden of Eden to live in his presence and rest (Gen 2:8, 15), he planted Israel in the Promised Land to live in God’s presence and rest (2 Sam 7:10–11). In the same way, Adam was the son of God (Luke 3:38), Israel is called God’s firstborn son in Exod 4:22–23 (c.f. Hos 11:1). Now, the title of “son of God” is given to David’s descendants who sit on his throne (2 Sam 7:14, Ps 2:7). 

The following are the covenant elements. 

(1) The parties are God and David and the line of Davidic kings. (2) God’s promise to David is that there will always be a descendant of David on the throne. The people will live at rest in their land (2 Sam 7:10), and the love of God will not depart from the descendants of David (2 Sam 7:15). (3) The terms of the covenant were that these descendants had to keep God’s law and be righteous (2 Sam 7:14). (4) The curse is that when the king commits iniquity, the Lord will discipline him (2 Sam 7:15). Wicked kings arise in David’s line. The punishment comes with the exile from the Promised Land. Wicked kings lead to an unjust, and unrighteous nation. God expels Israel out of the land like he did Adam. (5) There is no explicit sign of the covenant. But a sign God is keeping his covenant, is that Israel has a king on the throne of David. We know that God has fulfilled this covenant, Jesus is on that throne forever!

This is why the Covenant with David is so important in the story of the Bible. 

Gen 1–2 teaches us about the world God intended. Ever since Gen 3, God has been orchestrating his plan of salvation to bless all the families of the world in Christ. Noah was a kind of savior, but Gen 12:1–3 makes it clear the savior will be a son of Abraham. When we get to God’s covenant with Israel, we cannot forget his covenant with their ancestor. God’s purpose in being in a covenant with Israel is the blessing of all the families of the world. The question is how does a king fit in this plan? Abraham is told his descendants will include kings. Gen 49:10 tells us the king will come from the line of Judah. Num 24:17 teaches this king will be the one who crushes heads. We can imply that the king will be the promised son of Eve who crushes the devil. Deut 17 gives us laws for kings. Judges teaches that the people need a righteous king in order to be a righteous people. What is the logic of this? The Covenant with a King of Israel serves different purposes. If the king has a particularly intimate relationship with God, like David who was a man after God’s heart, he will be able to lead God’s people in the right direction. But this is not enough to fix the world’s sin problem. The king’s role in the Bible is representative. We read over and over in the books of Kings, that evil kings lead to an evil nation (2 Kgs 21:9), to the extent where we want to blame the king for the people’s sin. This also goes the other way. When a king acts righteously, the people become righteous. This representative role of the king comes into play to bring a blessing to all the families of the earth. In the book of Isaiah, in Isa 11 we learn that the Messiah will be a descendant of David. Isaiah 42:1–2 this Messiah will bring justice to the whole world (c.f. 2 Sam 7:19). In Isaiah 53, we learn that the way this righteous king does this is by representing his sinful people, and taking their punishment (Isa 53:4–6). In the direct context of Isa 53, we could assume that this king only dies for the sin of his own people, the people of Israel, but 2 Sam 7:19 teaches that this covenant God has with David is actually the way God will bring his instruction to all mankind! So, this goes beyond Israel!

Conclusion: 

From Adam to Noah, Abraham, Israel, and now, David, we see that God enters into relationships with humanity to enact his will for the world. Willing and faithful human beings are God’s covenant partners. The Davidic Covenant is fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the descendant of David who sits on his throne forever. Jesus is no ordinary king who simply rules by upholding the law. He is the king, who represents his people so well, that he even came to bear the sin of his people. Being God himself, he could offer a perfect sacrifice on our behalf. When Covid hit in NZ, politicians all took a 15% pay cut out of solidarity with the people who went through economic hardships. This was a beautiful, but rare act in world politics. Jesus gave himself 100% for our sins, that we, his people could have our debt of sin, completely wiped away. The Davidic Covenant sets up the system for a human being to act on behalf of his people!