I fully intended to spend some time looking at the parables of Jesus with the plan to dig deeply for the jewels of the gospel at work in them. But, as so often happens with me, I got a little distracted last week. In my study time for women’s Bible study as well as in my personal “devotions,” I was taken to the same passage of Scripture. I was taken to the book of 2 Samuel and to the story of David and Bathsheba. Two separate studies taking me to the same story is very suspicious. I got the sense that “Somebody” may be trying to tell me something!
We all know the story well. It is a dreadful blot on the life of David! One night David is on his roof top and he happens to spot Bathsheba on the neighboring roof top taking a bath. He sees her, He desires her. He finds out who she is. He sends for her. He takes her for his own. He covers over his sin with lies and in the end murders her husband. It’s a sordid story of lust, betrayal, lies, adultery...the stuff of Hollywood and yet here it is in the pages of Scripture!
David thinks he has gotten away with this act. After Uriah’s unfortunate and untimely death in “battle,” he takes Bathsheba as his wife and moves on with his life. Time elapses, until one day Nathan comes along. Nathan, the pesky prophet of the Lord, is given the task to call the King of Israel out on his sin. Seriously, who in the world would want to be Nathan!!! Can you imagine how he felt when God told him to go to the king??? But Nathan feared God more than the king and in obedience he sought an audience with the king. What follows has to be one of the most stunningly brilliant “sermons.” He drew David into the parable of a man and his neighbor’s sheep. By the end of the story, David is indignant at the heartlessness of the man in the parable declares a death sentence on the man for his deeds! Can you imagine what went on in the heart of David when Nathan turned to him, looked him right in the eyes, and said, “It’s you David. You’re the man.” David, a man after God’s own heart, would have in that moment felt the piercing of the Holy Spirit deep down to the very depths of his soul. He knew Nathan was right. He knew that even though he thought no one would ever know what he had done, God knew. God sees all. God knows all. And he knew that he deserved to die for his sins.
Confronted with the depths of his sinfulness, no excuses or blame shifting come out of David’s mouth. The only thing David could do was hang his head in shame and repentance. “I have sinned against the Lord.” (see Psalm 51 for an expanded look at David’s repentance.) David sinned against many people in this story...Bathsheba, her husband Uriah, Joab, just to name a few. But first and foremost his sin was against the Lord….“you have utterly scorned the Lord” (2 Sam. 12:14) were the words of Nathan. All sin is first and foremost a sin against the Lord, whether it is the outward manifestations of sin, like we see in this story of David, or the inward rebellion in our hearts kept hidden from the eyes of man...we utterly scorn the Lord. And it is because of this that only the Lord can provide the solution to the problem of sin. And we can already see Him working whispering his solution all the way back in the book of Samuel!
2 Samuel 12:13 & 14 are amazing verses foreshadowing the gospel! “I have sinned against the Lord,” cries David in humility. And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.” You will not die, David. The Lord has put away your sins, however, the wages of sin are still death. James tells us, don’t be deceived! “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” The penalty for sin is death. Always. Don’t deceive yourself.
David deceived himself. He thought he could get away with it, but he couldn’t. Sin deserves death. David did not die for his sins, but “the child who is born to you shall die.” We know that the son that was born out of the sin of David and Bathsheba’s union did die. But it wasn’t his death that allowed David to live. There was another Child who was “born to David” several hundred years later...It was this Child, born in a town called Bethlehem, who would one day be led to a hill outside Jerusalem to be hung on a cross to pay for David’s adultery, Uriah’s murder, David’s lies and deceit and his “scorn against the Lord Most High. It was THIS Child, and only this Child, the perfect Lamb of God, who’s death could create in David a clean heart, who could deliver David from bloodguiltiness. It was THIS child who’s death allowed David to live. And it is this same Child whose death allows us to live!
Scriptures really do only tell us one story...The story of the One who died so that we could live. Should we be surprised to find the gospel in the Old Testament? Absolutely not! Jesus told us that ALL of Scripture points to Him. How exciting it is when the Spirit shows us Jesus! Surely this is what it felt like for the disciples on the road to Emmaus as Jesus unfolded the Scriptures to them. Did not our hearts burn within us, they said, as they began to see Jesus, all over the Old Testament Scriptures! I used to be jealous of those disciples, until I realized that we can experience the same spiritual heartburn as the Holy Spirit gladly points us to Jesus as we read & study God’s Holy Word!
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