Gospel and Kingdom 7, "The Kingdom Revealed In Israel's History"

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Gospel and Kingdom Chapter 7, “The Kingdom Revealed in Israel’s History” Sunday School

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We have seen how the pattern for the
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Kingdom of God is set in Eden. In this chapter we outline the structure of Israel's history from Abraham to the
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Babylonian exile, a period of over a thousand years. We will not be concerned to summarize the historical facts, but rather to uncover the structure of the whole range of history to see a purposeful relationship in the whole sequence of events.
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As Christians, we recognize that Israel's history is not haphazard, nor a series of random incidents, but as in all history, it is governed by the purpose of God.
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The unique feature of Israel's history was that its purpose involved both revelation of salvation and the way of salvation.
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Since God is Lord, and since salvation has reference to the bringing of sinners into the
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Kingdom of God, that same kingdom will be reflected in the history which is salvation history.
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The most important thing about the history of Abraham is God's covenant promise. The whole narrative,
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Genesis chapter 12 to 24, is dominated by the promises which conveyed three main elements.
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These descendants would be God's own people. We should also note a fourth element which points to this gracious promise of God being extended to those who are not physically descended from Abraham.
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What is this covenant promise, if not the promise of the Kingdom of God? Certainly it is made in terms which are localized and earthbound.
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God in fact promises Abraham that his descendants would be God's people, in God's place, under God's rule.
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And all the Abraham stories must be seen in this light. An important element in the story is the way that tension develops because Abraham possesses the promise, but not the substance of it.
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He must accept God at his word in faith, while at the same time all the natural events seem to work against the fulfillment of the promise.
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Even for Abraham, the Kingdom of God must firstly be received by faith alone. In Genesis chapter 15, verse 6.
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Having been given promises of descendants and a land, Abraham watches his greedy nephew,
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Lot, occupy the best pasture land in Genesis chapter 13, verses 8 to 11. But see how
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God then sustains Abraham with his promise in verses 14 to 17. As for the promise of descendants, this is difficult for two very old people to accept in Genesis chapter 15, verses 1 to 5.
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And the narrative of Hagar and Ishmael shows the stress Abraham and Sarah are under.
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Isaac, their natural born son, is eventually designated the heir in Genesis chapter 15, verse 4.
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In chapter 17, verse 19 and 21. In chapter 18, verse 10. When Abraham is born, the relief must have been enormous.
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He is truly the child of promise. So why the command to sacrifice the young boy in Genesis chapter 22?
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This event shows that Abraham is not only obedient to God in a general way, but that he believes the specific promises of God, despite the apparent challenge to their fulfillment, that the sacrifice would entail.
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Again, he is reassured by the promise when his faith has stood firm. When Sarah dies,
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Abraham is forced to haggle over the price of her burial plot, which he must buy from his own inheritance in Genesis chapter 23.
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Isaac's children, Esau and Jacob, are the objects of the sovereign choice of God for the younger, again an unnatural choice, is selected over the elder for the covenant line in Genesis chapter 25.
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Jacob is not a good person at all. Quite the opposite. His election is not grounded on his merits foreseen by God, but Jacob is converted by the grace of God and becomes the father of the covenant people.
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Thus it will be through the children of Jacob that the kingdom of God will be demonstrated.
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The rest of the patriarchal story takes up with Joseph and his brothers to Egypt, where the stage will be set for the next chapter in the history of redemption.
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The very fact that the descendants of Abraham are forced to go to Egypt for their welfare is also to be seen in the light of the covenant promises.
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For even when it appears, much to the dismay of the king of Egypt, that they are becoming a mighty nation, the land of promise is far off and inaccessible.
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Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. In Exodus chapter 1 verse 8, suddenly the once favored nation of Israel, Jacob, are no longer welcome guests in the fertile
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Nile delta. Sojourn becomes captivity and privilege becomes enslavement.
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The covenant promises are removed one stage further. For the people not only live away from the promised land, but are now prisoners of a cruel monarch.
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Again, the experience of the recipients of the promise seems to contradict the promises. But from a more positive angle, we can begin to put together some pieces of the puzzle.
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Why has God not fulfilled the promises yet? It is one thing to talk of faith, but faith is not to be confused with delusion and wishful thinking.
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The promises must be based on a reality which will be achieved if they are not to be a cruel hoax.
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At this stage, we can only observe that God must have a reason for creating this tension.
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To what purposes are the promises channeled through this extraordinary Egyptian experience? The book of Exodus will show us the answer to this question.
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Exodus begins with the story of Moses' birth, preservation, and preparation for his mission.
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These events are not only favorite subjects in Bible teaching programs for children, but are also frequently mishandled.
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The story of Moses and the rushes must be related to the declared purpose of God in Exodus 2, verses 23 -25, which shows us that Moses is to be the mediator of God's acts in fulfilling the covenant promises made to the patriarchs.
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Notice the stress given to the identification of the God who sends Moses to be Israel's leader.
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He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That the God of Israel is the
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God who is faithful to the covenant with Abraham is a fact now associated with the personal name of God.
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In most English versions of the Bible, this holy name is translated L -O -R -D, all capitals.
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Whenever you read capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D in your
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English Old Testament as the name of God, remember it is his special personal name and not merely a title.
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It expresses the character of God which has been revealed in his acts to redeem his people. The act and the knowledge of the name are frequently related.
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I will take you for my people and you shall know that I am Yahweh, the
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Lord, your God. In Exodus chapter 6, verse 7, also chapter 7, verse 5.
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So Israel is in bondage through no obvious fault of her own. In Egypt, far from Canaan, now
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God acts on the basis of the covenant to release the children of Jacob. But Pharaoh is a cruel tyrant and refuses to let the people go.
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God, through his servant Moses, works a series of signs and wonders to make Pharaoh release
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Israel. Each plague inflicted is a demonstration of the superior might of the
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Lord over Egypt and its gods. The final plague is associated with a redemptive picture that Israel was never to forget.
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As God pronounces death upon all the firstborn in Egypt, a way of escape is provided for believing
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Israelites. The sacrifice of a lamb and the sprinkling of its blood on the doorpost would cause the angel of death to pass over each household that complied.
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The Passover redemption of the Israelite firstborn is coupled with the escape from Egypt so that the redemptive picture is extended to include all
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Israel. The effect of this tenth plague on Pharaoh is to cause him finally to let the people go.
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Up to this point, his heart is hardened and even now he is to have second thoughts and pursue the fugitives to the
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Red Sea. The way out of Egypt would naturally be by the well -trodden way from the delta through the coastal strip to Canaan.
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But God does not lead them that way, in Exodus 13, verse 17, but through the wilderness to the shores of the sea.
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This is like running into a blind alley with walls on all sides. But God's purpose is still to be seen.
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He has already overcome the barrier of Pharaoh's hard heart and now he will overcome the barrier of the sea.
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It will not be by following the easy trade route, but by the strong hand of God that Israel will come out of Egypt.
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Redemption is a miracle that only God can perform. Even the magicians of Egypt have recognized the finger of God at work, in Exodus 8, verse 19.
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Now we can answer the question we posed above. Why has God not fulfilled the promises? Israel was brought to Egypt and the patriarchs never possessed the land because God intended to reveal the way into his kingdom.
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It is a way involving a miraculous redemption from a bondage that holds us and keeps us out of the kingdom.
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Only a miracle of God can bring us back to the kingdom. The Exodus will remain now the key model for the understanding of redemption in the life of Israel.
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And the people of God will be made to recall it as the basis of their response to a
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God who saves. The escaped Israelites came to Sinai where the next great aspect of Moses' ministry was to take place.
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The giving of the law. So much confusion has arisen at this point that we must endeavor to understand clearly the purpose of the law.
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Part of the confusion occurs because of a misunderstanding of the attitude to the law in the New Testament.
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Because Paul says of Christians, you are not under law but under grace in Romans 6, verse 14.
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And because he stresses that justification means a righteousness which is apart from law in Romans 3, verse 21.
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It is too easily assumed that the law is not only bypassed in the gospel but even overthrown.
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It is not unfair, I think, to say that many Christians have an understanding something like this.
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God gave Israel the law in Sinai as a program of works whose goal is salvation.
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The history of Israel shows how complete was the inability of Israel to achieve that required standard.
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God, therefore, in a kind of desperation, scrapped plan A, salvation through works of the law, and instituted an emergency plan,
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B, the gospel. The Old Testament thus becomes essentially the record of the failure of plan
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A. Its relationship to the New Testament is almost wholly negative. In order to gain the right perspective on the
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Sinai law, we must be more careful to examine the treatment of it in both Old Testament and the
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New Testament. We must look at the positive statements about the law in the New Testament and also understand the reason for many negative statements.
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If the depreciation of law in the New Testament is seen to apply not to law itself but to the perverted use of the law in Israel, the proper understanding and use of law will also be seen in the
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Old Testament. To begin with, we acknowledge that two major events stand behind Sinai.
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The one is the Exodus and the other is the covenant with Abraham. If the Exodus means anything, it means freedom from bondage.
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It is therefore clear that the law could not originate at Sinai as another form of bondage.
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The continuity of the declared purpose of God requires us to place Sinai in the context of the purposes of God to make a people for himself on the basis of his grace.
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The call and covenanting of Abraham was an act of grace. The descendants of Abraham were promised the kingdom by grace.
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The mighty acts of God in Egypt were performed because of the promise to Abraham in Exodus chapter 2, verses 23 to 25.
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The Exodus event becomes a model of salvation by grace, its goal being the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham in the promised land.
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It is utterly inconceivable that God should break off his program of salvation by grace in midstream between Egypt and Canaan, and despite his promise to Abraham, saddle his people with a frustrating program of salvation by works.
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The narrative of Egypt does not allow such violence to be done to its theological continuity.
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The only reasonable assessment of the Sinai law in this context is that it is part of the program of grace, whereby
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God works to fulfill his promises to Abraham. There is no plan A to be jettisoned later on, but part of a single comprehensive plan
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God had from the beginning. The heart of the law is the Ten Commandments, in Exodus 20, which are prefaced by the significant phrase,
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These words should govern our understanding of the Sinai law. Here we see that God declares that he is the
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God of this people, that he has already saved them. What follows then cannot be a program aimed to achieve salvation by works, since they have already received it by grace.
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The law is given to the people of God after they become the people of God by grace.
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Sinai is dependent upon the covenant with Abraham and is an exposition of it. At Sinai, God spells out for his people what it means to be the people of God.
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They cannot know how to live consistently with their calling in life as the Lord's people unless he tells them.
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What he does tell them reflects in various ways his own character. It is their fateful response to the character of God that will demonstrate that they are his children.
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The law explains further the knowledge of God's character already revealed in his dealings with their forefathers and in his acts in Egypt.
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Given this understanding of the Sinai covenant, the moral prescriptions are easy enough to understand.
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But what of the ritual details in the many laws concerning what is clean and what is unclean, especially with regard to food?
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It is helpful to know something of the range of prescriptions given in Exodus and Leviticus, but the individual precepts should not be viewed apart from the context of the whole covenant.
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The sum total of the covenant of Sinai equals the great covenant summary. I will be your
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God and you will be my people. It explains in detail the demands of the character of God.
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Leviticus 19, verse 2. The fact that many of its regulations do not touch directly the moral character of God stems from the nature of this preliminary revelation of God's kingdom.
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Some laws must deal with the national life of Israel because that is where they are. Others are ritual requirements which depend on a later fulfillment for their full meaning.
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A group of apparently meaningless food laws become meaningful in the context of the Sinai covenant.
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They instruct the people in one aspect of the unique relationship they possess as a holy people, separated from all other allegiance and separated to the
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Lord. The details for the building of the tabernacle in Exodus chapters 25 to 31 must be looked at in the light of the overall purpose of the tabernacle and not be interpreted for their own sake.
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A secondary aspect of all the details is that it expresses clearly the fact that Israel cannot be left to design things without God's revelation.
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What we might call the symbolic age of worship must conform to a given pattern.
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Otherwise, the heart of man will create something else which reflects not the character of God but only the evil inclinations of humanity's heart.
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For this very reason, Israel is forbidden all forms of visual age to worship and of pictures or images of God.
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Humanity is incapable of portraying God without falling into idolatry. The purpose of the tabernacle is expressed as the dwelling of God in Exodus 29, verse 45, which means the symbol of God's presence among his people.
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But on the other hand, the barriers against access to the Holy of Holies mean that a sinful people have only indirect access through the mediation of priests and that only on the basis of substitutionary sacrifice for their sins.
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Breaking the law carries heavy penalties, the most severe being death or excommunication.
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Israel as a nation is expected to be fateful to the law. It is also to enjoy the blessings of God.
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It is this fact, for example, see Deuteronomy chapter 28, which may be misinterpreted to imply that the blessings of salvation are the reward for the works of the law.
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We should note, however, that the New Testament carries exactly the same conditions and no New Testament teaching destroys the principle of salvation by grace.
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In both the Old and the New Testaments, the principle operates that the people of God should exhibit a holiness which is consistent with their calling.
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The deliberate flouting of this principle is a clear demonstration that we are not members of God's people.
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In both Testaments, the demand to be holy stems from the prior saving activity of God.
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The Book of Numbers relates the incidents between Sinai and the entry. In so doing, it presents a rather gloomy picture.
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Israel, which rides the crest of the wave of its salvation experience in coming out of Egypt and in being constituted the people of God under the covenant of Sinai, is shown to be rebellious and ungrateful.
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The grumbling of the escaped nation becomes an immediate pattern. After the
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Sinai encounter, the nation asserts its independence of God by refusing the opportunity to take possession of the promised land.
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The 40 years wandering in the wilderness disposes of the generation of adults who came out of Egypt, leaving their children to go in and possess the land.
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Prior to the entry, Moses relates the covenant to his anticipated possession of the land and then hands over his leadership to Joshua.
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This second law, as the name of the Book of Deuteronomy signifies, once more emphasizes the gracious provision of God for his people as he fulfills the promises made to Abraham.
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This grace contrasts sharply with the rebelliousness of Israel in the wilderness. We may well wonder why
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God continues to show loving kindness to Israel despite the lack of response. Of course, this is really no different from the question of why
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God shows grace to humanity at the fall or to us today. Israel's rebelliousness is a recurring theme in the
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Old Testament but so also is God's covenant love as he saves a remnant of fateful people out of the mass of the people.
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Indeed, the remnant is an important theme which goes back to the beginning of redemptive history. In the midst of all this rebellion, the fact must not be overlooked that God is always saving the fateful remnant.
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Deuteronomy is an important book as it emphasizes the relationship of law and grace.
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The first four chapters tell the story of salvation history from the time spent at Sinai to the point of the preparation to enter
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Canaan. This salvation history is interpreted in the light of Israel's faithlessness and of God's continuing kindness.
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Nowhere are law and gospel more clearly related than they are in Deuteronomy 6, verses 20 -25.
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The child asks, what does the law mean? What is it all about? And the answer is given in terms of gospel.
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That is, in terms of what God did in history to save his people. It cannot be stressed too much that the biblical expression of the gospel is an historical event as God acts on behalf of his people to save.
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The gospel is the holy history worked out in the life and death of Christ. The gospel is not man's response to this event nor is it the work of God in us now as he regenerates us and sanctifies the believer.
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So, in the Old Testament, the gospel is the declaration of what God did out there and back there at a fixed place in time and history.
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Does God act like this because Israel deserves it? Deuteronomy answers with a resounding, no.
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God loves because he loves is the logic of Deuteronomy 7, verses 7 -8.
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Israel is allowed to possess Canaan not because Israel is worthy and merits it but because Canaan deserves judgment in Deuteronomy 9, verses 4 -6.
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Always behind this is the promise of God to Abraham to which God remains faithful despite Israel's rebelliousness.
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The book of Joshua takes up the history narrative from Deuteronomy to Joshua, the successor to Moses prepares to lead
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Israel into the land. One cannot escape the emphasis here that God is about to act for Israel. The great acts of God for Israel in the
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Exodus are to be continued since salvation is not complete until the people are brought into the inheritance. Once again, a miracle will allow the people to pass through the waters on dry ground in Joshua 3, verses 7 -13.
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They will not need to sneak over in some remote area but will cross opposite the great fortress city of Jericho.
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In Joshua 3, verse 16. God will fight for them, not only in the destruction of Jericho and Ai but in the subjugation of the whole land.
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And these events, which later pass into Israel's history became part of the gospel of the mighty acts of God along with the crossing of the
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Red Sea. Thus, the book of Joshua describes the process of dispossession of the various groups of the
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Canaanites from their land by Israel. Although some pockets of resistance remain and troubles beset the
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Israelites from within the land and without yet the assessment of the author may be accepted. And one of all the good promises which the
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Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. In Joshua chapter 21, verses 43 -45.
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Again, we note that this fulfillment of the gracious promises in the saving acts of God is not to be divorced from the covenant demands upon Israel.
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Joshua calls upon the people to remember the serious consequences of transgressing the covenant.
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In Joshua chapter 23, verses 14 -16. The book ends with a moving account of a covenant renewal ceremony which again stresses the gospel of what
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God has done for his people. In Joshua chapter 24, verses 2 -13. And which describes the demand upon the people to respond with faithful obedience.
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The progress toward monarchy. Judgeship. We must be brief in describing this most detailed area of Israel's historical narrative.
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The period covers more than two centuries of the most important developments in the national life of Israel. The book of Judges records a certain instability which may on first sight appear to contradict the glowing terms used in Joshua chapter 21, verses 43 -45.
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However, Judges does not deny that God gave all the land to Israel's hand but rather stresses the fact that the tribes of Israel were slack in following through the instructions to utterly drive out the inhabitants.
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By tolerating little pockets of the enemy within the land, they weakened their position and the way was open for difficult times ahead.
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The theology of the book of Judges is summarized in chapter 2. Contact with the enemy was always dangerous.
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Not only because it could threaten national security but principally because it threatened the integrity of Israel's faith.
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Both situations threatened the covenant. Again, it is clear that the whole process of covenant fulfillment is being worked out at the level of national existence in a way which does not succeed in bringing the whole realm of human existence into the kingdom.
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To put it another way, Israel's experiences show the way God acts and what the kingdom is like but as people, the
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Israelites remain sinful and rebellious. We do not see the whole nation submitting perfectly and willingly to God's rule.
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This fact will shape our understanding of the extent to which the kingdom of Israel exhibits the truth of the kingdom of God.
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So in Judges chapter 2, verses 11 -23, we find the theological interpretation of the events of the whole book.
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The stories of the heroic deeds of Ehud, Gideon, Samson, and the other judges are stories of many salvations.
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The same cycle is there in each case. Israel's sin, judgment at the hand of the enemy, Israel's repentance and call for help, and the savior judge who rescues
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Israel from the enemy. Every victory under the leadership of one of these judges is a saving act of God by which he establishes the people in their inheritance.
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From our perspective, these repetitions of salvation may seem to disrupt the harmony of the overall historical events in revealing salvation and the kingdom, but we must recognize that God's loving kindness is at work in the generations following the exodus from Egypt, repeatedly showing his saving mercy.
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This period does not become too complicated as long as we maintain a perspective on the major events and their theological significance in revealing the kingdom.
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The account of the period of upheaval comes to an end with a significant statement.
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In those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did what was right in his own eyes.
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Judges 21, verse 25. If this indicates that the author is looking back on these events from the time of the monarchy, it also indicates that he sees the monarchy as necessary to provide stability and order in Israel.
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Samson and Saul. From the fragmentation of national life and the localized activity of the judges, there develops a movement toward a more coherent and structured situation.
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Samuel, the prophet -judge, figures prominently in this trend. He is accepted as a prophet, the first national prophetic figure since Moses, from Dan to Beersheba, 1
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Samuel 3, verses 19 -20. The enemy now is the Philistine nation. The leadership of Samuel during this extreme threat puts him in the path of a new political development.
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The Israelites perceive the advantage of a stable government and following the example of the neighboring states, demand a king to rule over them and to lead them into battle.
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In 1 Samuel 8, verses 19 -20. That the motives of the Israelites in asking for a king are all wrong can be seen in the nature of their expectations, which are political and military, rather than truly religious.
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The request is seen as a rejection of God's rule in 1 Samuel 8, verse 7. However, this does not indicate that kingship was not in God's purpose, nor does it mean that kingship is granted solely as a rope for the people to hang themselves.
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We must distinguish between the kind of kingship asked for and the kind of kingship which lay in God's purposes.
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If the people hang themselves, it is by means of Saul. Saul is God's answer to the wrong motives of the
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Israelites. But at the same time, the opportunity remains for Saul to prove himself and to succeed as God's anointed.
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Kingship as such was already a permitted possibility in the words of Moses. In Deuteronomy 17, verses 14 -20, we have the pattern of true kingship, which is fully consistent with the theocratic ideals of Sinai.
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Essentially, this king exemplifies the law in his life and does not lift up his heart above his brethren.
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He is contrasted with the oriental despotic monarch who uses his position for personal aggrandizement and exercises an absolute power which is inconsistent with theocracy.
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It would appear that Samuel has this Deuteronomic prescription for kingship in mind when he warns the people of the folly of desiring to be ruled by a despot.
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In 1 Samuel 8, verses 10 -18, he understands only too well that political stability can be bought at a very heavy price.
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The law -in -order ticket has been the crowd winner for dictators all through the ages.
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The pattern of Saul's behavior may be discerned very early in his reign. He appears with all the charisma of the hero warriors that we know as judges, but also with all the seeds of corruption and of rejection of his theocratic position as the
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Lord's anointed. Samuel, as prophet, remains the Lord's spokesman and brings the word of judgment against the disobedient
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Saul. This relationship of prophet to king will persist throughout the monarchy in Israel for the prophet is ever the guardian of the covenant of Sinai against which the lives of all
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Israelites are measured. Positively, then, Saul is one more link in a chain of historical figures who represent the purpose of God to administer salvation through a human mediator.
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Saul's significance as the Lord's anointed becomes of prime importance to David so that even when
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Saul is seeking to kill David, he will not retaliate. However, imperfectly he does it,
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Saul brings a coherence to rulership in Israel that has not existed since the wilderness days.
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We should not let the negative elements of Saul detract from the positive significance of his reign.
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It is characteristic of the Old Testament persons and events that despite their imperfections, they foreshadow the perfect which is to come.
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In fact, it must be this. For if the foreshadowings were perfect, they would no longer be mere shadows and would become the solid reality.
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Saul, along with the judges before him and the kings after him, is part of the historical foundation laid in the
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Old Testament for the revelation of the perfect human king, Jesus of Nazareth, who mediates
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God's rule. Saul's rejection by the prophet Samuel serves not so much as the precursor of Saul's death as of the introduction of Saul's successor,
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David. The Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel in 1
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Samuel 15, verse 35, is the preface to the events in chapter 16. For the second time,
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Samuel is called upon to designate the Lord's anointed. This time, the narrative describes with great dramatic effect the choice of Jesse's youngest son as the man after God's own heart.
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In 1 Samuel 13, verse 14. Since this takes place long before Saul's death, the story records the drawn out rivalry between the two men that ends only with Saul's suicide in the battle of Gilboa.
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During this period, from the anointing of David to the death of Saul, the narrative focuses not on Saul, but upon David as the up -and -coming ruler.
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The first major event recorded in David's experience as the anointed one is the slaying of Goliath in 1
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Samuel 17. Here we see another part of the transition from judge -savior to king -savior.
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David, the anointed one, challenges the enemy of God's people and kills the giant with the same result as the victories of the judges.
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It is a saving event in which the chosen mediator wins the victory while the ordinary people stand by until they can share in the fruits of the
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Savior's victory. Preparation is thus made for the gospel events in which God's Christ, anointed one, wins the victory over sin and death on behalf of his people.
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Until the death of Saul, increasing tension between himself and David shows Saul's appalling jealousy of the one chosen to succeed him.
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David, by contrast, is completely subdued by his regard for Saul's office as the anointed king.
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Though persecuted by Saul and forced to roam the wilderness with a band of outlaws, David steadfastly refuses to preempt the sovereignty of God by killing the
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Lord's anointed. The hapless Amalekite, who seeks to curry favor with David by claiming to have killed his persecutor, learns the hard way the strength of David's convictions in this matter.
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2 Samuel 1, verses 14 -16 Again, we can distinguish part of this pattern -making aspect of those events and the rejection and suffering of the king -descendant before he is vindicated and raised to the throne to rule in glory.
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David's reign continues to exhibit the mixture of theocratic ideal and human sinfulness that has characterized salvation history.
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Indeed, if it were not for the prophetic assessments of David made after his death in which the ideals of God's rule through human kingship are stressed, we might wonder at times if David is much of an improvement upon Saul.
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Certainly his rule sees a growth in prosperity and the stabilizing of the whole political, economic, and military scene.
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But even that aspect, as we well know from the ministry of Samuel, is full of potential for evil.
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Furthermore, the portrayal of David as an adulterer and murderer hardly enhances the theocratic ideal.
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In order to maintain the proper perspective on David, we must preserve the framework of the covenant in salvation history.
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The stability and prosperity achieved by David in finally removing the threat of Philistine incursion into the promised land and also in rooting out the last pockets of Canaanite influence represent fulfillment of the covenant promises.
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Now some substance is given to the covenant summary. I will be your God and you shall be my people.
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It is at this point that a new prophetic word is heard giving an important perspective on the significance of David.
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Now that the wanderings of Israel have ceased and the people possess the land as promised to Abraham, the obvious symbol of God's dwelling would be a permanent temple rather than the portable tabernacle.
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Such a temple is eventually built by Solomon, but at this juncture an important clue is given to the way in which the tabernacle temple symbolism will reach its true fulfillment in God's kingdom.
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Nathan's prophecy to David in 2 Samuel 7 is, in a sense, a word out of due time for it anticipates a prophetic perspective which does not fully emerge until the later prophets beginning with Amos and Hosea.
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The following key points emerge from Nathan's prophecy in 2 Samuel 7. A. David proposes to build
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God a dwelling, yet this has never been commanded by God. B. God declares that he will build a house for David as he gives rest to his people.
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C. This house is a dynasty of David's royal descendants and David's son will build
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God's dwelling. D. David's son will be the personal embodiment of the people of God and is declared to be
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God's son. There is much more that could be said about David's reign, but we must be content with these few theological aspects and turn to the significance of Solomon as David's son.
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The first and obvious point to note about Solomon is that, as the son of David, he fulfills in an immediate sense
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Nathan's prediction that the house of God would be built by such a son. But Solomon must be remembered for more than his temple building activity.
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In fact, he is an enigma, for he was both the perfecter of Israel's glory and the architect of its destruction.
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The form of the narrative of Solomon's reign in 1 Kings is instructive. The problem of the throne's succession having been settled in Solomon's favor, the narrator deals at once with two apparently contradictory aspects of Solomon's behavior.
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First, we are told of the marriage alliance with the king of Egypt in 1 Kings 3, verse 1, which becomes a cause of stumbling, and then it is the first stage of the apostasy described in chapter 11, verses 1 to 13.
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Secondly, we are told of Solomon's desire for an understanding mind, a request which receives
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God's commendation. The wisdom of Solomon and the splendor of his kingdom go hand in hand, and both are seen as undergirding national prosperity and safety.
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Judah and Israel dwelt in safety, from Dan to Beersheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon, in 1
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Kings 4, verse 25. So the writer sums up the situation in a way that suggests that the prosperity of Solomon's reign is indicative of the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham.
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The people are in the land, they are safe, and the land yields its fruit in Eden -like plenty.
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Solomon's wisdom, at first sight, is found in strange company. God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure and largeness of mind like the sand of the seashore, so that Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt, in 1
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Kings 4, verses 29 to 30. Clearly, Solomon's wisdom was of a kind that might be compared with that of pagans.
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The narrative describes the wise men of other lands coming to hear Solomon in chapter 4, verse 34, as well as the adulation of the
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Phoenician king Hiram in chapter 5, verse 7, and of the queen of Sheba, who came to test
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Solomon's wisdom in chapter 10, verses 1 to 5. We know from the book of Proverbs that wisdom was seen as concerned with the complexities of daily life and with the real world of human experience.
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As such, it would naturally be a concern to all people, Israelite and pagan alike, but it was a wisdom based on a fear of the
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Lord, in Proverbs chapter 1, verse 7. So Solomon, who beautified Israel with the temple, in 1
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Kings 7 and 8, becomes the apostate from whom the kingdom is removed with a word that recalls the rejection of Saul.
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I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant, in 1 Kings 11, verse 11.
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The story which follows is a long one, which leads firstly to the division of the kingdom with the revolt of the northern tribes against Rehoboam, and then to the decline and fall of both north and south.
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We must be content here to point out only the salient features of the history of the divided kingdom.
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Both the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah move with gathering momentum toward a cataclysmic judgment of God upon their sinful rejection of the covenant.
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The final outcome of Solomon's apostasy is the obliteration of the natural existence of Israel. All that the covenant to Abraham had promised was under Solomon both realized and lost.
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To say that this is to say that the realization of the promises must be qualified by all the deficiencies due to human sinfulness.
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And whatever sense the kingdom of God is fulfilled in Solomon's reign, something is yet lacking.
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The pattern of kingdom existence is certainly there, but its perfection is not.
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If the united kingdom fulfills the covenant promises, it does so only in shadow.
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So if God is faithful, the solid substance of that fulfillment must be yet to come.