This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, August 24, 1997.
To begin our scripture reading this morning in 1 Samuel 2, we are beginning our reading at verse 22. This is the word of God. Now Eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all Israel, and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
And he said unto them, Why do ye such things? For I hear of your evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my sons, For it is no good report that I hear you make the Lord’s people to transgress. If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him. But if a man sin against the Lord, who can entreat for him? Notwithstanding, they hearkened not unto the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them.” And the child Samuel grew up and was in favor both with the Lord and also with men.
And there came a man of God unto Elohim, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Did I plainly appear unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh’s house? And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to offer upon mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? And did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings made by fire of the children of Israel? Wherefore kick ye up my sacrifice and up my offering, which I have commanded in my habitation? and honorest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the cheapest of all the offerings of Israel my people. Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house and the house of thy father should walk before me forever.
But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me, for them that honor me I will honor. and they that despise me shall be rightly esteemed. Behold, the days come that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house. And thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, and all the wealth which the Lord God shall give Israel. and there shall be an old man of thine house, there shall not be an old man in thine house forever. And the man of thine whom I shall not cut off from mine altar shall be to consume thine eyes and to grieve thine heart, and all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age.
And this shall be a sign unto thee that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas, In one day they shall die, both of them, and I will raise up a faithful priest that shall do according to that which is in mine heart and in my mind. And I will give him a sure house, and he shall walk before mine anointed forever. And it shall come to pass that everyone that is left in thine house shall come and crouch for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priest’s offices, that I may eat a piece of bread.”
Then, turning over to John’s Gospel, the eleventh chapter, beginning at verse 47, John 11.47, Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we for this man do with many miracles? If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation. And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, for consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation perish not. This spake he not of himself, but being the high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation, and not only for that nation, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad. Then, from that day forth, they took counsel together to put Jesus to death.
Father, if your word is food, may we consume it. If it is drink, may we drink deeply from it. Lord, may we be satisfied in you, and when we feel then the pangs of hunger, may we be driven, Lord, to this word. And not only so, but even when we are full, may we take up the word, may we rehearse it, may we remember what we have been taught. We pray this for ourselves and for your people throughout the world. Through Christ, the Living Word. Amen. This morning I want to talk to you about two things.
First of all, the unitary nature of 1 Samuel chapters 1-7, and then secondly, the place of Eli within these chapters. First of all, then, chapters 1-7 in 1 Samuel are meant to be taken by us as a unit. If you are in the habit of marking your Bible, you might draw a line at the end of Chapter 7 and inscribe the note, the conclusion of Part 1. Now, this division is mandated by a number of things.
It is mandated by the fact that in what follows we are introduced to a completely new phase in Samuel’s life, and we are given a new angle of vision with respect to him. You will note that beginning in chapter 8 in 1 Samuel, we are introduced to Samuel’s with regard to his own science. That failure is spoken of, particularly in verse 3 in that 8th chapter, and you will notice with regard to it, that it is a failure that sounds strangely familiar. In fact, it sounds like the failure that had occurred in the family of Elah earlier in this book. So it seems that we are beginning again. We are opening a new chapter, a new section in 1 Samuel.
In light of this failure on Samuel’s part, the story now turns to the replacement of Samuel, to the replacement of Samuel as judge, with a king in keeping with the people’s desire. Similar to the replacement that had taken place earlier, the replacement by the administration of Samuel of Eli and his family’s administration over the people of Israel. The first section of 1 Samuel, therefore, comes to an end with the conclusion of chapter 7. Further now, you will note, with regard to this division, 1 Samuel 7 ends with a reference, appropriately positioned, a reference to Samuel’s building of an altar to the Lord, chapter 7 verse 17. This altar stands, you will note, not in Shiloh, where the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant had been situated during the time of Eli, but instead in the town of Ramah, Samuel’s very own hometown. So it is, by the conclusion of chapter 7, the displacement and replacement is complete. not just the priesthood, Samuel for Eli, but the sanctuary and its service, Ramah for Shiloh.
We are brought thus into a different environment, a different setting for the approach to God by God’s people. Truly, then, it would appear with the close of chapter 7, the old has passed and the new has arrived. The old has passed and the new has arrived. And this is precisely the way in which you are to receive and appreciate these chapters. As you witness in the course of them, the way God moves his people from the old administration into the new. A process, I suggest to you, that will culminate in the fulfillment of the old covenant with the arrival of the new covenant, a process that will culminate in the passing of this world with the coming of the kingdom of God and the arrival of the new creation.
In other words, in 1 Samuel chapters 1-7, you are being forced to see nothing less than the gospel at work. To which these chapters, by God’s own sovereign superintendence, press us. Reading these chapters, then, without seeing the gospel in them is a misreading of them. And so serious is this misreading that if you do not see the gospel in these chapters, you do not understand these chapters at all.
This is why responsible interpretation of these chapters see in them the very form of Jesus Christ. For example, responsible interpretation of these chapters sees in Samuel’s birth and in Samuel’s priesthood nothing less than the coming birth and priesthood of Jesus Christ.
Of course, there is the obvious parallel that none of us should miss between Hannah, Samuel’s mother, and Mary, Jesus’ mother. A parallel that is underscored and established and confirmed by a comparison between the two songs of the mothers. Hannah’s song at the beginning of 1 Samuel 2, and Mary’s song in the middle of Luke 1. But then there are those parallels that are less obvious, less clear.
For instance, the fact that both Samuel and Jesus seemingly lack any hereditary claim to the priesthood whatsoever. Jesus, as you know, hails from the tribe of Judah, not from the priestly tribe of Levi. while Samuel’s tribal link is purposely omitted in the telling of the story as we have it for us in these chapters in 1 Samuel. It would seem then that both Samuel and Jesus can be included under the heading that appears in Psalm 110, where the Lord declares, not after the order of Levi, but after the order of Melchizedek.
But further, we have the fact that there is movement for Samuel geographically, and this too speaks to us about the coming gospel. Samuel’s movement is from Ramah, his hometown. to Shiloh, the place where the sanctuary was set, and the services to God were performed. But at the end of this portion of 1 Samuel, the scene is set back once more in Ramah, where things had begun. This movement from Ramah to the place of the sanctuary, back to the home region once more, anticipates the movement of Jesus geographically in his ministry. From Galilee, where his home was, to Jerusalem, where the sanctuary was, and then, after his resurrection, back to Galilee, there to receive the worship of his disciples.
That even more, this movement that we see geographically for Samuel, and then confirmed in Jesus, has a higher meaning still. For Jesus is just not simply a latter-day priest. Much like Samuel, he is the Son of God. The place that he comes from, his home, is in heaven.
He comes from heaven to earth, where there is the earthly sanctuary, and then he returns to heaven for the purpose of establishing the ministry in an eternal sanctuary above in glory. So from Ramah to Shiloh back to Ramah anticipates Galilee to Jerusalem back to Galilee, but more than that, it anticipates heaven to us back to heaven. Away from an earthly sanctuary to a heavenly sanctuary. Away from a sanctuary that will be destroyed to a sanctuary that cannot be destroyed.
One other factor paralleling Samuel and Jesus is Samuel’s residence in the tabernacle. He is deposited there. He lives there with Eli. Indeed, he questions the priests and the teachers there. He makes inquiry of them. you might judge that the inquiry is constant and perpetual.
I suggest to you that this anticipates the incident in the life of Jesus when he disappears into the temple, away from his parents, And when he is finally discovered by them, he declares to them, Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house? Luke 2 verse 49. But now I want you to note the progress of things as they are on unraveled for us in 1 Samuel 2 with respect to Samuel and his position in the tabernacle of God. In chapter 2 verse 26 we are told that Samuel grew in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men. Does that remind you of anything? I ask you to turn to the close of Luke chapter 2, immediately after the story of Jesus in the temple as a boy, there discovered by his anxious parents. And what do we read there? We are told by Luke, after that event, that Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with man, with God, and with men.
The intersection of Samuel and Christ is deliberate. You are to see your Savior in this man who comes before them. And true to the prophetic tradition, as true as John the Baptist himself, this man Samuel will be a forerunner. In Samuel, therefore, we are being introduced in Old Testament form to the grand, the glorious transition which God is effecting in the history of redemption that comes conclusively in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
It will be along these lines and within this overarching biblical pattern that we must deal with Eli. It is plain to us, is it not, that 1 Samuel 1-7 presents us with the increase of Samuel and the decrease of Eli. You can chart the development for Samuel himself and the diminishment of Eli through the course of these chapters.
We have repeatedly compact comments about Samuel, and these are deliberately laid within the texts as For instance, in chapter 1, verse 28, we are told, even though this Samuel is but still a recently weaned child, he worships the Lord. Something is being made of the child. In chapter 2, verse 11, we are told that Samuel now ministers to the Lord before Eli the priest, even though he is still a mere boy. The importance of the figure, the grandeur that we are to consider superimposing itself upon this boy. Chapter 2, verse 18, Samuel appears once more, still the boy, but now, believe it or not, wearing a priestly garment, wearing the ephod that belonged to the priests. In chapter 2, verse 21, he is described as growing before the Lord, as if the Lord himself In chapter 2, verse 26, the text we’ve already noted, still the boy, Samuel is maturing in stature and in approval from God and men. In chapter 3, verse 1, still the child, however not in his service, he is clearly edging out Eli and Eli’s household. In chapter 3, verse 19, through the opening of chapter 4, now Samuel appears full-grown.
He is a man, and in the power of his office he performs his functions before the Lord. He is a prophet through whom the word of the Lord comes to all Israel. And then, in chapter 7, verses 3 through 17, Samuel now stands alone, Eli’s household, He stands alone without and apart from Eli as that one in whom a new priesthood in a new ministry has emerged. Watching Samuel come into full view as you move through 1 Samuel 1 through 7 is a marvel. in the presence of the opening up of this figure is powerful in itself, and we are being ministered unto by the Holy Spirit through a profound literary hand. But meanwhile, Eli’s star has been fading. His moon is eclipsed. To be sure, Eli’s positive service to Hannah fills out for us chapter one. We hear no disparaging word about him or his sons in that chapter.
In fact, in his mediatorial role in his administration of the house of God, Eli comes across even Christlike, one in whom we can perceive the pattern of our coming Savior. In chapter 2, verses 12 through 17, Eli’s sons now, however, come off quite badly in their ignorance of the Lord, in their disregard for his law, in their proclamation of the sacrifices, in their coercion and threats of violence against the people of God.
Their ministry, so it would seem to them, is to provide them with the best provisions best for us. Their God is their appetite. Now, you must understand, these are men who are in the covenant. They are men who are members of the Church. Not only that, they are ministers, and their God is their appetite.
Interestingly, Eli himself is not indicted in verses 12-17. but instead again appears quite positively in verse 20, where he blesses Elkanah and Hannah, Samuel’s parents. And this positive vein for Eli continues, it seems, into verses 22 through 25, when in his extremely advanced years he reproves his sons for their reprehensible behavior. They are now serving their appetite by turning the house of God into a brothel. with acts true to Canaanite worship, not worship to the Lord. But it is at this point that Eli’s positive, priestly, and prophetic service is now to be held up to closer scrutiny.
In verses 27 through 36, the first shoe drops As the unnamed man of God, the anonymous man of God, delivers the scrutiny of the Lord, we’re not ready for what we hear any more than Eli was. It is a scathing indictment in which Eli is finally exposed.
He who appeared innocent is not innocent at all. He who appeared blameless before the law is not blameless at all. Do you hear the footsteps of the gospel? He who even on occasion seemed so Christ-like, one in whom we could see the form of Christ himself, now stands opposite and contrary Christ, and over against God’s saving intentions.
Eli is implicated with his sons in their corruption, in verse 21, because he partook of their And he also made himself sat by way of their robbery. He is guilty before God because, as the man of God says, he honored his sons before he honored the Lord.
And I hope you are all listening. You who worship your children. It is not just, then, in the final analysis, those who profane their profession by adultery and fornication. It is those who profane their service to God because they really, in the end, don’t worship God, they worship their family.
Eli’s sons placed their appetites at the center of their religion. Eli placed his sons at the center of his. But you must not think Eli merely a man a bit overzealous for family devotion and loyalty. For as his sons translated their appetites into a comprehensive religion, a world unlike you. So Eli translated his sons into a religion very similar. In other words, the way in which this man, Eli, approached his sons became the very substance of his religious expression, the very heart and soul of the content of his religious drive and motivation. It became his world and life view. He may not have rushed into the morally debauched excesses of his sons, but in his own way he was just as worldly, with a hope that completely depended upon an earthly glory for all the fathers and sons of Israel.
Eli, at the end of the day, serves the interests of this kind of religion. But you make a mistake if you read Eli as his sons, for that matter, in a narrow, provincial, individualistic manner, as if this was a problem for them alone and a problem for their time. The man of God who comes to Eli sees it differently, for he places Eli and his sons in the brightest context, those in whom we are to see the entirety of the Levitical order, the whole of the Old Testament priesthood and its administration.
So it is in verse 27, the man of God speaks to God and says, did I not reveal myself to your father’s house? That’s Eli’s house when they were in Egypt. So also in verse 30, I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father, that’s Levi, should walk before me forever. You see, Eli’s house is but an extension of Levi’s house. When God now moves to bring down Eli’s house, he is declaring his intention to bring down Levi’s house. The indictment against Eli’s house is an indictment against the entirety of the Old Testament Levitical system.
That system is no more able to reform itself than Eli could reform itself. In the end, that system will have no more spiritual strength than the age of Eli has physical strength. In the end, the Levitical system, like Hophni and Phinehas, will be corrupt beyond reclamation because of its own avarice and lust. And in the end, That Levitical system like Eli will be incapable of acting for the true and heavenly kingdom of God because it has embraced the religion of the world, a religion that reveres its children and a promise with regard to the children before God himself, and the promise of the world to come. I am not here just speaking about Old Testament Judaism. I am talking about twentieth-century American Christianity, and I am talking about liabilities that are alive and well in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Caiaphas is Eli’s spiritual descendant, and would rather save the nation and its children than serve the Messiah. the man of God finishes his message to Eli with the promise of a new and faithful priest for an enduring administration. Only the faint outline of the fulfillment of that promise is seen in Samuel himself, or even in the priesthood that would eventually emerge under David’s administration under the headship of Zadok. To be sure, when the other shoe drops and Eli dies of shock upon learning of his son’s death and the loss of the Ark of the Covenant to the Philistines, Samuel will be left standing as a symbol of that which he has yet promised. But Samuel, much less the house of Zadok to come, in the final analysis is no more capable of bringing in the eternal priesthood than was Eli.
That privilege belongs. to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who becomes both sacrifice for sin and mediator for sinners. In the new and lasting heavenly sanctuary to which he ascends, he having been crucified for us and raised from the dead for our justification. If you are a stranger to this last and final Great High Priest, may you be a stranger no longer, for he alone is the last and true sacrifice and mediator for sinners by whom you must be saved. And if you know this priest, May you live honorably in his administration, purifying yourself even as he is pure, always perceiving the heavenly nature of his new and perfect ministry, lest you be overcome by this world as was Eli.
And because of a religion of this world, a religion of family and property, you forfeit your inheritance in the world to come. by your word, drive us into it that we may profit from it. May we see what you are about, what you are saying. May we see what you have done to make clear your purpose.
Father, we ask that we might delight in Christ even as he is commended to us in the book of 1 Samuel, and may we love him dearly as we should. May we be pleased to serve him, even in keeping with the heavenly administration which he has inaugurated through his death, resurrection, and ascension. Now, O God, give us strength to live in the household that he establishes, that we might live with all purity. and that the proper and right determination might be ours, that we would serve you above all else.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.