About this sermon
A Morning Instruction class on the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7. David wants to build a house for the Lord, but the Lord promises instead to build David a house: a son on his throne and a kingdom established forever. Solomon is an immediate fulfillment, and the conditional promise of 1 Kings 2 shows that David’s sons had to walk before God. The covenant points beyond them to the eschatological King, Jesus Christ, the son of David whose kingdom has no end.
Sermon transcript
That was not a stupid question, by the way. Not even close. Alright, so if you would turn to 2 Samuel 7. All right, I hope you like Bible. We’re gonna have lots of Bible today. What we’ll do is I’m gonna start, we’re gonna read the first 17 verses, actually. And I’ll start, and if we just weave on through, just read one verse, if you would, and don’t feel compelled. If you’d rather not read one, rather not read out loud, that is okay. Feel free to pass. So starting at 2 Samuel 7, this is 231 in the Old Testament in your pew Bible.
Starting at verse one, now it came about when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies. That the king said to Nathan the prophet, see now I dwell in a house of cedar, that the ark of God dwells Nathan said to the king, go do all that is in your mind, for the Lord is with you. But it came about in the same night that the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, Go and tell my son David, thus says the Lord.
Will you build me a house to dwell in? For I have not dwelt in a house since the day I walked up the Son of Israel from Egypt, even to this day. But I have been moving about in a tent, even in a tabernacle. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people, Israel saying, why do you not build me a house of cedar?
Now, therefore, thus shall to rule over my people, over Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make you a great name, like the name of the great men who are on the earth. And I will hold a place for my people of Israel, and will collect them, so that they may dwell in their own place, and be disturbed no more. And violently, I shall cut them no more. That’s all.
Even from the day I command the judges to deal with my people, When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for you. I will be like his father, and he shall be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the blows of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I threw away at the border. And your house, dear king, shall be a shore forever before me, and your throne shall be established forever.
In accordance with all these words and all this vision, so may I be spoken today. Excellent. Thank you all for coming. contributing. So what’s going on in this passage? Here’s this passage that has a lot of major proportions for the Word of God and for covenant redemptive history. David says, what I ought to do is I should make a house for God. And what is God’s response? Well, what’s the rush?
I’ve been living in a tent for a long, long time. But he says, your son’s going to do it. Your son’s going to do it. Now, is this a covenant? Let’s just start there. Is this a covenant? What would we say, especially, think with past weeks in mind. Is this a covenant? What if I say to you, well, it doesn’t say it’s a covenant. Not right there. Anyone? What would you answer to that? If you were to defend the fact that this is a covenant.
Yes. that if we are in Jesus Christ, united as one, we share in his sonship, we are also sons of God. Well, I would agree with you. I think that ultimately there’s one covenant between the Father and the Son in eternity past. But, in redemptive history, the outworking of that comes in all of these redemptive historical covenants. I think you’re right, there is a pre-redemptive, pre-temporal covenant. But I think we see a lot more, we could say, let’s put some flesh on those bones. That’s what all of these covenants are essentially doing, putting flesh upon those bones of that one covenant that is made between the Father and of the Son.
Anyone? What would you say if I said, this is not a covenant? Well, I’d say you’re wrong. Good for you. And then I’d say, if you look especially, we have probably what you could call a preamble in at least verses, is it four? I’m sorry, I’m having double vision. Four through seven, maybe.
And then from eight on, you actually do have God, telling him what his blessings are going to be on David and David’s family and the establishment of the kingdom so that we have God. God is doing this sovereignly as the suzerain. He is, as the last of these kings, he is telling David, a king, how he is going to bless him through his kingship. And then, toward the end, I think especially as we get into 14 through 17, we see how he’ll deal with him, even if he does not keep the covenant himself, that I will treat you as a son, and I will discipline you.
Exactly, so this is very good. So the word’s not there, but what is there? The concept. If the concept is there, then it is as if the word is there. That’s one thing we’ve been trying to get across, right? If the word is there, good. If the concept is there, that’s fine too. Remember when we talked about the Adamic Covenant? We said there is no word used, covenant, when it talks about Adam, right? In Genesis chapter 1, 2, 3, there’s no word covenant there.
But, if we open later on in redemptive history, well, we can say we have the concept there, we have stipulations, we have penalties, we have blessings based upon obedience. The same thing is going on here with David. So we have, clearly, we have a covenant. But even we could be more convincing in the same way that we could open up Hosea 6-7 and have it say that Like Adam, they have transgressed the covenant, comparing the protological son with the typological son. Comparing these two sons, but explicitly saying we have a covenant with Adam much later on, much later in redemptive history. We have other instances where we could say that there is a covenantal the Word Covenant, but later. Some of the last words that are said to Solomon are in 2 Samuel 23 5. I’m going to read that. Who was next to read? Who was it? John was next? Oh, John, that’s right. John, would you open to Psalm 89, 3? And Ben, would you open to Isaiah 55, 3?
Here are just a couple of passages that talk about this being a covenant. 2 Samuel 23, 5. says, truly is not my house so with God, for he has made an everlasting covenant with me, ordered in all things and secured for all my salvation and all my desire. Will he not indeed make it grow? This is the last words or among the last words of David to his son, And he is telling him that God has made a covenant.
So we have the concept as Mr. Brandeberry’s talked about. We also have the word coming in here. Psalm 89, three, we also have talk of a covenant with David. Thank you. And then Isaiah 55, three, There we go, so this is Referring back to that previous covenant that one that we have read that God is going to Discipline a son, but he always plans to have a son of David who is ruling and reigning upon the throne now there are According to O. Palmer Robertson, I think he’s probably right, four key passages that we should look at when we understand the Davidic covenant. First of all, I’m gonna, we’re gonna need a couple more readers here. Mr. Notarangelo, would you be willing to read 1 Kings 2, one through four, We’re just gonna do some chunks here. And then, who would be next? Barb, would you read 1 Kings 8, 15, and 20? And that should be…
Alright, now as you’re going there, and I can repeat those to you, we should just ask ourselves, why would a Davidic covenant be necessary? What does a Davidic covenant add that none of the other administrations had? As we talked about last week, Or, I should say, in weeks past, especially when we talked about the covenant with Moses, what did the covenant with Moses add that none of the covenantal administrations before that add?
What it added was God’s will. written down. Before Moses, there was nothing really to refer to. God had come in visions, he had come as an angel, he had come in different ways, but he had not come in made a deposit of something in which they could say, I wonder what God’s will is. It’s not until the time of Moses when that happens, when they have it written in rock, and when they have it written, we see commands within the Pentateuch for Moses to write down what is going on, write down God’s will for it to be passed down to later generations.
We see this in Joshua 1.8 where they’re asked, They’re told that they’re to meditate upon this book and to learn this book.
So in the same way that the Mosaic Covenant added something that none of the other ones had, let’s put our minds into the ancient Near Eastern context, or more so, the ancient Israelite context, far more important, and ask, what does it add? It adds a certain amount of stability. It adds a centrality. And it also causes, ultimately, the Davidic covenant is going to cause the arc of the covenant not to be moving around anymore. It’s going to have centrality for worship and for a king. Now, let’s look at 1 Kings 2, 1 through 4, among Opalma Robertson’s key passages. 1 Kings 2, 1 through 4, please.
Keep his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all these things wherever you turn. So that the Lord may carry out his promise, which he spoke concerning me, saying, if your sons are careful of their way, to walk before him in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.
Thank you so much. He sends a little bit of urgency within David there. He wants to get his point across that you have to obey the statutes. You have to obey the commandments, the ordinances, the testimonies. It might seem familiar to talk about statutes, commandments, ordinances, testimonies, for those of you who’ve been studying Psalm 19, because it’s just all these different words for God’s law. Now, What I’d like to ask just a couple of questions, really with last week in mind.
Last week, we studied dispensationalism. We talked about dispensationalism. And we tried to be as nice as we can to our brothers and sisters. in the dispensationalist camp, but what we concluded was that the different dispensations, the different time periods within a dispensational understanding are There’s not a lot of interplay between all of these dispensations. What we have on their understanding of redemptive history is that we have one dispensation and then that ends, it seems to end, and then we have another dispensation that takes over with different laws and different rules for each time period, for each dispensation. we could say that in one sense each dispensation in a dispensational understanding is like a hermetically sealed box what happens in that box or what is in a certain box is locked up and once we move to the next time period that box is kind of like locked up put in the ground, what are those boxes that we, it’s like a time capsule, you know, you just put it away and it’s left there for, just to be remembered, maybe. That’s the understanding that we get from a dispensationalist. There’s just a full cutting off of a time period and moving into the next time period.
But we don’t see that in a covenantal understanding, I think. That’s why many of us are here, because we have a covenantal understanding where we would say that there is an organic unity to the covenants. Do you see an organic unity or an organic working of other covenants with the Davidic covenants when we read what we just read, 1 Kings 2, 1 through 4. Does anyone see any? Hymns or words or anything that would help us to think of a different covenant. Yes Doris. Yes. That was the easy one. No, well done even still. Thank you.
Yes, the law of Moses specifically mentioned also statutes, commands, ordinances, testimonies, all of these things. So what we would understand is that we have one covenant and then built upon that we have another one. built upon that we have another one, and on and on, all of these covenants pointing to Jesus Christ. That’s the way we would understand it, whereas our brothers and sisters in many understandings of, really the majority understanding would say, that they would just make way for the next one, one covenant or one dispensation after another. But we see a building, a building up, all of it pointing to one person, pointing to Jesus Christ. So we want to see that there’s an organic unity, there’s interplay between the covenants, They’re all working together ultimately to point to Christ and then at the end we see that Christ brings about a newer and better covenant when we read the book of Hebrews.
It really does take over. As we talked in past weeks, there’s a sense in which all of the covenants still do play into the time period that we are in. but we are not in the old covenant because we’re part of a newer and better covenant, which the book of Hebrews so eloquently demonstrates for us. So we should look at 1 Kings 8, 15, and 20, if we may.
Let me just say what’s going on here. We have Solomon, he is praying. This is a part of his long, long prayer at the dedication of the temple. So, if you would, please, 15 and 20. 15, and he said, it must be the Lord God of Israel, has spoken to the sons of Israel, and has fulfilled his saying. Is that 20? Yes, please. So the Lord has fulfilled his word, which he spoke, and I have filled the position of my father, David, and the sons of Israel, as the Lord promised, and I have built a temple for the name of the Lord God of Israel.
Thank you. What we see here is an appeal to God’s covenant word also becomes the hope for future generations. We see a little bit of this building of past generations in here, but more so in what we just read. This covenant and this temple that is built for the Lord is intended for future generations to be blessed, that all the nations ultimately would be blessed by this temple, but how much more so by this one person, the king and his offspring.
Who has read the Book of Kings recently? Anybody? How would you summarize the Book of Kings? If you were to just say, hey, what’s the book of Kings about? David, any thought? Very good. Is there a lot of repetition? Does it seem like there’s a lot of repetition when you read the book of Kings? at least on a first reading certainly but we see it we we see a repetition of messing up yes what we what we see is If you read the book of Kings, it’s really interesting. It can be a little daunting the first time. Eventually, if you read a second or third time, it really begins to make sense. But the first time, it seems like there was a king, and he was X number of years old when he came in to rule, and he ruled this many years.
And he committed the sins of so-and-so, of Rehoboam or of Jeroboam. What’s that? Yes. I’m forgetting which one. There was a good one. Anyways. He’s referring back to really one of the first kings who starts the downward spiral. We see that in Israel there aren’t any really good kings. They’re all bad. And in Judah, most of them are bad. I think six end up being good. But it’s just kind of repetitions.
It’s giving us just the broad stroke so that we can see the history of that time, and it gives a long amount of history. Why do you think it is like that? Why is it structured that way? It’s kind of structured like the Book of Acts. The Old and New Testaments are both structured in such a way that it gives us broad strokes. The Book of Acts gives us a whole lot of things going on. and gives us the big picture, and then the epistles kind of fill in different portions of that. In the same way, if we were to read Chronicles and Kings, we see the broad stroke, we see the big picture, and then if we read the prophets, both the minor and the major prophets, we see a lot of the filling in of the holes of there, the zeroing in and getting more specific.
But why is it that we have that? Why is it that we have all this long discussion and understanding? Yes? I don’t know if this fits where you’re going, but when I read some of these narratives, I just kind of conclude that man can’t save himself, that God is holy, and I think of the birth that creation brings and frustration. Yes Yes, I think you’re you you you you’re picking up what I’m putting down you’re you’re you know where I’m going Yes Certainly.
We see that, as it says in Romans, all day I hold my hand out to a disobedient people. And I think that’s Romans 11. But back to what John said. We have this glorious promise to a glorious king, David. that he’s going to have a son to sit on the throne. And it’s really beautiful. It’s wonderful. And a lot of the other parts of God’s word fill in details about this. So in Judah, in Jerusalem, we have a king who is sitting on the throne.
But doesn’t it leave you longing for something more? when you’re reading Kings. This is really kind of where John Doyle was going. It leave you wanting something more. Think about David. Amazing king, wonderful king, but he was a really bad man in a number of ways. I mean, here he was, a murderer and an adulterer all in one shot. Very difficult to read some of the things that he does. On to the next one, on to the next one.
Glorious son, Solomon, right? I mean, you read it, he seems to have had peace most of his life. We read a lot of what he wrote and what he said through the Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes. We read a lot of things going on under his administration, under him, like the building of a palace for himself that is glorious and just fascinating to read about, building of a temple which is also glorious and fascinating to read about when we see what’s really going on there.
But doesn’t Solomon leave us desiring something more? It’s like you’ve had dinner, but it’s not enough. There’s a king there, The covenant is fulfilled in one sense. There’s a king sitting on the throne, but there’s something more that is desired. Now, how does the Book of Kings end? The Books of Kings end. Go with me, if you would, to 2 Kings 25, starting at 27. And Mrs. Taylor, would you be so kind to read three verses, four verses? Starting at 2 Kings 25, 27 through 30. This is a strange way to end a book.
I wouldn’t end a book like this, but God has his reasons. Go ahead. in the twelfth month on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Abul-Meredeth, king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, released Jehoiachin, king of Judah, from prison. And he spoke kindly to him, and set the throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon. And Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes, Thank you.
So that’s the end. Is that a happy ending or a sad ending? If you say, I don’t know, that’s okay. It’s kind of mysterious the way that it ends, isn’t it? You just, okay, so what does that mean? So here’s this king, and he seems to, he’s still in prison in a sense, but he’s given mercies. Now, just back up, where are we in this time period?
As the prophets have been saying, you need to obey the laws of God. And if you don’t, there’s going to be punishment. And even Moses wrote about this at the very end of Deuteronomy at about 27, 28 or so. He talks about blessings if you’re king and if your people obey the law in the land, and curses if you disobey God in the land, you’ll be cast out of the land. The prophecies are coming true at this point, and we see a change within the prophets. They go from saying, obey the Lord, to eventually where they’ll say, especially in Jeremiah, but other places, Habakkuk, obey the wicked king. Obey the wicked king when he comes, because God’s will is that these people would be punished, covenantally punished for what they have done wrong, which is to defile the land with all of their idolatry.
So that’s where we find this. We find at the end of the book of Kings, the end of the books of Chronicles, of the second Chronicles rather, somewhat similar thing going on. They’re taken out of the land. Babylon owns them now. But then we have this strange thing going on, where here he is, he’s let out of prison, and he’s able to eat at the king’s table.
I might just give a couple thoughts on this. Basically, that God gives covenant mercies to those who he has made promises to, even when they have been disobedient and they are in prison. You were going to? but his mercy is to serve or to recline at the table of a man whose own name is evil. Yes. I might check, though, to make sure. I think that that’s more just the way that it is. Yes, and he certainly is evil even though God says you must obey him.
What are we left with at the end of the book of Kings? Pick up on what John has said. we’re wanting something more. All these kings, as wonderful as some of them were, and as obedient as some of them were, Josiah, some of them do an okay job, but we’re desiring something more. So, is the Davidic covenant conditional or unconditional? Just a question, is it conditional or unconditional?
Well, Robertson takes a stab at this and he says that it’s both. And I think this is how he would say that it is. We’ve talked about typology, that which points to the eschaton, points to the fullness of time in which Christ comes. We would say, I think most covenant theologians would say, though not all, and I don’t want to misrepresent, there’s many who would not, but would say that we have a dual fulfillment, we have dual fulfillment of God’s promises and also of many of the covenants. In this sense, God makes this covenant with David right here, and there’s an immediate fulfillment in Solomon and all of the others. And there is the conditional aspect of it, conditioned upon obedience, perpetual obedience to stay in the land, But ultimately, it’s pointing to something or someone even greater. It is pointing to, well, there’s not enough space there. It’s pointing to the eschatological king. Like many things are going on in the Old Testament, I could list where there is an immediate fulfillment, and then there’s a long-range fulfillment.
How is the Davidic covenant fulfilled in Christ? Think about Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost. He preaches fabulous sermon about the redemptive history that has been leading up to this point. He preaches from the Psalms. And he preaches from Psalm 16, talking about God will not let my body or my soul to decay, not leaving it in the grave.
Was that talking about David? Well, not really, because he seems to say we know where David’s grave is. I don’t think we know that anymore, but he seemed to know. But he says, this is ultimately talking about the one who died, who was raised from the dead, and who was exalted to the right hand of God.
He says in Acts 2.36, he says, therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ. This Jesus, whom you have crucified. That’s just one passage, but if we read a lot of our New Testament, we see that there is an understanding of the exaltation of Christ, who is the King. The Son of David, yet David’s Lord, taking one of my favorite hymns, but also just taking the words and the idea from Psalm 101. There we have Christ, who is unconditionally, ultimately the eschatological king. that all of this is pointing for.
He’s the one that we’ve been longing for. We’re really longing for him with David on the throne. We’re longing for it with Solomon on the throne. And all this long book of Kings, I would love to preach through the book of Kings. I just wonder, the application might be, as we preach through every king, to say, we’re longing for another one. We’re longing for another one. Because that’s really the gist of what the Book of Kings is giving us. That this king, as great, as mighty as he is, Solomon, and all of his descendants who sit on the throne, they leave us wanting more.
And it’s the same with Jehoiachin. Interestingly, just a side item, if we have two minutes left, I have a friend who is doing a PhD at Wheaton, very selective, Ph.D. program and he’s doing his Ph.D. on Jehoiachin because he’s not satisfied with any of the explanations, ultimately. I think O. Palmer Robertson really gets to it, but this is, he’s one of those, let’s just say this friend of mine, he’s a ten-talent man. He reads his Hebrew very well, better than I, and he’s I love to read Hebrew, but this guy, he reads it like he does English. Anyways, we’ll see what he brings out from his studies of Jehoiachin.
We’ll just end by asking ourselves from our catechism 26. How does Christ execute the office of a king? This is one of my favorite shorter catechism. It just gives me chills sometimes. Does anyone know the answer to that? How does Christ execute the office of a king? Defending us. Yes. Subduing us to Himself. Yes. This is amazing.
The Christ, the King, that the Old Testament is longing for, He subdues us to Himself. He is conquering us. ultimately, and making us His. And then after that, He is conquering all of His and our enemies. Kingship language, taking up Psalm 101 about the footstool, and many places where it talks about He has made the nations His footstool. Beautiful language, the idea that Christ is the exalted King. He is the King that the whole Old Testament is longing for. That’s how it is fulfilled. Many more scripture verses in the New Testament.
We could fill those in, but we’ll have to leave it right there. We’re at 1040. I want to keep to the time mark. All right, just so you know, Mark, God bless his soul, he’s been chiding me, 1040, 1040, because we’ve been going over. Yes, Mark. You know we’re going to go over time if you comment. Yes. Amen. You are correct.
All right, let’s pray. Our gracious heavenly father, we thank you that we have a king who rules both heaven and earth and that we will see him in all of his glory when he comes back to be adored by us, when he comes back with all of his flaming angels. We long to see that day. We thank you that in the meantime, we have a king who gives us great security because he is the king of the nations, all of the nations, have been given to him, because he endured the cross and rose again, and because he is exalted at your right hand. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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