How David’s Life Points us to His Greater Son: 1 Samuel 24, 26; 2 Samuel 18-19; Luke 4; Acts 9
I long resisted having to use reading glasses. But the time came when fine print on a page was just too blurry for me to read. So, quite reluctantly, it was off to visit the eye-doctor. The smallest font of letters and numbers on the eye-test shown on the wall used to be no sweat for me to read. But now, those same letters were too fuzzy for me to read. My eyes needed assistance. One eye remained at 20/20, but the other one failed to pass muster. So, if I wanted to read the small print with clarity, I had to use reading glasses. Ugh.
So, today, I have two pairs of reading glasses. One for reading small print. The other pair, a bit sturdier and able to take punishment, I use to do detail work on restoring classic Ford Mustangs.
I still dislike having to wear glasses to read, but once I put on a pair, the fine print on the page becomes clear. No longer in a fog. Reading glasses made a difference in observing for me.
The same thing happened when I put on a pair of canonical glasses to observe and interpret Scripture. I could see the big picture in Scripture with dramatic, improved clarity. My new vision of Scripture showed that Old and New Testaments were a single unit, one unified story, composed of many smaller stories chained together by previously unseen threads, all driven by one Messianic hope. The canonical glasses shed fresh light on those unseen links in a very long chain leading to the Messiah. Canonical glasses made a huge difference for me.
The Portrait of David
Take the portrait of King David[1], son of Jesse, as just one example. By donning a pair of canonical glasses, the threads linking him with both Jesus and in Luke Paul in Acts came to light. So, did the threads linking King Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin in the Old Testament, with Saul of Tarsus, of the tribe of Benjamin, in the book of Acts. The portrait of King David under the Mosaic Covenant, in other words, foreshadows the depiction of King Jesus and his temporary successor, the apostle Paul, under the New Covenant.
Observe three examples of how King David, of the tribe of Judah, foreshadows and prepares us for King Jesus, of the tribe of Judah.
1. The Portrait of King David and the death of his son Absalom, points ahead to the death of Jesus, David’s better Son.
Absalom, David’s son, attempted a coup to remove his father from the throne of Israel. The coup came to a head in a major battle between the armies of Absalom and King David (2 Sam 18-19). Here is the account.
6 Then the army marched out to the field to fight against Israel. The battle took place in the forest of Ephraim. 7 The army of Israel was defeated there by David’s men. The slaughter there was great that day—20,000 soldiers were killed. 8 The battle there was spread out over the whole area, and the forest consumed more soldiers than the sword devoured that day.
9 Then Absalom happened to come across David’s men. Now as Absalom was riding on his[f] mule, it went under the branches of a large oak tree. His head got caught in the oak and he was suspended between the sky and the ground while the mule he had been riding kept going…
14 Joab replied, “I will not wait around like this for you!” He took three spears in his hand and thrust them into the heart of Absalom while he was still alive in the heart of the oak tree. 15 Then ten soldiers who were Joab’s armor-bearers struck Absalom and finished him off.
33 The king then became very upset. He went up to the upper room over the gate and wept. As he went, he said, “My son, Absalom! My son, my son, Absalom! If only I could have died in your place! Absalom, my son, my son!”
2 Sam 18:6-9, 14-15, 33.
It is not fortuitous or just coincidence that Absalom, the son of David, dies hanging from a tree, suspended between the sky and the ground, his side then pierced by a soldier, using his spear. The tragic story of David and his rebellious son Absalom, foreshadows the death of Jesus, the Son of David, who also dies on a tree, suspended between the sky and the ground, his side pierced by a soldier, using his spear.
David’s mournful cry at the tragic news of his son’s death on a tree—“if only I could have died in your place”—foreshadows the substitutionary death of Jesus, the better Son of David, on a tree. Observe Peter’s interpretation of the death of Jesus’ body on a tree as the place where he bore our sins:
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we may cease from sinning and live for righteousness. By his wounds you were healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have turned back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls. 1 Pet 2:24-25
A canonical approach to the Bible shines fresh light on the multiple links connecting the portrait of Absalom, the son of David, with the depiction of Jesus, the better Son of David. Absalom’s tragic death on a tree, ending the war of rebellion against King David, foreshadows the death of Jesus on a tree (Acts 5:30-32; 13:13-14), providing the death stroke to Satan’s rebellion against God. The death of the son of David on a tree in the Old prepares us for the death of a far better Son of David on a tree in the New.
Let’s examine a second example of how a canonical approach to the portrait of David intentionally foreshadows the depiction of Jesus and prepares us for him.
2. The portrait of David’s merciful approach to murderous King Saul, prior to his ascension to the throne, points ahead to Jesus’ merciful intervention in the life of murderous Saul of Tarsus.
King Saul started out well (1 Sam. 10). He listened to the voice of the prophet Samuel. The issue of whose voice one listens to is one of the main unifying themes of Scripture and determining criteria of one’s condition before God. While Saul started out well, he eventually he stopped listening to the prophet and began listening to the people (1 Sam. 13; 15). It was not long before his true colors as a seed of the Serpent started to show (Gen 3:15). He began to persecute young David, heir to the throne of Israel by God’s choice. Twice, he set out with a detachment of warriors in order to kill David (1 Sam. 24, 26).
Observe how both conversations between hostile King Saul (of the tribe of Benjamin) and David echoes the future conversation between King Jesus, the Son of David, and hostile Saul of Tarsus, also of the tribe of Benjamin):
*David to King Saul: ‘Who are you persecuting?’[2] 1 Sam. 24:15;
*David to King Saul: ‘Why is my lord persecuting his servant?’1 Sam 26:18.
* Jesus, Son of David, to Saul of Tarsus: Why are you persecuting me?
Acts 9:4; 22:7; 26:14
The verbs “to persecute” in the Greek Old Testament (LXX) are the same verb as used in Acts 9:4 in the Greek New Testament. The parallel use of the verbs is striking and cannot be dismissed as coincidence or chance. Luke intentionally wrote the story of how Jesus, the Son of David, mercifully intervened in Saul’s murderous plans, as a reenactment of David’s merciful treatment of King Saul. Both Sauls, on their way to oppose God’s redemptive program, heard the same question from a royal David. King Saul foreshadows Saul of Tarsus. David foreshadows Jesus, the Son of David.
King Saul asked, “Is that your voice, David my son”?[3] (1 Sam 24:17, LXX). Saul of Tarsus also heard the voice of Jesus (Acts 9:4; 22:7; 26:14).
Both King Saul and Saul of Tarsus began their journeys with murderous intentions (1 Sam. 24:1-2; 26:1-2; Acts 9:1). And both King Saul and Saul of Tarsus heard voices, the voice of David and the voice of Jesus, the Son of David, asking why they were persecuting them.
Up to this point in the stories, the parallel accounts of the two Sauls appear very similar. But afterwards, the two Saul stories diverge at this interchange.
As a result of the merciful response by David, Saul appears to change his ways. But the aftermath of the interchange shows otherwise. Rather than listen to the voice of the Lord or the prophet Samuel, instead he listens to the voice of a witch, receives food from her, and as a result of his dalliance with magic and witchcraft, God puts him to death the next day (1 Sam. 28-31), and like Goliath before him, loses his head. The tall guys in Samuel lose their heads (Gen 3:15).
Saul of Tarsus, on the other hand, listens to the voice of Jesus[4] and responds in faith-obedience, goes without food for three days, and undergoes repentance, a change of ways (Acts 9:9, 19b-22; Gal 1:13-17; 1 Tim 1:12-18). The resulting difference between the two Sauls is striking and undoubtedly reinforces Luke’s apologetic case for Saul who became Paul. Despite the merciful intervention by David, the seed of the Messiah, King Saul refused to repent and change. But as a result of Jesus’ merciful intervention, Saul of Tarsus changed dramatically.
David’s intervention in King Saul’s murderous plans in 1 Samuel 24 and 26 is a harbinger of King Jesus, the Son of David’s intervention of Saul of Tarsus’ murderous intentions in Acts 9 (Acts 22, 26). King Saul prepares us for a better Saul to come. David prepares us for a better David to come, Jesus, the Son of David, born in the city of David (Luke 2).
Let’s examine a third example of how the portrait of David looks ahead to the portrait of Jesus and Paul.
3. The portrait of David’s escape from death through a window in a palace wall, prior to kingship, points ahead to Jesus’ escape from death through a window in a wall of people, and Paul’s escape from death through a window in a city wall.
The stories of Rahab, the Jericho prostitute, Michal, the wife of David, Jesus, and Paul are usually not viewed as related or connected. Yet, when we compare the stories for similarities, the canonical, parallel links come into sharp focus.
At the outset of his public ministry, Jesus’ escaped death on a cliff at the hands of his enemies in Nazareth by passing through an opening in a wall of people (Luke 4:30). At the outset of his public ministry, Paul escaped death by the hands of his enemies by being let down by a rope through a window in a city wall (Acts 9:25; 2 Cor 11:33). But Jesus and Paul, of course, were not the first ones to escape death from enemies by passing through a window or being let down a wall by a rope.
The experiences of Jesus in the Third Gospel and Paul in Acts echo the prior account of the two Jewish spies sent out by Joshua to investigate the land of Canaan and near-death escape experience of David. By means of a rope, Rahab, in faith, let the two Jewish spies down through a window in the city wall of Jericho to escape death at the hands of the enemy king (Joshua 2:15; Heb 11:31).
David, too, was pursued by Saul his jealous enemy, but escaped death by being let down through a window in the king’s palace by his wife Michal (1 Sam. 19:8-13).
The escape from death of the two spies in Jericho and of David through a window in a palace, as the seed of the Messiah, points forward to Jesus, the Son of David’s escape through a window in a wall of people, while Paul’s escape through a window in the wall of a city, as Jesus’ successor, reminds us of Rahab and the two spies, but also points us back to Jesus.
The escape through a window is another example of shadow and fulfillment. David’s escape was the shadow. Jesus’ escape was the reality. And Paul’s escape was an additional reality, tying him to Jesus, being used by Luke as an apologetic defense of Paul as a genuine apostle.
Luke and Acts are the Record of the Fulfillment of Prior History
Luke shows us that the stories of King David of the tribe of Judah in the Hebrew Bible are Messianic, pointing ahead to and brought to fulfillment in the stories of Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, Luke unveils the issue of fulfillment and frontloads his purpose in the preamble to his story of Jesus:
1 Now many have undertaken to compile an account of the events that have been brought to fulfillment among us, 2 like the accounts[e] passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning. 3 So, it seemed good to me as well, because I have followed all things carefully from the beginning, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know for certain the things you were taught.
Luke 1:1-4
Luke explains that the events which occurred to Jesus in the Third Gospel and to Paul in Acts, didn’t just happen. They were not coincidences, nor were they simply history, or random events. These specific stories were divinely foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Foreshadowing anticipates fulfillment in the future and not mere repetition of the past. Jesus was not merely repeating what David did and what he said. Jesus was the intended fulfillment of what David did and what he said.
Jesus’ question to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, “why are you persecuting me?” in Acts 9, was not merely repeating what David said to King Saul in 1 Samuel 24 and 26. Jesus himself, as Son of David, was bringing to fulfillment the shadow that the prior story of David and King Saul provided.
The actual fulfillment of the Old Testament stories of David coming to pass in the life of Jesus and Saul of Tarsus would develop certainty in the heart of Theophilus (Luke 1:1-4). He and others readers, could be sure that the stories of Jesus and Saul of Tarsus were not mere random events, not simply history, nor were they just “acts,” but had been prefigured centuries before. The stories in Luke and Acts did not occur by chance or coincidence. The stories in Luke-Acts were the product of God’s unseen, but powerful, guiding hand in redemptive history.
David’s Story was a Harbinger
The experiences in the Old Testament portrait of David were harbingers, then, mere shadows of real, future events, guaranteed to be fulfilled in the lives of Jesus and Paul. To put in even stronger terms, what occurred in the experiences of Jesus in Luke and Paul in Acts were not just history, or random events, or due to chance, coincidence, or luck. Each event in their respective biographies were the intended fulfillment of past events in David’s experiences. The stories in David’s life, therefore, prefigured future history, were divinely pre-ordained, and had to be fulfilled in the future. That’s right. The parallel events connecting David to Jesus’ and Paul’s experiences had to happen. And behind each event in the experiences of Jesus and Saul/Paul, was the unseen hand of God, transforming prior shadows into current realities.
God is a Work in his World
When we recognize how the past foreshadows the future, how David foreshadowed Jesus, the Son of David, how King Saul foreshadowed Saul, how Absalom the son of David, who hung on a tree, foreshadowed a better Son of David, who hung on a tree, and that the shadows actually become reality in history, we can be certain that God and his plan are at work in the history.
History has a redemptive goal toward which it is headed under God’s sovereign hand. That goal has already been established and reached in the mind of God who dwells in eternity. The goal only remains to unfold and become a reality, in human history, one event after another event, year after year, century after century, guided by His hand.
This World is God’s World Alone
By viewing the stories in the Old and New Testament together as “shadow and fulfillment,” we can recognize this world is God’s world alone. This is my Father’s world. God’s world is a workshop in which His redemptive will is accomplished, regardless of human rebellion, national resistance, or efforts to the contrary. Despite resistance and hostility to God’s redemptive plan in Jesus Christ, despite the efforts of people like murderous King Saul or Saul of Tarsus, His redemptive will not be deterred and cannot fail.
This is my Father’s world:
O let us not forget,
that though the wrong is great and strong,
God is the ruler yet.
Theophilus, to whom Luke wrote both Luke (Lk. 1:3) and Acts (Acts 1:1), by observing how the shadows in the Old Testament became a living reality in the lives of Jesus and Paul in the New, could read Luke’s stories and thus be certain about what he had been taught (Luke 1:4).
We, too, can be certain about what we have been taught about Jesus when we view the Bible through a canonical lens. The canonical lens provides new clarity for our eyes to see the repeated patterns of shadow and fulfillment, a pattern that begins in Genesis 1 and run through to the end of John’ Revelation of Jesus.
David’s Portrait: In Sum
The story of Absalom, the rebellious son of David, who died, hanging by his head from a tree, and whose body was pierced by a soldier’s spear, anticipates fulfillment in the story of Jesus, the better Son of David, and the Son of God, who died hanging from a tree, and whose body was pierced by a soldier’s spear. Jesus’ death on a tree in Luke and described by Peter and Paul in Acts (Acts 5, 13) was not a mere repetition. His death on a tree brought Absalom’s death on a tree to fulfillment. God’s redemptive will in Christ, anticipated in Absalom’s rebellion, was brought to fulfillment in Christ, regardless of human efforts to the contrary.
The story of King Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, persecutor of David, God’s anointed choice for Israel’s temporary King, anticipates fulfillment in the story of Saul of Tarsus, of the tribe of Benjamin, persecutor of Jesus, the Greater Son of David. Saul of Tarsus in Acts 9 (Acts 22, 26) was not merely repeating the actions of King Saul (1 Samuel 24, 26). Saul of Tarsus was fulfilling the shadow King Saul provided. The world in which King Saul and Saul of Tarsus lived is God’s workshop, where His redemptive will rolls on undeterred, not able to be defeated, even by the destructive efforts of murderous men.
The story of David’s escape from death through a window in Saul’s palace, anticipates fulfillment of the story of Jesus’ escape through a wall of people on a cliff in Nazareth (Luke 4), and Paul’s escape from death through a window in the wall of Damascus (Acts 11). The stories of Jesus and Paul do show repetition of David’s escape with variation. But more importantly, they bring to fulfillment the prior shadow of David escaping death from Saul through a window.
The Benefits of a Canonical Approach to the Bible
Do you see the benefits of approaching the Bible from a canonical standpoint? We can enjoy deep confidence in the unity of and messianic hope in Scripture. We can be certain of the future of God’s redemptive program, despite hostile efforts to the contrary. We can enjoy hope for our own tomorrows. God’s guiding hand is underneath what we all do and experience each day.
We can understand why the Old Testament provides us with so many stories. These stories are shadows that point us ahead to future realities, tomorrow’s events.
We can Anticipate what God will do in future history based upon what he has done in the past. We can be certain that our faith in Jesus Christ as David’s Greater Son, our Savior, our Lord, and our King, is anchored in historical truth. We can trust and have confidence in God’s inspired, written Word (2 Tim 3:16-17; Luke 24:25-27; 44).
Observe the words Jesus spoke to his fearful and discouraged disciples on the afternoon of his resurrection from the dead. He was explaining to their fearful and confused hearts how the entire Hebrew Scripture, in its tripartite shape, including his death and resurrection, had been foreshadowed in their own Bible (Old Testament) and, that he had spoken to them earlier about these same events. Apparently, they were not listening carefully to him earlier, or the truth he had taught them went over their heads. He assures them now, that his death and resurrection, were not a surprise or the product of chance or good luck. The stories of the past, recorded in their own Bible, pointed ahead to his life, and had to be fulfilled:
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses {the Pentateuch} and the prophets {Joshua—Malachi} and the Psalms {Psalms –Chronicles}[5] must be fulfilled.” (Lk. 24:44)
Yup, had to be fulfilled. Non-negotiable. Absolutely necessary.
Unlike so many evangelical scholars today, Jesus had no problem finding himself in the Hebrew Bible. He viewed it messianically. It was written canonically. He read it and interpreted it canonically. When we read it with canonical glasses, we also will have no problem finding Jesus as Messiah and Savior foreshadowed in the Old and fulfilled in the New.
Get yourself a pair of canonical glasses. Don’t read the Bible or leave home without them.
Thank you for reading.
NOTES:
[1] David is mentioned more times in the New Testament than any other character with the exception of Abram/Abraham.
[2] ὀπίσω τίνος καταδιώκεις σύ; 1 Sam 24:15, LXX; τί τοῦτο καταδιώκει ὁ κύριός μου ὀπίσω τοῦ δούλου αὐτοῦ; 1 Sam. 26:18, LXX
[3] (καὶ εἶπεν Σαουλ ῏Η φωνή σου αὕτη; 1 Sam 24:17, LXX).
[4] Queen Esther is portrayed as a better Eve; she listens to the voice of Mordecai, God’s spokesman, and saves the nation of Israel from destruction. Rahab, also a better Eve, listened to the voice of God rather than the king of Jericho and unlike Adam, saved her family from destruction. Abigail, also portrayed as a better Eve, listened to the voice of God rather than her husband’s voice, and saved David from blood guilt. Mary of Bethany is portrayed by Luke as the model disciple, an illustration of what it means to love the Lord God, because, unlike Martha, she sat at the feet of Jesus, listening to him (Luke 10: 38-42). Mary illustrates the posture of a disciple of Jesus, sitting at his feet, listening to his voice.
[5] The third section of the Hebrew Bible is sometimes called “The Psalms” because it stands first in the third section. Normally, the third section is called “The Writings” or “Ketubim” and contains Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles.