This past Sunday (July 6) I introduced our summer sermon series, which is on the life of David. My first point, before we looked into the details of David’s life, was to reflect on David’s part in the “Big Story,” as I called it. The Big Story is the unfolding of God’s plan of redemption, told from Genesis through Revelation. For me it is a source of great joy and encouragement to be reminded that our Bible is a supernaturally given book that is totally true and trustworthy. If the Big Story is divinely given, then the details and the wisdom can be trusted as well. We may have problems understanding a book that was given in a way that it speaks into dozens of eras and cultures, but that is our problem and challenge, not a problem with the Bible itself.
And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:30-33)
Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? (Matthew 22:41-44, quoting Ps. 110)
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him, [quote from Psalm 16]. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ … For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, [quote from Psalm 110]. (Acts 2:22-35)
Notice in particular how David is regarded as a key to the story of Jesus. David’s date is about 1000 BC, which places him mid-way between Abraham, who was given the covenant that he would bless all nations, and Jesus, who was that blessing. The three passages I selected and quoted above are at the time of Jesus. When Mary is told she would have a child by the Holy Spirit, the angel identifies who that child is by saying he would be given the throne of his father David. In the second passage, Jesus challenges the Pharisees by first asking whose son the Messiah was and they immediately responded that he was to be the son of David. This idea of the centrality of David was obviously common knowledge. Jesus then quoted a Psalm of David (Ps. 110) to confound them. I’m struck too by the fact that in introducing the biblical quotation, Jesus calls attention to the fact that David, “in the Spirit” or “by the Spirit” said the following. Isn’t that a perfect explanation of the divine inspiration of Scripture—human authors speaking “in the Spirit.”?
The third passage is from Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit came on the church in power. Again, it is striking that to prove to a Jewish audience that Jesus is the endpoint of God’s Big Story, he cites David as the key person to listen to.
There are many things to be learned from a study of David in terms of both his strong points and his failures. But the first lesson is David as an instrument of God’s great plan. In that sense that call is not to somehow imitate David but just to be in wonder as we think about the greatness of God and his plan.
To be continued …
