“The Fall of David”

Sunday, January 07, 2024

Our classes at River Ridge have just picked up in the latter half of 2 Samuel, which is a difficult portion of the Bible to study.  Nearly everyone knows of King David, and most Christians know he served to foreshadow Christ himself.  As such, we have a soft spot in our hearts for David, and—quite rightly—we remember the good things about the character and actions of the man after God’s own heart (1Sa 13.14).  But not many of these good things are to be found, in this part of his story!  Here, we see his struggles and failures.

This whole business began, of course, when David sinned with Bathsheba, then compounded his transgression by trying to cover it up, eventually having her husband, Uriah, unjustly killed.  While this was certainly not the only time in David’s life when he sinned, it’s the one that most stands out, as we read in a later portion of Israel’s story,

David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

(1 Kings 15.5)

Through Nathan the prophet, God prescribed consequences for David’s sin:

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.’”

(2 Samuel 12.11-12)

And what happened?  From this point forward in David’s reign, he behaved as if morally paralyzed by his own failure.  This was a man who once saw clearly to pronounce immediate sentence on men who claimed to have done David favors by performing a coup de grace on King Saul in once case, and putting his northern, rival king to death in another.  Now, in response to an incestuous rape, a grotesque transgression of God’s law and social norms within his own household, David “was very angry” (2Sa 13.21), but did not act to pursue justice in his very own family!  The text does not expressly tell us that David had lost confidence in his own judgment, or that he now felt incapable of decreeing any legitimate penalty, due to his keen awareness of his own sins; but that’s a very reasonable explanation for this surprising pattern of behavior.

As a direct result of David’s inaction following this incident, enemies began to arise against him.  The first of these was Absalom, the full brother of Tamar, the rape victim.  As God had predicted, so it transpired.  Absalom’s rebellion, ending with the young man’s death and immense grief for David, was a fitting punishment, considering his own crime.  He had tarnished the sanctity of the marriage between Uriah and Bathsheba, not to mention his own.  He was willing to demolish a household modeled after God’s design, for the sake of fleeting gratification.  Now, the same brand of destruction came to his own household, from the same root cause.  As the account continues, there is more turmoil in David’s realm, which once had been been the picture of a wise and benevolent monarch with his loyal subjects.  What started so well, was much degraded by David’s final years.

Why?  The root cause, of course, was sin.  David repented, and God forgave his disgraceful behavior toward Bathsheba and Uriah.

David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”

(2 Samuel 12.13)

Yet there were consequences in the physical world that reached much farther than David could have imagined, when he “sent messengers and took [Bathsheba], and she came to him, and he lay with her” (2Sa 11.4). 

It’s worth pausing on this point for a moment, to take note of the reason for this.  It is not, as we may have thought, that the spiritual realm is soft and fuzzy, but incapable of affecting the real, physical world.  Rather, God’s judgment is both real and final; but the broken world, tainted as it is by our sins, cannot measure up to that spiritual ideal.  It’s the physical world that’s defective.  God had cast away David’s guilt and pronounced him blameless; yet we humans struggle to see clearly through God’s eyes, and for us the memory of sin remains, leading to a cascade of further troubles in this world.  There’s a lesson here for us: no matter what evil you’ve done, forgiveness is available—but for the present, you still must live with the consequences, many of which will prove to be spiritual challenges in and of themselves!

So what should we do?  Don’t sin, in the first place!  But if you already have, then seek forgiveness and reconciliation, both in heaven and on earth.  Then, buckle up and face your temporal consequences, clinging to the hope of an eternal reward.

David’s fall serves mostly to illustrate why Jesus is better.  He committed no sin, and gave us no reason to be disappointed in him, or to turn toward another leader.  Despite partaking of our fleshly weakness, he maintains his ability, his authority, and his confidence to pronounce judgment and keep his house in order!  That’s great, when you’re innocent; but terrifying when you’re the transgressor!  Psalm 2, written by David (Ac 4.25), but about Christ, tells us how to position ourselves:

Serve the Lord with fear,

        and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son,

        lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,

        for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

(Psalm 2.11-12)

Jeremy Nettles

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