When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 2 Samuel 7:12-13
Yea, right.
From what might be considered any sane perspective this extravagant kind of claim is absurd. Are we to believe that in the same breath which alludes to David’s death there is attached the promise of a never-ending coronet?
The king will die. David’s days are numbered. He will go the way of his father’s before him. Come on. Every succeeding generation faces the same.
Crowns and thrones will perish, kingdoms rise and wane.
Soon enough David will be out of it. He’ll be long gone. What can he do then? Can he patrol his kingdom from the grave or administer state affairs then? Can he counsel his distant descendants? Rule and authority expire once you’re gone to your crypt The cold, hard fact is not what might happen if you die. There’s no “if” about it. God's promise to David through the prophet Nathan is prefixed by the surety, “When you die…”
Presumably the best thing ever to happen to David would come after his death.
Yea, right.
The fantastic promises David is given here would be something to see if David could be around to see them come true. Then he could corroborate whether God is on the level. But God's ultimatum concerns a distant future beyond David’s time, entirely beyond David’s strength, and definitely beyond David’s control. David will have nothing to contribute. He may be a virile, procreative hunk today, but soon enough the sap runs dry if you know what I mean.
And he’s going to have an offspring from his own body after he’s dead?!
Yea, right.
That’s like saying a branch will come forth from a dead stump bearing fruit. That’s like saying a parched desert will become a spring of water. That’s like saying the eyes of a blind man will be opened or the ears of the deaf unstopped. That’s like saying the tongue of the mute will sing for joy. That’s like saying a young goat will sleep between the paws of a leopard or a toddler can safely play over the hole of a cobra without harm. (Isaiah 11:1, Psalm 107:35, Isaiah 35:5-6, Isaiah 11:6-8)
Such promises cut diametrically across every conclusion based on human reason, philosophy, or experience. There is no scarcity of folks who, to put it mildly, regard it insane.
One would have to rely on God's Word alone to think differently. One would have to trust that God is not only faithful but capable of the impossible. One would have to set aside all sovereignty of human reason, human biology, and highly reputed academic judgment. One would have to bank entirely on the immaculate character and pledged Word of God.
And God says …
Yea, right.
We are to simply to believe God’s plain word? At face value?
Yea, right.
The Lord says, “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”
Yea, right.
And God doesn’t blink. When David actually believes this unabashed promise, God doesn’t retreat. He means it. God doesn’t think His declaration lays it on a little thick. He says exactly what He intends to say and attaches His own name to it! Nowhere in this promise is there anything “conditional.” This truly is a massive, God-sized oath and undertaking.
Would you want anything less? Would you want the future to depend either on what you leave behind or can spawn once you’re dead? Do you want to gamble on your own machismo? Frankly, there are a lot of people who figure just that way. They’ll just handle whatever they must after they’re dead.
Yea, right.
So, God reduces to nothing our faculties and let’s the entire promise hang on His own triple utterance, “I will raise up your offspring … I will establish his kingdom, and … I will establish his throne forever.”
God speaks for two reasons. One is so David will have a binding security in which to believe. David may have wealth, regal weight, political gravitas, and all the apparatus with which a great man may surround himself. But he, like us, needs what only God can supply.
But secondly and most astonishingly, God speaks to obligate Himself. He makes Himself accountable. We have the documentation. The Word of God is not a shot in the dark that suckers like we Christians are to swallow without a lick of sense. The Word of God is, well, the Word of God! This Word formed the universe. And this Word is delivered to this universe in the flesh of David’s own Son through the Virgin Mary.
God says a man of David’s own seed will be sent by God to establish a kingdom never to end. It will not be any ordinary kingdom. It won't be formed by a conquering army or ruled by clout. It will not have boarders or bastions against other comparative rival kingdoms. It will be the Kingdom upon which God has placed His own Name. He encumbers Himself. He takes the whole load. He commits Himself. He bids of David nothing. It’s God's reputation on the line.
And when David responds, “You have said, ‘I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” (Ps. 89:3-4), David is clearly confessing on the grounds of God's own promise …
Yea! Right!
And, oh, by the way -- what God foretold did take place, exactly as He said. David’s Son, Jesus, was born a child and yet a King. His kingdom has been established without David’s prayer or ours, and of His kingdom there will be no end.
Yea?
Yes!
Right?
Right!
