THE DIVINE END IN RECOVERY
THE DIVINE END IN RECOVERY
I want to speak briefly, beloved brethren, as to the manner in which exercises are completed with David at this particular juncture.
The section which we read from, and what surrounds it, is a very humbling one, a section in which David is not a type of Christ, for we could never attach sin to Christ. David is a type of any one of us, and he is also a type, as the king, of what we have to face in all that is around us in the breakdown of what is authoritative. David is a remarkable man. The work of God in him is remarkable, and this section of the Scriptures affords much help in relation to how David is helped through prophetic ministry and goes forward in relation to divine objectives; not that he is saved from further breakdown, for the succeeding chapters show what is possible even after being helped wonderfully through prophetic service. We are all to learn from David how to walk humbly with God, for there is no knowing with any one of us where we may finish up if we get out of the hand of God. David had known what it was to celebrate victories in the preceding chapters. In the 10th chapter we read of a remarkable victory. How he was helped of God in the victories. We read, too, of the wonderful way in which he showed grace to Mephibosheth - the kindness of God. All these features with David are to help us to see the necessity of continuing in victory that may have come from God.
David is a man of great feeling. In the second book of Samuel, as the brethren will know, things are very mixed, circumstances extremely testing. All kinds of personalities are projected on to our view; but I do not wish to speak of them in the word which is upon one’s heart, but to draw attention to Christ as He comes into view in Solomon in the completing of David’s exercises in the section from which I have read. It is well to see how, amid all the darkness and gloom in this book, the work of God in David shines out at different intervals; and the prophetic word comes to him in this section. He had been caught off guard and what a fearful sin he fell into! Although he had been conscious in the 10th chapter of remarkable help in victories achieved, in the 11th chapter he is caught off guard; all emphasising the need of holy vigilance with everyone of us that we may be preserved in our relations with God. God’s eye is upon the whole matter. He knows what His work is in every one of us, and He values His work, and we are to value it too. Woe betide anyone who despises the work of God in the least in the assembly! It is a serious thing to make little of the work of God in any city or in any one of the people of God. And God always brings us back basically to His work in us. We can rely on it. There is so much in us that is wholly unreliable, and God would help us in the light of the teaching of this book to face every feature of the man of sin and shame in our souls, that we may get our eyes on the Man that is before God, the Object of His love, the One in whose hands administration cannot break down, as it did in David. It is preserved eternally in the hands of the true Solomon; for this chapter is the great lesson-book for us in the breakdown in regard to administration. David comes to it in his soul through the prophetic word from God; but he comes to it at the end of the book as he goes over the features of God’s King; it is abstractly in his soul. He sees and understands the character of an administration that will never break down as he goes over it in 2 Samuel 23; especially stressing the presence of the Spirit in the one anointed of God. I think we have to make much of that - the presence of the Spirit. Right administration can only be preserved as we understand what is linked with the dignity of the anointing, the dignity of the Spirit. When we fall beneath the level of the anointing we are sure to come to grief. And so David here, as he faces these serious exercises, having been helped through prophetic ministry, is conscious that the hand of God is upon him in the circumstances in which he is. What feelings must have passed through David’s soul at this juncture; but he knew God, he had a knowledge of God that nothing could take away from him. And we have to go back to that. David is brought back to it foundationally, as Psalm 51 shows. His confession here is very brief. There is no enlargement, no embellishment to his confession. As we go over the Psalm we are reminded of the great link he has with God and the sensitiveness that marks him in relation to those links with God, sensitiveness as to the damage done. David here is prostrate, facing in his soul this great matter in which he had been caught. A remarkable thing that such a one as David should be affected in this way!
And then we read that he arises from the earth and washes. There is a time for everything. He arises from the earth and anoints himself and changes his clothes. Now all this is helpful in regard to the completing of David’s exercises, especially to see him arising from the earth. He felt it was right, but then the time comes when his position is to change. There is a change in his outlook, a change in his position. Recovery always results in that, and especially the recognition of the Spirit as is suggested in the type in the anointing of himself; he understands he is brought back to what he basically entered into - his relations with the testimony in the 16th chapter of the first book. You will remember how he was anointed, and how he could speak of the anointing as very few others could. David understood the anointing, but he fell beneath the dignity of it, and the idea is coming into his mind afresh as he is adjusted.
I believe we have to see the importance of the Holy Spirit. And David here rises to what is becoming. He washes himself and anoints himself. It is not a question of others, it is a question of himself, David anointed himself. John in his ministry loves to bring us to what there is with ourselves. It is not a question of David’s anointing through the prophetic service, but it is a question of what David is coming to. He had belied the anointing, but now he is recognising it. He changed his clothing, meaning that the whole external appearance was changed. He is not saying what he would say formerly; he is not acting as he would do formerly as having sinned so against God and against Urijah the Hittite. It says he went into the house of Jehovah and worshipped. He comes to it that the service of God must go on. There is power to rise from the circumstances which would hold him down, facing the government of God in them. How sobering the government of God is in this chapter! But now he enters into the house of Jehovah. We come now to what David is basically in his relations with God. God is before his soul, while facing the searching circumstances of the government of God following up the way he had acted; yet he rises in the dignity that was proper to him and worships.
I would now just say a word as to the final matter in verse 24 regarding Bathsheba. She bore a son and he called him Solomon, and Jehovah loved him. He is a converging point, if I may reverently say so, between David and God. You will remember that Solomon says in the book of Proverbs, “I was a son unto my father, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother.” But we are not told here as to David’s love for Solomon; we are told that Jehovah loved him. This is emerging out of all the difficulties and the sorrow. Solomon is the great focal point, type of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is a new centre of interest for David, and for Bathsheba too, but the stress is on David here. It says he called his name Solomon and “Jehovah loved him.” We are brought into relation with the love side, and we need to understand the love side. God would bring us to His own thoughts about Christ, for that is what is in mind here. It is a unique reference that Jehovah loved him. And He sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet and he called his name Jedidiah - for Jehovah’s sake, not for David’s sake. Think of how God comes into the matter here, taking on in this way the babe Solomon. Wonderful type of Christ! It is the uniqueness of the humanity of Christ that would be in mind in the type. It says of this babe that Jehovah loved him. What a different range of exercises is now projected on our view, for the whole realm of administrative glory opens to faith in an elementary suggestion in Solomon here. What a completion of exercises! And I believe we have to understand that, individually and together, dear brethren, the completing of exercises with us involves that Christ should be more distinctively before our souls than He ever was before. Not just as meeting certain exercises on our part, as bringing about a solution to our difficulties. That is good in its place, but God would bring us out of the circumstances of evil and engage us with Solomon, with Christ. He would bring before us the dignity and glory of sonship. Oh the blessedness of sonship in Christ! How it called out divine love, the heavens opened, and the expression of the appreciation that comes to us in the Father’s voice in speaking to us by Christ in sonship. Think of what sonship is to God! It is intimated here, and love comes into view in relation to sonship.
But then, dear brethren, we are to think not only of sonship in Christ but sonship in the saints; the dignity and the glory of it that God would bring us to, so that we might be free and happy in our movements, not in bondage but in liberty. That is what is in mind here, to bring us to sonship whether seen in Christ or seen in the saints. Sonship is an outstanding feature of the dispensation. Paul insists on sonship in Galatians. He stresses the glory of it. But he also stresses what sonship was in himself, in his own ministry. “It pleased God to reveal His son in me,” he says. Meaning that Paul was affected internally by this great thought of sonship. The saints are formed in conformity to Christ and what benign influences they cast abroad. And it is only as sonship is amongst the saints that we shall have these benign influences; otherwise we shall have the dreadful influences of Judaism and legality which must be rejected in toto. For Judaism is against Christ and against God.
So David comes to Solomon and I finish with that. God has in mind that we should come to the dignity of our dispensation so unique - sonship, whether viewed in Christ in all its uniqueness, the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, or whether seen in the saints as Paul speaks of it in Galatians. “The Son of God who has loved me,” brings in the love side. If we do not understand sonship we will not understand love. Paul tells us that neither circumcision profits anything nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love. That is all I had to say, dear brethren, but the word is laid upon one’s heart as to completing the exercises with us, individually or collectively, that we should be able to rise above the sorrowful circumstances of moving beneath the dignity of our position as seen in David, and come back to the work of God in our souls and our relations with God and the precious light of sonship. So that heavenly influences may be disseminated amongst the saints, dispelling the gloom and darkness. Think of the Holy city coming down having the glory of God illuminating the world to come as in Revelation 21.
May God bless the word.