Survey of Biblical Theology - Lesson 7

What Israel needs is a king. The king ends up not being Saul. Saul becomes, as I said, like Adam in the garden. 

But David is a man after God's own heart. David is the king God has chosen. And I just want you to see some relationships to Genesis 3.15, because remember the promise there we read that the offspring of the woman will triumph over the serpent and the serpent's offspring. 

And I think we see this promise related to David and to the king a number of times. So this covenant that's made with David will last forever. We read in Psalm 89.35, once and for all I have sworn an oath by my holiness, I will not lie to David, his offspring will continue forever. 

So that's the divinite covenant. We'll see more on that. His throne like the sun before me, like the moon established forever, a faithful witness in the sky. 

So we see the permanence of the covenant. And then we see in the same Psalm, this is a Psalm about David, we see in verse 10, God says, you crushed Rahab like one who was slain. You scattered your enemies with your powerful arm. 

Well, that language reminds us of the crushing of the promise of Genesis 3.15, that the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent. And Rahab, right? Rahab can stand for like a mythological monster. I'm not arguing that Satan is mythological, but they can use that mythological language to speak of the crushing of God's enemies.

And we see this as well in verse 23, I will crush his foes before him and strike those who hate him. So God promises, right? David's foes will be crushed, the King. So what's the connection I'm making? That the promise that the offspring of the woman will crush the serpent, we're seeing in the narrative that that promise is given to the King now. 

So Psalm 72.9, this is also about the Messiah, may desert tribes kneel before him and his enemies lick the dust. Well, that's what serpents do, right? Lick the dust. So again, the victory over the serpent is going to come through this King. 

We see another allusion to this promise. Psalm 8, all enemies are placed under the feet of human beings and under David's son and Lord. So, I mean, this is a very famous prophecy. 

You know it very well, I'm sure. Psalm 110, this is the declaration of the Lord to my Lord. Now this is David speaking. 

So David is speaking of his successor, right? Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. So David as a prophet is anticipating a King is coming who is going to make his enemies, including the serpent, his footstool, and there will be final victory. So we could say David is a new Abraham, so to speak, and in a sense, a new Adam. 

He fulfills that covenant made with Abraham. So I want you to see this just in some verses. Ezekiel 37 verse 24. 

My servant David, now when this is written, right, the historical David is dead. My servant David will be King over them and there will be one shepherd for all of them. They will follow my ordinances and keep my statutes and obey them.

They will live in the land. There's the land promise that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your ancestors live. They will live in it forever with their children and grandchildren.

And my servant David will be their prince forever. So who is this David, right? Who's this King? I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be a permanent or everlasting covenant with them.

I will establish and multiply them and I will set my sanctuary. So there's that tabernacle promise among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them. 

I will be their God and they will be my people. When my sanctuary is among them forever, the nations will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel. So there's a lot there, but at least we can say all of God's covenant promises are going to be fulfilled through this David, right? There's a David that's coming.

There's a King that's coming through which all the promises God has made will be fulfilled. And we see this again, a Psalm I've already mentioned. We've already looked at Psalm 72.

May this King rule from sea to sea and from the Euphrates to the ends of the earth. That's the promise to Abraham, right? The whole earth. Now this is about the King now. 

So what am I saying? I'm saying this promise made to Israel is now being funneled through a King. As the story goes on, we saw from the very beginning that Kings would come from Abraham and that the King would come from the tribe of Judah and there'd be a scepter and a star. But now this promise is funneled through a Davidic King and the whole earth is going to be blessed.

We already read verse nine. May the Kings of Tarshish and the coasts and the islands bring tribute. The Kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts. 

I think this was fulfilled at Jesus's birth, but it's also universal. Let all Kings bow in homage to him. All nations serve him. 

So right through this King, through the Davidic King is going to come universal blessing. So that's what an amazing promise. Psalm two, very famous messianic Psalm, ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of earth, your possession.

So you see again, this universal rule, this universal blessing. So Israel's in the land, right? They're multiplied. And now we see that the promise of universal blessing is going to come through a King. 

And I already noticed this, but notice now the land is the whole world. It's expanded beyond Canaan. The covenant given to David is an eternal dynasty. 

That covenant, I read some of these verses, right? That covenant will never be revoked. David is amazed. Second Samuel seven, because the passage begins and David says, I want to build a house for the Lord. 

David wants to build a temple. And the Lord says, you're not going to build me a house. I'm going to build you a house. 

What's the house? The house is the David's dynasty, David's kingship. The, it will, it will never end. It will last forever and ever. 

It will be permanent. So that, that is very significant, right? Saul's dynasty didn't last. His sons, his sons did not rule as King. 

So in that sense, the covenant with David is unconditional, right? But look at this. This is fascinating. I will be his father. 

This is the covenant with David, right? He is the one David's son will build a house for me. That's Solomon, right? For my name, verse 13, I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. His dynasty will never end.

That's the promise made to David. I will be his father. He will be my son. 

When he does wrong, I will discipline him with the rod of men and blows from mortals. But my faithful love will never leave him as it did when I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. So, so what do we see here? We see here that the covenant will never be removed, but disobedience will be punished. 

So that's a, that's a very interesting element of the covenant. The covenant will be fulfilled, but I would say the covenant is only fulfilled through an obedient King at the end of the day. And we have many, many indications in the prophets that this promise to David will be fulfilled with the new David. 

And maybe we can look at a couple of these. Hosea 3.5, Hosea is written long after David is dead. Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord, their God, and David, their King. 

Well, David's dead. It's not talking about the literal David, right? But the dynasty will last. There is a King coming. 

Of course, I mean, need I say this, right? This is all fulfilled in Jesus, right? Finally, finally, he is the King we're talking about. Or, I mean, you know, you know these prophecies very well. Maybe a child will be born to us. 

A son will be given to us. What? I don't need to read the whole thing. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom. 

So he's a, he's a Davidic, he's a Davidic King, a Davidic heir. And so many of these prophecies in the prophets, Jeremiah 23.5. Look, the days are coming when I will raise up a righteous branch for David. He will reign wisely as King. 

And in his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. So the promises that God made to his people will be fulfilled through this King, through a son of David, through a Davidic King. And, you know, I could, we could read many more of these verses. 

It's, it's all the same. Now, here's, here's what we need to say. Could this King be David himself? No, because David is an imperfect King. 

He's the son of Adam. Not, he's not like Saul, but his sin with Bathsheba and, and Uriah disqualifying him because he's still a sinner. The promise of, will never be revoked, but it's going to come through an obedient, an obedient son, an obedient King. 

And that's not David. As good as he was, he was also a sinner. So now we're, now we're getting pretty far into the story and along comes his son, Solomon. 

Now, Solomon's the one who's going to build the temple, right? And with Solomon, Israel's at its height. We could say, it looks like paradise is around the corner. You know, it's about a thousand BC with Solomon, right? They're in the land, land's good, people prospering. 

You have a King who is following the Lord. You have a King with great wisdom. We read in first Kings 4.20, Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea.

They ate and drank and were happy. It's like paradise on earth, right? There's, it's an amazing time in Israel's history. There's unrivaled peace and prosperity in the realm. 

The temple is built. What's next? That universal blessing that is talked about, but instead what happens, Solomon turns away from the Lord later in his life and the nation unravels. It's a shocking story, really. 

I mean, first of all, we've already waited a thousand years and then everything starts falling apart. He's like Adam in the garden again, right? We've seen this story before. Why are we, why are we told the story again and again? It's just the same story because we need to hear that story. 

It's telling us how much we need a savior and a deliverer. It's telling us that redemption is a big deal, that our sin is massive and here are God's chosen people and they won't. In a way they can't, right? They can't do what's right. 

I don't, I don't mean by can't that they couldn't do it if they chose to do it, but they don't want to. And so the story, we don't have to, we don't have to linger on it. The story ends up, right? Exile. 

The kingdom splits. The Northern kingdom goes into exile. The kingdom of Israel under the hand of Assyria in 722 BC and Judah goes into exile in 586 BC.

Every king in the North is corrupt, right? Everyone. Not one good one. Some in the South, they're good. 

Some are bad. Some are mixed, but the trajectory is down. So, so I just, I just want to say, we want to read this as a story, right? Beginning with Adam in the garden. 

Now I think, isn't this remarkable? We're almost, it's almost 1500 years now since Abraham. Where's the nation? They have the numbers, but now they're out of the land again. The story is not going forwards, but backwards. 

And an enormous amount of time has passed. So it's easy for us not to think of that, right? Thousands of years have passed, but it's been a disaster. Now here's another thing I want to say, who writes, who writes a history of their own people like this, right? I think it's a sign of the inspiration. 

Nobody writes a history of their people about all their failures and what a terrible people they were. It's all, the whole story is designed to say, we failed again and again and again and again and again. We're a corrupt people. 

Nobody writes their history like that. A sign of the inspiration of scripture, I think. So that's quite remarkable.

Then we come to the perspective of the prophets. So just big picture here. What are the prophets saying? Well, Israel is going to be judged because they violated the covenant made with Moses, right? You have covenant lawsuits all over the prophets. 

They violated the covenant stipulations, right? The day of the Lord is coming. It's a day of judgment and salvation, a major theme in the prophets. Israel thought, oh, we can't wait for the day of the Lord. 

That's going to be fabulous because our enemies are going to be judged. But again and again, the prophets say, it's not going to be a day of light for you, but a day of darkness because you too are sinners. It's going to be a day of gloom and wrath. 

Yes, it is a day of deliverance for the humble and for the obedient. But for those who aren't obedient, it is a very austere day, isn't it? And I'm not going to read all this, but kind of the history of Israel. That's a great summary of the Old Testament. 

So when you're reading, you want to look for places like this that kind of capture the whole story, right? And Nehemiah 9 is one of those places where he tells us, hey, here's the story as a whole. Here's where we are because Nehemiah was written right in the 400s. So here's where Israel is.

So the prophets prophesied judgment, but they also prophesied salvation. I like to say one way of remembering this, what do the prophets prophesy? A new Exodus, a new covenant, a new David. I don't have it written down here like this, but a new creation. 

I don't think I wrote a new creation. Oh no, I do have it down here. A new covenant, a new Exodus, a new creation, a new David. 

So, you know, there's hope there. There's going to be a new Exodus. By the way, that's all over Isaiah. 

You see all those passages, Isaiah 11, 40, 42, 43, 48, 49. Israel is going to come back into the land. Let's see. 

Let's read. Let's read one of them, at least. Do not fear for I am with you. 

I will bring your descendants from the East and gather you from the West. This is Israel's an exile in Babylon, right? I will say to the North, give them up. And to the South, do not hold them back.

Bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Everyone who bears my name and is created for my glory, I have formed them. Indeed, I have made them.

So, that's a regular promise in Isaiah, especially 40 through 66. God's going to bring his people back through a new Exodus, but it's all over the place. And then there's a promise of a new covenant, Jeremiah 31. 

This is going to fix the problem of the old covenant. God's going to write the law on the heart of his people. What's wrong with Israel? The law is not on their heart. 

God's going to write that law. He's going to inscribe the law on their heart. And Ezekiel 36, 26 through 27, he's going to give, he's going to soften the hearts of his people by giving them the Holy Spirit.

So, why didn't Israel keep God's law? Because they didn't have God's spirit dwelling in them and the law wasn't written on their heart. So, you have that promise of a new Exodus. God's going to deliver his people again. 

There's going to be a new covenant, a new David. We've already seen that. And there's going to be a new creation that's coming.

So, Daniel tells us the exile is going to go beyond. It's going to be 77. So, that's a very hard passage. 

We're not going to linger on it. But the exile is going to last longer than just coming back from Babylon. It's going to be 70 times 7. That's a very debated passage. 

We don't have to worry about it right here. We just want to see the exile is going to be extended. When Israel returns from exile, 536 BC, right? And then we read Nehemiah, Ezra, they're in the 400s, Haggai and Zechariah, Malachi is in the 400s, Haggai, Zechariah in the 500s. 

But what we see is Israel comes back into the land, but really nothing really remarkable is happening. I mean, they do build a new temple, but it's not very remarkable. And not a whole... I mean, Ezra even says we're slaves in our land. 

So, you come to the end of the Old Testament, you read the book of Malachi and things are in a very bad place. So, now 1,600 years have passed. And yeah, they're back in the land, but they're very weak. 

There's no indication they're really following the Lord in any significant way. And where are we? Well, we have these promises, right? So, that's where I'd like to end. We've had this slow downward decline in Israel, but we have the promises of a new David, a new covenant, a new creation and a new Exodus. 

So, that's pretty much where we are. And we'll see how the story continues.