2 Sam. 12
A certain period of time passed after David committed this sin. The war against Ammon (begun in the preceding chapter, which covers nearly one year) still continued. The siege of Rabbah had not been brought to its conclusion, and we know that at this time a city could be besieged for years. During this entire period David's conscience was silent although his sin weighed upon him and the fruit of his transgression was evident before his eyes.
Then the Lord intervenes, after having waited a long time for David to repent. Nathan the prophet, bearer of His word, comes on the Lord's behalf to stir up the king's soul. How this chapter differs from 2 Sam. 7! Then, in a time of prosperity and joy, David served the Lord wholeheartedly and had but one thought: to build a house for his God. That first time the Lord had sent Nathan to him to tell him that the time had not yet come for this, but also to open up to him the treasures of His grace, for His object was to bring joy to David's soul. Now the scene has changed. The prophet is sent to him to set him in the light of a holy and righteous God whose eyes are too pure to behold evil and who must judge it.
Nathan speaks in a parable, and in his blindness David does not detect that he himself is the one this account is about. The prophet says, There were two men in a city, the one rich and the other poor. One had many flocks and herds; the other had only one little lamb which he cherished. A traveler came to the rich man who, in order to spare his own flock, took the poor man's lamb and butchered and cooked it for the man that had come to him.
Let us watch out for this sort of traveler, for we are all prone to he visited by him. Certainly when he appears it is better to close the door against him. This wayfarer is lust, a passing desire, and not one that we habitually entertain and feed. This wayfarer had entered the king's house, knowing he would find something to feed on there. Our hearts too ever contain that which it takes to succumb to Satan's temptations. David forgot to depend on God and thought he could relax instead of serving and fighting. This was enough to allow the traveler to open the door and let himself in and to mark his visit with disorder and ruin.
"David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As Jehovah liveth, the man that hath done this thing is worthy of death; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity" (2 Sam. 12:5-6). David's heart and conscience are in a bad state, nevertheless his judgment continues to be righteous. Although he himself was under sin's yoke he judged it severely in others. Where we are not personally concerned we often have clear and full discernment of evil in others, although our own hearts are unjudged (Matt. 21:41).
"And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man!" How suddenly everything caved in! David had pronounced his own sentence; he deserves death! Yes, this blow reaches his heart, but it also goes down to the deepest recesses of his conscience. Suddenly exposed to the light a sinner who does not know God may be convicted, may have his mouth shut without such conviction penetrating any deeper, but for a child of God such a state can only be momentary.
The Lord reminds David of all that He had done for him: "I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; and I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things" (2 Sam. 12:7-8). The treasures of My grace were yours and you sinned in the presence of My love! "Wherefore hast thou despised the word of Jehovah to do evil in His sight?" How had David despised it? God had heaped blessings on him and David had preferred to satisfy his lust!
This same judgment was pronounced against Eli (1 Sam. 2:30) because he honored his sons more than God. He feared the Lord, but he despised Him by allowing his sons to "trample upon [His] sacrifice and upon [His] oblation, which [He] had commanded in [His] habitation." And so the Lord tells him: "They that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." We find the same truth in Luke 16:13: "No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will cleave to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." To covet the things the world can offer is to despise God. In general our souls are very little aware of this, but this is how God looks at things. "Because thou hast despised Me," He repeats in 2 Sam. 12:10.
David had preferred his sin to God. What a terrible thing! Do our consciences have nothing to say to us? Every natural heart has lusts that attract it. By "lusts" we mean not only the defiling things of the world but also "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life"- pleasures, vanity, and ambition. These things find easy access into a Christian's heart. How many days and years often pass without our shutting the door to them! Every time we open the door to this visitor we are despising the Lord Himself. This is the reason for God's judgment on His servant here.
The graces granted to David were earthly; ours are "spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ." Do our hearts value these things so much that they offer no asylum to this "traveler"? The Lord's discipline and judgment will fall on us in the measure that we receive or reject this visitor.
The prophet announces three things to David: "The sword shall never depart from thy house." God did not revoke this sentence of bloodshed. Then in 2 Sam. 12:11-12: You sowed to the flesh, from it you will reap corruption. Violence and corruption, these two things that from the beginning have characterized the world which was made subject to sin (Gen. 6:11), would now be habitual lodgers at this poor guilty king's house.
Before we expose ourselves to God's government in discipline let us remember that this government is inflexible. We cannot avoid the consequences of our acts, of our behavior; all God's Word proves this to us. The First Epistle of Peter shows us that even under the dispensation of grace the principles of God's government are unchangeable. No doubt the soul of a Christian who falls must be restored, but in this world such a one is not delivered from the consequences of his act.
David had this bitter experience to the very end of his career although his soul, fully restored, was once again able to take up the harp and sing the sweet psalms of Israel. Discipline itself then becomes a new reason for celebrating the riches of grace.
Nathan speaks but one phrase, "Thou art the man," to convict David. David too says but one thing in God's presence: "I have sinned against the Lord." When a soul has seen this it has taken a tremendous step forward. When a Christian has fallen and God has exposed his sin we habitually find the confession of his fault: "I have sinned." But what difference does that make when this sin has already been brought to light? David says: "I have sinned against Jehovah," not: I have sinned against Urijah or against Urijah's wife. Our sins against others may he forgiven by those whom we have offended; we may make amends in a certain measure for the sins we commit against ourselves, but what can we say when we have sinned against the Lord? One says: "I have sinned," for he is ashamed of his sin because men see it; but it is quite another thing when one is convicted that the thing he has done is evil in the sight of the Lord.
Having produced this thorough conviction of sin, God does not keep his poor guilty servant waiting. Again He speaks but one sentence to him: "Jehovah has also put away thy sin." He does not say: Jehovah will, but rather "has put away thy sin." He had dealt with His servant's sin beforehand; He had made provision so that the sin was put away from David and so that it no longer came up before God. This is what we find at the cross of Christ.
Then Nathan tells David: "Thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme, even the child that is born to thee shall certainly die. And Nathan departed to his house" (2 Sam. 12:13-15). "Thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of Jehovah to blaspheme." Such is the consequence that the world draws from our faults. Satan uses each of our sins to produce open aversion in men's hearts against God and against Christ. Look, the world says, what their religion leads them to do!—and God is blasphemed. Satan excites lusts in a Christian not only to be able to accuse him, but also to produce aversion to Christ in those who witness his fall, so that these may not turn to Him for salvation.
David had been told that violence and corruption would be found in his house as the fruit of his sin. The third judgment is the death of his child. Death does not strike down David, the guilty one, but rather his cherished son. It is necessary for God's judgment to fall on the king's house in a visible, immediate way before the eyes of all. The child falls sick; the poor father is distressed and fasts and supplicates God. If it were possible, may God show him grace! No, discipline must run its course. What anguish for David's extremely tender heart in the presence of the innocent victim of his sin!
The child dies. David rises from the earth, washes himself, anoints himself with oil, and changes his clothing. It is as though he were a new man beginning a new career. He goes into the house of the Lord and bows down. Is he mourning? No, he acknowledges the righteousness, holiness, and love of God as well as the clearing of His character through discipline. David rises up a restored man; he can go to his house and call for a meal to be served him. After having bowed down before the Lord he is on his way to renewed fellowship with Him.
His servants say to him: "What thing is this which thou hast done? Thou didst fast and weep for the child alive; but as soon as the child is dead, thou dost rise and eat bread." David answers: "While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I thought, Who knows? Perhaps Jehovah will be gracious to me, that the child may live. But now he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me" (2 Sam. 12:21-23). "I shall go to him." Now David is satisfied to bear the seal of this discipline to which the death of his son testifies till the end of his career. "He will not return to me." David can never know this joy, but he accepts as necessary the path of death through which he must one day walk in order to find his son.
The king is now able to console Bathsheba. Grace flows out to him anew. He has a son whom he names Solomon (meaning, Peaceable) and whom the Lord through Nathan calls "Jedidiah" (meaning, Beloved of Jehovah). Grace brings Bathsheba, whom defilement would prevent from having a portion in God's blessings, into the Messiah's line of descent (Matt. 1:6). She becomes the mother of the king of peace and glory. Grace delights to work on behalf of fallen creatures whom it associates with Christ in order to show its "exceeding riches" in the ages to come.
In order to understand how David's soul was restored we must consider Psalm 51. Other psalms refer to the same circumstances, but as usual we are quoting only those psalms whose headings refer to the events which occasioned them. Psa. 51 is such a psalm: "A Psalm of David; when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba." This psalm, which is prophetical as are all the psalms, goes far beyond the circumstances of David's life. Thus: "Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion: build the walls of Jerusalem" (Psa. 51:18), is about future events. "Bloodguiltiness" refers not only to the murder of Urijah but also to the killing of the Messiah. David himself, as we shall see in the continuation of this history, is a type of the remnant of Judah placed under the governmental wrath of God. This same psalm can also be used in preaching the gospel to describe the condition of a sinner who returns to God like the prodigal son and says: "I have sinned against heaven and before thee" (Luke 15:18). But here we are looking at those special feelings produced in the soul of a believer who is deprived of fellowship through his fall, having lost the joy of his salvation.
Two thoughts dominate David's heart at the beginning of this psalm: his first thought is that grace is the only resource for his transgression (Psa. 51:1); the second thought is that he has sinned against God and God alone (this is what David said when confronted by the prophet Nathan, as we have seen), "that Thou mayest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest" (Psa. 51:4). I have sinned, the king says, in such a way that Thy righteousness against sin must be manifested. Oh God! Thou dost discover the means through my sin of justifying Thyself. Thou dost justify Thyself by showing that Thou dost not excuse sin. As for myself, there is only thorough condemnation, but as for Thee, Thou art able to bring glory to Thyself in this! These are feelings worthy of a saint whom God brings into His own presence in a self-judged and humbled condition.
Then the psalm shows us three conditions of heart found in the restored believer. These three conditions and their consequences are described in the three divisions of this psalm.
(Psa. 51:1-6). The first condition of heart is described in the words: "Behold, Thou wilt have truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part Thou wilt make me to know wisdom." "Truth in the heart"-God's desire, first of all, is to produce this by bringing us into His presence when we have sinned. Often a soul will judge a particular action and go no further, but this is not yet all the truth in the heart. David judges his action: "For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is continually before me" (Psa. 51:3); but he also judges his condition: "Behold, in iniquity was I was brought forth, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psa. 51:5). It is not enough for him to judge only his sin; he judges sin in him—that which he was from birth. He is not content to say, I have committed an outrage against God, but he goes back to the source of this outrage and realizes that the reason for all the evil was in his heart. Wisdom consists in discerning these things.
(Psa. 51:7-13). Truth in the heart has borne its fruit: a second condition of heart is the consequence: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me" (Psa. 51:10). How could this clean heart be produced? "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" (Psa. 51:7). He speaks of hyssop which was used to sprinkle blood on the leper, and then he refers to washing with water. Under the law at each sin the sprinkling of blood was to be renewed; for us the sacrifice has been offered once for all. But in addition to this the soul of the believer needs the washing of water by the Word continually, applied by our High Priest to the defilement we contract as we walk: "Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."—But in order to have a clean heart something other than our personal purification is needed: "Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities" (Psa. 51:9); it is essential that God Himself remember them no more. This was not yet an accomplished fact for a saint in the Old Testament, nor should we believers express ourselves in the same way as verse 9 does. But when our hearts have been cleansed from all iniquities we can present ourselves before God with a consciousness that He remembers them no more. The result of this is that the joy of our salvation returns and we are sustained in the spirit of liberty.
In Psa. 51:14-19 we find a third and final condition of heart, a condition which from the time of his fall and restoration until the end of his career would characterize David. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise" (Psa. 51:17). What breaks David's heart is to find himself confronted with "bloodguiltiness" (Psa. 51:14), to realize that he had shed the blood of righteous Urijah. This is a prophetic picture of the blood of Christ shed by Israel that remains upon this people and their descendants until that time when the remnant will return to Him, broken-hearted and humbled. We will return to this subject later. But let us remember that God disciplines us in order by degrees to lead us from the condition of a true and cleansed heart to that of a broken heart: the only condition becoming to us in the presence of the cross, the only sacrifice that God accepts with the sacrifice of praise (Psa. 51:15), and the only state of heart that does not expose us to fresh falls.