Piper's Notes

December 18, 1983

Bethlehem Baptist Church

John Piper, Pastor

GOD'S COVENANT WITH DAVID

(2 Samuel 7:4-17 ESV)

But that same night the word of the LORD came to Nathan, “Go and tell my servant

David, ‘Thus says the LORD: Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not

lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this

day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I

have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of

Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you

not built me a house of cedar?”’ Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant

David, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following

the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with

you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will

make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will

appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in

their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no

more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And

I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the LORD declares to you that

the LORD will make you a house. 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. I will be to him a father, and he shall be

to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men,

with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him,

as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your

kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established

forever.’ ” In accordance with all these words, and in accordance with all this vision,

Nathan spoke to David.

The reason God's covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses and David ought to increase

the joy of our faith is that in all of them the main point is that God exerts all his

omnipotence and all his omniscience to do good to his people, and we are that people if

we follow Christ in the obedience of faith. The most practical truths any Christian can

know are that God is all-powerful, all-wise and all for you. Nothing will have a more

important practical impact on the way you use your money, spend your leisure, pursue

your vocation, rear children, deal with conflict or handle anxiety. Heartfelt confidence that

the sovereign God is working everything together for your good out of sheer grace affects

every area of your life.

The deep emotional assurance that, even though you are a sinner, God's attention is

focused on you with omnipotent mercy is the day-to-day power to give you deep peace

even though you can't go home for Christmas, genuine joy even though you can't afford

to buy her that special gift, and loving warmth even though you don't hear from the friend

you counted on. When you rest in the fact that God's job description includes the

responsibility of seeing that everything in your life turns out for your good, then your

heart will not yield to covetousness or stealing or returning ridicule for ridicule; and you

won't hold back from telling your colleagues this week what Christmas really means to

you.

The reason we study the covenants is because in them we see the Biblical proof that

God's job description does indeed include the responsibility to withhold no good thing

from those who walk uprightly, and to work for those who wait for him and to turn every

strep throat and stripped clutch and stinging put-down for our eternal good. That's what I

would offer as the definition of God's covenants: when God makes a covenant he reveals

his own job description and signs it. In almost every case he comes to the covenant

partner, lays his job description out and says, "This is how I will work for you with all my

heart and with all my soul and with all my strength if you will love me as I am, cleave to

me, and trust me to keep my word."

The reason I say this is the condition in almost every case is that there is at least one

covenant which has no condition at all, the one with Noah. The job description God

writes for himself is never again to wipe out the world by a flood but to preserve the

course of nature until the very end. The reason we know this covenant has no condition

attached to it is that God made it with the animals as well as man: "This is the sign of

the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with

you" (Gen. 9:12). You can't require faith from a frog. All you can do is say, "Frog, here is

what I plan to do for you." But in every other covenant which God makes he presents his

job description and tells his covenant partner that he only works for clients who trust him

and who do the sorts of things you do when you trust somebody to take care of you.

Today we look at God's covenant with David.

First we will try to understand 2 Samuel 7:12-17.

Then we will see how the covenant promise is fulfilled.

Finally, we will apply all this to our lives today.

2 Samuel 7:12-17 does what a lot of prophetic passages do: it takes an extended

telescope of events and collapses it down so that the near and distant events are viewed

together. For example, in these six verses God promises on the one hand that Solomon,

David's son, will reign in David's place and will build a house for God. This is why verse

14 can say, "When he commits iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of men, with the

stripes of the sons of men, but I will not take my steadfast love from him as I took it from

Saul, whom I put away from before you."

But the promise goes far beyond Solomon and his imperfection. Verse 13 says, "He

shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever."

Verse 16 says, "And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before

me; your throne shall be established for ever." Three times the words "for ever" appear.

No wonder this covenant was central to Israel's hope: when God promises to do

something for ever all of eternity is being shaped.

We know from verse 12 that God intends for David to die.

Yet verse 16 says: "Your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne

shall be established for ever." This must mean that the kingdom of David would be

established and secured by a descendant. But Solomon is depicted as a sinner who

has to be chastened. The kingdom can never be secure in the hands of a sinner. Look at

what God does in 1 Kings 11:11-13 after Solomon marries foreign women and worships

their gods: "The Lord said to Solomon, 'Since this has been your mind and you have not

kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the

kingdom from you and give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father I will

not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear

away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my

servant and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen."' This shows that the

promise to establish David's kingdom cannot happen as long as the descendants of

David are rebellious and disobedient.

The conditionality of this covenant is repeated again and again in Kings and Chronicles.

For example, in 1 Kings 2:4 David tells Solomon that God said, "If your sons take heed

to their ways, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul,

there shall not fail you a man on the throne of Israel." This means that as long as David's

sons are disobedient the kingdom cannot be made secure for ever. Then look at 1 Kings

8:25 where Solomon prays, "Now, Lord God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my

father what thou hast promised him, saying, 'There shall never fail you a man before me

to sit upon the throne of Israel if only your sons take heed to their way to walk before me

as you have walked before me."' (See also 1 Kings 6:11,12; 9:4-9; 1 Chron. 22:8-13;

28:1-10.)

Israel learned over the centuries following David and Solomon that disobedience in her

king always brought the nation to ruin. But the godly among them knew one thing for

sure: God had promised that the throne of David would be established for ever (2 Sam.

7:4). So they came to see that a son of David must be coming who would fulfill the

conditions of the covenant, sit on David's throne and rule forever. A succession of

imperfect kings could never fulfill the promise. If God were true to his word, if he stuck by

his job description in 2 Samuel 7, he would have to raise up a righteous, obedient son of

David to take the throne (see Psalm 89:29-37).

This is just what Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel promised he would do. Ezekiel looks to

the future salvation of God's people and speaks God's word (in 37:23f): "I will save them

from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them and they shall

be my people and I will be their God. My servant David shall be king over them; and they

shall have one shepherd" (see 34:23). Jeremiah stresses that the coming king will fulfill

the condition of righteousness (in Jer. 23:5-6): "Behold, the days are coming, says the

Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and

deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah

will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be

called: 'The Lord is our righteousness"' (see 33:21, 25-26). But it was Isaiah who saw

the glory of the Son of David more clearly than anyone and virtually identified him as God

(in 9:6-7): "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will upon

his shoulder, and his name will be called 'Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting

Father, Prince of Peace.' Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no

end, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with

justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore." So the surety of the

covenant with David lies ultimately in the fact that God himself will come as king and sit

upon the throne. When a covenant is conditional and yet is also certain, you can be

sure God himself will intervene to fulfill the conditions.

When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in Luke 1:31-33 he said, "Behold, you will

conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be

great and will be called the son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the

throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his

kingdom there will be no end." Therefore, beyond any shadow of a doubt the Bible

teaches that the promise to David that his descendant would rule forever is fulfilled in

Jesus Christ. As the son of David (Romans 1:3) and the Lord of David (Mt. 22:45; Ps.

110:1) Jesus now reigns as king in heaven (1 Cor. 15:25) over the true house of Israel.

But the question we must raise is: what does all that have to do with us

Gentiles?

Isn't the covenant with David only relevant for the nation of Israel? Isn't the fulfillment of

that promise simply Christ's millennial reign over the redeemed nation of Israel? The

answer of the Old Testament and New Testament is a resounding NO! The reign of

Jesus as Davidic king has a direct relevance for us Gentiles today.

Consider Acts 15:14-18. You recall that at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 the issue

was whether Gentiles had to be circumcised in order to be saved. The apostles saw

themselves as heirs of the Old Testament promise to Israel: the Messiah, son of David,

had come; he had died for Israel's sin and had been raised from the dead; he ruled in

heaven and was coming again to judge and reign on earth. The big question was: could

Gentiles benefit from all this without becoming Jews through circumcision? At the

Jerusalem Council Peter told how the Gentiles had received the Spirit just like the Jews

had (15:8). Paul and Barnabas told of their success among the Gentiles. Then James

dealt the final blow to Jewish exclusivism in 15:14-18 with a reference to the Davidic

covenant and its relation to Gentiles: "Simeon [Peter] has related how God first visited

the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. And with this the words of the

prophets agree, as it is written [quoting Amos 9:11], 'After this I will return and I will build

the dwelling of David which is fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, that the

rest of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name."

This means that when God said to David in 2 Samuel 7:16, "Your house and your

kingdom shall be made sure before me forever," he had in view a house and a kingdom

much greater than Israel. The reason the Davidic covenant is relevant for 20th century

American gentiles is because God's job description which he revealed to David included

not just the responsibility to establish a righteous ruler in Israel for ever but also to put

that ruler over the church and then over all the world. Isaiah said, "Of the increase of his

government and of peace there will be no end." It will be worldwide. And the angel says

in Revelation 11:15, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and

of his Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever." When God has completed all the

responsibilities in his job description, the house of David will be planet earth. And the

subjects of the king will not just be Jews but people from every tongue and tribe and

nation (Rev. 7:9).

The mission of the church today is to submit ourselves to the Son of David who

right now rules invisibly from heaven until he puts every enemy under his feet.

And our mission is to announce the good news to people in every neighborhood and

every nation that they can be happy subjects of Christ's kingdom for ever if they transfer

their allegiance from the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of Christ.

To put it another way, personal holiness means learning the attitudes and customs of a

new kingdom -- the kingdom of Christ. And personal evangelism means telling people

that the rightful king of the world against whom they have rebelled is willing to grant

amnesty to all who return and live under his rule. Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the

eternal King of the world will come from heaven and establish a reign of joy and

righteousness and peace over all his loyal subjects for ever and ever. And until he

comes the worldwide mission of the church is to extend complete, free, universal

amnesty to people from every nation.

I close with an invitation for you to make God's covenant with David a covenant with you.

It's not just my invitation., It's God's. Turn to Isaiah 55:1-3. The point of this invitation is

that the very sovereignty and wisdom and love of God which assured David of an eternal

kingdom can also assure you of God's eternal kindness as a part of that kingdom.

Listen: "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money,

come, buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do

you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not

satisfy? Hearken diligently to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in

fatness. Incline your ear and come to me; hear that your soul may live; and I will make

with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast sure love for David."

The very mercy and faithfulness that guarantees David an eternal kingdom can

guarantee you all the joy and righteousness and peace of that kingdom. God is saying

to you this morning: if you will come to me empty-handed and hungry, willing to receive

what I give, then I will write for myself in your presence a job description and bind myself

with an oath to treat you for ever with the same mercy and faithfulness that I have

demonstrated in my covenant with David.

And listen to the entreaty of the Lord Jesus himself in the last chapter of the Bible (Rev.

22:16f): "I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star... let him

who is thirsty come, let him who desires to take the water of life without price." Come to

the Son of David, come to the King of kings, and he will sign with his own blood your

personal copy of the job description he has written for himself -- to be God to you. And

he will give it to you as an eternal covenant, never to turn away from doing you good.