Son of David

A permanent structure

King David wanted to build a temple for God that would be a permanent structure for him to live in. After David shared his plan with Nathan the prophet, 2 Samuel 7:4-16 tells us:

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.’”

Nathan told David that the LORD was going to build him a house rather than the other way around. Nathan said, “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). David’s desire to build a house for the Lord set the stage for one of the key passages in the Old Testament concerning the coming Messiah. Verses 8-16 of 2 Samuel 7 are referred to as the Davidic covenant. Verse 13 of this passage referred initially to Solomon “but was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the ‘Son of David’ (Luke 1:31-33; Acts 2:25-35) who reigns at God’s right hand (Psalm 2:7; Acts 13:33)” (note on 2 Samuel 7:4-16).

The temple that David wanted to build for the Lord was eventually constructed by his son Solomon (1 Kings 6). It says in 1 Kings 6:21, “Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold.” One of the qualities of gold is that it is “durable to the point of virtual indestructibility” (britannica.com). Solomon’s intention in building a house for the Lord was that it would be a place for him to dwell in forever (1 Kings 8:13). The temple that Solomon built was destroyed when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded Jerusalem and took the Jews into captivity (2 Kings 25:8-12). Another temple existed during the time that Jesus’ lived on earth. During one of Jesus’ visits to the temple, he was confronted by the Jews. The incident is recorded in John’s gospel. John stated, “So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2:18-22).

God’s promise to King David that his offspring would “build a house for my name” (2 Samuel 7:13) was about him building a permanent structure for God to dwell in, but it wasn’t the kind of structure that David was imagining. In his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul talked about his ministry being comparable to a building project that started with the foundation of Jesus Christ. Paul said:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Corinthians 3:5-17)

Paul’s illustration of building a temple on the foundation of Jesus Christ concluded with the important spiritual truth that God’s Spirit dwells inside believers. Paul said, “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him” (1 Corinthian 3:17). In the King James Version of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 3:17 reads, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.” The Greek word that is translated defile and destroy, phtheiro (fthiˊ-ro) is properly translated “to shrivel or wither, i.e. to spoil (by any process) or (genitive) to ruin (especially figurative by moral influences, to deprave)” (G5351). Paul was talking about a person being brought to a worse state than he was presently in from a moral perspective. Paul said that God’s temple is holy (1 Corinthians 3:17). The Greek word that is translated holy, hagios (hagˊ-ee-os) is “spoken of those who are purified and sanctified by the influences of the Spirit, a saint” (G40). Instead of saying “God’s temple is holy” (1 Corinthians 3:17), Paul could have said, more specifically, God’s temple is purified ones. Paul used hagios throughout his first letter to the Corinthians to refer to both saints and the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 1:2; 2:13; 6:1, 2, 19; 12:3; 14:33; 16:1, 15), as well as, to refer to God’s temple being holy (1 Corinthians 3:17).

Paul went on in his letter to talk about the church being defiled by sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 5:1-13) and about the need for believers to flee sexual immorality because “the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Corinthians 6:13). Paul explained, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:15-20). Paul indicated that a person who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her (1 Corinthians 6:16). Paul wasn’t referring to sexual intercourse, but to a type of relationship that usually involves two people living under the same roof. The Greek word kollao (kol-lahˊ-o), which is translated joined, means “to glue, i.e. (passive or reflexive) to stick” (G2853). In other words, there is no separation of the two people. There is a permanent connection between them.

Jesus’ teaching about divorce made it clear that there is a permanent bond between a husband and wife. Jesus said, “’Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:5-6). The separation that Jesus was referring to was chorizo (kho-ridˊ-zo), which means “to place room between that is part; reflexively to go away” (G5583). The fact that God joins two people together when they are married has to do with their placement in space. Paul was building on Jesus’ teaching when he said in his letter to the Corinthians, “To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord): the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:10-11). Paul used the word chorizo when he said the wife should not separate from her husband. The point that I believe Paul was trying to make was that the wife continuing to live under the same roof with her husband was necessary for God’s spiritual work in her and her husband’s lives to continue. Paul went on to say, “If any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:12-16).

It seems that the building up of the body of Christ does not involve the random placement of individual believers into a permanent structure, but the growth or extension of a believer’s faith into the lives of those she is permanently connected to. Paul told the Ephesians, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22). Paul went on to say, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16). Paul indicated that the building grows when each part is working properly and that the body of Christ is joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped. Paul used body movement to make his point that believers need to not only function as a single unit, but also to function as a strong and healthy unit in order for the body of Christ to grow. Jesus said the only way we can do this is by abiding in him. He explained to his disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The Greek word that is translated apart, psallo (psalˊ-lo) is derived from the word chora (khoˊ-rah) which properly denotes “the space lying between two limits or places” (G5561). If you think of Jesus as a power outlet, in order for the body of Christ to live, and move, and have its being, (Acts 17:28) it must remain plugged into Jesus at all times. Through this connection, we become a part of a permanent structure that will one day be the dwelling place of God (Revelation 21).

Antichrist

The Apostle John introduced a character into his gospel message that none of the other apostles seemed to be aware of. John referred to him as antichrist. John said, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:18-19). The Greek word that is translated antichrist, antichristos (an-tee´-khris-tos) means “an opponent of, an imposter for the Messiah.” Antichristo can mean either “against Christ” or “instead of Christ,” or perhaps, combining the two, “one who, assuming the guise of Christ, opposes Christ and takes His place” (G500). “This noun is only found in John’s epistles, and there is defined to be, “collectively, all who deny that Jesus is the Messiah and that the Messiah is come in the flesh (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). What class of person the apostle had in mind is unknown; probably Jewish adversaries” (G500). Paul seems to have been referring to the same person or class of person in his second letter to the Thessalonians when he said, “Let no one deceive you in any way. For the day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

John indicated that antichrists had already appeared on the scene in the first century and were attempting to disrupt the spread of the gospel in the church’s early stages of development. John said, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 1:7). The Greek word that is translated deceiver, planos (plan´-os) means “an imposter or misleader” (G4108). John and Paul’s descriptions agree in that both men identify the antichrist/man of lawlessness as one who deceives others. The key evidence we are to look for in identifying Antichrist is that he will attempt to take the place of Christ and will proclaim himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Paul said, “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception, for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). “Two words in this verse refer to supernatural occurrences: ‘signs’ (semeion [G4592]) and ‘wonders’ (teras [G5059]). These ‘counterfeit miracles’ are accomplished by the power of Satan. Miracles are not necessarily evidences of God’s power (Acts 19:13, cf. Exodus 7:22)” (note on 2 Thessalonian 2:9). According to Paul, “the Holy Spirit is the restraining force in this world, holding back the power of lawlessness and the many ‘antichrists’ existing today (1 John 2:18)” the removal of the Holy Spirit’s restraining power will allow Satan and the Antichrist “to exercise dominion on the earth, but God will use whatever happens to further his plan in accordance with his own timetable” (note on 2 Thessalonians 2:6, 7).

God’s covenant with King David (2 Samuel 7:4-16) specified that he would establish an eternal kingdom through one of David’s offspring, a son that would come from David’s own body. “The Jews recognized that the Messiah would come from David’s descendants (cf. John 7:42). One of the titles applied to Jesus during his earthly ministry was ‘Son of David’ (Matthew 9:27; 12:23; 15:22)), emphasizing his heirship of all David’s royal prerogatives as well as his fulfillment of the messianic promises to David (2 Samuel 7:8-16, cf. Matthew 22:41-45; Luke 1:32, 33, 69)” (note on 1 Samuel 16:13). God didn’t specify which of David’s sons would inherit his throne, but implied there would be a special relationship between him and the Messiah. God said, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son” (2 Samuel 2:14) indicating he always intended Israel’s Messiah to be both the Son of David and the Son of God.

Antichrist’s plot to usurp the throne of God is revealed in detail in the book of Daniel. Daniel stated:

After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things…As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. (Daniel 7:7-8, 21-22)

“The coming Antichrist is represented as a ‘little horn,’ who eliminates three of the original ten horns. The mouth that speaks boastfully correlates to the description of the beast that will campaign against God and the saints for forty-two months (Revelation 13:5-7) but will finally be destroyed and cast into the lake of fire (v.11, cf. Revelation 19:20)” (note on Daniel 7:1-28).

Absalom’s conspiracy against his father, King David (2 Samuel 15-18), to a certain extent, depicts the struggle between Antichrist and Christ, and also provides us with a valuable lesson in how God defeats the purposes of Satan. David left Jerusalem without a fight and allowed Absalom to take over as the reigning King of Israel. A loyal servant of David’s, Hushai the Archite, was instructed to “return to the city and say to Absalom, I will be your servant, O king; as I have been your father’s servant in time past, so now I will be your servant’” (2 Samuel 15:34). David did this so that Hushai could interfere with the counsel that Absalom received from Ahithophel, his co-conspirator and former advisor of David. After Ahithophel had advised Absalom to pursue David immediately and throw him into a panic while he was weary and discouraged (2 Samuel 17:1-3), Hushai said to Absalom:

“This time the counsel that Ahithophel has given is not good.” Hushai said, “You know that your father and his men are mighty men, and that they are enraged, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. Besides, your father is expert in war; he will not spend the night with the people. Behold, even now he has hidden himself in one of the pits or in some other place. And as soon as some of the people fall at the first attack, whoever hears it will say, ‘There has been a slaughter among the people who follow Absalom.’ Then even the valiant man, whose heart is like the heart of a lion, will utterly melt with fear, for all Israel knows that your father is a mighty man, and that those who are with him are valiant men. But my counsel is that all Israel be gathered to you, from Dan to Beersheba, as the sand by the sea for multitude, and that you go to battle in person. So we shall come upon him in some place where he is to be found, and we shall light upon him as the dew falls on the ground, and of him and all the men with him not one will be left. (2 Samuel 17:7-12)

The battle strategy that Hushai proposed to Absalom is similar to what we see in Revelation 19:19 where Antichrist was preparing to fight against Christ and his army, and 20:7-8 where Satan gathered the nations, and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city (Revelation 20:9). The anticlimactic end to each of these situations (2 Samuel 18:14-15; Revelation 19:20; 20:9-10) demonstrates the invincibleness of God’s covenant with David and ultimately, the Messiah that is expected to rule and reign over the kingdom of heaven. John’s warning to first century believers about Antichrist was not so much about the possibility of being defeated, but about losing the reward that Jesus promised to his faithful followers (Matthew 10:40-42). John advised them, “Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward” (2 John 1:8).

Jesus states in Revelation 22:12, “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.” The Greek word that is translated recompense, misthos (mis-thos´) means “pay for services” G3408). Paul talked about the recompense that believers will receive in his first letter to the Corinthians. Paul identified two groups of Christians, “spiritual people” and “people of the flesh,” and differentiated these two groups by the type of spiritual nourishment they required, milk or solid food (1 Corinthians 3:1-2). Paul went on to explain that the work he was doing to help the Corinthians mature spiritually would be rewarded based on the motive behind it (1 Corinthians 4:5). Paul said:

He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:8-15).

Paul indicated that a person could be saved and yet, receive no reward for serving God. John’s caution to believers, “Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward” (2 John 1:8), suggests that even if we have earned a reward, it could be lost afterward. Paul admitted that he was vulnerable to human error and stated, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

Paul’s concern about being disqualified had to do with how he was perceived by others. The Greek word dokeo (dok-eh´-o) “refers to a person’s subjective mental estimate or opinion about something…It always signifies a subjective estimate of a thing, not the objective appearance and qualities the thing actually possesses” (G1380). Paul knew that he was definitely saved and had been tasked with preaching the gospel, but he referred to himself as “the very least of all the saints” (Ephesians 3:7-8). Paul’s estimate of himself was likely based on his behavior before he became a Christian, rather than afterward, but it reveals an important point about the attitude Paul had about himself. Paul knew that he had failed in the past, and was capable of failing again, therefore he didn’t think of himself as being invulnerable to the influences of Antichrist or as being beyond the reproach of God. When Shimei cursed King David as he was fleeing from Absalom, David responded, “’If he is cursing because the LORD has said to him, “Curse David,” who then shall say, “Why have you done so?”’ And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, ‘Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjamite! Leave him alone and let him curse, for the LORD has told him to. It may be that the LORD will look on the wrong done to me, and that the LORD will repay me with good for his cursing today’” (2 Samuel 16:10-12). Instead of thinking that he deserved a reward for all the things he had done for the LORD, David hoped the LORD would repay him with good for the wrong that was done to him. This is consistent with Jesus’ teaching in his Sermon on the Mount. Jesus told his followers, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).

A man of valor

David’s unbroken fellowship with the Lord began on the day that he was anointed King of Israel. 1 Samuel 16:13 tells us, “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon David from that day forward.” “The Jews recognized that the Messiah would come from David’s descendants (cf. John 7:42). One of the titles applied to Jesus during his earthly ministry was ‘Son of David’ (Matthew 9:27; 12:23; 15:22), emphasizing his heirship of all David’s royal prerogatives as well as his fulfillment of the messianic promises to David (2 Samuel 7:8-16, cf. Matthew 22:41-45; Luke 1:32, 33, 69)” (note on 1 Samuel 16:13). One of the things that linked David to Jesus, the Messiah, was his role as the shepherd of God’s people. When Samuel came to Jesse’s home looking for Israel’s future king, he didn’t find him among David’s six older brothers. 1 Samuel 16:11 states, “Then Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all of your sons here?’ And he said, ‘There remains yet the youngest, but behold, his is keeping the sheep.’” David’s background as a shepherd gave him a unique insight into the Messiah’s viewpoint of salvation. In Psalm 23, David wrote:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
    He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
    He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

“The Lord is depicted as the Shepherd who takes care of all the needs of his sheep. David’s own care of his father’s sheep may have led him to consider how fully he could trust in the Lord, his faithful heavenly shepherd” (note on Psalm 23:1-6). David’s statement, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil” may have been based on his experience of fighting the giant, Goliath. It says in 1 Samuel 17:2-3 that “Saul and the men of Israel were gathered, and encamped in the Valley of Elah, and drew up in line of battle against the Philistines And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with a valley between them.”

David’s entrance into Saul’s life and the kingdom of Israel, over which he was reigning at the time, began with a spiritual need that David was chosen to fulfill. 1 Samuel 16:14-18 states:

Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Behold now, a harmful spirit from God is tormenting you. Let our lord now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is skillful in playing the lyre, and when the harmful spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.” So Saul said to his servants, “Provide for me a man who can play well and bring him to me.” One of the young men answered, “Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.”

“It is interesting that David is called ‘a man of valor, a man of war’ when he had not yet had a chance to prove himself in battle (1 Samuel 17:33). David had likely exhibited these qualities in his experiences as a shepherd, and they were equated with valor in war situations” (note on 1 Samuel 16:18). When David offered to fight the giant, Goliath, 1 Samuel 17:33-37 tells us:

And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for you are but a youth, and he has been a man of war from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” And David said, “The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!”

David’s claim that he had struck down both lions and bears and that he intended to defeat Goliath with the help of the LORD was a daring leap of faith considering that Goliath was described as being 9 feet tall and was wearing a protective coat of mail that weighed 125 lbs. (1 Samuel 17:4-5).

David referred to Goliath as an “uncircumcised Philistine” who had “defied the armies of the living God” (1 Samuel 17:36). David viewed Goliath as a personal enemy of God that needed to be dealt with under the terms of God’s covenant with Israel. When the conquest of Canaan was promised to the people of Israel, God told Moses that an angel would go before the people to guard them from their enemies. God said, “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him” (Exodus 23:20-21). “Exodus 23:21 states that the angel of the Lord has the power to forgive sins, a characteristic belonging to God alone (cf. Mark 2:7; Luke 7:49) and that he has the name of God in him…There is the distinct possibility that various Old Testament references to the ‘angel of the LORD’ involved preincarnate appearances of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Things are said of the angel of the LORD that seem to go beyond the category of angels and are applicable to Christ” (note on Exodus 23:20-23). It is likely that David viewed the situation with Goliath as a challenge to Christ’s authority. The preincarnate Jesus Christ is identified in Joshua 5:15 as “the commander of the LORD’s army” (note on Joshua 5:13-15). David’s statement that Goliath had “defied the armies of the living God” (1 Samuel 17:36) was the equivalent of saying that he had defied the armies of Jesus Christ.

The Hebrew words that are translated man of valor in 1 Samuel 16:18 are gibbowr (gib-boreˊ), which means powerful (H1368), and chayil (khahˊ-yil), which “has the basic idea of strength and influence” (H2428). Gibbowr is an intensive form of the word geber (gehˊ-ber), “A masculine noun meaning man, mighty (virile) man, warrior. It is used of man but often contains more than just a reference to gender by referring to the nature of man, usually with overtones of spiritual strength or masculinity, based on the verb gabar (1396), meaning to be mighty” (H1397). Power is a characteristic usually associated with the Holy Spirit, but it was also used to describe Jesus’s ability to forgive sins (Matthew 9:6) and to lay down his life for the benefit of others (John 10:18). Jesus told his disciples after his resurrection, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The Greek word that is translated power in this verse is dunamis (dooˊ-nam-is), which means “force (literal or figurative); specially miraculous power (usually by implication, a miracle itself)” (G1411). Dunamis is derived from the word dunamai (dooˊ-nam-ahee), which means “to be able or possible” (G1410). David’s valor can be attributed to the fact that the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him and was with him from the day that he was anointed King of Israel until his death (1 Samuel 16:13). David displayed this power when he testified to those who were listening, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17:36).

David’s confrontation of the Philistine giant, Goliath, was primarily a war of words. 1 Samuel 17:40 tells us that David approached Goliath with no other weapons, but his shepherd’s pouch filled with five smooth stones, a staff, and a sling that he carried in his hands. 1 Samuel 17:38-47 states:

Then Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail, and David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” So David put them off. Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd’s pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.

And the Philistine moved forward and came near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. And the Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.” Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”

David told Goliath that he came to him in “the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied” (1 Samuel 17:45). Essentially, what David was saying was that he was coming to Goliath in the name of Jesus. David accessed the power of God by the authority given to him through Jesus’ death on the cross, even though that event had not yet taken place. When we pray in Jesus name, we are using the same power that David did to confront the giant, Goliath.

Paul talked in his letter to the Ephesians about believers being sealed with the Holy Spirit, “who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (Ephesians 1:13-14). Paul went on to explain that it is by grace through faith that we receive salvation in Christ Jesus and all the spiritual blessings that go along with it. Paul said:

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:15-23)

Paul prayed that God the Father would give the Ephesians the Spirit of wisdom and of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:16). The Spirit of wisdom is another name for the Holy Spirit, the only source of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ for those who have not met him face to face. Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as the Helper and said, “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:25-26).

David’s understanding of Israel’s Messiah was based on the Mosaic Law, but in the same way that the Holy Spirit brought to the disciples remembrance all the things that Jesus taught them, so the Holy Spirit brought to David’s mind the things that referred to Jesus in the law. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told his followers that he had come to fulfill the Mosaic Law and that it was the foundational teaching of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17-20). It seems likely that David’s concept of the kingdom that God wanted him to establish and to rule over was the kingdom of heaven. The LORD made a covenant with David that promised to establish and maintain his dynasty on the throne of Israel and to provide Israel “forever with a godly king like David and through that dynasty to do for her what He had done through David—bring her into rest in the promised land (1 Kings 4:20-21; 5:3-4)” (Major Covenants of the Old Testament, KJSB, p. 16). 2 Samuel 7:1-16 tells us:

Now when the king lived in his house and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.” And Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.”

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.’”

“David’s desire to build a house for the Lord sets the stage for one of the key passages in the Old Testament concerning the coming Messiah. Verses 8-16 are referred to as the Davidic covenant. The passage is both an expansion and a clarification of God’s promises to Abraham. It represents an unconditional promise to David that he would be the father of an everlasting kingdom (v. 16)” (note on 2 Samuel 7:4-16). In 2 Samuel 7:13, God referred specifically to establishing the throne of David’s son forever. “This refers initially to Solomon but was ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the ‘Son of David’ (Luke 1:31-33; Acts 2:25-35) who reigns at God’s right hand (Psalm 2:7; Acts 13:33)” (note on 2 Samuel 7:13). When the angel Gabriel told Mary that she was going to give birth to Israel’s Messiah, he said, “And 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 forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:31-33).

Jesus’ valor is displayed prominently in the book of Revelation where his future conquest of and reign over the earth is depicted. Beginning in chapter four with his throne in heaven being revealed, John shows us that Jesus’ power is linked to his creation of the world and that his crucifixion was the impetus for him being given the right to reign on the earth. John said:

And they sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll
    and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
    from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
    and they shall reign on the earth.”

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:9-12)

John indicated that it was the Lamb who was slain that received power and might, the key components of valor. John tells us that Jesus will take possession of this power when the seventh trumpet of God’s judgment is blown (Revelation 11:15-17) and afterward, there will be war in heaven, “Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon” (Revelation 12:7). John continued, “And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of his testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:7-11).