David finishes off Goliath and therefore qualifies for the
prizes Saul offered, “the king will enrich the man who kills him with great
riches and will give him his daughter and make his father's house free in
Israel.” Is it anachronistic that Saul
asks whose son David might be? That was
actually established in chapter 16 when he asked someone to find him a good
lyre player and someone suggested, “I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite…” Perhaps this little inclusio points to Saul’s
madness, that he can’t place this young man who has been in his service in his
household. At any rate, David has earned
his reward by killing the Philistine champion and setting up the rout of the
Philistine army. His encounter with
Saul, for some reason causes Saul’s son Jonathan to bind himself covenantally
to David. Jonathan’s actions, giving all
his accoutrements to David, imply that they are one soul, Jonathan considers
himself bound to David as though they were one person, in the same way Jesus
took on flesh, binding Himself, His destiny and ours, and when He became sin
who knew no sin at the cross, making that binding permanent.
No one would have denied that they were the sons of those
who murdered the prophets would they?
That they build and decorate the tombs of the prophets points to this as
an act of repentance, an attempt to rectify the wrongs done by their
forefathers. Jesus, however, is using
that phrase, “sons of those who murdered the prophets,” as a way of tying them
to the acts of their fathers. He has also said they are not true sons of
Abraham, but of their father the devil, in the same way. Are we sons of God by the testimony of both
our lips and lives? Jesus uses this phrase prophetically, pointing to the
cross. It is easier to honor a dead
prophet who called someone else to repent than a living one who is calling you to repent. Those referred to as hypocrites will have
their opportunity to repent and honor one who died but who also rose again,
whose empty tomb is the sign of the covenant, that Jesus’ death and
resurrection are signs of the same for those who are truly God’s children. He showed us how to live and how to die.
Paul says that salvific faith is through belief in the heart
confession with the mouth, not in works of righteousness. Jesus is the “end of the law for
righteousness to everyone who believes.”
Confession with the mouth is an important thing but confession isn’t a
private matter for Paul, it is the public proclamation of our lives and our
destinies being tied to Jesus. In situ,
Paul would never have meant some private transaction between the believer and
Christ. Jesus’ incarnation, baptism and
death all are public declarations by God of His love for us, incredibly public
declarations in fact. He stayed faithful
both to the Father and to the image bearers all the way to suffering and death
and we are called to that same unwavering faithfulness to Him. We are to be one flesh, one spirit, one soul
with Christ, that was His intention and our faith must make the same commitment
to Him that He made to us in spite of the fact that we will fail. The cross means our failure is not final, His
commitment isn’t based on our faithfulness, but His alone. Belief and faith, however, require more than
private commitment. Jonathan’s actions
toward David are the model we need to understand.
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