Today we will look at a passage about a house: 1 Chronicles 17: The LORD, David, and Nathan have an interesting and very important discussion about this house. J. Barton Payne says of this discussion in chapter 13 that the heart of 1 Chronicles is to be found in this chapter.[2] Nupanga Weanzana calls it one of the most important in the presentation of the history of Israel in all of Chronicles.[3] Bruce Birch writes of the sister passage to this one, 2 Samuel 7: "this chapter is the most important theological text … perhaps the entire Deuteronomistic History.'[4] So this passage is significant.
The chapter starts off with King David sitting in his house and he is talking to one of the prophets, Nathan. And, he says Verse 1&2:
“Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the LORD is under a tent.”
Nathan replied to David, “Whatever you have in mind, do it, for God is with you.”
Have you ever said something without thinking? Made a joke and regretted immediately afterward or maybe you said someone else would do something without checking with them first or maybe you agreed to something that you really weren't listening to? Or maybe you just said something and thought afterwards…'why did I say that?' Have you ever said something thoughtless and then stayed awake all night worrying or thinking about it? I think this may be Nathan's position here because the very next verse says that night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan…
And this is kind of neat too for it sort of speaks of the closeness of Nathan to the Lord, I think. For God seems to be approaching Nathan in the way a wife may approach a husband who has just invited a bunch of friends over without asking her first or said something that she didn't want him to say. It is like something has come up with work or one of the children and Nathan has not dealt with it quite right. Nathan told David, without asking God first, that David could go and build a house for God and God is not happy to not have been asked first. God says to Nathan: You, Verses 4-10.
4 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. 5 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from one dwelling place to another. 6 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their leaders whom I commanded to shepherd my people, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?”’
7 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and [I] appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 8 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name like the names of the greatest men on earth. 9 And I will provide a place for my people Israel and [I] will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning 10 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also subdue all your enemies.
I think that passage is quite neat. It speaks of both God's relationship to Nathan and of God's relationship to David. In this conversation here God is letting Nathan know that, yes, He is in charge and Nathan is not to forget that but God still loves Nathan enough to ask him to go and make his error right. God trusts Nathan still, even though he made the mistake of speaking without thinking or speaking for God before speaking to Him.
And the message that God gives Nathan here conveys as similar sentiment to David. God tells Nathan to tell David that He does not want anything in the way of a house from David. He has been quite fine without a house for all of this time why would He need one now? Not only that, God says in this context, why do I need you to do anything for me? Remember that it is I who has done all of these things for you; not the other way around. You need me, I don't need you. And He doesn't stop there God says, in essence; however, I love you and will continue to do good things for both you and my people Israel and I will make your name famous, as famous as anyone's and He does.
In these short two paragraph's God has both rebuked the prophet Nathan and the king David and He has also comforted them reminding them that He loves them. (I love my kids) In this way God reminds me of a good parent. You discipline your children but you let them know that you still love them more than you even thought you could. You still want to involve them in as much of your life as they can be involved in. This is what the story is about so far but then we get to the next paragraph and the next paragraph is among the most significant in the whole old testament.
God says to David, through Nathan, Verses 10-14:
“‘I declare to you that the LORD will build a house for you: 11 When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. 12 He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. 13 I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. 14 I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.’”
Who is this passage speaking about? Jesus. It is even quoted in the Gospels, in the NT. Luke 1:32, this is the very passage to which the angle Gabriel refers when he tells Mary that she is going to have the baby Jesus! (As a side note - this is interesting I think anyway - when David says he wants to build a house/palace for God, the Bible uses the exact same word when God declines and says that He will build a house/dynasty for David, which of course He does through Jesus)[5]
Somewhere along the lines either by accident or intent, this promise gets a little bit muddled in people's understanding of it. People, by accident or design start to think of the promise as fulfilled through David's descendants (plural) who will sit on the throne forever as a series of people rather than as one person (as Paul points out in Galatians 3:16)[6] and people begin to think of the temple that was to be built in Jerusalem as the House of God (John 4).
Some questions for you about the Temple: There were many temples: who ordered the first temple built on that spot? King Solomon. Do we know what famous building is on that same spot today? The Dome on the Rock. Do we know how many temples have actually been built on that same spot? 3 or 4 depending on how you count them. After Solomon's Temple was destroyed, Zerubbabel, the governor, had the second temple built in 516 BCE, and then years after it was destroyed, King Herod, who we know from the Christmas story, built the a temple that was destroyed in 70 CE, not that long after Jesus' death. And apparently too there was even another temple that was built in Samaria but the Jews destroyed that one themselves in 128 BCE before Herod ever built his temple[7] and, like we said, the mosque, the Dome on the Rock, sits on that spot today. There have been a lot of temples there built by people who don't seem to understand what the Gospel writers and the early church understood - that God's temple isn't a building. And the descendent of David who is actually going to build it is Jesus because the passage says that the one who builds it will be God's Son and his throne will last forever (Cf. Luke 1:32, Galatians 3:16).
This is important. After he establishes his throne by seeing his brothers killed and before he builds this massive palace for himself, King Solomon builds a temple in Jerusalem. There is then this big ceremony where it is dedicated and God Himself, in a cloud, enters the temple (2 Chronicles 5:14). From this point on many people make the mistake of thinking that God is actually contained in the temple.
This reminds me of a story I read somewhere:
There were some people in the US a while back who thought that they had discovered the oldest place in the universe. They then figured that if it is the oldest place in the universe then that must be where God lives – as it was the first place to exist. They then spend over $20 000.00 to build the necessary equipment to transmit electronic impulses or radio waves or something like that into space; they build a website and offer people the opportunity to talk to God on-line. To this day, apparently many people have sent messages into deep space thinking that that is where God is and that that is the only or best way He will hear them. God is not confined to a star in deep space or to a temple in Jerusalem. God is omnipresent and God loves us.
But many people from the time of Solomon on actually believed that the temple was God's home that He was confined to that building much like a genie is confined to a lamp and they may have began to almost treat God like that. They seemed to believe that they were invincible and could do whatever they wanted because God was all powerful and they had Him contained in this building in their city. God would thus never let the city, much less the temple be destroyed,. God is all powerful and they have him contained like Aladdin had the genie trapped in the lamp and He and all His power would always be theirs.
Then the unthinkable happened, in 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, after a long siege sacked the city, destroyed the temple and wiped out the Kingdom of Judah forever. People did not know what to do, their faith was shaken. They thought they were invincible. They thought God was contained in the Temple. They put their faith in this building instead of in God. When the Temple was destroyed they thought God was beaten. And then they were led off to captivity.
My question for us today is do we ever fall into the same trap? Do we put our faith in buildings - like church buildings (aren’t they called the 'House of God'?) or parliament buildings? Or do we put our faith in people - like pastors or politicians or relatives or friends or husbands or wives or church leaders or famous people? Do we put our faith in denominations or political parties? Do we put our faith in institutions or agencies? Do we ever put our faith in doctors or lawyers? Do we put our faith in our health or our strength or our good looks? Do we put our faith in systems like capitalism or democracy or our country or our province or our city? Or anything else? Or anyone else? Don't.
When we do this we are putting our faith in empty temples and deep space radio transmissions. People, systems, governments, denominations, politicians, church leaders, our friends and our family, even our good looks and our strength at some time will let us down. Our friends, our loved ones, and people we idolize will let us down. It is true and it is sad. Just like it was sad when the temple was destroyed and just like it was sad when Nathan carelessly answered David and said that yes he could go ahead and build one of these temples.
But the Good News is this. God loves Nathan and God loves David and God loves you and God loves me and He has provided for us all. And He has provided for us not an empty temple or a star in outer space but He has raised up Jesus; and God is His Father and Jesus is His Son. And Jesus sits on God's throne forever and He will never take His love away from Him.
And as we serve Jesus, we have access to that all-encompassing, everlasting love of God who will never leave us nor forsake us. So today, with that in mind - there are serious troubles in our world and serious troubles sometimes in our lives - I encourage us as this is the case, not to put our faith in systems or people or traditions or ourselves to save us for we can't. But no matter how difficult our circumstance there is one who can save us. There is one will walk with us through all of our difficulties. There is one who loves and protects us and that one is Jesus and He is able more than able to handle what concerns us today and tomorrow and for ever more for our salvation comes from Christ and Christ alone.
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[1] Answers to introductory quiz: 1) Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church, 2) True, especially The Holy Ghost 3) True, see 1 Samuel 28 (the king was Saul, the dead person was Samuel, and the witch was the Witch of Endor) 4) God used Elijah to raise the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:17-23), God used Elisha to raise the Shunammite woman's son (2 Kings 4:32-37);There was the man they threw into Elisha’s grave (2 Kings 13:21). Jesus raised: the widow's son (Luke 7:12-15), Jairus' daughter (Luke 8:49-55), and Lazarus (John 11:43,44). God used Peter to raise Dorcas (Acts 9:37-40) and Paul to raise Eutychus (after Paul had bored him to death? Acts 20:9-12) 5) The man possessed lived among in the graveyard, among the tombs near Gerasenes (Mark 5:1,2, Luke 8:26-27) 6) True, Matthew 12:25-29, Mark 3:23-27, Luke 11:17-22.
[2] J. Barton Payne, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:1 Chronicles/Exposition of First Chronicles/II. The Reign of David (10:1-29:30)/B. David's Rise (11:1-20:8)/5. Nathan's prophecy (17:1-27), Book Version: 4.0.2
[3] Nupanga Weanzana, '1 Chronicles 17:1-27 David forbidden to build the temple' in Africa Bible Commentary (Nairobi, Kenya: WordAlive, 2010), 488
[4] Bruce C. Birch, 'The First and Second Books of Samuel' in New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 2, ed. Leander E. Keck, et el. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998), 1254.
[5] Cf. J. Barton Payne, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:1 Chronicles/Exposition of First Chronicles/II. The Reign of David (10:1-29:30)/B. David's Rise (11:1-20:8)/5. Nathan's prophecy (17:1-27), Book Version: 4.0.2
[6] This verse specifically refers to Jesus as a descendant of Abraham but, of course, we know that Jesus is also an heir of the promise made to David and so Paul's point stands in relation to both the Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants.
[7] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995),563.
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