Continued from Chapter IV. The Mosaic Programme – Part II..

WE come now to the fifth section of the Divine program of universal history given to and through David, king of Israel.

That the writings of this remarkable man were largely prophetic there can be no question to any Christian believer, since the Apostle Peter calls him “a prophet,” and our Lord Himself asserts that David in the Psalms spoke by the Holy Ghost and wrote of Him a thousand years before the Christian era. (Acts 2:30; Luke 24:44)

We hope in this chapter to justify these sayings, by showing the demonstrably prophetic character of the Davidic foreview, and its strict and most wonderful accordance with the facts of history, as far as these latter have as yet gone. Only a part of the program is at present fulfilled; one-third of it is still future. The evidential argument arises of course solely from the two-thirds which already are accomplished.

David was, not only a prophet, but a king; and this fact naturally colors the special revelations given to him. God selects for His varied service instruments equally varied; and just as He chose a patriarchal father to be the channel of the revelation as to ?the Seed? in whom the world shall be blessed, just as He chose the founder and lawgiver of the Jewish nation to receive and impart the foreview of that people’s national history, so He chose a monarch to be the medium of His prophetic revelations as to the glorious kingdom of God and its King. The foreview given to David is not an indefinite or general one, like that presented to our first parents, not a mere ethnic outline, like that given to Noah; it is a more advanced and complex revelation, a right royal program for which a king was the fit channel. It consists of a promise about a kingdom and its king, and of a covenant confirmed by a solemn oath of Jehovah, as was the Abrahamic covenant previously. How appropriate, then, that this section of the Divine program of history should be given to the father and founder of a royal dynasty destined to reign and rule for centuries, to the first true king of God’s chosen people!

David was this, though he had, it is true, been preceded on the throne of Israel by Saul. But that son of Kish knew not how to obey, and could not therefore govern. God, whose word he rejected and despised, in due course rejected him from the throne he was unfit to occupy. Not from the tribe of Benjamin, but from that of Judah was to be the ruler of Israel. It was of this tribe that Jacob had foretold, “the sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come.” David, unlike Saul, belonged to this royal tribe, and, with all his imperfections and failures, he had a right royal heart and did right royal work, faithfully shepherding, defending, and governing the people whom God committed to his care, subduing all their enemies, providing both for the ark and worship of Jehovah and for the Levitical service and priestly courses, as well as for the glorious temple to be afterwards built by Solomon.

David was a man of a large, powerful, and richly various nature; he had a mind keen to perceive, a heart quick to feel, a conscience tender—though once, alas! seared as with a red—hot iron by sin—capable of being aroused into vigorous action and of exerting mighty control; he had eyes to weep in bitter contrition, a tongue to utter confession and prayer, a voice and lips to sing songs of tender pathos, of humble trust, or of triumphant exultation; he had feet to dance before the Lord for joy, a soul to be awed into silent veneration or to thrill with magnificent triumph, as the occasion might demand. He had also a sensitiveness which rendered his loves and his friendships warm and intense, which made filial ingratitude an agony to him, which caused sorrows and fears in anticipation to be a very real torture to his spirit. He could sink to the very lowest depths of woe and rise to the highest heights of enjoyment.

The human element was in him rich and strong, while the spiritual side of his being was even stronger; and the strange, varied experiences of his life called successively into play every part of his intense and vivid nature. Religious reverence, holy faith and courage, mental and moral superiority, tender affection, powerful passions, compassionate kindness, inflexible severity when demanded by justice, executive ability and ruling talent of the first order, all characterized in marked measure Israel’s first great king; and he had, in addition, the literary ability and musical skill which made him memorable as the sweet psalmist of Israel. He was no mere official monarch; no selfish, luxurious tyrant, oppressing his people, but a thoroughly natural, sympathetic, loving, large-hearted, God-fearing man, who underwent most remarkable and unique experiences. The events of his life were ordered in Divine providence that they might give occasion to thoughts, feelings, and anticipations, the natural expression of which would prove unconsciously to himself for the most part—to be prophecy.

What was the state of things when this fifth section of the Divine program was indicated to David, and to mankind through him? Some five hundred years had passed away since the days of Moses. Joshua had in the meantime divided to the people their Canaan inheritance, and during his life and the lives of his contemporaries Israel had answered the end for which it had been chosen of God, steering clear of idolatry and maintaining inviolate its monotheistic creed and worship. Among other peoples and nations polytheism and image-worship of the grossest kind everywhere prevailed, and had become systematized. Each country had its own special gods. The Zidonians worshipped Ashtoreth, the Ammonites Moloch, the Moabites Chemosh, and so on. After Joshua’s days defection had gradually set in among the Israelites. One after another the tribes fell into idolatry, and adopted the gods of their neighbours; and then, as Moses had predicted, came punishment and calamity: wars were waged on Israel by their heathen enemies, and the God whom they had forsaken suffered them to experience defeat after defeat, and servitude after servitude. Yet again and again He delivered them, raising up for them judges who governed and guided the people aright as long as they lived. These servitudes and deliverances alternated up to the days of Samuel the prophet, in whose old age the people first asked a king. Weary of their distinctive theocracy, they wished to be like their heathen neighbours. “We will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations.” God gave them their desire, foretelling at the same time that its gratification would bring them into future trouble, as proved to be the case. Overruling their evil for good, however, according to His wont, He revealed, in connection with the establishment of the Jewish kingdom and to its first great king, the grand outline we have now to consider, of the present and future kingdom of God.

The Adamic and Noahic programs were brief, occupying each but a few verses; the Abrahamic and Mosaic were longer and fuller, extending to entire chapters, and comprising many distinct and separate revelations given at considerable intervals. This Davidic program as to the kingdom and its king is still more ample. It is embodied, first, in certain direct revelations made to David, and, secondly, in the Book of Psalms, numbers of which are wholly devoted to it, while others contain features of it more or less amplified. It is consequently a very extensive and detailed program, and we must present it only in outline in an exceedingly condensed form, selecting the main, fundamental predictions alone out of the mass, and then comparing that part of the program which has been fulfilled with the history which has fulfilled it.

As given to David in its first brief and comprehensive form, it is found in 2 Samuel vii. The story is there related of how David had desired to build a house for the Lord, and of how Nathan the prophet was sent to the king to tell him that, for certain reasons, the erection of the temple was to be left to his son Solomon. This he did, and he then added:—

“Also the Lord telleth thee that He will make thee an house. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom…. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee thy throne shall be established for ever.”

“I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn unto David My servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations…. My covenant, will I not break, nor alter the thing that hath gone out of My lips. Once have I sworn by My holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven” (Ps. lxxxix. 3, 4, and 34, 35, 36, 37).

“The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David; He will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. If thy children will keep My covenant and My testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore. For the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation. This is My rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it…. There will I make the horn of David to bud: I have ordained a lamp for Mine anointed. His enemies will I clothe with shame: but upon himself shall his crown flourish” (Ps 132:11, 12, 13, 14, and 17, 18).

Here is the first grand and simple outline, and we note in it—

I. DAVID’S SEED WAS TO BE ENTHRONED FOR EVER, TO GOVERN AN ETERNAL KINGDOM; both his house and his kingdom were to he established for ever. The two things, let it be observed, are distinct: first, his house was to he established, that is his dynasty, a literal begotten son of David was to he the everlasting ruler; and, secondly, his kingdom, with its political capital, its definite geographical location and its national relations, was also to be established for ever.

The eternal kingdom on the earth was to be ruled by a direct descendant of David, and was to be in some sense a continuation of David’s reign over Israel. The throne of Judah which had just been established in the house of David should be, it was promised, everlasting. Features both dynastic and political would be common to the kingdom of David and the eternal kingdom though combined, of course, with many and wide differences which were subsequently indicated; so that the latter would be in the strictest sense an everlasting continuation of the former. Solomon and his kingdom and the temple he was to erect are mentioned, but only as occupying the nearer future. They were the lesser and comparatively unimportant introductory details of the program, and over and above and beyond them, reaching right out into an unknown eternity, was to be another and a greater kingdom, the longer and more glorious reign of a king who, though literally descended from David, should reign for ever.

Note: Rev. Guinness’ statements that God’s promises to King David will be fulfilled in a literal physical kingdom on earth are clearly based on Zionism and Dispensationlism which was taught by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren. We can see right now the evil fruits of death and destruction in Gaza by a Jesus Christ rejecting people who call themselves “Jews” and “Israel” who insist on a definite geographical location for their homeland!

I found a very good explanation for the Davidic covenant on https://www.gotquestions.org/Davidic-covenant.html

This is foretold as clearly as words can express ideas, and Jehovah confirmed the promise with an oath; it became an everlasting covenant (Note: Fulfilled in Christ!), ordered in all things and sure; and although David realized that his house was not what it should be in God’s sight, and that he and his sons were not absolutely just and God-fearing men, yet he rested believingly on this great and infallible covenant promise, and said of it in his last words: “This is all my salvation and all my desire.” The revelation was clear, definite, repeated and solemnly confirmed, but it was unexplained and most mysterious. It suggested questions that could not be answered, and it must have given much food for reflection to the king. How could eternal sovereignty be associated with any son of David? Was not the very notion self-contradictory? A dynasty might indeed be perpetual, though history never yet knew such a one; but an individual? Had not Moses long since sung:–

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow for it is soon cut off and we fly away.”

How then could mortal man reign for ever? (Note: Only if the promise to David is fulfilled in Christ!) No further light was thrown on the problem; the revelation appealed to faith, not to reason; and David, like Abraham, knew God well enough to trust Him, though he could not understand how He would fulfill His great promise. “He was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” {Rom. 4:20, 21} We may well imagine his meditations would often connect this prediction about his own seed with that of Abraham’s seed, “in whom the world should he blessed,” and with the still earlier Eden promise about the woman’s Seed who should bruise the serpent’s head; and that he felt these three must be one. But he died in faith, not having received the promise, though having seen it afar off and embraced it; and having been permitted to see his son Solomon seated on his throne, as a first installment of the fulfillment of the Divine program.

But David was not only a recipient of prophecy, he was also a channel of prophetic revelation. He himself said: “The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and His word was in my tongue,” and his tongue was the pen of a ready writer. Through him, though not to him, much more about the coming kingdom of his great predicted son was revealed line after line was added to the first faint shadowy sketch, until at last a clear picture was produced on the page. We must note these lines one by one, and allow the conception to become gradually perfected in our minds as each successive feature is added to the previous ones.

We cannot tell whether David ever understood all the predictions of which he was the channel; very probably not. He was most likely one of those prophets of whom Peter speaks, who “inquired and searched diligently what the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.” Our concern, however, is not with what he understood, but with what he wrote. We do not pretend to prove that David foreknew or foresaw the future, but that He who does so used David’s mind, heart, and pen to write for subsequent generations the program of then future events, which the lapse of time has already largely fulfilled.

The features of the coming King and kingdom revealed through David are mainly seven-fold. We have seen the first–its eternal duration; and we now note–

II. THE KINGDOM OF DAVID’S ILLUSTRIOUS DESCENDANT WAS NOT TO BE MERELY JEWISH, BUT UNIVERSAL.

“Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen (or the Gentiles) for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.” {Ps 2:8}

“He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him; and His enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him…. His name shall endure for ever: His name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall he blessed in Him all nations shall call Him blessed…. Blessed be His glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory.” (Ps 72:8, 9, 10, ii, 17, 19)

These predictions of the universality of the sway of David’s Son were no less astonishing than those of the everlasting duration of His reign. The Jewish people were essentially separate from all other nations. “For what one nation in the earth is like Thy people, even like Israel,” said David, “which Thou redeemest to Thyself from Egypt, from the nations and their gods? For Thou hast redeemed to Thyself Thy people Israel, to be a people unto Thee for ever and Thou, Lord, art become their God.” “Thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, said Solomon, “to be Thine inheritance.”

Israel was so emphatically a separate and peculiar people that the very conception of a world-wide kingdom, embracing all nations, was foreign to their ideas. “In Judah is God known,” was their creed; and in their day the limitation existed most strictly, for Israel alone possessed the knowledge of God and the light of revelation. David would therefore never have conceived of a universal kingdom, and yet the prediction of such a one shines forth clearly from the pages that he wrote. The coming kingdom was to be neither local in sphere, nor Jewish in character, nor temporary in duration; it was to embrace and bless all mankind throughout the whole earth, and it was to last for ever. It was, however, to be distinctly earthly in character, as we have seen; and great stress is laid on this point, which is repeatedly and distinctly mentioned in the predictions of the program itself and confirmed by the allusions to it of later prophets. This point is an important one, as it is a very common and deplorable mistake to confound the prophecies of this literal kingdom of David’s son with the spiritual kingdom of Christ which now exists, as if the former were fulfilled in the latter. No such spiritual kingdom could by any possibility fulfill the everlasting covenant made with David, which was to the effect that his kingdom as well as his dynasty should be everlasting.

Note: I strongly disagree with Rev. Guinness on this for reasons I explained above.

Now, just as no king of another family could fulfil the dynastic part of this promise, so no kingdom of another and wholly different nature could fulfil the national part of it. Reason alone would suggest that the kingdom of David’s son must be of the same nature as David’s own kingdom; but revelation settles it. Not only is it spoken of continually in the Messianic predictions as extending to the uttermost parts of the earth, and filling the whole earth with blessing and glory, but it is always presented as succeeding and replacing the earthly kingdoms of all Gentile rulers. It is also spoken of as succeeding the restoration and national conversion of Israel.

“For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.” {Ho 3:4, 5}

“I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be My people, and I will be their God. And David My servant shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd: they shall also walk in My judgments, and observe My statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob My servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and My servant David shall be their prince for ever.” (Ezek. xxxvii. 23-25.)

The context in these passages settles the earthly nature of the kingdom. This salient feature of the program gave shape to the Jewish expectations of our Lord’s day, and He never denounced them as false or mistaken, but, on the contrary, admitted that they were correct, though defective by omission of something else destined to come first. These expectations were, in fact, the great ground of the Jewish rejection of the claims of Christ to be the Messiah; He made no attempt at that time to found the earthly kingdom they rightly anticipated..

Now, one of the leading attributes of God is unchangeableness, combined with variation of plan for the attainment of His purpose, as the case may require. It is plainly stated {Ro 11:29} that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” Hence, the land of promise is entailed for ever to the seed of Abraham, and the sceptre of this earth—not some other sceptre—to the seed of David. An everlasting and universal kingdom on earth governed by a son of David, whose earthly throne is established on Mount Zion, is a fundamental feature of the Davidic program. (Note: See why I disagree.) The moral features of this kingdom are given with great fullness in the 72nd and other Psalms; it is to be marked especially by righteousness, by peace, and by unexampled prosperity, and also by universal diffusion of the knowledge of the Lord.

It was further revealed in the Psalms that—

III. THE KING WOULD BE DIVINE AS WELL AS HUMAN; HE WOULD BE GOD AND MAN IN ONE PERSON—DAVID’S SON YET DAVID’S LORD.

Note: In this section Rev. Guinness clearly points to Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of all God’s promises to David! It seems to me he contradicts what he said earlier in the statement, “It is a very common and deplorable mistake to confound the prophecies of this literal kingdom of David’s son with the spiritual kingdom of Christ which now exists, as if the former were fulfilled in the latter. No such spiritual kingdom could by any possibility fulfill the everlasting covenant made with David, which was to the effect that his kingdom as well as his dynasty should be everlasting.” Any comments about this are appreciated. Please write them in the comment section below.

A most marvelous revelation this, impossible almost of conception to a Jew of David’s day, and esteemed blasphemous by the Jews of our own day. It is not that incarnation is foretold as a doctrine, or that any dogmatic statement is made on the subject; but in various Psalms, and especially in three, expressions are used, statements are made, and pictures are presented, which admit of no other possible meaning.

In the 2nd Psalm we have a description of the enthronement of the Lord’s anointed King on His holy hill of Zion, in spite of the determined opposition of a league of inveterate enemies. The extent of the dominion and the nature of the rule prove that the Psalm does not refer to David, but to his greater Son, In the midst of this description occur the strange and most notable words: “I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto Me, Thou art My Son this day have I begotten Thee.” The son and heir of David is then the Son of God—not a mere man adopted as a son like Solomon, but the begotten Son of God. The statement embodied a strange, startling, new, and almost incredible idea when it was penned, though three thousand years later, in our nineteenth century, we can read it as an allusion to a familiar truth. Let us try and realize the marvel of the fact that it was placed on the page, as an item of the Davidic program, a thousand years before Christianity familiarized men’s minds with the doctrine of the Divine Sonship. It was placed there when it was not understood; the Jews never understood it,—they do not understand it now, they cannot account for it. Yet there it is—the royal son of David was to be the begotten Son of God. He who was to reign for ever was to share the Divine nature as well as the nature of man. This explains the possibility of an eternal rule, as well as many another apparent contradiction in the Davidic program. (Note: It looks like a contradiction to Rev. Guinness because he was under the influence of the doctrines of Darby’s dispensationalism.)

The 45th Psalm confirms the 2nd Psalm on this point. The meaning of the Psalm is defined in the first verse: “I speak of the things which I have made touching the king.” It treats of the person of the king, of his enemies and his victories, of his kingdom and righteous rule. In the midst of all this we find the following words addressed to him “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”

Now here it is evident that the one who is anointed is a human being, since he is fairer than the children of men, and grace is poured into his lips, and God has blessed him and anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows. He is as clearly the great predicted son of David, since he is to reign for ever. This one is addressed as God: “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” Even if the words were not quoted and applied in the New Testament as having this force, there is no mistaking the construction of the Psalm when it is carefully studied. The one addressed in the sixth verse is the one spoken of in the seventh (“Thy throne is for ever”; “Thy sceptre is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, therefore,” etc.). In the former he is called God, in the latter he is spoken of as anointed by God. Here again was a mysterious intimation which might have prepared Israel for a Messiah who, without blasphemy, could lay claim to a Divine nature. It did not have this effect; yet the prediction is plain.

And once more—in the 110th Psalm, which again treats of the great King, the rod of whose strength is to go forth from Zion, and who is to rule in the midst of His enemies and judge among the heathen, we have not only David speaking of his son as his Lord, but Jehovah inviting Him to sit at His own right hand until His foes should be made His footstool. This wonderful vision again implies the Divine as well as human nature of the Messiah King. For “to which of the angels said He at any time, Sit on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool?” Without a recognition of this double nature there is no solution of the question which silenced the Jews in the days of Christ: “If David call him Lord, how is he then his son?”

Though not properly part of the program as given to David himself, yet as part of the Old Testament program concerning David’s seed, and as amplifying gloriously the everlasting covenant, passages from some of the later prophets ought to be considered here. The combination of divinity with humanity is specially clear in the following:

“Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” {Isa 9:6, 7}

Here it is clear that the one who sits on the throne of David, and orders and establishes His kingdom for ever with judgment and with justice, is not only “born” as a child into his family, but is also “the mighty God, the Father of eternity.”

“Behold, the days shall come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” (Jer 23:5, 6}

JEHOVAH TZIDKENU—a Divine title—is here given to a branch from the stem of David.

Again: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” {Mic 5:2}

In these words it is evident that the Son of David, who is to issue from the town of David, and to be the foretold ruler in Israel, is one “whose goings forth” have been from the days of eternity.

Continued in Chapter V. The Davidic Programme. – Part II.

All sections of The Divine Programme of The World’s History By H. Grattan Guinness