Broadlands Bible Church
February 1, 2023
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Thesis: The Davidic Covenant was designed to address the soul of man in the specific issue of relational security.
Introduction: For the last several weeks we considered the subsidiary covenant that God made and arranged under what I have called the "Covenant of Life" (better known as The Abrahamic Covenant) that He made with Abraham which I have called The Land Covenant. It was made with the nation of Israel in order to establish the permanence of a provision for physical man. The focus of that covenant is upon God's commitment to provide physical benefits to His people. But, the problem that the text gives us in regard to that covenant is that, on the one hand, all of the blessings are dependent upon the people being faithful to Yahweh as the Elohim in their lives and, on the other hand, Moses clearly declares that Yahweh has not given those people a heart to own Him as their Elohim. In
Deuteronomy 30:6 Moses declared that there will come a time when this "land" covenant will be permanently established because God will circumcise the hearts of His people and they will come to the kind of fidelity that the covenant requires. But, the overall significance for us is this: a focus upon the outer man (a focus upon blessing-provisions for man's body) will not be effective as long as the focus is on the outer man rather than on the inner heart. The point, then, is this: we cannot expect "life" to flow out of a focus upon our physical identity.
Now, this evening we are going to begin to look into the second of these subsidiary covenants. It is found in 2 Samuel 7. and it is called "The Davidic Covenant". It is my contention that this covenant focuses upon man in respect to the need of his soul. So let us consider what God did with David in 2 Samuel 7.
- I. The Root Issue At Stake In The Giving Of The Davidic Covenant.
- A. The text gives us a sense, on the one hand, that David was moved to consider building a house for God because he lived in a house of cedar but God dwelt in a tent: 2 Samuel 7:1-2.
- B. However, as we continue in the text, we get a sense that God knew something about David that went far beyond the cedar/tent contrast.
- C. It is altogether a mistake to think that David was motivated to build God a house because he lived in a qualitatively superior residence and wanted God to "move up" to a better quality of "house".
- 1. God never addresses man aside from his need.
- a. Man's need is always a need for the experience of life as it is in God.
- b. God's words are always imparted to man to move him from his experience in death to a growing experience of the life that characterizes God.
- 2. God's words to David reveal that the real issue in David's heart is not God's rather pitiful tent (in comparison to David's rather majestic cedar house).
- a. God completely sidesteps this comparison.
- b. God reminds David that He has always dwelt in a tent.
- 1) The question here is this: what does a "tent" signify?
- 2) The answer is found in Hebrews 11:9-13: tents signify impermanence.
- c. God then promises to build David an indestructible house, which indicates...
- 1) That David's real concern was not the qualitative differences in the types of residences between him and God.
- 2) That David's real concern was the impermanence of God's residence in respect to him.
- a) David had a "real time" illustration that God was not always relationally committed to a person just because that person had received grace from God [Saul was rejected by God].
- b) David had no illusions about his moral superiority to Saul.
- c) Thus, there was an ever-abiding threat that God would reject David just as He had Saul.
- d) David's rather naive notion that if God had a permanent house He would be less inclined to "move on" and leave David was probably rooted in the idea that if he made a big statement about his loyalty to Yahweh, Yahweh would be inclined to stick around...a notion that springs directly out of the mindset of The Land Covenant [blessing springs from loyalty].
- 3) That God desired to remove every vestige of insecurity from David's soul regarding His commitment to David.
- a) He reminded him that is was He Who initiated His relationship with David: 7:8-11.
- b) He promised him that there would be no interruption of the permanence of that relationship on His part...He would build David a house that would endure.
- i. This commitment is set between the "great name" promise originally given to Abraham (7:9) and the "planting of Israel in their own place" promise [The Land Promise] (7:10).
- ii. This commitment is a promise of "a house for David" (7:11) that is, then, "defined" as "a forever kingdom of his descendent" [The Great Nation Promise/Seed Promise] (7:12-16).
- II. The Gospel of the Davidic King.
- A. Matthew was a man who was relationally bankrupt.
- B. The picture of Jesus in Matthew is fundamentally relational in all of His instruction.
- C. The promise in Matthew is that you will find rest unto your soul.
- D. The conclusion in Matthew is "I will be with you until the end of the age".
- III. The Relationship of Security to the Believer in Hebrews 13:5-6.
