was that a picture of Jesus?

Steven J said...

When David killed the sons and grandsons of Saul (not counting the descendants of Jonathan) in response to an epidemic that he regarded as God's punishment because Saul had massacred the Gibeonites, was that a picture of Jesus? Because I'm having trouble tracing out the typology.


@Steven

I don't recall anyone suggesting that you wouldn't encounter difficulty in understanding Scripture.

First, we recognize that not every character in the Bible is a type of Christ.

I do think that passage you refer to is a picture of God's justice. The house of Saul has committed an offense (breaking the oath that was sworn, and the killing of the Gibeonites)

The offense of the house of Saul is a picture of our sin, and the consequences of our sin.

The offense of Saul had consequences, on the Gibeonites who suffered the offense, the house of Saul that committed the offense, AND consequences on all of Israel (the famine that was in the land).

God's justice demands full payment of the penalty due. This echos the idea of reciprocal justice, given e.g. in Exodus 21:23-25 et al. The penalty for the offense is "like for like", in proportion.

David, King of the Jews, makes atonement for the offense of Saul. God ends the famine endured by Israel, i.e. God extends His mercy, and ends the consequences.

One wonders why this episode is recounted in the Bible, whether it was necessary, Couldn't God have left that part out of the Bible?

Maybe God included this episode in the Bible, as a picture of His justice, a picture of the consequences of sin, and as a picture of atonement,.

This episode may point forward towards to the work of atonement that the Son of David (Jesus) will perform., offering full payment, as King of the Jews, for sin that was not his own sin, in obedience to the Father's will.

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If we make the mistake of reading the Bible as if it were a set of rules for what _we_ should and shouldn't do, we miss the main point of the Bible.

The entirety of the Bible points to one main idea: what _Jesus_ has already done.

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One of the main questions we need to ask, of course, is (according to the Bible) who is Jesus?

Jesus is not "part of God", Nor is Jesus "part God". Both of those ideas are inadequate, those ideas are not from the Bible.

The Bible teaches that Jesus IS the creator God, Jesus is fully God. The Jesus of the New Testament is the Creator God of the Old Testament. Jesus is one and the same.