The
Controversy Continues
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the January 30, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“One evening David got up from his bed
and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman
bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about
her. The man said, ‘She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of
Uriah the Hittite.’ Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and
he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly
uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to
David, saying, ‘I am pregnant.’” 2 Samuel 11:2-5, NIV
With this week we continue with what appears to be the
rather confused picture of God and His character that was presented in last
week’s lesson. This confusion is perhaps a major reason why some have trouble
equating the God of the Old Testament with the Jesus of the New Testament. It
might be hard for some to find a link between the God of “Love your enemies,”[i] with the God who not only
wiped every living thing from the face of the Earth except the inhabitants of
the ark,[ii] but also commanded the
genocide of the Canaanites and others.[iii] Some may be tempted to offer
up as a defense the wickedness of the Canaanites, but most, if not all,
genocides are founded on similar justifications by those perpetrating them,
whether Turks versus Armenians or Nazis versus Jews and Gypsies. One might also
be tempted to excuse the behavior based on historical context. However, these
two examples are modern and not ancient, and the same God reigned then as now.[iv]
But how do we explain the contradictions? Some may choose
to ignore contradictions and deny that they are even there, but this does not
make them go away. It may even make the one who ignores the reality appear less
than honest about their faith to someone else who may easily see those
contradictions. But perhaps it may be instructive to see examples of what some
of these events are that present contradictory points of view. Of course we
have slightly different accounts of Creation in Genesis, chapters one and two,
and also slight differences regarding how many animals Noah took on the ark.
However, neither of these is egregious except to those to whom trivia matters a
great deal. There are far more stark examples to be found involving flagrant
disobedience and the resulting response apparently endorsed by God.
One example is the sparing of the prostitute Rahab by
the Israelites in spite of the command to destroy all of the Canaanites.[v] While it is true that the
spies gave an oath that she would not be harmed, that oath was apparently
coerced by a threat of exposure to the enemy. However, not only did Joshua
honor that oath and spare Rahab and her family, but Rahab married Salmon and
contributed her DNA to the gene pool of the Messiah. She was King David’s
great, great grandmother. Honoring the oath given by the spies may be seen as a
human failing similar to the experience with the Gibeonites,[vi] but that the Davidic line
producing the Messiah should come from that seems to imply that God is
circumventing His own instructions regarding the Canaanites. One might be
tempted to consider this a singular anomaly, but there are more.
Only one generation later, we have the story of Ruth the
Moabitess. The instructions written by Moses and therefore presumed to be from
God were that no Moabite could be joined to the congregation of Israel, even to
the tenth generation.[vii] Yet, not only does Ruth
marry Boaz, an Israelite, but in only three generations her great grandson,
David is not only a part of the assembly of Israel, he is ruling over it. Once again,
God appears to endorse this breach of obedience, even referring to David as a
man after His own heart.[viii] One may wonder at God’s
purposes in consistently being inconsistent, especially with the Messianic
line.
We find yet another inconsistency in King David. Here is
a man who seems to walk in God’s will, but walks straight into the arms of
Bathsheba, another man’s wife. No doubt there were many beautiful women who
were available to the King without the impediment of being already married.
What could have transpired between David’s rooftop saunter and Bathsheba’s
open-air toilet that created such a stir of desire in the King’s heart we can
only wonder. Was David primarily at fault or Bathsheba? Today we would perhaps
place the blame on the one in the position of power abusing that power to gain
a sexual advantage, but that may not have been the perspective in the past. Matthew
notably refuses to even name her in Christ’s genealogy, referring to her
instead only as the wife of Uriah.[ix] He excludes her but does
not hesitate to name Rahab and Ruth. Apparently all those centuries later, some
still had a problem coming to grips with what had happened between David and
Bathsheba.
Here again, God seems to have endorsed a divergent path
from what was commanded. David had not only committed adultery with Bathsheba,
but he murdered her husband to cover it up. The penalty for adultery and murder
both was death. But in the Prophet Nathan’s pronounced judgment from God, both
David and Bathsheba were spared. Sadly, instead, their son was to die. Nonetheless,
God appears to have blessed their marriage. Another son, Solomon, was born and
through him the Davidic line continued to the Messiah. This is in spite of not
only David’s perfidy, but Solomon’s as well, and several other kings after him.
It is hard to reconcile the professed need for obedience that Moses continually
presented with the frequent flaunting of those same rules in the royal
Messianic line. How can this God possibly be the same God shown to us by Jesus?
Should we be tempted to view God as Satan portrays Him – a God who is
ultimately unfair? Or is there more to this story?
Some have proposed a theology of progressive revelation
as an explanation for all of this. They point out that the Jews were at their
very lowest point when they were brought out of Egypt after 400 years of
captivity. Surrounded by idolatry and pressed on every side by those who
considered themselves racially and religiously superior, many appear to have
lost faith in the ancient covenant with Abraham and his descendants. What a
challenge it must have been for Moses as God’s spokesman to revive what little
flagging faith remained. Perhaps like children, rules were necessary for those
religiously immature Jews to help them find their way back to a proper
understanding of God’s character. With that understanding, the Old Testament may
be seen as a progressive climb back to the characterization of God shared by
Jesus.
While some were eventually able to make that transition,
many more preferred to remain under the tutelage of the rules meant to mature
them and bring them to Christ.[x] Even today, many struggle
over the role to be played by the Law and grace, far too often remaining under
the impression that salvation comes through the Law. Therefore the progressive
nature of revelation is still very much alive for those who may one day come
fully under the banner of grace.
While all of this may provide a general framework for a
theology intended to unify both the Old and New Testaments, there are other
possibilities that con contribute to our understanding of what was going on.
For instance, God’s inclusion of Canaanites and Moabites in the Messianic line
may have been purposeful. The Messiah was to be Savior of all people, not only
the children of Abraham. The privilege of being an ancestor of Christ was given
to Abraham but his line was not to bear that privilege alone. Those that were
far off[xi] were brought near not
just theologically. They also contributed to the Messiah’s DNA. In a figurative
sense, Christ was everyman’s seed. Even the loss of David and Bathsheba’s son
may have prefigured the death of another innocent on Calvary, Who, though He
knew no sin, died because of it.
From all of this, dear reader, I hope you are able to understand
that yes there are contradictions in the Bible, but that is OK. They may be
there for a far deeper reason than a simple literal reading of the text can
reveal. The Bible is the living Word of God; therefore it has greater depth
than any other tome. It has the power to change lives through the reading of
its pages. There is treasure placed there by God Himself. It can be discovered
by those who earnestly seek it.[xii] We only need to open its
pages and search for it.
