The Lord also has taken away your sin

2 Samuel 12:1-24 (NASB) from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Nathan Rebukes David

12 Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him and said,

⁵ Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. ⁶ He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.”

⁷ Nathan then said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. ⁸ I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these! ⁹ Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. ¹⁰ Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ ¹¹ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. ¹² Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’” ¹³ Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die. ¹⁴ However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die.” ¹⁵ So Nathan went to his house.

Loss of a Child

Then the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s widow bore to David, so that he was very sick. ¹⁶ David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground. ¹⁷ The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them. ¹⁸ Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!” ¹⁹ But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived that the child was dead; so David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” And they said, “He is dead.” ²⁰ So David arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he came to his own house, and when he requested, they set food before him and he ate.

²¹ Then his servants said to him, “What is this thing that you have done? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept; but when the child died, you arose and ate food.” ²² He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ ²³ But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Solomon Born

²⁴ Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and went in to her and lay with her; and she gave birth to a son, and he named him Solomon. Now the Lord loved him

Today's text describes the account of what happened after David had an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed. Chapter 11 begins with the description of what happened.

 Then it happened in the spring, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon andbesieged Rabbah. But David stayed at Jerusalem.

² Now when evening came David arose from his bed and walked around on the roof of the king’s house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful in appearance. ³ So David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” ⁴ David sent messengers and took her, and when she came to him, he lay with her; and when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. ⁵ The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, and said, “I am pregnant.”

The first verse says: ...at the time when kings go out to battle... David stayed at Jerusalem.      David was a great warrior. It is perhaps because he stayed back and was not walking in the fullness of his calling that he was in the position to be tempted and fall into this great sin.   Idle hands are the devil's workshop, is not a biblical proverb, but there is truth to what it says. If we remain focused on the things God has called us to, walking daily in His will we will not find ourselves in the place of temptation.

Still even in this account of David's sin and God's rebuke, we can find great reasons to be encouraged. The text says:  Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. ⁸ I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!    David was an ordinary man, the youngest of his brothers, from a family of no great stature, a shepherd, yet God saw him not as ordinary God saw him as extraordinary. God saw even in the young shepherd boy that David had the heart of a warrior and a worshipper. God saw that David was a man after His own heart. In the same way,  God isn't concerned with our natural standing and station in life. He calls us out of the ordinary into the extraordinary.  

Hebrews 13:20-21 says:   Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, ²¹ equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.    When God calls He equips. He takes us as we are and makes us into what He sees.

Let's return to the text after Nathan tells David the story of the man who took his neighbors only sheep, we see this interchange between David, Nathan and God.    Then David’s anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die. ⁶ He must make restitution for the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no compassion.” ⁷ Nathan then said to David, “You are the man!

David's response is certainly a great example of our need to follow Jesus instruction in Matthew 7:1-3.      “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. ² For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. ³ Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?        It is amazing how easy it is to, like David, see the sinful behavior in others and not recognize it in ourselves.  We should all be thankful that by God's grace, through the cross of Christ, we are not judged by the same standard of measure we judge. By the grace of God we are judged as righteous in Christ. Yet if we do judge others we will open ourselves to the same judgement. There are spiritual laws of sowing and reaping.      Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.(Galatians 6:7) If we sow judgement, we will reap judgement.

David, a man after God's heart, recognizes his sin and confesses it.  Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.      David was not without failures in his life, but he was always quick to confess his sin and repent. Repentance is turning in a different direction. When we repent of our sin, we change our direction from a path leading away from God to a path that takes us quickly back to Him. Nathan said, the Lord has taken away your sin; you shall not die.   That's the promise of redemption that we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus.   For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.(Romans 6:23) 

We though, need to recognize, like David, that there is a difference between God's judgement and the consequences of our sin. David was forgiven of the sin he committed, the consequences of that sin though would impact and affect the rest of his life. People will often blame God or believe God is judging them, holding their past sin against them, when in reality they are living in the consequences of that sin. Every act and action we take has the potential to affect both ourselves and others in this physical realm, for our lifetime and beyond.

God's plan for us though is a plan of redemption. The example of what God does for David and Bathsheba, giving them another son, is a great example of the redemption of God. The fact that it is through this particular son of David that the line and throne of David is continued speaks all the more of God's redemptive work. The fact that it is through Solomon, this child born of a relationship begun in adultery and murder, that the line of Christ is traced, speaks of God's redemption, not only to David and Bathsheba, but the redemption that Jesus came to bring even over the vilest of sin.

Romans 8:28-29 says: And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹ For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren         God did not cause David to sin with Bathsheba or to have her husband killed. Yet surely David was one who loved God and who was called according to His purpose. God did not bless the sin. He never will. The first child died and David had other consequences of his sin.  God used this thing, this evil, this sin, for good. When David repented and turned back to God, God then used this for good. He used this sin to be a part of conforming David to the likeness of Jesus.    David was not born into the likeness of Jesus, he was like each of us born into the fallen state of sin.

He says in Psalm 51:5 -  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.    God used all things, all the good things in David's life and all the mistakes and failures, to work together to conform him to the image of Christ. David is recognized as an Old Testament type of Christ, one who points the way to the true Christ, Jesus.  We too are called to be like Christ, as we allow God to use all the things in our life the good and the bad, we become conformed to His image.   

Romans 8:14-17 says:   For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ

What a beautiful picture of redemption and restoration we see in today's text. What a wonderful promise we have that God will do for us what He did for David.

We who are ordinary are called to be extraordinary. The likeness of Christ.