1 Chronicles: Showing us Christ
There it is: the monotonous-looking, yet seemingly cryptic, untouched duo of the Old Testament: First and Second Chronicles. Genealogies, lists of people in service at the temple, stories repeated from preceding books... It took me a long time to actually resolve to read the Chronicles. I have finally gone through 1 Chronicles, and it is an amazing book. I wish I had been more keen to start.
I didn't know what to make of the first few chapters of genealogies... What's the point? Sure... along with the rest of the Bible it's meant to be God's revelation, God's very Word, the lamp unto my feet and light unto my path (Ps 119:105), God-breathed (2 Tim 3:16)... But I didn't see it.
So I opened up the super useful Bible Project video on the Chronicles. It gave me a good overview (s/o to Bible Project for amazing videos!). 1 Chronicles centres around King David, and stuff he did during his reign, such as his military victories, his mighty and loyal contemporaries, his zeal for God's temple and preparations for its building by Solomon. But much of it is repeated content from Samuel and Kings. Yet this does not render the Chronicles redundant or devoid of unique value. Instead, the (unknown) author of Chronicles "reshaped these stories of David and Solomon and the Kings of the past in order to provide a message of hope for the future."
Message of hope for what?
And what's this message of hope? It's the message of hope of the coming Messiah. Who was this Messiah? The Jews were always looking forward to a coming Saviour, God's Anointed One who would reign in Jerusalem and establish the throne forever, with unending peace. The Jews anchored all their hope in this coming Messiah. But as of yet no one had come who fit the bill and accomplished the prophecies.
The purpose of the Chronicler was to highlight aspects of David's reign which reflected the attributes of the coming Messiah. Throughout the Bible, God anointed many people - though one at a time - to shepherd His people. In Genesis, for example, He anointed Abraham. In Exodus, Moses... in Judges, the judges... God always had an anointed one. A significant one, for sure, was David. This Anointed One is meant to be imperfect images of what the true Messiah will be like. Scholars call this a foreshadowing. It's a bit like if you're playing hide-and-seek, and you're hiding near a staircase. You see a shadow coming up the stairs, but you don't yet see the person. Yet you know, someone's coming. The shadow reflects this coming person, but it is not the person himself. David was one of these shadows.
So the essential point about 1 Chronicles is... that the coming Messiah will be like a new David, but perfect (and that makes all the difference). So what can we take from the stories, genealogies, and lists that make up 1 Chronicles? What does it tell us about the coming Messiah? Looking out for these revelations will show us afresh who Jesus is.
God's Anointed Ruler
David was King over Israel, the Anointed One. Ironically though, God's good Old Testament kings are not the highest, final answering authority in the land. They don't themselves have absolute, final, power - sovereignty. The good kings themselves displayed a humble relationship to God their Maker. David was close to the LORD. We need only look at the psalms he wrote, such as Psalm 27, to see his devotion to God. When he achieved successes, it was because the LORD's hand was upon him, and he humbly acknowledged so, and worshiped the LORD.
Jesus taught us how to worship God - a complex, beautiful matter because Jesus Himself was God. He taught us to do God's will, to pray to Him, to be meek, pure in heart, hungering and thirsting for righteousness... Jesus taught us submission to God.
In this perfect irony, we see that Jesus was King: a perfect King who embodied goodness itself, unlike those authoritarian kings who merely wielded power and who were great merely because of the power vested in them, not because their character was commendable. Jesus is the perfect King who was goodness Himself, and David's role in Israel at this time in the timeline reflected that.
Had a 'body'
Yes - weird subheading. But what I mean is that David wasn't a lone ranger. He wasn't Han Solo. He had mighty men, great subordinates who were loyal to him and who honoured him. Though capable in themselves, they honourably subordinated themselves to him, under his rule.
Jesus also has a body. He was God Himself and needed no man to help him. Yet by His grace He brought alongside Himself the unlikeliest of us: fishermen and tax collectors, to go about His mission alongside Him. Reading about the mighty men highlighted this to me: there is a certain grandeur to being one of David's men. There should be infinitely greater, humbling honour to be in the service of the King of the Universe.
Mighty defender
Israel was God's chosen people. David defended Israel mightily against the Ammonites, Philistines, and all other enemies of Israel. Jesus is, cosmically, our true defender. He defends us against the charges made by Satan, by paying the price for sin, so that Satan would have no hold on us. Death would lose its sting, sin would lose its victory over us, for Jesus has defended us. Reading about military victories is dramatic, exciting and awe-inspiring. How much greater the victory of Jesus over sin and death on our behalf.
Zealous for God's temple
David brought the ark to Jerusalem, and he led the ministering before it. In another very helpful Bible Project video ('Heaven and Earth'), we see that in the Old Testament there were various physical spaces were heaven met with earth - where God's holy space met with our filthy space. This was the ark, and the whole temple which housed the ark. David was zealous to build a temple. The temple would be the meeting point between us and God Most High, the place to burn sacrifices, to honour the Lord, in sharp contrast to our crummy and fallen earth space.
But David was inadequate: he was a mere mortal who had shed blood and sinned against the Lord. And furthermore, the most he could do in an endeavour to build a temple would be to build a beautiful building, as valuable as possible in human eyes, using luxurious wood and precious stones. He could not make the temple any more meaningful than that.
But Jesus could. Jesus is the temple Himself. In Him, heaven met earth: God was incarnated in man. That is why some people call Jesus the 'God-man'. Speaking to the Pharisees, Jesus told them that if the temple were torn down, He could build it again in 3 days - in response to which everyone ridiculed Jesus. This is because they saw the temple as merely the physical building. But truly, Jesus Himself is the temple. While David was zealous to designate a space for God to meet man, Jesus was the space Himself. And not just the space for the presences to meet, but He was God Himself. And not just that, but His death on the cross allowed us to become temples too: heaven meets earth, within us, within our redeemed souls.
We look at this aspect of David's reign. It's amazing that he wanted so badly to build a temple, but amazingly, Jesus didn't come to build an architecturally groundbreaking uncollapsible temple, but He came as the temple Himself, to allow us to be temples too, for heaven increasingly to meet earth, until He comes again and the spaces become one in the New Creation.
Flawed
But the Chronicler included the episode of David's pride in taking the census of Israel's fighting men (which evidenced pride), and of course we know from 2 Samuel that David had taken Bathsheba and murdered Uriah. He was imperfect. If he was a mirror reflection of the coming Messiah, not only was he just the mirror and not the real One, but he was also a shattered mirror. You can see in the broken pieces reflections of the coming Messiah, what He would accomplish - as Ruler, Defender, true Temple, and graciously allowing us to do the work in His kingdom.
And so...
Going through 1 Chronicles has reminded me afresh who Christ is, and what it means to be a Christian: to seek to know Him, to have Him as Master, to serve Him as King, to trust in His blood-bought defending work, understanding the nature of the redemption He has achieved for us, and knowing the honour it is to be a member of His body.
As young Christians, we should seek to know Christ more and more, and to reveal Him as revealed in Scriptures to others. In Malaysia let's seek to be the light. To show people that this Bible we hold in our hands isn't just interesting literature, but the light for my path and lamp for my feet, showing me not just where to go in each bend of the road, but allowing me to know Jesus truly for who He gloriously is.
