From Priestly Servants to Kingly Sons – Part 1

A guest post by Robert Martinez

“As interpreters of the Word, as with interpersonal relationships, there is the constant temptation of overstanding instead of understanding; of mastery over submission; a longing for doctrinal and/or theological pontification in place of a patient submission that discovers, as the Spirit’s gift, the intricacies of God’s Word and how it all hangs together.”

It often amazes me how I can ‘know’ something or someone at one point in time but later come to ‘know’ it, or them, in a much fuller and, potentially, more fulfilling way, especially when I was sure I pretty much knew all there was to know about that thing or person. It is as if that ‘knowing’ process itself journeys from childhood to maturity in search of a telos (end-goal, climax, fulfilment). This, I think, would be immediately apparent to most of us as we reflect on our ‘knowing’ of those we love, to take one example. For instance, with the passage of time, I increasingly know more about my wife and kids. The thing is, over time, they change, and I change, so my adaptive knowledge needs to track both their ‘changing’ and my own ‘changing.’ This has also been my repeated experience with the interpretation of Scripture, especially of late; being constantly surprised and amazed by seeing ever new interconnected angles on familiar texts. The important caveat, of course, is that while I continually change, Scripture does not.

Perhaps this expanding, interpersonal knowledge should display a positive, linear correlation over time; even exponential growth if we allow ourselves a healthy dose of optimism. Alas, stylised mathematical relations rarely, if ever, hold in the real world of lived experience; at least, that’s the way it seems to me. The question is: ‘why?’ Why does our ‘knowing’ often take twists and turns and sometimes even require a total rethink? One obvious answer is finitude. We are limited, finite beings incapable of tracking all the variables involved in real time, even with the assistance of AI. I think, however, that there is a factor at play here that is more primal and fundamental than finitude. That factor, both existentially and biblically, is sin.

I don’t know my wife as well or as satisfyingly as I could, not primarily because of the limitations of finitude, but because of sin – sometimes her sin, sometimes the interplay of both of our sin, and most commonly my own sin. Sin leads to misinterpretation (bad hermeneutics) of people and events, and life is unavoidably a hermeneutical enterprise. Sin will often blind us to what should otherwise be obvious, leading to incorrect beliefs (misinformation); more insidiously, sin will motivate us to spin a narrative that serves a self-serving agenda (disinformation). Sometimes I fail to understand my wife because sin blinds me to who she is and to what she needs; sometimes sin seduces me to construe her in a way that is favourable to me while damning to her. 

Alas, sin finds its way into Biblical interpretation just as much as it does into interpersonal relationships, and the work of the Holy Spirit is equally necessary in both domains. Hermeneutically, we are frequently reminded of the need to be exegetical, and not eisegetical, especially if we are Sola Scriptura folk. We should take from Scripture ‘what is there’ and not impose on it our own prejudices and presuppositions. We should let ‘Scripture interpret Scripture.’ I agree, but ‘easier said than done,’ since there are layers and interconnections that require a decent amount of unpacking, while wrestling with our own sinfulness and limitations of all sorts. 

We are often exhorted to not add to Scripture or twist it, to just take what is there, and this is surely right. Yet, in practice, while aiming for faithfulness and accuracy, grounded in the highest conceivable view of Scripture, interpretation often becomes wooden, timeless, gnostic, microscopic, myopic and uninspiring. I have in mind not so much the work of theologically liberal interpreters, but mainly conservative, evangelical Protestant exegesis. Instead of revealing scenic vistas that connect the parts to the whole in illuminating ways that leave one longing for more, a lot of the exegesis one encounters only ends up serving artificially contrived morality tid-bits from Old Testament narratives and disconnected fragments from Scripture, much like the breadcrumbs that fall from the table. We rarely get glimpses of the entire risen loaf, or anything close to it.

 As interpreters of the Word, as with interpersonal relationships, there is the constant temptation of overstanding instead of understanding; of mastery over submission; a longing for doctrinal and/or theological pontification in place of a patient submission that discovers, as the Spirit’s gift, the intricacies of God’s Word and how it all hangs together. Much evangelical exegesis is marked by erudition, detailed word studies, rigorous analysis of original languages, etc. This is all necessary and profitable, yet it often fails to create the expanding biblical horizons and excitement that arises when one begins to truly see how the parts of the Bible interlock fractally into a divine architectural whole.

It is this interlocking hyperlink phenomenon that Mike Bull alerts us to, where the lights start to turn on until the whole thing is ‘lit up’ like a Christmas tree in what might be described as a kind of intertextual quantum entanglement. As this takes place, the fractal nature of Scripture becomes more obvious, sometimes evident in the structure of a single verse (see Mike Bull’s analysis of John 3:16 – micro level¹For God so loved the world, (Genesis – the creation)that he gave his only Son, (Exodus – firstborn offered)that whoever believes in him (Leviticus – living sacrifices)should not perish (Numbers … Continue reading), and sometimes fanning out to a passage, a chapter of a Biblical book, an entire book, the entire Torah as a whole, the Heptateuch and so on – macro level. Personally, seeing these connections has been an exhilarating experience, occasionally bringing me to tears and reinforcing in new ways that the Bible is no mere human work. The architectural artistry of the Bible, when truly seen, constitutes a semiotic cathedral that is unquestionably divine in origin.

Returning to my wife again, she was recently asked to co-lead a women’s Bible study group, focusing on Jesus’ passion prediction, Peter’s rebuke of Jesus, Jesus’ rebuke of Peter, and the nature of discipleship in Matthew 16. She asked me for some pointers and, having recently ruminated on the correlation between priesthood and kingship in the Bible, I immediately saw points of connection worth pursuing. I wrote Mike a brief email noting a thought or two that I had on this topic, and he suggested the possibility of a guest blog post. This is that attempt.

Mike’s many interpretive insights have had a profound effect on me, but perhaps none as much as the priesthood-then-king(dom)ship pattern that permeates Scripture. Whatever the genre in view in any given section of Scripture, the Bible repeatedly teaches that God wishes to mature His human image-bearers in a process that transforms them from obedient priestly subjects (servants) into wise kingly subjects (sons). Nevertheless, this mandatory trajectory from priesthood to kingdom, from servants to sons, is often violated in the Biblical text, and those who violate it constitute the norm rather than the exception. I will briefly examine some of the offenders and then focus on a more detailed contrast between a prime offender (King Saul) and a notable exception (King David). This will lead into a discussion of the nature of discipleship in the eschatological context of Jesus’ mission within first-century Judaism.  

The first, and obvious, Biblical example of such violations is Adam who, in submission to the serpent rather than God, sought kingly wisdom before the necessary apprenticeship of priestly submission – a submission that, ironically, would have procured kingly discernment/judgment and eventually resulted in prophetic wisdom that would have paved the way for a heavenly cosmos and human future that extended far beyond the garden. Adam was not to seize the fruit of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ prematurely, for the fruit of the land and the fruit of the womb are to be received as God’s gifts. However, Adam could not resist grasping for/seizing (contrast Jesus’ ethical posture in Philippians 2:5-11) that which was not yet rightfully his. The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ would have been his to partake of post-obedience, but not pre-obedience. The ‘tree of life’ (submission to God) always comes first, then ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (earthly dominion) follows as God’s gift.

Even the way Adam and Eve tried to deal with their sin demonstrates inversion: aware of their nakedness, ‘they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings’ (Genesis 3:7) – fruit of the ground – and God responded, ironically yet mercifully, in true priestly manner by making ‘tunics of skin, and cloth[ing] them’ (Genesis 3:21). Adam’s sinful pride led him to bypass priestly obedience in search for kingly dominion, whereas the true King, God Himself, became the humble, loving Priest who sacrificed an animal (unstated in the text but implicit) to clothe (cover/atone for) the pair. Dominion can only proceed on the basis of obedient submission and, post-sin, on obedient submission grounded in atonement.

Next in line is Cain, the first man born of human parents, who repeats Adam’s garden sin, but now in the land – ‘east of Eden’ (Genesis 3:24). Again, there is an unholy inversion whereby Cain’s governmental/dominion offering (‘fruit of the ground’) precedes Abel’s sacramental/submission offering (‘firstborn of his flock and of their fat’), and so priesthood and kingdom are once more inverted; firstfruits of the land before blood sacrifice. Cain had not done ‘well’ (Genesis 4:7) in preceding his younger brother’s animal offering, and his disappointment at God’s assessment soon matured into an anger whose fruit was murder – the murder of his younger brother! Apart from repentance, violation of God’s order invariably leads to further sin. Cain became a ‘fugitive and a vagabond on the earth,’ and now himself vulnerable to the murderous intent that he had set in motion. Instead of exercising wise, kingly dominion under God, Cain now finds himself subject to a life of exile, sandwiched in no-man’s land, being rejected both from below – ‘ You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground’ – and from above – ‘I shall be hidden from Your face’ (Genesis 4:14). 

The next offender is Lamech, but I will deal with him later in relation to king Saul and the disciples in Matthew 16.

Moving along a bit, and reminiscent of the Edenic pattern of temptation (Genesis 3:6), we read that Abraham’s nephew, Lot, lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east (Genesis 13:10-11). Though less overt than Adam and Cain before him, Lot is depicted as seizing/grasping for the fertile land that was pleasing to the eye, ahead of his wiser, humbler, more magnanimous and patient uncle, who ironically would later intercede on Lot’s behalf in a most timely evacuation prior to the destruction of Lot’s sin-laden city. Like Cain before him, Lot’s eastward trajectory was as much ethical/spiritual as it was geographical. Though a righteous man (2 Peter 2:7), his grasping at the gift, rather than the Giver, led Lot into quite a predicament.

The line-up of those who violated the divine pattern of priesthood-then-kingdom could be multiplied ad nauseum, but I want to give more detailed attention to one more candidate, king Saul, who contrasts beautifully with his much younger and godlier counterpart and nemesis, David. Coming to the fore following Israel’s insistence on having a king ‘like all the other nations’ (1 Samuel 8:20), Israel’s first king made a promising start but would gradually reveal a serpentine pride that was as large as his physical stature. Having a career that was marked by remorse rather than repentance, insolence rather than patience, Saul has the reader of 1 Samuel longing for a genuine reversal, given the Lord’s patience with him. But it was not to be. 

Saul repeatedly transgresses the divine commandment and sins sequentially and expandingly in: 1) the garden – assuming priestly prerogatives (1 Samuel 13:8-11); 2) the land – imposing a fast on his army amid battle (1 Samuel 14:24-28); 3) the world – contra command, Saul spares king Agag and the best spoils of war (1 Samuel 15:7-11). Having completed his trifecta of ungodly disobedience, Saul receives word from the Lord, via Samuel, that his kingship has ended. Samuel’s words to Saul are revealing: “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?” (1 Samuel 15:17). Slowly but surely, Saul traded humility for the presumption and disobedience that flow from a proud and independent heart.

Saul’s garden sin, like Adam’s, was a sin of impatience²Peter J. Leithart, A Son to Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel, 87.. Ignoring the voice of the prophet is always an act of folly, and Saul did not heed the voice of his spiritual ‘father’, Samuel. For fear of the Philistine threat, Saul’s impatience led him to take matters into his own hands – ‘…so I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering’ (1 Samuel 13:12). Samuel’s dismay at Saul’s disobedience – ‘What have you done?’ (1 Samuel 13:11) – reminds us of God’s question to Eve, ‘What is this you have done?’ (Genesis 3:13), and just like Eve, Saul answers Samuel with a list of excuses (1 Samuel 13:11-12). Wisdom, the hallmark of a faithful biblical king, is sadly lacking in Saul, as Samuel points out – ‘You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you’ (1 Samuel 13:13).  Samuel’s final rebuke of Saul, much later, is telling – ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry (1 Samuel 15:22-23). Saul, who ironically would later end up resorting to ‘witchcraft’ directly, is portrayed as a new ‘Adam’ whose first fall, like that of the first man, occurs in a ‘garden’ setting.

Saul’s land sin is Lamechian in character. The lack of humility in the ‘garden’ setting expresses itself in the Promised Land, the ‘land of milk and honey.’ ‘Now all the people of the land came to a forest; and there was honey on the ground’ (1 Samuel 14:25) and, Jonathan states that his father’s rash oath ‘has troubled the land’ (1 Samuel 14:29). Saul arrogantly pronounced a curse on his troops if they ate anything before he had avenged himself. His arrogance is plain to see as his focus is a lot more self-centred than it is Israel-centred, let alone God-centred – ‘Cursed is the man who eats any food until evening, before I have taken vengeance on my enemies’ (1 Samuel 14:24). Saul is depicted here as a kind of anti-God who, not out of goodness but out of selfish ambition, forbids the eating of food and pronounces curses ex nihilo on his subjects (cf. Gen.2-3). There is comic inversion at play since the king’s son is blessed (‘his countenance brightened’) precisely by partaking of the ‘forbidden food/honey’ (1 Samuel 14:27). Saul’s pronouncement almost resulted in the death of his son, Jonathan, who had ‘tasted a little honey’ (1 Samuel 14:43) not being aware of his father’s rash oath. The people pleaded with Saul on Jonathan’s behalf and his life was spared. Jonathan’s military victories were the result of faithful obedience to God, and his eating honey emblematic of firstfruits participation. Saul’s sin, however, had turned true blessing into cursing. Since Saul’s actions did not arise from faithfulness to God, his malediction is rendered impotent by the mediation of the faithful, and the curse falls stillborn.

Curses cannot be divorced from a covenantal anchoring. When pronounced by human agents, they are only valid when they are divinely backed, for all bona fide curses stem from God and not man. When Elisha ‘pronounced a curse’ on the mocking youths, he did it ‘in the name of the Lord’ (2 Kings 2:24); when Balak, the Moabite king, hired Balaam to curse the Israelites, ‘God turned the curse into a blessing’ (Nehemiah 13:2), because he sought the cursing of those God had blessed. The curse that Saul proclaims on his men stems from his own ego and not from covenantal faithfulness, since he is motivated by personal vengeance. Saul has forgotten that when God’s people take vengeance it must be at God’s behest and on God’s behalf. If Israel is unfaithful, God promises to ‘execute the vengeance of the covenant’ on them (Leviticus 26:25), for ‘Vengeance is Mine, and recompense,’ declares the Lord (Deuteronomy 32:35). Paul counsels the Christians in Rome, “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19), and the author of Hebrews reminds his readers, “For we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Hebrews 10:30). 

The contrast between Saul and David is striking. Later, hunted down by Saul like a wild animal while awaiting the kingship promised to him, and having repeated opportunity to take the life of the man who desperately wants to end his, David’s words to the bloodthirsty Saul are telling: “Let the Lord judge between you and me, and let the Lord avenge me on you. But my hand shall not be against you” (1 Samuel 24:12). In seeking personal vengeance, then, Saul displayed the hubristic overreach of his spiritual forefather, Lamech (Genesis 4:24). The fruit of his sinful arrogance was that Saul’s request for God’s guidance with respect to further pursuit of the Philistines was met with divine silence: ‘He [God] did not answer him that day’ (1 Samuel 14:37). 

Saul’s world sin takes place in a further-expanded geographical and covenantal context, one that includes the Gentiles. Saul had been charged by the prophet Samuel to ‘utterly destroy’ Amalek (1 Samuel 15:1-3), the people that had plagued Israel from the very beginning (Exodus 17). Compassion and the sparing of life were forbidden in ‘herem’ warfare (Deuteronomy 20:16-18). By sparing King Agag and the best of the spoils of war (1 Samuel 15:8-9), Saul was committing wilful, deliberate, high-handed sin. God sent his prophet, Samuel, to instruct Saul regarding Amalek. Saul was to be God’s instrument in bringing God’s vengeance on Amalek: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel…Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them…’ (1 Samuel 15:2-3). There is deep irony here if we contrast Saul’s world sin with his land sin: previously, bloodthirsty Saul was quite prepared to slaughter his own men, even his own son, for the sake of satisfying his desire for personal vengeance; now, Saul is prepared to spare king Agag and the spoils of war when it is God’s vengeance that demands satisfaction.

God’s displeasure with Saul is sealed and revealed in the fact that He ‘greatly regrets setting up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following [God]’ (1 Samuel 15:10-11). Of course, this strong language takes us back to Genesis, when God was ‘sorry that He had made man…and was grieved in His heart’ (Genesis 6:6). Samuel, too, is ‘grieved’ at Saul’s demise, but just as God brought about a new beginning through Noah, so too would He renew the kingdom through David. The Spirit of the Lord came upon David even as that same Spirit departed from Saul (1 Samuel 16:14). Saul’s trilogy of sins (garden > land > world) displays a proto-trinitarian typology³Leithart, 80-81.. His first (garden) sin was against his spiritual ‘father’ Samuel; his ‘son’ became the focal point of his second (land) sin; and his third (world) sin was the final straw that saw the exchange of God’s ‘spirit’ for a ‘distressing/evil spirit’ in Saul’s life (1 Samuel 16:14).

As Samuel departs from Saul for the last time, Saul’s desperation is testament to his moral decline. ‘And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. So Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbour of yours, who is better than you”’ (1 Samuel 15:27-28). To the very end, Saul is grasping for what is not rightfully his, because he seeks it on his own terms and not God’s terms. Almost as bookends, the proud disobedience of Israel’s first king resulted in God tearing the kingdom from him, and the humble obedience of Israel’s last king resulted in God tearing the veil of the Temple and giving the kingdom to a spiritually fruitful people (Matthew 21:43).

David contrasts sharply with Saul. Like others before him – Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Job – David demonstrates the godly patience required of those who, in God’s time, will wield the sword of kingly wisdom as divine sons. Divinely appointed testing is the priestly crucible where the godly are trained for kingly duties, and so it was for David. When God sends Samuel to anoint David, following Saul’s rejection, there is no ambiguity as to what God desires: “Do not look at [Eliab’s] appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

The secretly anointed teenager, David, almost immediately encounters the defiant Philistine champion, Goliath, and reveals the type of ‘heart’ that God desires. The giant Goliath confronts David as a walking copperhead snake: “He [Goliath] had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. And he had bronze armour on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders” (1 Samuel 17:5-6). As with all God-defying serpents, Goliath’s head had to be crushed (Genesis 3:15). So, the young shepherd boy did with Goliath what Saul had failed to do with Agag (a serpentine Amalekite descended from Esau). In so doing, David would prefigure Israel’s true king, Jesus the Anointed One, who would definitively crush the Serpent’s head at Golgotha, ‘the place of the skull’.

David was king-in-waiting for about 15 years and, though God had promised the kingdom to him, not once did he attempt to take the kingdom by force while Saul lived (cf. Matthew 11:12; John 6:15). He never seized the kingdom ahead of time, yet he displayed the wisdom of a true king in the interim, even while being constantly pursued by a bloodthirsty, murderous Saul. The following Scripture passages from 1 Samuel bear this out clearly: