May 30: I’ve centered Jonathan in this story of David, centered the Pharisees in the consideration of God’s mercy and forgiveness, and looked at both the man of flesh who cannot please God in Romans 7 and the redeemed man who has been given God’s unfailing love as a free gift for Christ’s sake in Romans 8. So what of those outwardly obedient men who “have not obtained what he seeketh for”? (Romans 11:7, 9:32) They are provoked to jealousy (Romans 10:19, 11:11; Deuteronomy 32:21) by foolish people who are converted to be called the sons of the living God. (Hosea 1:10) What kind of Jealousy does it provoke, though? In the case of the older son in the Prodigal Son story, it’s a self-righteous jealousy. For a remnant today, there are those who become convinced about Jesus (Romans 11:5). One day, it will be “all” of them, (Zechariah 12:10), and not only will it be as a resurrection from the dead, (Romans 11:15/15:32), but a brotherly reunion as the Prodigal Son story should have been. “It was meet that we should make merry.”
1 Samuel 20: As sorry as the reader feels for David in this story, since he has done Saul no wrong and only served faithfully, how about Jonathan? Jonathan doesn’t believe Saul’s hatred for David is as great as it is, and must be convinced. So through the test David sets up, he is ultimately convinced that Saul despises David, and has even come to have contempt for his own son because of his loyalty to David. What a tragic hero Jonathan is. Such a good man, and someone who would have been a great king, if it had not been for his father.
Psalm 103: The Pharisees considered God their Father, even as they blasphemed Christ. (John 8:41) What did they miss? The condition of fear: He’s like a Father who pities His children toward those who fear Him. He remembers our weak frame and how we were made from dust. He forgives all our iniquities and redeems us. What a beautiful collection of promises.
Romans 7:7-25; 8: As we conclude Romans 7, there’s only an implied hope in man’s struggle against sin: however one may inwardly delight in God’s Law, he inevitably is provoked by the Law and deceived into sin as he’s drawn aside by his own lusts, serving the law of sin and death with his flesh. What, then, is the “therefore” there for in Romans 8:1? For it declares there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:1) Paul laments about his wretchedness, 7:24, pining for Who shall deliver him. The next verse thanks God through Christ Jesus our Lord, and expresses that it is He through whom we shall be delivered from this body of death, as the next chapter explains. Having not spared His own Son, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things, lay no charge to us, inexorably love us through the opposition of fallen angels, principalities, earthly powers, present or future conditions, our own often wayward lives and death itself.
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