2 Samuel 12:7 And Nathan said to David, You are the man. Thus said the LORD God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel… David's conscience seems to have been deranged, to have forgotten its function; and it is with our moral as with our physical being — when any of our natural organs are diseased and suffered to continue in that state, the character of the organic action becomes gradually changed, and a complete departure from healthy action succeeds, and perhaps the reparation of the organ becomes impossible after a time. David is excessive in pronouncing sentence upon the imaginary transgressor. Now, here is an indirect testimony of conscience to the law, that it was good; but here is a solemn lesson. It is one thing to agree with the general correctness of a principle, and it is quite another thing to apply practically that principle to our own life and conversation. Every one is ready to admit that it is a practical duty to relieve distress; and yet, if you compare the numbers of those who act upon the conviction with the multitudes of those who are ready to admit the principle, it is to be feared that a lamentable failing will often be discovered. Or take some of our every-day principles. We are ready enough to admit the uncertainty of life, and the goodness of God, and there are certain principles of practice that follow as directly from the admission as night succeeds to day; and yet bring men to the touchstone of practice, and they will be found as practical deniers of their own principles. No; you find men eager in the pursuit of shadows still. We are ready to admit the goodness and long-suffering of God, that we are dependent for everything upon Him, and yet where is the man that can examine his own conscience without being compelled to admit that his affections have been given to things with which it would be blasphemous to speak of God as having divided allegiance? Therefore, we have, in dealing with ourselves, a mighty enemy to guard against — our tendency to deceive ourselves. The wisest statesman of antiquity has said, "It is the easiest thing possible to deceive oneself." The wish is too often parent of the thought. If, by succeeding to deceive ourselves as to our actual state, we were able to cancel the reality of that state and to remove the fearful consequences that unrepented sin entails upon is, then indeed "the preacher's task were one of wanton cruelty, to disturb the calm repose of the life that now is, if, by suffering it to continue, it could possibly issue in the repose of the life that is to come. But what would be thought of one who would see a fellow-creature moving blindfolded to the brink of a precipice, one step after the arrival at which precipitated his doom? Perceive how the prophet advances. "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul." The prophet here enumerates the mercies of God which had been vouchsafed to David from his earliest history. It is well, when the Christian habitually enumerates God's mercies, and widen the recollection serves to keep alive the flame of gratitude that ought to burn there. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits." But it is a very different state when the conscience is dead, when the memory of past mercies is lost, when it produces no response in the seared heart — when the man of God is constrained, as Nathan is here, to enter into a recapitulation of the mercies of God, and the forgetfulness of him who was sustained by them, and who had so long forgotten them. "Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword." It would, humanly speaking, have been impossible to have brought the murder home to David; but "God seeth not as man seeth; man judgeth by the outward appearance, but God regardeth the heart." Just as David is here arraigned by God for the murder which he had not with his own hand perpetrated, so are multitudes found guilty before God of that which man can never substantiate or bring home to them. This is the penetrating character of God's Word; it is thus that we are to read it — as entering into our inmost thoughts and conceptions — as high and holy in its requirements. It is in the life and language of Jesus Christ that we see this law reflected. Here the prophet dealt faithfully with the royal transgressor; and there seems to have come a flood of light upon David's slumbering mind. He seems as one awakened from a dream of sin. And now we hear the psalmist humbling himself. "And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord." These are blessed words; they are the response that God requires to His expostulation — "Only acknowledge thine iniquity." And simultaneous with the confession is the offer of mercy. "The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die." Here we have the law and the Gospel forcibly contrasted. We have the unbending rigour of the law speaking in this wise. The law says, "Thou shalt surely die," and there is no help or escape; but the Gospel says, "Thou shalt not die." How otherwise than in Christ can these statements be reconciled? How can we vindicate the stern requirements of God's holy law, and yet offer to the transgressor of that law unqualified pardon and free acceptance, except in the name of Jesus Christ? This is exactly the Gospel; and would it not be strange, were the Bible of any other source than that whence it came? We have no eye to appreciate the beauty of God, until it is reflected in the face of Jesus Christ; we cannot understand "the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely," until the Spirit, whose office is to glorify Jesus, takes of the things of Christ and shows them to our wondering souls. Then there is amazement, then there is gratitude, then there is love, and the heart going forth earnestly to God, in conscious acknowledgement of all that God hath clone for us. Observe, then, what a fund of comfort is opened here to the distressed mourner. He looks to his Bible, and there he finds encouragement to believe that no degree of guilt, however black, can militate against his free acceptance, if he cast himself only on the free mercy of God in Christ. Then the sinner asks, "How is it consistent with the justice of God? How is it consistent with the maintenance in their perfection of the other attributes of God, to extend pardon to the sinner upon his confessing, his sin?" Then the Gospel interposes; then all that Jesus undertook, all that Jesus accomplished, and the value of Jesus' work comes in upon his mind, convinces him that God can be just, even when He is the justifer, and that if he confesses and forsakes his sin, God is not only merciful, but even righteous and just in forgiving his sin, and in cleansing him from all unrighteousness. The very attributes that were before arrayed against the sinner, and clamoured, trumpet-tongued, for his destruction, are now arrayed on the other side, and speak as powerfully for his acceptance and sanctification. There is another feature connected with this. David was a man after God's own heart, and David's sin was calculated from its very nature to throw a greater discredit upon the profession of religion than the sins of those who were not so remarkable for having previously walked with God. (T. Nolan, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; |
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