waltercl is offline waltercl Post #1  June 25,2009, 2:21pm
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One of the things I saw most clearly as I read the life of David is how this one sin cascaded into disastrous consequences for him. Yes we know that it led him to commit murder of Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, and we know it cost him his child. But God said that because of this sin of killing Uriah the sword would not depart from his house. We then see the rape of Tamar who belonged to Abasalom, and then how Absalom killed the rapist who was also one of David's sons, and how that set up the situation where Absalom eventually rebelled and all the trouble that caused.

Here's something I found very interesting though. Later when God describes David he says that he walked in all of God's ways except for the murder of Uriah. It does not mention the sin with Bathsheba. So I got to thinking, how should David have handled things after he discovered Bathsheba was pregnant. Yes we all know the ultimate answer was not to have slept with her to begin with, but let's start at this point. So he knows Bathsheba is pregnant, and he knows it will be obvious that it is not Uriah's because he refused to sleep with her after being summoned from battle. So at that point what should David have done? There's no easy answer here because David is King, and Uriah would not have any standing to make a claim against him even though he was clearly in the wrong. So again what does David do? Does he offer Uriah some type of gift for Bathsheba so she can become his wife? Does he elevate Uriah and give him offerings of peace to make up for what he did and in essence make him a rich man with Bathsheba raising the child with Uriah?

Tough situation. I'm sure David thought of all these things, and that is partly why he chose to take the easiest way out (well it may have seemed easy at the time.)

Anyway it is just one of those things I thought of as I was reading.
Last edited by waltercl; June 25,2009 at 8:16pm.
 
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ActionSoftGuy is offline ActionSoftGuy Post #2  June 25,2009, 10:06pm
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A number of relevant scriptures come to mind about how, if you've been foolish enough to commit adultery with another man's wife, you will not escape his wrath -- he will pursue you until he has had his vengeance. I reckon had David not murdered Uriah, trouble still would have pursued him, even if, due to being King, Uriah could not enact physical retribution. Sin always has its consequences.

To answer your question though, the answer would have been to repent. That is always the answer. First and foremost, this means toward God. Even when we are in the midst of the act of sin, we can still choose to repent at that point instead of continuing further. This is what David should have done.

Gifts to Uriah? I don't know that that would have helped. Again, think of the scriptures that speak of no way to pacify the man whose wive you've slept with.
 
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waltercl is offline waltercl Post #3  June 26,2009, 12:28am
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Yes I agree he should have repented right away, but that would not have changed the fact that Bathsheba was pregnant and something had to be done. On a practical level what should he have done? I believe there was a provision in the law that if a man committed adultery then he could offer the husband a gift, but the husband did not have to receive it but instead could demand the person's life.

We could really get into some deep weeds, but I'll interject this anyway. The Bible tells us that The Lamb of God was Slain before the foundation of the world. In other words God had already mapped out his plans to send Jesus as the redemptive sacrifice before man had ever sinned. So that means that God had already planned the lineage of Jesus. Solomon was the son of Bathsheba and David, and of course Jesus came from the line of David and Solomon.

So if God planned Solomon, and He planned Jesus to come through that line of descendants then God must have planned for David to marry Bathsheba. Think on that for a little bit.
 
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notyet is offline notyet Post #4  June 26,2009, 7:35pm
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sorry walter but i believe you have indeed wandered into some really deep weeds.

"I believe there was a provision in the law that if a man committed adultery then he could offer the husband a gift, but the husband did not have to receive it but instead could demand the person's life."

the only reference i can find in the Bible that says anything similar to that is Proverbs 6: 20-35 which abbreviated says, "...he who sleeps with another man's wife...blows and disgrace are his lot...for jealousy arouses a husband's fury...He will not accept any compensation- he will refuse the bribe, however great it is."

the Law says, "You shall not commit adultery." Exodus 20:14
and- "You shall not commit adultery." Deuteronomy 5:18
and- "If a man commits adultery with another man's wife- with the wife of his neighbor- both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death." Leviticus 20:10.

perhaps you were confusing Exodus 22:16&17- having sex with an unmarried virgin woman and compensating the father- with adultery?

i'll let someone else answer your statement- then God must have planned for David to marry Bathsheba. Think on that for a little bit.

that statement leads to the belief that we are not responsible for our sin if God really is sovereign. i'll just say that paul dealt with that fairly effectively in Romans 5:12 through 9:23.
 
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waltercl is offline waltercl Post #5  June 26,2009, 11:19pm
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No argument that God's Word is quite clear on adultery in both the Old and New Testament. I thought I had read something where there was provision for a husband to accept payment in place of killing the offender, but I could be wrong. My question for thought was after having committed adultery with Bathsheba what steps should David have taken beyond spiritual repentance. What we know is that by killing Uriah he brought a lot of trouble to himself and his family.

I would disagree that by saying God planned for Solomon to be born to Bathsheba and David implies that we are not responsible. I believe God can be Sovereign and still hold us responsible. I believe Paul covered that in Romans 9.

Romans 9 NIV

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."[f] 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."[g] 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "[h] 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
 
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blessedinNC is offline blessedinNC Post #6  June 27,2009, 5:32pm
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I think the weeds here are understanding the difference between what God wills and what God knows.
God is omnipotent - thus He is all-knowing. God is perfect and without sin - so He will not and cannot plan our sins - but He does know our sins before we commit them. It's so difficult to grasp because we simply do not have the capacity to truly understand God's omnipotence and God's utter sinlessness.

Satan's plan is to cause us to sin in an attempt to thwart God's will and God's plan. The beauty of God's grace and mercy is that regardless of the sins we commit - His plan will not be thwarted. His plan is not implemented because of our sins - His will is implemented in spite of our sins.

We need to be very careful not to assume that just because God brought something wonderful out our sinful, human mess that we can infer the mess we made was His will - quite the contrary. It just shows that regardless of how big of a mess Satan can get us to make - God's plan will be carried out. It is also a testament of God's infinite capacity to forgive.
i.e. God did not plan for David to commit adultery with Bathsheba. However, God did know that David would commit adultery with Bathsheba and God chose to use this sinful relationship to bring forth Solomon and so on. The Bible is full of God using sins and sinners to carry out His plan.

The lineage of Christ was not based on who "deserved" to be in Christ's lineage - it was based on who God chose. None of us "deserve" anything but eternal damnation. Why did God choose to have this particular group of sinners in Christ's lineage - who knows. But if Christ was going to be born as one of us - then His "human heritage" was going to be the same sinful, weak, fallen, unworthy lot as the rest of us. That is where God's plan comes in - that He would come as one of us - to feel our pain, our suffering, our temptations - then save us from it.

If we go down the road of thinking just because God chose to bring forth good from the muck, then He must have "planned" the muck - we miss the power of it all. The whole point is there is nothing we can do, and nothing Satan can do to stop or deter our Almighty Father. The Bible plainly tells us that we can earn no favor by our own efforts - each and every time He blesses our miserable, undeserving lives in spite of our sins - it is Love. Infinite, unimaginable Love.
 
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waltercl is offline waltercl Post #7  June 27,2009, 7:19pm
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Blessed,

That is a very good description of Sovereignty. There is a certain school of thought within those who adhere to the Sovereignty of God that God has planned everything including the sins that everyone would commit. There reasoning is that if something could happen that God did not initiate and was not in control of then he would not be Sovereign. I don't agree with this, but you can see from Romans 9 where they could conclude this. We know that it was destined that Jesus was going to be betrayed by Judas Iscariot. So their belief is that God was in control of Judas's decision in order to bring about his plan of redemption.

My views are more in line with what you have written. God has planned everything out from the beginning, and it is going to occur just as he has destined. He has factored in the sins that would be committed and incorporated those into his plan. It is true that he hardened the heart of Pharoah to not let his people go so he could show forth his miracles and signs, but my take on that is not that he caused Pharoah to sin but that he put conditions in place where he knew what choices Pharoah would make given certain conditions. Pharoah and Judas both will still be held accountable for their sins and choices, and of course we see in Romans 9 that God is just in doing this.

I agree as well that God is going to do what he is going to do and accomplish what he is going to accomplish whether I choose to obey or not. I can obey and submit to him and be a part of his plan reaping the benefits, or I can disobey and be against his plans and reap the consequences.

This whole concept hit me several years ago, and it really rocked me when I realized I was not in control of anything, and in fact mankind is not in control of anything. We do not initiate but only God initiates. Those times when we think we are initiating we are simply following what God placed in us. It was his idea and not ours. Well let me reivse that slightly, we cannot initiate anything that is righteous and pleasing to him. He has to place it in us and then bring it about. All we can do is surrender. We can however initiate good things out of our own motives, but these are not works pleasing to God, and of course we can initiate sin.

This is a really deep but wonderful subject, and it really does bring alive God's grace and Mercy. I'll stop here and take a breath
 
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blessedinNC is offline blessedinNC Post #8  July 8,2009, 6:56pm
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Terrific comments here about the Sovereignty of God, Walter.

I was thinking about this the other day- and off on a slight tangent- it reminded me to carry that thought a little further in understanding this also means that no matter how many times we fail - we cannot mess up God's plan. We may reap some consequences for our actions - but still it can be a huge relief for me when the guilt starts rolling in, and all those worst case scenarios are running though my head to be able to remind myself that I simply don't have the power to even put a wrinkle in God's plan.
 
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learningasigo is offline learningasigo Post #9  July 17,2009, 10:25pm
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waltercl wrote :
So that means that God had already planned the lineage of Jesus. Solomon was the son of Bathsheba and David, and of course Jesus came from the line of David and Solomon.

So if God planned Solomon, and He planned Jesus to come through that line of descendants then God must have planned for David to marry Bathsheba. Think on that for a little bit.
************************************************** *****

Ummm, Jesus was not a physical descendant of Solomon! He was a physical descendant of a brother of Solomon - Nathan!

Matthew 1:6-16 Lineage of Jacob the Husband of Mary

"6...David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife, Solomon the father of ... ...15 - Eliud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, 16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ...."

This shows that Joseph, the Husband of Mary was a descendant of Solomon. But it does not show Mary's lineage.

Matthew wrote his Gospel with an emphasis on Jesus as King (by adoption - through the line of Solomon) Jesus's actual genetic lineage was however through Nathan the Son of King David - a brother of king Solomon.

Let's look at Luke for a lineage of Mary.

Luke 3:23-31

23"....Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son [Son in Law] of Heli, 24the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki, the son of Jannai,... ...31...the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David,.."

Luke's genealogy details the lineage of Mary - the actual genetic link of Jesus to King David. Either that or the bible is in contradiction with itself because Matthew's lineage of Christ and Luke's lineage of Christ are totally different!

Luke, A physician - tracks the actual physical genetic lineage through Mary who was of the line of Nathan the son of King David.

It was a practice of the "patriarchal Jews" at that time to sometimes omit the names of women from a genealogy and mention the husband of a woman and refer to him as the son of the Father of that man's wife. - just like they left out any reference to sisters of Cain and Able. - Jesus had the Jewish legal right of inheritance through adoption and claim to his Father in laws name and genealogical position because of a precedent set in moses's time by the incident involving the daughters of Zelophehad (Numbers 27:1-14)

"Heli" - was the Father of Mary the physical mother of Jesus. Heli was the Father in law of Joseph. According to the scriptures Heli was the descendant of Nathan the brother of Solomon and a son of King David.

Sorry to shift your paradigm but this is a common misunderstanding.

But, the good news is that this doesn't negate your main point. Because Nathan - the actual physical ancestor of Christ - was also a son of Bathsheba.

1st Chronicles 3:4-5
"....These six were born to David in Hebron, where he reigned seven years and six months. David reigned in Jerusalem thirty-three years, and these were the children born to him there: Shammua, Shobab, Nathan and Solomon. These four were by Bathsheba "daughter of Ammiel...."

So... ...All's well that ends well!
Last edited by learningasigo; July 17,2009 at 10:40pm. Reason: Maniacal distaste for typo's
 
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waltercl is offline waltercl Post #10  July 17,2009, 10:54pm
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Hmm, you know I haven't noticed that. You could be right, but as you say the point would still stand that God used David and Bathsheba in the lineage of Christ.

Well actually it makes the point X 2 because he used the offspring of David and Bathsheba for both the mother and her husband who would be the earthly father that would raise him.
 
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