A parable in real life is revealed in the fourteenth chapter of 2nd Samuel, with implications which shed light upon the Divine plan of salvation The history starts in the 13th chapter with an account of a quarrel between David’s son Absalom and his brother Amnon, about the latter’s treatment of their sister Tamar Absalom was so angry with his brother that he arranged for him to be murdered In consequence Absalom Bed from the court to Geshur
He remained in Geshur for three years and all the time David was longing to have his son home again Every day a struggle went on in the king’s mind David the father said in his heart, “You can’t bring back your dead son by keeping your living son away from you Why don’t you do what you want to do and bring back Absalom to the court?” But David the king said, “There cannot be in your kingdom one law for the king’s son and another for the son of the commoner Your son has been responsible for murder. You cannot bring him back He must remain in banishment” The mental struggle was continuous, sometimes one view seeming to preponderate, sometimes the other, but never a final decision
All the courtiers knew what was passing in the king’s mind and they longed to help him Yet they knew that if they suggested to the king that he should revoke the edict of banishment, he would say immediately that justice must be maintained There was, however, one man about the court who saw that what could never be brought about by direct approach might very well be achieved by subterfuge. He was the commander-inchief of the army, Joab. For his purpose he required the help of a woman who must be virtually as clever as himself. After careful search he found her, a widow living in the village of Tekoa. He patiently schooled her in the part she was to play and when she was word perfect, the scheme was set in motion.
First she disguised herself in deep mourning and then mingled with the suppliants in the king’s audience chamber. When it came her turn for an audience, she appealed for the monarch’s help, telling him a pitiful story. She said, “I had two sons and one day, when they were in the field, they quarreled. The quarrel was so hot between them that one of them killed his brother. And now the whole family are demanding the life of my remaining son, for the life of his brother whom he killed” and, in her pathetic words, “so shall they quench my coal that is left and shall not leave to my husband, neither name nor remainder upon the earth.”
It was a tragic story, its only defect being that it was an account of something which had not happened. The woman told it so convincingly, however, that the king believed her. He was completely deceived, and, as kings will, he sought to temporize and said that he would give his decision later. Now that was just what he was not to be allowed to do on any account, for had he had time to think, he would have seen through the plot and it would have failed. Following her instructions, the widow begged and importuned for an immediate decision and eventually the king granted her plea, “As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.”
Now that was just what the crafty commander-in-chief had foreseen that the king would say. He had carefully taught the woman what she should say next. She did not fail him. She was a magnificent actress and played her part to perfection. She said, “May I say something else to the king?” He could only answer, “Say on.” In reply she said, “Therefore hath the king thought such a thing against the people of God ? for the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished. For we must needs die and are as water split on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person; yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.” The king’s argument had been turned against himself. He had said, “There cannot be in your kingdom one law for the king’s son and another for the son of the commoner.” The woman said, “That is just what there is. You have given me my son, who has killed his brother, but you won’t bring back your own son who is responsible for just the same thing. Your justice is not equal, you are unjust. God does not treat people like that.” The king was cornered and he knew it. There was only one thing he could do. Absalom came back to the court. Much evil came of that later, but that belongs to another record.
What possible connection can there be between this sordid story of murder and intrigue and the Bible promise of human salvation ? On the face of it, none, but let us think about it. In the first place the woman said, “We must needs die and are as water split on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.” This is surely one of the most powerful figures of death which the Scriptures contain. When we read of water spilt on the ground, we are not to think of the hard earth of western lands, but of the hot sand of the east, on which, if water is poured, it cannot even be seen in a matter of seconds, let alone be collected. Death is like that—final.
Yet the woman added, “Neither doth God respect any person, yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him.” Who are these people who are banished from God and why are they banished ? Those expelled are the whole of the human race in the natural state. The Bible says, “Your sins have separated between you and your God” and “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” To understand how this situation arose, we are taken back to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were placed under a law of obedience which they chose to disobey. This was the manner of it. One day, Eve was in a part of the garden by herself. The serpent came along and a conversation took place on these lines. The serpent said, “You have a beautiful garden here. It is yours.” Eve said “No! but we look after it.” The serpent replied, “Does that mean that you can partake of any tree in the garden ?” Eve said, “No, We must not eat of the tree in the middle of the garden, known as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” The serpent said, “What happens if you do eat of it?” and the woman answered, “We shall surely die.” In reply to this, the serpent said two things, one false and the other true. He said first, “Ye shall not surely die” and that was a lie, which led Jesus later to call the serpent “the father of lies” — the first liar. But the serpent also said, “God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. This was true, as Adam and Eve, who both partook of the tree, soon found out. They did know good and evil. It is true that they wished then that they had never heard of either. For they found that the fruit was like the apples of Sodom, which are ashes in the mouth and that, “He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
It was too late. They were turned out of the garden and sentenced to sorrow and death. The way of the tree of life was kept by a flaming sword which turned every way. We note that the way was kept, not destroyed.
The bait held out to Eve by the serpent, which, apart from the lure of the tree itself — apparently good for food and pleasant to the eyes — led her to sin was the suggestion that she would be equal to the Elohim, to know good and evil. When the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians, he did not state in it that he was thinking about the garden of Eden, but verses 6-8 of chapter 2 certainly suggest that he was. After advocating humility after the example of Christ Jesus, he wrote, concerning the Lord, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. But made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. And being in fashion as a man he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” A revised translation of verse 6, which has the sanction of modern translators, reads, ‘thought it not a thing lightly to be seized to be equal with God.” Where the first Adam was weak, the last Adam was strong. The former thought that just by stretching out a hand, plucking a fruit, and eating it, just as easily as that, he could obtain some kind of equality with God. Not so Jesus. He realized that before honour must come humility; the cross must precede the crown. that a whole lifetime of service was necessary before any kind of equality with the Father, even in nature, could be obtained. Therefore he gave himself to the death of the cross, “Wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
“And he is the means which God hath ordained that his banished be not expelled from him” for “those who sometimes were far off — aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, without Christ, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world — by acceptance of the savior-ship of Jesus and by baptism, are made nigh by his blood.
They are “no more strangers and foreigners but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.”
Thus, in her endeavor to persuade David to bring back his son from exile, the woman of Tekoa, spoke not only to king David, or to her own generation, but to the ages. For, in what she said, although she certainly did not realize it, was the kernel of eternal truth.
We rejoice that the way of the tree of life was not destroyed, but, in the figurative sense, kept. For, for those who follow in the way of Jesus, displaying some of his great humility and patience, the way will be opened up again. It is written, ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One