2 Chronicles 21–22

The Davidic line plunges into apostasy. Jehoram, married to Athaliah of the house of Ahab, slew all his brethren with the sword and walked in the way of the kings of Israel; Elijah’s letter pronounces his doom, and he dies of a wasting disease, unmourned, without being desired, not buried among the kings. The good line of Jehoshaphat has poured the poison of Ahab’s house into its own veins, and the throne of David is rotting from within.

Yet one clause holds the chapter against total ruin: howbeit Yahweh would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a light to him and to his sons for ever. The kings deserve to be cut off, and are not — the lamp of David is kept burning for the covenant’s sake, not the kings’. The promise of a light to David’s sons for ever is the thread by which the whole line hangs while its own kings try to sever it.

Then the thread is nearly cut. Ahaziah, counselled to wickedness by Athaliah and the house of Ahab, is slain; and Athaliah rises and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah — the murderess reaching to extinguish the lamp of David entirely, the serpent-seed devouring the royal seed as the dragon stands to devour the child. For a moment the light of David hangs by nothing at all; the covenant promise stands against a throne piled with the bodies of its own heirs.

But one infant is hidden. Jehoshabeath steals the baby Joash from among the slain and he was with them hid in the house of God six years while Athaliah reigns. The right figure over it is Isaiah’s: Athaliah cut the stem of Jesse down to its very roots, and one tender shoot was all that remained — there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots (Isa 11:1). The tree of David is a stump for six years, and the entire promise of Yahweh is a shoot nobody can see.

The drama of Christ’s birth is enacted here in type, and every element is in place: a murderous throne, a slaughter of the royal children, a child hidden away from it, the promise carried through in secret while a usurper wears the crown. The lamp is not snuffed; it is carried into the house of God and kept alive in secret, one heir preserved against the murderess. The seed of the woman is hidden from the seed of the serpent — as Moses was hidden, as the child of Revelation is caught up — and the covenant light, reduced to a single hidden child, survives the slaughter.

The Davidic kings rot the throne from within and a murderess reaches to extinguish the line — but Yahweh keeps the lamp for the covenant’s sake, and one hidden heir preserves the light of David against the slaughter.

Daniel 3

Nebuchadnezzar sets up a golden image on the plain of Dura — a name carrying wall, rampart, circle, dwelling: the place of permanence, chosen by a king who has just been told in plain words that his kingdom will pass to another.

And the image is an argument with the dream. He was the head of gold and the silver was to follow him; so he builds the whole man of gold, head to foot — no silver, no brass, no iron, no clay. Babylon refuses to be the head and demands to be the statue. It stands threescore cubits by six, and six is the number of man, of flesh: a man-number in gold, sixty cubits tall, raised on the plain of permanence by an empire that will not hear that it ends.

Then the command: fall down and worship at the sound of the music, on pain of the burning furnace. It is the empire’s demand for worship — the image that the times of the Gentiles raise and require, the same demand the beast-image of Revelation will make at the end. Religion is made compulsory, and conscience is not consulted. The whole world bows at the music; three men of Judah do not.

Their answer is the high-water mark of faith that does not bargain: our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace… But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods. The but if not is the heart of it — they believe Yahweh can deliver, but their obedience does not hang on whether he will. Deliverance would be welcome; faithfulness is settled either way. They will not bow whether the fire is quenched or not.

There is a reading here worth holding lightly and worth hearing anyway. Six instruments are commanded in vv. 5 and 15 — cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer — but when the music actually sounds in v. 7, only five play. The dulcimer never sounds. It is the pipe that carries the harmony under the other instruments; and there is no harmony in the worship of an image. Five sounded — and five is the number of grace, the grace that was about to walk into a furnace with three men. The omission may be nothing more than the Aramaic’s own habit of varying a list; but the text does drop the instrument that makes the chord, in the one verse where the world actually bows.

The furnace is heated seven times hotter and slays the men who carry them; the three fall bound into the flames. Then the king starts up astonished: Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God — or, in the pagan king’s own mouth, like a son of the gods. A divine messenger walks with them in the flames; the angel of Yahweh’s presence is sent into the furnace to be with the faithful, as the promise runs — when thou walkest through the fire… I will be with thee.

They are not kept from the furnace but through it. The fire that killed the men who threw them in cannot singe a hair of their heads, nor was the smell of fire upon them; only their bonds are burned away, so that they walk free in the one place meant to destroy them. The trial does not consume the faithful; it only frees them, and the king who lit the furnace ends up blessing the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The three who would not bow at the image come out of the fire unbound, with a companion the empire could not name.

The empire demands worship at its image, but the three will not bow — believing Yahweh can deliver yet faithful even if he does not — and they walk free in the furnace with a divine companion, kept not from the fire but through it.

Acts 1

The right sentence to set over the book is the Son’s own from the tree: Acts is the Father’s answer to the Son’s prayer from the stake — Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Fifty days later, three thousand of the men who did not know are pricked in the heart and baptized into the name they shouted against. Everything that follows, to Rome and the ends of the earth, is that prayer being answered.

Luke writes it to Theophilus — lover of God — and drops the most excellent of the Gospel’s dedication (Lk 1:3). The title falls away and the friendship remains; the Gospel has done its work in the man. A Gentile with a Greek name who has become a brother is the right hands for the record of how the Gentiles were called.

The risen Lord shows himself alive by many infallible proofs, and for forty days speaks of one subject: the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. So the disciples’ last question is the right one — Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? Jesus does not correct the hope but the timing: it is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. The kingdom will be restored to Israel — the stone will become the mountain — but the day is the Father’s secret, and the disciples’ task until then is to be witnesses unto the uttermost part of the earth, clothed with the promised Spirit.

Then he is taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. As they gaze after him, two men in white give the promise that anchors the whole hope of the ecclesia: this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. The same Jesus, in the same manner — bodily, personally, visibly — will return as he left; the ascension is not a farewell but the first half of a journey whose second half is the kingdom restored. The risen King goes up in a cloud and will come back the same way.

The disciples return to the upper room and continue with one accord in prayer, waiting for the power they have been promised. The waiting is not idle but expectant — the same posture as Jehoshaphat’s our eyes are upon thee, the people who cannot act yet until Yahweh acts, holding together in prayer until the Spirit comes.

The chapter closes with the twelve restored. Judas has fallen, and his place is filled by lot — Matthias numbered with the eleven — so that the foundation is whole again, twelve to match the twelve tribes, the twelve gates of the city named Yahweh-Shammah. The apostolic foundation is completed before the Spirit falls; the twelve stand ready, the King is ascended, the kingdom is promised, and the witnesses wait for power.

The kingdom will be restored to Israel in the Father’s time; the same Jesus who ascended in a cloud will so come again in like manner — and the twelve, restored and waiting in prayer, are clothed for witness to the ends of the earth.