David, a Type of Christ

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was on of the great preachers of the 19th century.  Much of his preaching was done at the Metropolitan tabernacle in London.  Furthermore, much of his preaching has stood the test of time.  His volume of sermons entitled, Types and Emblems, contains a sermon in which he demonstrates how David was a type of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his first two sentences he identifies the challenge of preaching on the entirety of chapter seventeen of I Samuel which tells the story of David’s victory over Goliath.  “A careful, perusal of the whole chapter will well repay your pains.  I have selected a verse for convenience, but I want the entire narrative for a text.”

I wanted the entire narrative for my text too for the sermon I’m preaching this weekend.  However, I discovered that there is so much in the entire chapter that I couldn’t get everything into my sermon without going into extra innings.  Since it also happens that when I am writing, the sermon sometimes goes in a different direction than I had originally intended.  Therefore, a part of Spurgeon’s sermon I intended to include was left by the wayside.  So I thought I would include some of those comparisons that Spurgeon saw between David and Christ in this article for The Lutheran Review.

“As David was sent by Jesse to his brethren with suitable presents and comfortable words…even so in the fullness of time was our Lord commissioned to visit his brethren… We read how David was treated.  His brethren did not receive him lovingly.  They answered his unaffected kindness with unprovoked rudeness: bitter things did they lay to his charge.  How truly does this answer to the manner in which our Lord, the Son of David, was abused.  He came unto his own, and his own received him not.  Though he came to them with words of tenderness, they replied to him with words of scorn.  For his blessings they gave him curses; for the bread of heaven they gave him stones; for the benedictions of heaven they gave him the spite of earth, the maledictions of hell!”

Spurgeon sees a comparison between Christ’s victory over death and David’s cutting off Goliath’s head with his own sword.  Goliath’s sword was intended to kill David.  “The cross that was meant to be the death of the Savior was the death of sin.  The crucifixion of Jesus, which was supposed to be the victory of Satan, was the consummation of his victory over Satan.”

P.S.  This Spring I talked the congregation at Otto into having an outdoor service in their new pavilion before the heat of July set in.  We are having that service this coming Sunday.  However, someone forgot to inform me that He was sending the heat of July on June 18 before either July or summer arrived.

  

Comments

[James]

Thank you for a great summary. Spurgeon is an incredible inspiration. I am studying types of CHrist in the OT, and was doing some internet research (not all my research is done on internet of course) and I came across this article. Short, sweet, to the point, and very, very helpful.

Thank you.

James
Durban - South Africa

[Ron Jansen]

Thank you James. I'm still amazed that the internet can reach such a wide ranging audience.
Yes, Spurgeon has much to say to us 21st century folks.