In our previous chapter, we looked at how Abraham understood the promise of the land described in Genesis 15:18-21. In this chapter, we want to look at how David understood the covenant that God made with him concerning his son, an eternal kingdom, and a dwelling place for God. Our sources of information include both the Old Testament Scriptures and the New. Our hermeneutic privileges the New—we are examining how the writers of the New Testament Scriptures interpret the kingdom promises of the Old Testament Scriptures. This examination functions as a case study within an attempt to establish hermeneutical principles that will help us understand biblical prophecy. Thus far, we have established three principles: First, we consider the promise/prophecy as stated in its Old Testament text. Next, we ask questions of that text. Finally, we turn to the New Testament for answers to those questions.

First, let us discover exactly what God promised in the covenant he made with David, which is described in 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17.

In 2 Samuel 7:1-7, we read that David, after achieving peace for Israel, told the prophet Nathan that he wanted to build a house for God to replace the tabernacle. Nathan agreed, and was sure that God would bless the idea. That night, God told Nathan that he, God, did not want David to build him a house. Instead, God wanted Nathan to inform David that, he, God, was going to build a house for Israel and for David (vv 9b-17):

‘Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.

‘The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’ Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation. (NIV)

In this revelation, God promises:^[1]

1) to make David famous

2) to give Israel their own permanent homeland and security from all their enemies

3) to build a house for David^[2]

4) to raise up one of David’s sons to succeed him

5) to allow that son to build God’s house

6) to establish David’s house, throne, and kingdom forever

David responds to these promises with gratitude, humility, and assurance (2 Samuel 7:18-29).

Next, let us ask questions of the text. Did God keep those promises to David? Did God build a house for David? Did God raise up one of David’s sons to sit on David’s throne? Did that son build God a house? Is some son of David presently seated on that throne and will he and his descendants continue forever to rule their kingdom? To how many of these details can we answer affirmatively (yes, God has done this, and here is the biblical evidence), and to how many must we answer negatively (no, we have no biblical evidence that this promise has been fulfilled and therefore we conclude that its fulfillment is future)?

These questions are similar to those we asked concerning God’s covenant with Abraham and his seed. How did David understand the promises that God made to him? Did he literalize them or spiritualize them? How are we, who live at a time so greatly removed from David, to understand these promises?

As we seek to answer these questions, we need to be aware of the trap of creating a false dichotomy. Sometimes, answers are not a straightforward yea or nay. Sometimes, answers are both. We may find that, as we investigate these questions, their scriptural answers fall into the category of double fulfillment. Some of the promises concerning offspring are fulfilled by Solomon alone, some by Jesus alone, and some by both Solomon and Jesus.

Before we proceed further, let us establish the legitimacy of reading Jesus back into this passage. If one of our hermeneutical tasks is to understand the text as David understood it, how can we possibly place Jesus in it? David lived roughly one thousand years before Jesus was born. Our answer is that we have no indication from this Old Testament text that David had knowledge of this particular offspring. But although our hermeneutical task begins with David in this text, it does not end there. We have the inspired testimony of the writers of the New Testament, and they inform us that David, knowing that God would place one of his descendents on his throne, spoke of the resurrection and exaltation of Messiah (Acts 2:30, 31, 34, 35).

The writers of the New Testament believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah; therefore, they read him into God’s promises to David. David’s understanding of God’s promises included a messianic fulfillment, even though he did not know the specific identity of Messiah (i.e., David did not know that Messiah would be Jesus of Nazareth). So which of the promises may we view as fulfilled by David’s offspring, Solomon, which by David’s offspring, Messiah Jesus, and which by both?

God raised up Solomon, who succeeded David as King of Israel. We have the testimony of 1 Kings that David understood Solomon as his successor in keeping with God’s promise (1 Kings 1:48): “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who has granted someone to sit on my throne this day, my own eyes seeing it.” We know, also from 1 Kings 2:4, that David envisioned Solomon as the beginning of a provisional, continuous line of successors: “[t]hat the LORD may establish his word that he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel’” (NIV).

With regard to this promise, or rather, to this conflation of two promises (to raise up one of David’s sons to succeed him and to establish David’s house, throne, and kingdom forever), we have the testimony of Peter in Acts 2. Peter, in his sermon, alludes explicitly to the promise of 2 Samuel 7:12 and equates David’s descendant with Messiah, whom he identifies as Jesus. Notice that the son, whom God promised in the Old Testament Scriptures to “raise up” and whose kingdom he would establish, becomes, in the New Testament Scriptures, Christ (Messiah Jesus) who is “resurrected.”

And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up THY SEED after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. (2 Sam. 7:12, KJV, emphasis added)

Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up CHRIST to sit on his throne… (Acts 2:29, 30, KJV, emphasis added)

According to Peter, David understood this (he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ [Acts 2:31]). As I mentioned earlier, we learn this only from the New Testament Scriptures.

When God promised to establish an everlasting kingdom and to raise up one of David’s sons to sit on the throne of that kingdom, he was talking in one sense about Solomon and his immediate descendants, and in another sense, about the resurrection, ascension, and enthronement of Messiah. David was a prophet to whom God revealed these things; thus, he understood the double fulfillment aspect of the promise.

Let us examine this kingdom in a bit more detail. Look at the timing of the establishment of the kingdom promised to David. It is to take place while “David sleeps with the fathers,” or before the general resurrection that takes place at the second coming. On the day of Pentecost, God established, through David’s greater son, the kingdom that he had promised David. God did this “while David slept with the fathers.”

And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. (2 Sam. 7:12, KJV, emphasis added)

First Chronicles 17:11 also establishes the Davidic kingdom prior to the resurrection of the dead—while David is in the grave.

And it shall come to pass, when thy days be expired that thou must go [to be] with thy fathers, that I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom. (KJV, emphasis added)

The Holy Spirit is explicit about the timing of the kingdom’s establishment. It happens while David is sleeping in the grave. Why else would Peter call attention to the fact that David was dead and in a tomb at that very moment? It is because the establishing of the kingdom was to take place while David slept with the fathers. In Acts 2, Peter is saying, “The kingdom is right on schedule. David is in that tomb, as you can see, just as God told David, and Christ, David’s greater son, has been raised up—resurrected—and is right now seated on the promised throne at God’s right hand reigning over his newly established kingdom.”

Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. (Acts 2:29, KJV)

Peter tells us that David was fully aware of what would take place. Christ would be “raised from the dead and sit on his throne” (Acts 2:30). The “seated on the throne” immediately follows the “raising up” or resurrection of Christ. Peter gives no indication that either he or David anticipated a thousand year period between the resurrection of Christ and the establishment of his kingdom. According to Peter, when David contemplated God’s promise, he included in it the resurrection of Messiah, which necessarily entailed the establishment of the promised kingdom.

David understood what was going to happen. He was going to die and he would be buried. While he was dead in the grave, God was going to raise up one of his sons, Christ, to sit on his throne. David saw that resurrection and enthronement as the fulfillment of the covenant promise that God made to him in 2 Samuel 7. Peter views the day of Pentecost as evidence of the ascension to the throne promised to David’s son and the establishment of the kingdom promised in Joel. All of this takes place pre-general resurrection, while “David is sleeping with the fathers.” As I write this, David is still sleeping in the grave, awaiting the second coming, and his greater son, Christ, currently sits on the throne of the eternal kingdom he established at his resurrection and ascension. As far as David and Peter are concerned, the kingdom God promised to David is not awaiting fulfillment; it has been established.

What of the other promises? God promised that David’s son would build a house for God. Solomon built a great house for God (2 Chron. 2:6). This was a physical temple made with stone and wood. It must have been a beautiful piece of architecture. Messiah Jesus also built a great and beautiful house for God. This is a spiritual temple made with living stones. The church is the “temple of God,” the location where God dwells. Again, we have a double fulfillment, with both Solomon and Jesus fulfilling the promise.

How are we to understand God’s promise to build David a house? David wanted to build a house for God, but God said he would build David a house. The house that God promised to build for David is the same house that David’s greater son was going to build for God. Here, too, we have the blending of two promises into one fulfillment. David’s house is the temple that God the Holy Spirit built for David’s greater son. It was the church—the temple described in the New Testament Scriptures. Solomon understood this.

But who is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? who [am] I then, that I should build him an house, save only to burn sacrifice before him? (2 Chron. 2:6, KJV)

Both Stephen and Paul echoed this same truth. They knew that the physical temple was not God’s ultimate fulfillment; it was only a type of God’s true and final temple.

…Solomon built him an house. Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet. (Acts 7:47, 48, KJV)

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. (Acts 17:24, KJV)

The book of Hebrews gives us clear New Testament evidence as to the ultimate intent in the promise of God to build a house for David. The author of this text specifically calls the church—redeemed sinners—“God’s house” and “his house.” We, the church, are the temple, or house, where God dwells. We are the “house of David.” The church is the dwelling place for God where he would be, not just with us, but actually in us. This is the ultimate goal of redemption. God does not build with bricks and mortar; he builds with redeemed men and women. He uses living stones.

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future. But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. (Hebrews 3:1-6, NIV)

Some may ask if double fulfillment could apply to God’s promise to build David a house. In such a scenario, the church would serve as the true temple, spiritually fulfilling the promises made to David, with the physical temple described in Ezekiel 40-48 functioning as the natural, literal fulfillment. Included in that literal fulfillment are animal sacrifices. Scofield provides a heading at Ezekiel 40:5—Vision of the millennial Temple—that indicates his belief that God’s “house” promise to David awaits future fulfillment. In a note, Scofield comments, “The last nine chapters of Ezekiel have posed numerous problems for expositors. Five explanations have been offered.” The problem to which he refers is the identity of the temple. He lists four explanations and explains why he thinks that they are untenable. He then lists the fifth option, which is the one he holds. He understands the temple described in Ezekiel 40-48 as a material building, yet to be constructed:

(5) The preferable interpretation is that Ezekiel gives a picture of the millennial Temple. Judging from the broad context of the prophecy (the time subsequent to Israel’s regathering and conversion) and the testimony of other Scriptures (Isa. 66; Ezek. 6; 14), this interpretation is in keeping with God’s prophetic program for the millennium. The Church is not in view here, but rather it is a prophecy for the consummation of Israel’s history on earth.^[3]

A bit further into the section, at Ezekiel 43:19, Scofield provides another heading—The offerings—and another note. This note addresses the verse that prescribes a sin offering as part of the temple ritual, and in it, Scofield comments on the problem of animal sacrifices in the millennial temple:

A problem is posed by this paragraph (vv. 19-27). Since the N.T. clearly teaches that animal sacrifices do not in themselves cleanse away sin (Heb. 10:4) and that the one sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ that was made at Calvary completely provides for such expiation (cp. Heb. 9:12, 26, 28; 10:10, 14), how can there be a fulfillment of such a prophecy? Two answers have been suggested: (1) Such sacrifices, if actually offered, will be memorial in character. They will, according to this view, look back to our Lord’s work on the cross, as the offerings of the old covenant anticipated His sacrifice. They would, of course, have no expiatory value. And (2) The reference to sacrifices is not to be taken literally, in view of the putting away of such offerings, but is rather to be regarded as a presentation of the worship of redeemed Israel, in her own land and in the millennial Temple, using the terms with which the Jews were familiar in Ezekiel’s day.^[4]

These two notes seem hermeneutically incompatible with each other. If his second option for understanding the animal sacrifices as figurative is valid, then why not adopt the same view for the temple? Scofield acknowledges that one view of the temple is to see it as the church, but he rejects it on the ground of inadequacy.

Still another view is the claim that the picture is one of the Church and its blessings in this age. This view does not explain the symbolism, nor why large areas of Christian doctrine are omitted.^[5]

It seems to me that if we can explain a part of the whole as figurative and couched in vocabulary familiar to the audience, then we can legitimately explain all of it in the same manner.

It also seems to me that Scofield’s first option—animal sacrifices as memorials of Christ’s sacrifice—misuses the theory of double fulfillment. Theoretically, the natural precedes the spiritual. This is the way Paul uses the theory in 1 Corinthians 15:46. Double fulfillment proceeds from natural to spiritual, but not the other way round. You do not first fulfill the land promise by inheriting heaven and then inherit an earthly piece of dirt as a type of heaven. God does not have David’s greater son build a spiritual temple to fulfill God’s covenant with him and then have Israel build a physical memorial temple to fulfill the same promise. Furthermore, once a promise has been fulfilled, we cannot posit with certainty a double fulfillment unless later revelation specifically states that there will be double fulfillment. Scripture clearly presents the promise to David that one of his sons will build a temple for God to dwell in as doubly fulfilled: first by Solomon, then by the church. If we are going to claim that Ezekiel’s temple is to be built in the future (a triple fulfillment, from physical to spiritual and back to physical), we need to support that claim with New Testament evidence.

We can suggest that in God’s sovereign providence, such a scenario is possible, just as we can suggest that God may revive the gifts of the Spirit (although we see no need of that), but we need clear promises before we make such expectations into articles of faith. I strongly urge any reader who struggles with this point to read Gary George’s excellent booklet Prophetic Fulfillment: Double, Natural, or Spiritual available from New Covenant Media.

The temple, as the dwelling place of God, occupies a significant place in Old Testament revelation. God met with man there. It was the only place where the sinner could find forgiveness through blood offerings. Geerhardus Vos, in his excellent work, Biblical Theology, has some insightful comments on how the temple functions symbolically and typically.

The tabernacle affords a clear instance of the coexistence of the symbolical and the typical in one of the principal institutions of the Old Testament religion. It embodies the eminently religious idea of the dwelling of God with His people. This it expresses symbolically so far as the Old Testament state of religion is concerned, and typically as regards the final embodiment of salvation in the Christian state.…That its main purpose is to realize the indwelling of Jehovah is affirmed in so many words [Ex. 25:8; 29:44, 45].^[6]

I copied the following some time ago and did not record the source. The first quotation is similar in content to Vos (pp. 154-155), but it does not match verbatim. I cannot remember the source for the second quotation. If anyone knows, please inform me so that I can give credit where credit is due.

In its typical significance, the temple was a shadow or type of the reality of the Lord’s dwelling with his people. According to the New Testament, this reality is now found in Christ himself (John 1:14; 2:19—22; Col. 2:9) and in the church as the place of God’s dwelling by the Spirit (Eph. 2:21—22; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6; 10:21; 1 Pet. 2:5). Christ and the church are the fulfillment of the symbolical and typical significance of the temple. Moreover, in the final state of consummation, when the Lord dwells forever in the presence of his people in the new heavens and earth, it is expressly taught that there will no longer be any temple for the Lord will dwell in their midst (Rev. 21:22).

The dispensationalist insistence that the temple is an institution which pertains, in its literal form, peculiarly to Israel, fails to appreciate its typical significance in biblical revelation. The idea that the temple would be literally rebuilt and serve as a focal point for the worship of Israel during the period of the millennium, represents, from the point of view of the progress and unfolding of biblical revelation, a reversion to Old Testament types and shadows. From this point of view, dispensationalism turns back the clock of redemptive history.

Regardless of what millennial view we hold, we can acknowledge the following about God’s promises to David.

God built a house for David. It is the church. (Heb. 3:1-6)

God raised David’s greater son from the dead, and in so doing, established the promised kingdom. David’s son, Messiah Jesus, presently sits on the throne of that kingdom.

If God, in his sovereign purposes and power, causes the building of Ezekiel’s temple and restores the priesthood and the animal sacrifices, so be it. However, without clear New Testament evidence, no one has a reason to expect that to happen. I know of no such New Testament evidence. It seems to me that to insist that such an expectation is biblical is to invalidate one of the major hermeneutical principles of New Covenant theology, namely, the New Testament Scriptures must interpret the Old Testament Scriptures.

Christ is the “seed” who was promised in Genesis 3:15 as the one who would bruise Satan’s head. He is the “seed” of Abraham who would beget a great nation, inherit the Promised Land, and be the means of bringing great blessings to the world. He is the “seed” of David who would establish a kingdom of grace, defeat sin, death, and Satan, and save his people from their sin.^[7]

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