Q&R: How can David killing Goliath be Christlike? Brad Jersak

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Question:

I’m reading through your books, which are faith-saving! The gospel is indeed beautiful. But after 40 years as an evangelical, I’m finding some things hard to read Jesus into… for example, David killing Goliath.

I’ve heard one teacher say that God had to use violence in the culture of the day but will redeem it in the final judgment.

He also says that Jesus on the Emmaus Road refers to the broad sweep of Scripture, not every last bit of the Old Testament.

In a more Christlike view of God, how is David’s victory over Goliath Christlike?

Response:

The clarity of your question is extremely helpful. The Jewish Scriptures record this famous origin story of Israel’s greatest warrior-king. And for Christians, David also serves as a type of his messianic descendant, Jesus Christ. And yet, such a contrast between the pattern of death-dealing ways of David and the life-giving ministry of Jesus.

In that sense, David’s slaughter of Goliath is not at all Christlike, any more than was his sin with Bathsheba. The question stands, “How is David’s victory over Goliath Christlike?” or better, “What is a Christian reading of the Jewish story?”

But first things first. I would respectfully disagree with the teacher to whom you referred on all those fronts… unless by “God uses violence,” he means that “God turns our violence (such as the Cross) on its head for our redemption.” But that’s a far cry from God affirming, commanding, or doing violence if Jesus has anything to say about it (and he did. See John 10:10). If he means, “God needed to employ violence in that culture,” then no. Not any more than we can justify it today. Further, to narrow the scope of the Emmaus reading from “all the Scriptures” (Jesus’ words, not mine) is to overlook how the Apostolic preachers read the Old Testament.

Here’s how they did it (and you can see it in Mileto of Sardis’ 2nd-century sermon, On Pascha, pages 37-68):

  1. A Christian or apostolic reading of the Hebrew Scriptures ultimately asks, “How does this text foreshadow Christ, his Passion and his Resurrection, our gospel and our salvation?” The word ‘foreshadow’ indicates hinting toward and anticipation of something or someone greater who is coming. In other words, the “types” in the OT, whether people, places, covenants, events, objects, or rituals, are fulfilled by “anti-types” in the NT that shine far brighter than their dim, earlier intimations. Mileto compares it to the difference between an architectural sketch or model and the final full-scale product, such as a 12-inch clay model to a 12-foot golden statue.
  2. Mileto covers three broad categories of ‘prefigurement’ that illustrate my point. First, every defeat of God’s people for any reason, even if justified, prefigures the far greater suffering of Christ in his passion and death, where he bears all the sin and sorrow of humanity throughout history on his Cross. Second, every sin and injustice perpetrated by God’s people prefigures the far greater sin and justice when Herod, Caiaphas, Judas, Pilate, and the mob conspired to murder the Son of God. And finally, every victory of God’s people, however violent or dubious, in the Old Testament prefigures the much greater victory of Christ over Satan, sin, and death, where no one’s blood is shed but his own, and the outcome of which is his glorious resurrection.
  3. This third category applies to David’s victory over Goliath. While in human terms, it is the story of one man killing another, rather than glorifying the event as a Christlike act, we can ask, “How does this prefigured the much greater victory of Christ?” And this is where allegory is necessary. You can’t read it as Christian Scripture otherwise. So, in David, we see Christlike courage based on his trust in God rather than in human armor and military weapons. Despite the odds, he overcomes a monstrous enemy with a sling and with the giant’s own sword.A Christian reading of the story sees that Christ overcame a far greater enemy (‘the ruler of this age’) using only his faith in his Father, through whom death itself is destroyed by its own sword (the Cross). The contrasts in every type and anti-type are as crucial as the comparisons. In this case, the contrasts are obvious. Death-dealing violence versus life-giving self-sacrifice. And the scale is equally important, as David delivers a small army or at most a tribe of people, while Christ delivers the whole of humanity from the tyranny of spiritual bondage to death and the fear of death.

I hope this response is of some help, not just in assessing the Goliath story, but in seeing how the Emmaus Way of reading Scripture covers the whole of the Law, the Prophets, and all of the Scriptures.