David & Goliath: A Battle With Death (part 7 of 7)

Goliath, employing his training, methodically marched toward David.  The story of the encounter says that he “drew steadily closer to David to attack him” (17:48a).  On the other hand, “David,” with what was apparently complete trust in His God to deliver his enemy into His hand, “quickly ran toward the battle line to attack the Philistine” (17:48b).  This was bold, perhaps even foolhardy.  He embraced the confrontation.  Thinking forward to the great conflict of the Christ-event, Jesus could have put off His confrontation with death.  He could have delayed it.  At His “trial,” He could have asserted His rights, defended Himself, demanded witnesses, or engaged in any number of procedural technicalities in order to push back the time of confrontation.  However, He did not answer His accusers.  He did not attempt to defend Himself or explain Himself.  He merely said all that needed to be said in order to hasten the inevitable.  Yes, He “quickly ran toward the battle line to attack” the enemy force that had been arrayed against Him. 

When David dropped his enemy to the ground, he “did not even have a sword in his hand” (17:50b).  Having felled his opponent, “David ran and stood over the Philistine.  He grabbed Goliath’s sword, drew it from its sheath, killed him, and cut off his head with it” (17:51).  How does this fit with what it was that Jesus did?  Well, just as David utilized Goliath’s own weapon against him, by cutting off his head with his own sword---the very weapon that Goliath had planned to use to strike down David and thereby bring the Creator God’s people into subjection---Jesus defeated death by going down into death.   

In that, He gained all power by being subject to the weapon of death that had been used to strike fear and terror into the hearts of people throughout the world.  He conquered that which was designed to foster subjection and subservience to the claims of power.  Jesus used the very cross of Caesar---the great symbol of the world’s power and Caesar’s power of death over life---as the means by which He would enter into the conflict from which He would ultimately emerge victorious via the Resurrection. 

With their champion defeated and dead, the Philistines ran away.  How did Israel respond?  How did the Creator God’s covenant people respond to the defeat of their enemy?  Before David’s victory, Israel saw Goliath and the Philistines as a curse, very much in line with that promised by their God as recorded in the Deuteronomical narrative.  Had David been defeated, Israel would have been subject to the Philistines and therefore under their God’s curse, in exile from their God’s promises.  Trembling in fear before that enemy, the men of Israel had no hope.  Figuratively, they saw themselves as dead men.  Now, with Goliath’s defeat and the enemy’s retreat, they were able to walk into the realm of their God’s blessing.  They were not going to be in subjection.  Death was not going to come to overcome them.  They were resurrected! 

“Then the men of Israel and Judah charged forward, shouting a battle cry” (17:52a).  Likewise, when Jesus defeated His enemy, being raised from the dead, all those in union with Him through believing in Him (the new mark of the Creator God’s covenant people) were moved from the state of cursing and exile and death and hopelessness in the face of its relentless march, into being the place of the overlap of heaven and earth, as the life of the age to come is brought to bear through the power of the Resurrection, with no more fear.  As did Israel, those that now find themselves as the Creator God’s covenant people charge forward, with a battle cry.  What is that cry?  The cry is the proclamation of the Gospel.  The cry is Jesus is Lord, for He has won the battle!