2 SAMUEL XII. 13, 14 341
years afterwards when he played the " hypocrite " at Antioch and St. Paul had to withstand him to his face.^
^ A recent renewed study of those later years of David's reign has left on my own soul an impression of peculiar sadness. There is nothing quite like it in the Bible. Look at this man who, from one point of view, was " after God's own heart," yet from another was so awful an example of the deceitfulness of sin, and so woefully chastened for it. There is no other Bible portrait with quite this tremendous chiaroscuro, this dread contrast of light and night.^
2. God restored His favour to him ; David walked again in the light of God's countenance; he was most truly His child — forgiven, cleansed, received back. It was not that God forgave him only partially, and so punished him still. There is no such thing as a partial forgiveness ; it is yes or no ; God forgives all or none ; a man is in his sin, or he is not in his sin. David was not in his sin; God's word by the prophet had absolved him from that ; and yet this stroke came upon him at once, and in a little while those others which were behind it ; for this was only the beginning of sorrows, and far sadder and more searching were behind. The sword never did depart from his house; evil did rise up against him from the bosom of his own family. It is hardly too much to say that his after-story, to the end of his life, is a scroll written within and without with lamentations, and mourning, and woe.
I made the cross myself, whose weight
Was later laid on me. The thought is torture as I toil Up life's steep Calvary.
To think mine own hands drove the nails!
I sang a merry song. And chose the heaviest wood I had
To build it firm and strong.
If I had guessed — if I had dreamed
Its weight was meant for me, I siiould have made a lighter cross To bear up Calvary .^ ^ S. Cox. » H. C. G. Moule. 'Anne Keevo AlJrich.
342 REPENTANCE AND RETRIBUTION
3. Why did David suffer after he had been forgiven ? There are several good reasons.
(1) In the words of Nathan, he had given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme. The eminence of a man makes his sin the more conspicuous and the more deadly in its effects. The question for every man must be, What will be the result of sin on my part, not to myself only, but to the cause of Christ, to the character of religion ? And putting the question thus, he will perceive that there are results over which he can have no control, that the mere escape of himself from personal consequences will not be the same as the blotting out of the sin. There may be in God's mercy the assurance, "Thou shalt not die " ; but the deadly character of the sin may show itself in the death of the innocent. Furthermore, as a matter of fact, men are kept back from Christ as much by the inconsistency of His professed disciples as by any other cause whatever.
(2) But there are reasons in the very nature of sin. One very obvious reason why God does not detach their natural results from our sins, even when He forgives our sins, is that to do so would necessitate an incessant display of miraculous power before which all law and certainty would be swept away, and our very conceptions of right and wrong would be confused. God has so made the world and so ordered human life that every seed brings forth fruit of its kind, every action issues in a correspond- ing result. This is the constant invariable law. Holding fast by this law, we know what to expect, we can foresee what fruit our actions will bring forth. But Were God for ever to violate the law by lifting every penitent beyond the reach of the painful results whose natural causes he had set in motion, no man would any longer know what to expect, an element of bewildering un- certainty would enter into every lot. Instead of that noble being, with large discourse of reason, looking before and after, instead of being able to calculate the results of action and to rely on the certainties of law, man would sink into the slave of an incalculable and unintelligible Caprice, pleasure and pain would be exalted over right and wrong, the sacredness of duty would be impaired, the very pillars of the universe would be shaken and removed out of their place.
2 SAMUEL XII. 13, 14 343
•jf If a boy breaks a window with a stone and afterwards removes the stone, it does not mend the pane of glass.
^ My father called me to him. *' John," said he, very kindly, " I wish you would get the hammer." " Yes, sir." " Now a nail and a piece of pine board from the wood shed." " Here they are." " Will you drive the nail into the board ? " It was done. " Please pull it out again." " That's easy." " Now, John," and my father's voice dropped to a lower, sadder key, " pull out the nail hole."