Scripture Reading: 1 Sam. 1
In studying the Bible, the book of books, we need to be clear that the Bible is not a book of doctrine. Strictly speaking, the Bible is not even a book of truths. What, then, is the Bible? The Bible is the divine revelation. The Greek word for revelation means to uncover something that has been hidden or concealed. The Bible is totally God's revelation concerning Himself, the universe, and humanity. The more I study the Bible, the more I am convinced that it is not by man but by God. There are a great many sentences in the Scriptures that could have been uttered only by God.
To understand the Bible as the divine revelation, we need a spirit of wisdom to know and a spirit of revelation to see. This was the reason Paul prayed that "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory," would give to us "a spirit of wisdom and revelation" (Eph. 1:17). This indicates that we need divine wisdom to understand the divine revelation. The natural human mind and the common human knowledge cannot apprehend the revelation of God. For this we need a spirit. Thank God that He has created us with such an organ! As Job 32:8a says, "There is a spirit in man." God has created for us a spirit particularly that we may know Him. Today we need a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know and to see the things which are covered, hidden, concealed.
We must admit that we do not know the Bible. Only the processed and consummated Triune God knows the Bible. The more we realize this, the more we will pray, "Lord, we need You. We need Your mercy and Your blessing. Lord, we need You as the Spirit and as the Word. Otherwise, we may read the Bible again and again and still not know anything."
The Bible as the divine revelation reveals God's eternal economy, which is for a particular person — Christ. Christ is God Himself from eternity, but one day He became a man. He is the complete God and a perfect man; hence, He is called the God-man. We can see God only in Christ. Apart from Christ, or outside of Christ, we cannot see God. Likewise, the real humanity is only in Christ. Apart from Him, we cannot see a true, real, and genuine man.
Christ came to do the will of the Father (John 6:38; 4:34; 5:30), to carry out God's economy. He lived on earth and tasted all aspects of human life. He then went to the cross and died an all-inclusive death. Three days later He rose in His humanity, and by resurrection He brought His humanity into divinity, making His humanity a part of the Son of God (Rom. 1:3-4). In this way He became the firstborn Son of God, regenerating us as the many sons of God (Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:3).
He as God became a man, and we as man are becoming God in life and in nature but not in His Godhead. He is the source, and we are the produce. The produce must be the same as the source. Thus, we, the children of God (John 1:12), are the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead, in the person of God. As a whole, we are the Body of Christ. Christ as the Head and we as the Body form the new man (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10-11). As believers in Christ, we all are parts of this new man. This is a brief sketch of the divine revelation concerning God's economy.
Without this governing view of God's economy, we cannot understand the Bible. If we do not have such a view as we read the Bible, we will wrongly understand the Bible. This is the reason I pointed out in the messages on Joshua, Judges, and Ruth that the most important thing for us to see is God's economy. These three books are not merely books of history; they are a part of the divine revelation concerning God's economy. Furthermore, in these books are a number of types, which are pictures, portraits, showing us how we can participate in God's economy. The principle is exactly the same with the books of 1 and 2 Samuel. These books are part of the revelation concerning God's economy and contain pictures related to our participation in God's economy.
For this life-study of 1 and 2 Samuel, we need a spirit of wisdom and revelation to see what is revealed in these two books. In 1 and 2 Samuel there are four main persons — Eli, Samuel, Saul, and David — and at this point I would like to say a brief word about each of them. The crucial matters regarding these persons may be expressed in the following four statements, which are extracts of 1 and 2 Samuel:
1.Eli's failure in the people's degradation brought in the waning of the stale priesthood.
2.Samuel's ministry in the Nazarite vow ended the judgeship and brought in the priesthood for God's oracle and the kingship for God's administration.
3.Saul's fleshly life insulted the kingship in the divine government and caused him to lose it.
4.David's godly life secured the kingship in God's economy, and his indulgence contaminated the kingship of God's holiness.
At the beginning of 1 Samuel, there is a picture of Eli's failure. This failure took place in the degradation of the people of Israel. Eli was a priest who brought in the waning of the stale priesthood.
Samuel's ministry brought in the prophethood for God's oracle and the kingship for God's administration. The priesthood ordained by God was supposed to do two things: to speak the word of God and to carry out God's administration, His governmental dealing with His people. Thus, on the one hand, the priests were God's spokesmen and, on the other hand, they were God's representatives. They spoke the things of God, and they represented God in His administration. Because the priesthood at the time of Eli was stale and was waning, Samuel was raised up to replace the stale and waning priesthood. Samuel did not have a failure. Rather, he had a ministry in the Nazarite vow that ended the judgeship and brought in the prophethood for God's speaking, for God's oracle, and also brought in the kingship for God's administration.
Although it may be difficult for us to understand Samuel, it is easy for us to understand Saul because he and we are sick with the same disease. Saul's life was fleshly, and our life also is fleshly. No matter what our nationality may be, we all are Sauls. Saul's fleshly life insulted, offended, the kingship in the divine government and caused him to lose it. He brought shame upon God's kingship in the divine government. In a sense, many believers have done the same thing and have lost their kingship.
David is a contrast to Saul. Whereas Saul's life was fleshly, David's life was godly. The word fleshly denotes the fallen man, and the word godly refers to one who is with God. Saul's fleshly life caused him to lose the kingship, but David's godly life secured the kingship in the divine economy. However, David's indulgence in lust contaminated and damaged the kingship of God's holiness. Although David did not lose the kingship wholly, he lost a very large part of it. Only one tribe, Judah, was left for him.
Let us now go on to consider several other introductory matters.
In the Hebrew Scriptures 1 and 2 Samuel are one book.
First Samuel 1 through 24 was written by Samuel. The remainder of 1 Samuel and all of 2 Samuel were written by Nathan the prophet and Gad the seer.
The time of the writing of 1 and 2 Samuel was about 1171 — 1017 B.C.
The place of writing was Ephraim and Judah.
The content of 1 and 2 Samuel is the history of Samuel, Saul, and David, which continues the history of the judges and which is a crucial part of the central line of Israel's history. Samuel was a Levite by birth and a Nazarite by consecration, to be a priest, a prophet, and a judge. He initiated the prophethood to replace the waning priesthood in the speaking for God, terminated the judgeship, and brought in the kingship. Saul was the first king among Israel in the negative sense. David was the king in the positive sense according to the heart of God.
God's heart is to carry out His economy. His heart is not that we always please Him and make Him happy, nor that we should be good, spiritual, holy, or victorious. He desires neither a good man nor a bad man but a God-man. God created us according to His image and wanted us to take His life, signified by the tree of life. Because we became fallen, God became a man to save us, to redeem us. He died an all-inclusive death for us, and He resurrected to beget us by imparting God's life and nature into us, making us God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
We should not regard the Bible as a book that teaches us to be a good man or a spiritual man. The Bible reveals that God wants us to be a "Christ-man." To be a Christian is to be a Christ-man, a man of Christ.
When some hear this, they may argue, pointing out that different portions of the Bible exhort us to be patient, humble, and perfect. There are many such exhortations in the book of Proverbs and in the Epistles of Paul. In understanding these portions we must take the Bible as a whole. The book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom. Wisdom is Christ (1 Cor. 1:30). Christ is our wisdom in our daily living. Furthermore, the Epistles of Paul stress repeatedly that whatever we are and do must be in Christ.
The central thought of 1 and 2 Samuel is that the fulfillment of God's economy needs man's cooperation, as illustrated by the history of Samuel's mother Hannah, Samuel, and David, in the positive sense, and by the history of Eli and Saul, in the negative sense. Such a cooperation is related to the personal enjoyment of the good land, which typifies the all-inclusive and all-extensive Christ. Hence, 1 and 2 Samuel are a continuation of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, giving us the details concerning the enjoyment of the God-given good land. The good land enjoyed by the cooperators with God became the kingdom of God, in which they reigned as kings. This is a type of the New Testament believers' enjoyment of Christ, which issues in their reign in the eternal life (Rom. 5:21).
We need to be impressed with the fact that the fulfillment of God's economy requires our cooperation. To cooperate with God means to be bound together with God. We may use a three-legged race as an illustration. The runners in such a race must run in pairs, with each partner having one leg bound to one of his partner's legs. In order for the partners to run, they must cooperate with each other and not move independently. This is a picture of the proper Christian life. To be a Christian is to be bound together with Christ and to have one living with Him by one life.
The birth of Samuel involved Hannah's cooperation with God. The old priesthood had become stale and waning, and God wanted to have another beginning. For Samuel's birth, God initiated things behind the scenes. On the one hand, He shut up Hannah's womb; on the other hand, He prepared a provoker (1 Sam. 1:5-7). This forced Hannah to pray that the Lord would give her a male child. In her prayer she made a vow and said, "O Jehovah of hosts, if You will indeed look upon the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me and not forget Your maidservant, but give to Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to Jehovah for all the days of his life, and no razor will come upon his head" (v. 11). This prayer was initiated not by Hannah but by God. God chose Hannah because she was willing to cooperate with Him. God answered her prayer and opened her womb, and Hannah conceived and bore a son (v. 20). Then according to her vow, she offered her son to God, placing him in the custody of Eli. From this we see that Hannah, Samuel's mother, was one who cooperated very much with God. Her case shows us the kind of persons God expects to have today.
Recently, as I was considering this matter, I recalled the experience of Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, which was a very spiritual mission and was much used by God. In his biography, written by his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Howard Taylor, we are told that one day Hudson Taylor said to the Lord in prayer that he was willing to give his life and everything for the people of China. This vow was honored by God and resulted in the forming of the China Inland Mission.
Although I do not compare myself with Hudson Taylor, I can testify that my experience was very similar. In the last of my teen-age years, while I was endeavoring to get my education, God caught me, and I was saved. Immediately afterward, while I was walking on the street, I looked up to the heavens and told the Lord that I wanted only Him and that I wanted to serve Him and travel from place to place bringing the Bible and preaching Christ. Although I did not realize it at the time, I was actually making a vow to the Lord. That vow has been honored by Him.
Today many continents and countries are open to the Lord's recovery. There is the need for some to make a vow like Hannah. I hope that many of the young people will make such a vow. You need to say, "Lord, I am Yours. I just lend myself to You." God will take your heart and accomplish something to fulfill what you vow to Him.
The books of 1 and 2 Samuel have three sections: the history concerning Samuel (1 Sam. 1—8), the history concerning Saul (1 Sam. 9—15), and the history concerning David (1 Sam. 16—2 Sam. 24).
These books of history portray how God wants His people to enjoy the good land. In the Old Testament God allotted the good land to Israel. In the New Testament God has allotted Christ as our portion for our enjoyment (Col. 1:12). Eli's failure ended his enjoyment of the good land, but Samuel enjoyed the good land to the uttermost. Eventually, he was established to be a prophet, a priest, and a judge.
The types in 1 and 2 Samuel are a portrait showing us how we can and should enjoy Christ as our God-allotted land for the establishment of the kingdom, which is the church. The state of our relationship with God is a condition for our enjoyment of Christ. If we are right with God, this gives us a condition that we may enjoy Christ. We need to enjoy Christ to such an extent that our enjoyment of Christ becomes the kingdom of God in which we reign in life with Christ. The kingdom today is the proper church life (Rom. 14:17). In this kingdom we reign with Christ in His eternal life. This is the content and the central thought of 1 and 2 Samuel.
