The first Avengers movie (2012) has a special place in my heart for many reasons; the primary reason for why I love this movie is because I kept Nathan from school half the day on a Friday morning on opening day to surprise him by seeing it in Imax. The second reason why I love the first Avengers movie is because it is one of the all-time great movies with great storytelling building up to one of the greatest superhero films on screen. A third reason why I love this movie is because of the theological and redemptive overtones throughout the film.
There is a scene in the film when Loki, the primary antagonist in the film, makes his first public appearance in Stuttgart, Germany before a crowd of hundreds where he delivers one of the great lines in cinema on human freedom before he is confronted by the iconic comic book hero symbolizing what we believe about freedom in Captain America. Just before Loki is confronted, he said something that resonated with me: “It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”
There is truth in Loki’s words and the scene in the movie, in my opinion, captures what we believe about freedom with the villain’s words: “You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.” It is as if to say that any powerful person or being that demands the bowing and kneeling of anyone is immoral. Yet, it is from the very words of holy Scripture that say of Jesus: “For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9–11).
So, what do we do with the tension we feel over Loki’s words, what history seemingly has taught us, and what we read in the Bible? I believe 1 Samuel 8:1-9 and Isaiah 44:8-10 helps resolve that tension for us, and it is to 1 Samuel we now turn our attention.
The King Israel Wanted
Samuel’s story is a fascinating one that we cannot explore today, but there are some things that you need to know to make sense of 1 Samuel 8. His mother, Hannah, could not get pregnant and begged God for a son; in a prayer Hannah offered up to God, she made the following vow: “Lord of armies, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your bond-servant, but will give Your bond-servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head” (1 Sam: 1:11).
When Hannah made that vow, she lived in a time in Israel’s history when Eli the Priest interpreted her pleading with God for being drunk which sheds some light upon the kind of passionless and empty prayers he was used to experiencing. While Hannah begged for a son that she could give back to the service of the Lord, Eli’s two sons hung out outside the place where people would come to worship God at the tabernacle where they disrespected the worship of God while they slept with the women who served at the doorway of the tabernacle, and they did this all while Eli, as a priest over Israel, knew about it (see 1 Sam. 2:12ff.). The spiritual climate of Hannah’s day was, in the words of the final verse in the book of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jud. 21:25).
So, Samuel was born to Hannah, and just as she vowed, she dedicated her son to the service of God. Samuel loved God and served Him as His appointed judge, as well as a priest and prophet before all of Israel. Samuel would serve as Israel’s final judge before Israel demanded a king to rule over them. Which brings us to 1 Samuel 8:1-9.
Samuel was a man of God who stands out as being uncompromising in his devotion to God. It would be easy to read 1 Samuel 8 and miss the three paradoxes that surround Israel’s demand for a king; the paradoxes include the names and location of Samuel’s two sons, the hypocrisy of everyone surrounding Samuel, and who the people really wanted to rule over them.
Paradox #1: Samuel’s sons were a walking paradox that served as a living parable of Israel’s relationship with God.
Samuel’s sons were named Joel and Abijah; Joel means “Yahweh is God” and Abijah means “My father is Yahweh.” Yet, both of Samuel’s sons who were commissioned as judges over Israel, were not known for living as though they really believed Yahweh was their God or that they identified as belonging to Him in the same way a son belongs to his father. We are told that they, “turned aside after dishonest gain, and they took bribes and perverted justice” (v. 3). The elders who represented Israel asked as though they were disgusted by Joel and Abijah’s behavior.
Israel as a nation may not have been characterized by dishonest gain, receiving bribes from other nations, or perverting justice, but do not miss the indictment upon Israel as a nation given by the same God Samuel’s sons rejected: “Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day—in that they have abandoned Me and served other gods…” (v. 8).
The takeaways from the first paradox: First, just because you think someone else’s sin is ugly does not mean that your sin is no more repulsive in the eyes of God. What matters is not whether your sin looks better than the sins of others, but what God thinks about your heart.
Secondly, we do not know what kind of father Samuel was, but you can be the godliest parent on planet earth and even that may not be enough for your child to want to walk in the ways of God. It is important to note that unlike Eli’s two sons whose sins were before their father’s eyes, Samuel’s sons lived over fifty miles away and Samuel’s “ways” were very different than the wicked ways of his two sons.
Paradox #2: Samuel’s two sons did not live up to their name in the same way that Israel did not live up her name.
Remember that Jacob’s name means, “heel-grabber” and that he was known for the ways he manipulated his father and older brother Esau into receiving a birthright that was not his to take. It wasn’t until he wrestled with God and was then renamed only after he yielded his life to God, that his name was Israel, and its meaning is simple: “He who strives with God.” Yet, Israel as a nation was not known for striving with God but walking away from God to the gods of the nations. Many years later following Israel’s demand for a king, the prophet Jeremiah would declare on behalf of God: “‘Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder, be very desolate,’ declares the Lord. ‘For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living waters, to carve out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that do not hold water’” (Jer. 2:12-13).
The takeaway from the second paradox: Israel thought their greatest need was what the world had to offer while ignoring the only source that was able satisfy their deepest longings and remedy their greatest problem, which had to do with the human heart. Sin-begotten kings cannot solve the problems of sin-begotten people.
Paradox #3: Israel’s demand for a king like the other nations was a vote of no-confidence in God as King over their lives.
This could not be more obvious. The irony in Israel’s demand for a king was not the desire for a king, but the kind of king they believed would solve the problem of the heart. We know that the desire for a king was not the issue because in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, God gave Israel the prescription for the kind of king they would one day need; there are seven characteristics listed in Deuteronomy 17 that the king needed to have to qualify to rule over Israel as king.
- The king would be a person like them who Yahweh would appoint over them.
- The king would be a person from among their own people.
- The king would be a person who truly loved Yahweh.
- The king would be a person whose security and strength rested in Yahweh.
- The king would be a person who loved the Law and the Word of Yahweh.
- The king would be a person who would obey the Law and Word of Yahweh.
- The king would be a person who would seek to serve his people for their good and the glory of Yahweh.
Because Israel wanted a king like the nations, they would not get the kind of king described in Deuteronomy 17. The kind of king Israel would get is described in 1 Samuel 8:10-20. The irony is that Israel did not ultimately reject Samuel as a judge, but God as their King.
The takeaway from the third paradox: The One Israel needed most is who they seemed to want least. Israel wanted what the nations had and refused the good that God had for them. Israel believed that their rejection of God would give them freedom, but it would ultimately result in a greater bondage and burden that would lead to greater sorrows.
The King Israel Rejected
It wasn’t Israel’s desire to have a king that was so bad, but the kind of king they wanted. The king that they wanted was one like what the other nations had. They wanted a king they could chose, a king whose splendor and glory came from the strength of his army, a king whose glory rested in his gold and silver, and a king who was attractive… just like the kings the other godless nations had. What they ultimately wanted was the same thing Adam and Eve wanted that the serpent offered: they wanted autonomy from the God of Samuel. This is the kind of thing we are warned about in Holy Scripture: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1 John 2:15-16).
When Adam and Even looked at the forbidden fruit as they were tempted by the Serpent of old, we are told: “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:6). Under the surface of Israel’s demand for a king like the other nations was the foolish belief in the same old lie, but only with different dressing. After Adam and Eve bit into the fruit what they got was shame and death. According to 1 Samuel 8:10-20, with the king Israel wanted and demanded, he would take from them what they have and give them a greater burden they were never meant to bear.
What was Samuel to do with the demand of the people? He brought it before the Lord in prayer. Samuel had faithfully served Yahweh and the people all of his life; it is understandable that he took the demand for a king personally. However, it was not Samuel, as the Lord’s servant, that they were rejecting: “And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people regarding all that they say to you, because they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being King over them” (v. 8). What kind of King is Yahweh? Oh, we are told of the kind of King He is in Isaiah 44:6-8,
This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me. ‘Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; And, let him confront Me Beginning with My establishing of the ancient nation. Then let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place. ‘Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, or is there any other Rock? I know of none.’”
The One Israel so eagerly rejected was Yahweh as King of Israel. The God who overwhelmed Pharaoh with 10 plagues, parted the sea, and delivered Israel through the wilderness is the One Israel was willing to trade in for someone like pharaoh. Israel demanded a sin-begotten task master in place of the Redeemer. The people demanded something the godless nations produced in place of the One true God whose Israel’s very existence was owing to Him. Oh, the crazy rational of sin and how it is seen in Israel’s desire of a man from the dirt in place of the God who is the Rock! So, God gave Israel the desire of their hearts by giving them a man by the name of Saul and boy was he a train-wreck spiritually!
If Israel had only waited! If they had only trusted in the One who establishes nations and removes them, who declares things that are coming and events that are going to take place, and had they stood on the promises of the true King of Israel as their Rock rather than on the sifting sand of worldly hopes! God’s intention for Israel always included a King, for hundreds of years before Samuel was born, an ancient promise to one of the tribes of Israel was given:
As for you, Judah, your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your father’s sons shall bow down to you. “Judah is a lion’s cub; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares to stir him up? “The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” (Gen. 49:8–10)
If Israel had waited, they would have gotten a king. Not the king of Genesis 49:8-10, but one like him – an imperfect prototype, but a king who was a man after God’s own heart. Instead, Israel got 40 years of Saul, just as their forefathers got 40 years in the wilderness for their sin. Eventually Israel got David who seemed to check all the boxes, the kind of king God prescribed in Deuteronomy 17, but he was only an imperfect foreshadowing of a greater King that would come from his descendants.
The King We Need
The story of humanity is one of broken cisterns that can hold no water, a story of rejecting a Greater Glory for lesser glories, a story about man’s desire for the “kings” of the earth, and every time we end up with shame, 40 years in the wilderness, or worse—we end of with a “Saul” when we could have had a “David.”
What are you settling for? What wilderness have you found yourself in because you have settled for lesser glories in place of the Greater Glory who is the God you were born to know? What Saul have you settled for when you could have had a David?
Can I leave you with something that ought to encourage you? What God had for Israel was greater than even David! King David was part of the plan, but he was not the end-goal of that plan. What Israel could not see was that God was moving time, space, and kingdoms to introduce to the world a greater King. A King who would reign on David’s throne forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16), a King whose light would light up the darkness of sin’s dark cloud (Isa. 9:2), a King who would come as the ultimate Lamb for the purpose of reigning as the rightful Lion of Judah, and on the first Christmas His voice would be heard in the form of a newborn infant’s cries: “For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us… And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). He would be sent by Yahweh. He would be a descendant of David as fully human (and fully God). He would be the Son of God with a love for Him unparalleled by any other. He would humble with an absolute dependance upon God as His Father. He would live in perfect dependance upon the Law of God with an absolute love for the Word of God. He would be born not to be served, but to serve, “…to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Oh, dear brothers and sisters… that One born on the first Christmas and laid in that manger for lowly shepherds to see and wandering Magi to seek was the One, “…born King of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2); born on Christmas was the Redeemer, the Lord, the One who is the First and the Last… the Living One. We were indeed meant to be ruled, but ruled by a Good King. Amen.
