Second Samuel 12:15-24
‘The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bare to David…. David besought God for the child…. On the seventh day…, the child died…. David arose…and came into the house of the Lord and worshipped…. And he said…”He is dead…. I shall go to him!”…. And David comforted Bathsheba his wife.’ Second Samuel 12:15-24.
In a series of very serious sins, good King David committed adultery with a married woman; had her husband made drunk and then murdered; and then married the woman (Second Samuel 11:2f,5,15,27). Before David married Bathsheba, she first mourned for her husband (Second Samuel 11:26). However, all David’s sins greatly displeased the Lord (Second Samuel 11:27) — so that in spite of David’s repentance, when their son was born, that son then lived for but seven days and then died (Second Samuel 12:14-18). The son thus died uncircumcised or unbaptized (Genesis 17:12-14 cf. Colossians 2:11-13).
In Institutes III:4:31-33, Calvin remarked: “David…, when upbraided by Nathan the Prophet for adultery and murder, received pardon for the sin — but yet, by the death of the son born of adultery, is afterwards punished (Second Samuel 12:13-14)…. When He (God) deprived David of his child, He chastised for amendment (Second Samuel 12:18).”
In his Sermons on Second Samuel 12:15-31, Calvin declared that “David, having heard of the death of the little child, got up…. Moreover, when he said ‘he shall not return to me’ but rather ‘I must go to him’ — he was showing here the hope that he had of life after death…. There, is a better life for our souls….
“David clearly knew that although he had life in this world, he had to await another life even more certain than this one…. He was always aware that after his death, he would without doubt contemplate the glory of God….. Let us learn to be joined with the faithful who have gone on before us by faith, and with a true obedience and holiness — so that we may be received into their ranks and into their company!”
The latter sentence clearly implies both David and his deceased infant son were faithful believers. Calvin’s statement a few paragraphs further, implies also David’s wife Bathsheba too was a believer — so that the previously-backslidden and adulterous believers David and Bathsheba as well as their illegitimate dead baby had all by the grace of God constituted a family each of whom, before the death of any of them, trusted in his or her Saviour.
“David, having lost his son, recognized…that God was a just Judge…. He…(had) come before God to worship Him and give Him thanks…. He ‘consoled Bathsheba his wife’…. They rejoiced in the grace that God bestowed on them.” Thus Calvin.
‘David arose…and anointed himself…, and came into the house of the lord, and worshipped.’ For he and his illegitimate uncircumcised son, for Christ’s sake, were both saved before their deaths!
