Michael Ent

We’ve all heard the David and Goliath story taught or preached where you’re David and you’re supposed to take out the Goliaths in your life. Find your five smooth stones. Maybe they represent courage, faith, prayer, perseverance, and trust. Arm yourself with these spiritual weapons, face your giants, and unleash the David within you. Here's an idea. Can we find a deep pit somewhere, dump in all those moralistic readings of this narrative, pour gasoline over them, and toss in a match? We have a remarkable ability to place ourselves at the center of biblical stories, don't we? We identify with the hero, turn his weapons into our weapons, his courage into our courage, and his victory into our victory. In other words, make it all about us. But David and Goliath is not a story about what great things we can do. It foreshadows what great things God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Goliath is the archenemy of the people of God. He is an icon of sin, death, and the devil, all those forces arrayed against us that dwarf us and that we are powerless to defeat. Even his "armor of scales” (1 Sam. 17:5) is suggestive of Goliath's serpent-like appearance. So what does God do? He raises up an unexpected warrior: young David. He is a type and foreshadowing of the Son of David. David marches onto the battlefield with the simple weaponry of a sling and five stones. He takes down the foe and then, with the foe’s own weapon, chops off his head (1 Sam. 17:49–51). The Son of David likewise marches onto the battlefield of this world with the unexpected weaponry of obedience, suffering, humiliation, crucifixion and resurrection. And by these means, he takes down sin, death, and the devil. In fact, just as David uses Goliath’s own sword to chop off Goliath’s head, Jesus uses the weapon of death itself to chop off the head of death. He dies, and in dying he kills death (cf. Gen. 3:15). That is the Christ-centered, typological reading of David and Goliath. It is not a story about our battles, our weapons, or our victories. It is good news about Christ’s battle, Christ’s cross, and Christ’s victory for us. You are not the one who faces down the giant. Jesus is. And his victory is yours.