1 Samuel 14

“And Saul answered, … thou shalt surely die, Jonathan” (1 Samuel 14).

Jonathan had vanquished the enemy in the service of God, and had tasted of honey with the blessing of God; but Saul’s decree was disregarded, and he is condemned. It is a solemn example for all time—the disastrous effect of human will thrusting itself in as religious authority between the true servant and God. The Spirit of God has made it very plain for our warning and instruction.

Jonathan is led by the Spirit of God, but Saul’s decree condemns him. But there is more than this—the people rescue Jonathan, manifestly by the good hand of God. “And the people said unto Saul, Shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel? God forbid: as the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; for he hath wrought with God this day. So the people rescued Jonathan, that he died not.”

The people had been distressed in seeking to obey the foolish decree—toiling in battle, but unfed. God allows matters to come to a head, and the unrighteousness and folly of the decree is openly manifest when Jonathan must die. True instinct rouses them to indignation, and the misused authority is spurned by the people, as before it had had no control over Jonathan. We must obey God rather than men. It was open resistance to authority, but a resistance approved of God. Submission would have been folly worse than Saul’s.

Such a true instinct in an emergency is noble—it is love, and is of God. To talk of submission and docility at such a time is craven and nerveless, and would simply have left full sway and swing to evil and shame; it is not love, nor the true spirit of subjection, but paralysis and confusion, or a perverted mind.

The lack of a ready instinct to reject evil is a thing to be heartily ashamed of. It is the coldness of a formalist, or a judgment perverted, and God has not His place of authority. What He is—light and love—is not apprehended in governing power over the soul for the time being. The senses are not exercised to discern good and evil. Then evil triumphs, and God is dishonored. This is Satan’s victory—the success of his wiles.

Note how God allows the lot called for by Saul between himself and the people to fall upon himself and Jonathan, and then between himself and Jonathan it falls upon Jonathan. We might have thought God would give no answer, but it is the answer of condemnation, not of fellowship. Saul had made the decree, and now was in the place of authority. Step by step he is allowed to push on to the shameful but consistent result of his first departure.

While it was merely irksome to the people, it was borne; but when the end of it was, to “condemn and kill the just one,” God was with His people to abhor and reject it. “Abhor that which is evil: cleave to that which is good.” Again, in John’s third epistle (which is short, but full of solemn import,) when casting out was in progress, and John himself was rejected—”Receiveth us not, … neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the assembly”—the word for guidance is, “Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good.” The same divine principle is found in 2 Timothy 2—”Depart from iniquity.” Whether it be Diotrephes, or Saul as king, or a whole assembly that would bind unrighteousness upon the saints, it is no virtue to hesitate to “Abhor that which is evil.” “And this is love, that we walk after His commandments.”

Let us be humble, and willing to have our conclusions tested by the Word at every step, and seek to make all allowance in love. But there is such a thing as a lack of discernment of evil when manifest, and the seeking of peace before righteousness—which is neither love nor spirituality, and unfits for doing battle when the enemy is encroaching in power, and has gained a foothold amongst us.

“But Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath: wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in a honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened. Then answered one of the people, and said, Thy father straitly charged the people with an oath, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food this day. And the people were faint [the effect of legality]. The said Jonathan, My father hath troubled the land: see, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened [“Christ hath made us free,” Gal. 5:1], because I tasted a little of this honey. How much more, if haply the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies which they found? for had there not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines?”

Behold the effect of human decrees and creeds—they fetter the conscience and the heart, and they famish the soul—and not a servant of Christ has been raised up to stand in the gap for the truth in a day of shame and trembling but this imposing power of Satan would intimidate and drive him from the path of faith, and turn victory into confusion and defeat; stirring up even the devout and honorable to array themselves unwittingly against their own souls’ interest and the purposes of God for blessing.

“Let brotherly love continue,” but let us have our eyes open and the heart undeceived. Saul got no answer from God, and none from the people, before appealing to the lot. It was his own will he was pressing to the bitter end.

Saul sets forth the Pharisee in power at Jerusalem when the Lord was crucified, and “the burdens which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear” corresponds to the fainting of the people under Saul’s decree.

Step by step, in the Lord’s life of service and manifestation of Himself—of the truth,—was manifest also increasingly the irreconcilable and bitter enmity of the traditions of the Jews against Him and what He did. He could not deny Himself, and tradition and the carnal mind could not change; therefore, the cross was the result. So Jonathan goes through death in a figure, and is delivered by the power of God. How much it costs to bear witness for the truth! How plainly it indicates who is behind the scenes in opposition!

So deceived may be the heart that the ruler of the synagogue can rebuke, and put in the place of an offender the Lord of glory, as a breaker of the Sabbath.

There is something truly precious in the word, “Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with an oath.” The diligent soul, in happy liberty, occupied with God and the Word of His grace, is not imposed upon by human decrees, nor hindered by tradition from receiving and declaring the whole counsel of God.

He was “without the camp,” and heard not the legal decree.

Let us beware of tradition. In every age it has thrust itself in between the saints and the free enjoyment of the Word of God. We easily become drowsy, and prefer the old wine, and rest in what is in vogue among us, clinging to it tenaciously, until error is so enthroned that it cannot be called in question—but at the peril of the one who would question it.

But there are dangers in more than one direction. Therefore, let us apply these principles and lessons from Scripture with moderation and judgment and self-distrust, as ready to go to extremes; and if we have escaped one extreme, as specially liable to the other. The Lord give us wisdom and humility here. But let us not fear to obey God and to follow Christ, though Satan raise a storm that makes the waves mount up high above the ship.

—E.S.L.