As Moses was a type of Christ in his prophetic office, and Melchizedec a type of his priestly office, so David was a type of Christ in his kingly office.

The office of Jesus as a king is the ultimate and crowning office, in which the priestly and prophetic offices are absorbed. Jesus in His earthly life was pre-eminently our Prophet, and in His presence at the right hand of the Father during this age He is pre-eminently our Priest, and at His second coming, and through the coming age. He will be pre-eminently our King.

While all these offices co-exist in Jesus, yet each office has its period of special manifestation. Christ is compared to David in the Scriptures more than to all other human characters put together. Because David fought his way through such difficulties to a kingdom, and was the founder of the theocracy, he is not only a type of King Jesus, but Christ according to the flesh is heir to David's theocratic throne. And though that theocratic throne, according to Hosea 3: 4, 5, is now in its eclipse, it will in the last days, or coming age, be set up again in Jerusalem as emphatically the throne of the Son of man and the restored throne of David.

If we look at the prophetic type of the reign of David and Solomon together, then the reign of David represents the sufferings and long conflicts that Christ had to win His kingdom, and Solomon's reign represents the glorious issue of that kingdom in a reign of unparalleled peace and prosperity over all the earth. But when we consider the reign of David alone in its prophetic relation to Jesus, it is very significant to study the two crownings of David, which are full of instruction, both to the individual believer and to Christ's Church as a body. In the fifth chapter of 2 Samuel we have an account of the second coronation of David. The reign of Saul is a type of the law, or the legal dispensation, filled with the weakness of the flesh, and ending in suicide; for when the Jews killed Jesus, it was national and dispensational suicide. Now notice the exact correspondence of David and Jesus.

On the death of Saul, David was crowned king in Hebron, over his own family tribe of Judah. After David's great lamentation over the fall of Saul and Jonathan in 2 Samuel first chapter, which corresponds with the weeping of Jesus over Jerusalem at the downfall of that nation, David was told by the Lord to go up to Hebron, "and the men of the tribe of Judah anointed David king over the house of Judah in Hebron."� This typifies the humiliation and ascension of our Savior to the right hand of God the Father, where He was crowned king over His special tribe of believers, and at which time He united the offices of Savior and Prince, for we are expressly told in Acts 5:31, that "God exalted Jesus to His right hand, to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance and forgiveness to His people."�

Hence no one in this present age recognizes the absolute authority of Jesus, except His own people, as Judah was the only tribe that recognized David as king. Then there followed a long seven years' war between the house of David and the house of Saul, each one contending for the entire kingdom; but upon the death of Ishbosheth, David was made king over all the twelve tribes. This conflict typifies that which is now going on between the house of Jesus and the house of old Adam. The name "Ish-bosheth"� means a "man of shame,"� and while he personally was not such a bad man, yet because of his opposition to David he is a type of the great worldwide antichrist movement which may head up in the great tribulation, and after his downfall, then Jesus, who has been reigning over His own saints as His tribe of Judah, will appear as the glorious Son of man, the fully manifested heir to David's throne, and be crowned the second time as King over all the tribes of the earth. "Then came all the tribe's of Israel to David, unto Hebron, and spake, saying. Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. Also in time, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said to thee. Thou shalt feed My people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel."� Jesus is now king of saints. (Rev. 7:10.) But when He takes His theocratic throne, mark you, not the Bather's throne, but His own throne as Son of man. He will then be King of nations, over all the earth, a bona fide King, and recognized as King, for all voices will unite, saying, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ."� (Rev. 11: 15.)

Then the division between nations shall cease, then the Hebrew people will be restored to nationality, according to a score of prophecies, and just as David's own tribe of Judah was the leading tribe of all the twelve, so the Hebrew people, which are Christ's own family according to the flesh, will be again grafted into the olive tree, according to Paul, and be the leading nation on earth during the Millennial Age.

This is distinctly prophesied in Ezekiel 37: 1528, in which we are told that the divisions of Israel shall be destroyed, and they shall be one nation, and David, that is Christ, as David, shall be king over them, and be their Prince forever, and all the nations which are now heathen shall recognize the leadership of Israel.

When the twelve tribes crowned David as their king they confessed that during all the previous years David had been their benefactor more than Saul. So in Christ's theocratic reign, all the nations will confess that Jesus has been their best friend through all past generations. Oh, what a bright and glorious day that will be, when the beast and the false prophet are destroyed, and the antichrist hurled into the abyss, and all nations are restored to moral sanity, and poor Israel will hail their long-rejected Messiah, and all tongues and peoples will vie with each other in praising and magnifying and crowning with everlasting honor the purest, the gentlest, and loveliest Man that ever trod this earth, as King of kings and Lord of lords!

How sweet are the words, "So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron, and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel." Thus the representatives of all nations will make a league with King Jesus at the opening of His millennial reign. David was thirty years old when he began to reign in Hebron at his first public anointing, and so Christ was thirty years old when He was publicly anointed with the Holy Spirit at the Jordan. David was anointed three times, first, by Samuel in his youth and in secret; secondly, he was anointed in Hebron king over Judah; and thirdly, he was anointed by the elders of all the tribes as king over the whole nation. So Jesus was privately and from His birth anointed of the Father, then publicly at the Jordan as the Savior and Prince of the Church, and He will be again anointed with glorious majesty at His second coming. These beautiful harmonies and correspondences cannot be accidental, but are woven like golden threads in the loom of prophecy.

All this has an application to our individual experiences. The great bulk of Christians have a legal period in their lives, in which they struggle to govern themselves in the energy of the flesh, which forms a King Saul dispensation. This struggle ends in utter failure. At the time we recognize our absolute failure at self-amendment, and throw ourselves on Christ alone, and are justified by simple faith alone, we then accept Jesus as our King. But though Saul, the head of our sinful life, is killed, yet his seed remains, in the form of a carnal mind, and struggles for the kingdom. Then ensues a protracted war between Christ's authority in us and the seed of Saul, or the old man. If we should study closely the wars between the house of Saul and the house of David, we should discover some startling likenesses to the conflict between grace in the believer and his unsubdued propensities. We read that "the house of David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker."� (2 Sam. 3:1.) In like manner, the believer who clings to Jesus will find the power of grace waxing stronger and stronger, and the old self-life waxing weaker and weaker.

However, instead of this Scripture teaching gradual sanctification, it is just the opposite, for please notice that, although the house of David waxed stronger and stronger, yet that did not of itself make him king over the twelve tribes, but there was an instantaneous death of Ish-bosheth, the man of shame, and a type of unholy desire and temper in the heart, and then an instantaneous anointing and crowning of David the second time, which fittingly typifies the instantaneous anointing of the believer with the Holy Spirit, and the enthronement of the pure, blessed royalty of Jesus over all the man — spirit, soul and body.

And as all the twelve tribes sent their elders or delegates to crown David king, so the heart sends all its affections, and the mind sends all its thoughts and perceptions, and the will sends all its choices and decisions to crown Jesus with one voice King over every part of our hitherto disobedient and refractory nature. Again, the league which the twelve tribes made with David was based on deep relationship, for they said, "We are thy bone and of thy flesh."� This is exactly what the New Testament affirms of Christ and His saints, that they are the same bone and flesh. Herein lies one of the most blessed and sacred forces in the believer's sanctification, namely, to discover the intimate relation between Christ and ourselves.

There are so many profound and beautiful ties between Jesus and His true believers, which are shadowed forth in the tender relationships between Adam and Eve; for Adam was in reality both father and mother to Eve, and then she was not only his child, but his sister as well, and also his wife, and also his most dutiful and obliging servant.

Now all these pathetic ties are like golden cords that bind us to our blessed Jesus, who is our Father, our Brother, our Bridegroom, our Master, Lord and King.

And when we get a clean spiritual discernment of this multiplied relationship, it breaks us into perfect abandonment to Him, and draws us like the resistless tide of a sucking whirlpool, down into the fathomless gulf of His love, where it becomes our supreme delight to yield Him absolute servitude. These blessed truths can grow on us, until they sweetly despotise our whole souls. Oh, there is no joy in creation like the joy of loving Jesus, and of loving to crouch under His blessed feet and have no choice about anything except His own. Oh, the peace, the unruffled tranquility of being utterly conquered by such a Savior.

After David was crowned a second time, then there opened up a wonderful career of growth and prosperity. He then captured Jerusalem, moved his throne to that city, and the margin beautifully says that "David went going and growing."� (2 Sam. 5: 10.) Now all this illustrates that however much the cause of Christ may wax stronger, yet the Millennium will not come gradually, but there will be a great crisis, with an instantaneous overthrow of the opposite governments, and the instantaneous enthronement of the Heir of David over the world, and then follows the matchless growth and marvelous prosperity of the millennial kingdom.

In like manner, after the believer is instantaneously sanctified by his second crowning of Christ as his king, there follows the era of true spiritual progress, involving, it may be, blessed epochs of light and love and fire. The postmillennial view of the gradual coming of the Millennium is just as unscriptural as the gradual sanctification of the believer. In both cases there is a gradual waxing of gracious and kingdom forces, but in both instances there is a great crisis of the downfall of the opposition, and the enthronement of the lawful Prince, followed by the Jerusalem reign, and blessed, wide-spread, and undisputed Divine authority.