In 2 Sam 1, there’s a striking statement made by David just before he is anointed as king. What makes this as salient as it is, concerns how David speaks of both Saul and Jonathan, in linking them together. After all, among these men, there was quite the contrast. 

While Saul was Jonathan’s father, these two men were not alike. By way of example, toward the end of Saul’s life he had been seeking to murder David (cf. 1 Sam 26:2, 18, 21), then he sought after a medium instead of the Lord (cf. 1 Sam 28:7), and finally, he committed suicide (cf. 1 Sam 31:4). With Jonathan, the last accounts that we have with him before his death, he strengthened David in the Lord (cf. 1 Sam 23:16), and he cut a covenant with David in the sight of the Almighty (cf. 1 Sam 23:18). 

Nevertheless, consider David’s funeral lament over Saul and Jonathan. In verse 19, David exclaims, “Your beauty, O Israel, is slain on your high places! How have the mighty fallen!” Verse 23, reads, “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and pleasant in their life, And in their death they were not separated; They were swifter than eagles, They were mightier than lions.” The lament closes in verse 27, “How have the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished!” 

Saul and Jonathan were not the same. The expression like father like son, did not apply here. However, upon reflecting upon their lives, David draws the best of these men to the forefront. They were the beauty of Israel, they were beloved and pleasant. Yet, in spite of that, they were dead. The mighty had fallen. It didn’t matter that Saul was the king, or that he was wealthy. It didn’t matter that Saul was well known or that he was well regarded. It didn’t matter that he was well educated or that he had access to the best healthcare in Israel. The mighty have fallen. With Jonathan, it didn’t matter that he was the son of the king, that he was a friend of David, or even that he was a friend of God. The mighty have fallen. That is not good, but it is right. But in what sense is that the case?

By the time 2 Sam 1 occurs, we are thousands of years removed from the creation account. Millions upon millions of people have already returned to dust. But as God formed the first man from the dust, He made everything good. Everything was good, and everything was right. 

In six days, God completed the heavens and the earth. Six times in Gen 1, we read that what God made was “good.” God’s creation was good. Verse 26 says, “ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God’s good creation included man and woman. Then, we read that what He made, as a summary statement in verse 31, was “very good.” The world is functioning as God designed. 

So what happened? How do things go from “it was good,” to the “mighty have fallen?” After God commanded man to enjoy all the produce of the garden, with one exception… We see the first example of the mighty falling. Where Adam is distinct from Saul, though both were rulers and had dominion… Adam had not sinned, Adam had a direct, uninhibited relationship with the Lord, and Adam represented mankind at large. This was the greatest fall of them all. 

In Gen 3:6, the Serpent deceived the woman, and Adam listened to the voice of his wife above the voice of God. “Then 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, so she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.” At this moment, everything changed. 

Man’s relationship with God was fractured. Dwelling with God, thinking about Him, approaching Him… the connection with Him, was changed. God had told Adam, “... For in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Death, which was unnatural, was now natural in the fall. All those you love who have died, it comes back to this: a spouse, parents and grandparents, children, brothers and sisters, other family members and friends. Man’s relationship with man was fractured. Every war, every tension between the nations today, every strife… all of it comes because of Adam and Eve, and it occurs among their descendants of which we all are. That includes Cain murdering Abel, Israel fighting among herself, her wars with the Philistines, Amalekites, Babylonians, and so on and so forth. Every sickness and disease is a fallout: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, liver disease, pneumonia. Every trial and tribulation, every stress and every fear we experience today is because the mighty have fallen. It is also true that ever since, where the mighty do arise, they too will inevitably fall, and that’s always been true… until One didn’t. 

Just under a thousand years after King David lived, the Son of David was born. Of whom, Isaiah wrote in Is 9:6–7, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will accomplish this.” This child, while a man in David’s line, was no mere man. 

Before His birth, as the Holy Spirit had already come upon Mary, the Lord sent an angel to Joseph to tell him what took place––so that he wouldn’t send her away. In Matt 1:20–21, Matthew wrote, “But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the One who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’” This child, Jesus, was coming to save His people from sin. 

Sin is what was introduced in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve betrayed God. Sin is that which opposes God’s will and design. It is a baited hook, that lures in, and won’t let you go. Thomas Watson once said, “Sin hath the devil for its father, shame for its companion, and death for its wages.” Sin is seen in the mighty fallen… in the righteous and the unrighteous, fallen. A Savior is exactly what man needs. It is a good thing that’s exactly who Jesus is.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He demonstrated He is a Savior. He would pull back the curtain on the fall. He would forgive sin and demonstrate that He had the ability to do so, as with the paralyzed man in Mark 2:1–12, by miraculously healing Him. Jesus showed that He came to seek and save the lost, and He proved it through His actions. 

The saving that fallen humanity needs is tied to forgiveness that would be granted through the death of the Savior. That speaks to two great realities, the costliness of sin and the love of God. Sin’s cost is great. It demands death. That is why all men die and deservedly so. We have earned death for ourselves. The only way for us to pay for our sins, because we are already legally guilty in God’s sight, for breaking His law, would be to be punished forever (that is, without any outside intervention). 

The other reality is that God’s love is great. We deserve death. We have committed treason against the King of Glory. We have all fallen. Isaiah puts it this way at the beginning of Is 53:6, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way.” From the child to the senior citizen, we have all rebelled against the Lord. But, in God’s marvelous mercy and grace, it so pleases Him to save His enemies that we would become His friends. 

But, to fully understand God’s love, we have to circle back to sin’s cost. Is 53:6 continues, “But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.” How do we get from “It was good,” to “The mighty have fallen,” to “It is finished?” Jesus. In John 1:18, John says of Jesus, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” The One who was ever in the bosom of the Father… the One in whom the Father was “well-pleased,” the One who always obeyed His Father in the incarnation, the One who is always loved by His Father… He’s the cost. 

One man, in an act of love, can die in the place of another to save him physically, but that speaks nothing of his spiritual state. We are corrupted ourselves. There’s no way for us to save another in the eyes of the Almighty. It would take God’s own Son for that. Paul explains it this way, in 2 Cor 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” On the cross, the Father made His perfect Son, to be sin on our behalf. What does that mean? The spotless Lamb was punished in the place of others. Speaking of Jesus, Peter said in 1 Pet 2:24, “Who Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that having died to sin, we might live to righteousness; by His wounds you were healed.” Jesus willingly bore… and took upon Himself the penalty of our sins, though He committed none of them, bearing the just judgment we deserved, in our place. That means, if you’ve believed in Jesus, then He was judged for your lies, your anger, your lust, your boasting, your slander, your greed, your idolatry, your impatience, your thefts… and every other sin you’ve ever committed. Jesus took the penalty we could never pay, and He paid it in full. 

The weight of the cross cannot be understated or overstated. God the Father, poured out upon His Son, wrath, the full force of it. In Matt 27:45–46, Matthew said, “Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’” From noon to 3 PM, darkness swept over Jerusalem as Jesus suffered that which we cannot begin to comprehend, in our place. To pull upon Paul’s language, “He became a curse for us.” 

It’s in John 19:28–30 that we read, “After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been finished, in order to finish the Scripture, said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” It is finished. Those are some of the sweetest words to ever grace man's ears. 

It is unfathomable love. It’s incomparable love. It’s love so great that you could only dream of it, but your dreams would stop short of how great this love is. It’s love that you sing about forever, because you can’t begin to understand it. How could the Father punish His Beloved Son… in the place of me… a wretched sinner?

Paul put it this way in Rom 5:8–9, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” Hallelujah, what a Savior! At the cross, God saved us from His wrath, from our sin, for Himself. And that grave, it could not keep the Lord of Glory. As Jesus said He would, on the third day, He rose victoriously. He is alive! 

Just in case you have not done so, know that this same Jesus welcomes sinners like you to Himself. If you believe in Him for the salvation of your soul, He will take your filthy garments, and clothe you in His own righteousness. Your sins will be removed from you as far as the east is from the west, and you will be given “life, life, eternal life!” 

While things began with “it was good,” because of the fall, all the mighty have fallen since, and what we needed… what we all needed was, “It is finished.” Adam fell, Eve fell, Noah fell, Abraham fell, Isaac fell, Jacob fell, Moses fell, David fell, Solomon fell, Elijah fell, Isaiah fell… John the Baptist fell, but Jesus did not. Jesus stands where all others have fallen, and He is the Savior of fallen men because “It is finished.” 

At present, we long for the day when all things are made “good” again when King Jesus rules and reigns over the earth. But until that day, even at present, on Good Friday, may your thoughts soar high, in consideration of how low your Savior condescended, so that you would be “seated… with Him in the heavenly places,” not just now, but forevermore.