John Edwards and King David

Former presidential candidate John Edwards has confessed to marital infidelity. His repeated promise for a moral administration and multiple exhortations regarding national honor are doubly galling in view of his confessed extra-marital affair. This degrades respect for political officials in office now and those aspiring to govern. No believer showing the love of God ought ever to "rejoice in iniquity" (I Cor. 13:6), nor should any gloat if he be in a different political camp. This is clearly a scar on our political landscape, and we are all hurt and disappointed.
Our hurt must not avoid careful biblical analysis, however. This mess has shades of King David’s horrendous sin outlined in 2 Samuel 11 & 12. Bible students usually know this one by heart, but for those unaware of the story it is simply this.

While King David’s men were away across the Jordan River besieging Rabbat (modern Amman), he went to his palace roof at evening. Since the king’s palace was the highest residence in Jerusalem, he could easily spy on other dwellings. Looking down into a beautiful woman’s back yard, he lusted after her, had her brought to his palace and committed adultery. The resulting pregnancy was problematic since Bathsheba’s soldier husband was away with the troops at Rabbat.

So David sent word to his general, Joab, to send Uriah the Hittite home for a battle report and then off to have sex with his wife. It didn’t work since honorable Uriah, who evidently was a pagan convert to Israel, wouldn’t fill his natural desires even though David tried alcohol to loosen his morality. David’s final solution was to send him back and have him killed in a suicide battle. That didn’t work either, for God’s prophet Nathan confronted the wicked king and, as is usually the case, everything was revealed. If The National Enquirer doesn’t blow the cover, then God ultimately will.

While David repented, as found in Psalm 51, and was forgiven, the consequences of his actions remained. The child died, David had Uriah’s blood on his hands, and his surviving military men must have been demoralized. The King was also guaranteed endless family strife and violence (2 Sam. 12:11). His son, Amnon, raped his half-sister Tamar, whose brother, Absalom, then murdered Amnon (2 Samuel 13). Absalom inspired a coup and, as David fled, committed sex crimes in public view. At length, Absalom was killed as he hung by his hair in a tree, done in by Joab, who was privy to the original cover-up involving Bathsheba, and the King became a sobbing wreck. (Read all about it in 2 Sam. 15-18.)

What are the lessons in all this? John Edwards probably knew story of David and Bathsheba but didn’t take it seriously. Or, perhaps he, too, was so overcome with the deceitfulness of sin that he thought he could get away with a cover-up.

Satan does prowl about as a devouring lion as 1 Peter 5:8 warns. "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Hebrews 3:13 solemnly says, "But exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

Personal guilt, family shame, political hurt, national scandal and probably future legal action rest on the conscience of John Edwards. As someone said years ago, "A person can live it up for five minutes and not live it down for fifty years!"

This burden is too much for anyone to bear, and, while consequences can never be removed in this life, personal forgiveness is available through the cleansing blood of Christ. "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). Edwards would do well to emulate the confessed sinner of Luke 18:13, "saying, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner’." He can be similarly justified, which means to be made in God’s sight as though he had never sinned.

In a tender postscript to David’s story, God never brought the matter up again against him. David did, but God didn’t. Thank God for his forgiveness offered to John Edwards and to all of us for whatever sins we’ve committed. Once we are forgiven, God says, "I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Heb. 10:17).

Dave Virkler