The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day

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Here’s a question and the answer

Grace is love that cares and stoops and rescues.

John Stott

I take the love of God and self-denial to be the sum of all saving grace and religion.

Richard Baxter

John 1:1–3 (ESV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

the construction of the temple. In 1 Kings, Adonijah contests the transfer of the kingdom to Solomon; in 1 Chronicles, the kingdom passes smoothly from David to his son. After the kingdom is split during the reign of Rehoboam, the Chronicler keeps his eyes fixed on the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom appears only when it is in conflict or alliance with Judah. The Chronicler condenses the account of the divided kingdom in 1-2 Kings and entirely ignores the lives of Elijah and Elisha. Yet this is no Reader’s Digest version. Chronicles is as long as Kings, since the Chronicler adds episodes in the lives of numerous kings. Only from the Chronicler do we know of Joash’s late-life apostasy (2 Chr. 24), or Uzziah’s proud attempt to offer incense in the temple (2 Chr. 26), or Manasseh’s repentance (2 Chr. 33). The Chronicler makes passing references to the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite regarding Jeroboam’s future (→ 2 Chr. 10–11; cf. 1 Kgs. 11) and alludes only glancingly to Jeroboam’s golden calves. Prominent in 1 Kings, Ahab is a bit player in Chronicles, little more than Jehoshaphat’s tempter, and we never learn anything about Jezebel. Writing after Samuel and Kings are already available, the Chronicler expects his readers to know the rest of the story. The shape of the Chronicler’s history is determined by two factors: the southern kingdom’s relationship with the northern kingdom of Israel on the one hand, and the increasingly stark distinction of upright and evil kings on the other. The two threads of narrative overlap and come to a climax when the northern kingdom falls, which occurs during the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah. Let me sketch the course of these two narrative threads in more detail. The Chronicler’s attitude toward the north is complex. He never acknowledges the legitimacy of the northern kingdom as a polity and vehemently rejects it as an alternative liturgical community. His position is stated clearly in the speech of Abijah before his battle with Jeroboam (→ 2 Chr. 13): Jeroboam’s kingdom originated in rebellion, and Yahweh’s promise rests with the Davidic dynasty alone. Some of the sharpest ironies of the Chronicler’s narrative arise from the failure of Davidic kings to act on the theological promise that “all Israel” should by right submit to the Davidic dynasty. At the same time, the Chronicler regards the northern tribes as part of all Israel, and Judah is incomplete without the other tribes. His history presses toward a reconciliation of the tribes, which can only take place when all Israel worships Yahweh alone at the chosen house in the chosen city of Jerusalem under the hand of the chosen king. That is the ideal, realized most fully in the reigns of David and Solomon (→ 1 Chr. 11–2 Chr. 9), and the Chronicler devotes enormous

Peter J. Leithart, 1 & 2 Chronicles, ed. R. R. Reno, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2019), 1–2.