A Look at Absalom
When I was a new Christian, I found the New Testament much easier to read through because it’s short and personal. The OT was long and confusing after the book of Genesis. This means that as a new Christian, I spent more time in the NT than the OT. However, that changed after I engaged with others theologically and found out how deficient and inadequate I was at demonstrating or defending my belief. This is one of the reasons why it’s important to familiar yourself with the OT, and one way you can do that is to read through the Bible yearly. I aim for twice a year, but life doesn’t always go that smoothly for me. I pay careful attention and take notes when it comes to people and events. Read Examining Psalms 1 to understand why you should too. If you don’t know your OT, you’ll have a hard time engaging with other theological students on a high level when it comes to Soteriology.
Today we’ll look at Absalom. It came up in one of my discussions previously that I decided to just make a post on here for others to study, analyze and dissect.
Here’s the question for non-Calvinists (NC): How does God stir or influence the heart? Can He move the heart of a person in anyway He wishes, so that what the person would normally find pleasing and good is now displeasing and wrong? Or to put it another way: Can God harden a person so that he would not listen and be deaf of hearing?
For obvious reason, NC will reject any idea of God changing people’s heart to alter their perceptions, tastes or desires because that would violate their freewill (as they understand it). In attempting to answer the above question, NC might say something along this line: “God knew ahead of time what a person would do, and He predetermined all events leading to His judgment.” People like Pharaoh comes to mind. They would say that Pharaoh was wicked and God gave him up to his debased mind. Absalom listened to the bad counsel of Hushai because Absalom was wicked etc… God knew that beforehand and presented the bad counsel of Hushai to Absalom.
As always, I like to ground my readers in Scripture. From Scripture we learn that even fallen men with wicked pride can still know what’s best for them and their own (cf. Luke 11:13) for self-preservation (see the Gibeonite Deception - Joshua 9:3-14,22-24). Jesus says that the sons of this world are more shrewd than the sons of light (Luke 16:8). Absalom demonstrated his wisdom when he set Joab’s field on fire (2 Samuel 14:28-32). Similarly to how Solomon asked for a sword to split the baby in half (1 Kings 3:23-25). Even though fallen men don’t delight in God, they can still do business, plan for wars and make wise choices in this world. It is precisely because of their craftiness and intelligence that David feared and prayed, “O LORD, I pray, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness!” (2 Samuel 15:31). How did God do that? The answer NC gives can be philosophically sophisticated, but at the end of the day, this question can only be answered biblically by Calvinists.
Did God present the bad advice of Hushai to Absalom and hope that Absalom would just blindly make a blunder? Note the request: “turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.” God turned the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness by juxtaposed it against the bad advice of Hushai, and hope that He would get lucky? Or that God already knew the wickedness of Absalom before the foundation of the world, and in time presented the bad advice leading to His judgment (see above: fallen men can make wise choices)?
A careless man or one who is easily duped would not be able to engineer a revolt against King David the way Absalom did. It wasn’t enough to just send Hushai—God must intervene to turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. That is the key. God must act or there would be no certainty that Absalom would heed the bad counsel of Hushai, considering that Ahithophel was there. Ahithophel spoke wisely and rightly, [as if] one consulted the word of God (2 Samuel 16:23). That’s the kind of reputation attached to his name. Are we to say that God just got lucky? Or do we go with what Scripture says, “There is no wisdom or understanding or counsel against the LORD” (Provers 21:30). Why is that? “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.” (Proverbs 21:1). That’s the confidence King David had, “O LORD, I pray, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness!”
Absalom isn’t the only example we have in the OT. There are plenty which will be discussed in future posts.
In his well-known 1754 treatise [The Freedom of the Will], Jonathan Edwards famously and masterfully pointed out that humans are indeed free to choose what seems best to them. But Edwards noted that Scripture is also clear that God can and does influence and determine what seems best to humans. As such, God influences human choices. A perfect example of this is found in 2 Samuel 17. Here, Absalom is given both what most would call “good” advice (it would have been better for him) and “bad” advice. He had a choice, and Absalom chose the “bad” advice of Hushai instead of the “good” advice of Ahithophel. Why would he do this? Was it just his bad luck or his bad judgment? Actually, it was neither. We are given the real reason in verse 14: “For the Lord ordained to thwart the good counsel of Ahithophel, in order that the Lord might bring calamity on Absalom” (NASB). The Lord had willed (ordained) that Absalom would perish, and he influenced Absalom’s free will by making the good counsel seem bad and the bad counsel seem good to Absalom, in order that Absalom would freely choose what the Lord had destined—thereby fulfilling God’s divine purpose! We can praise our Father because he still works this way today and because his purposes are [always] fulfilled. —Robert Bernecker (Who’s Your Father?, p.25-26)