How Can We Find the Gospel in 2 Chronicles?

I don’t know why they keep putting phone books in my mailbox or throwing them at my front door. There is absolutely zero excitement which wells up within me whenever I get a new updated phone book. Phone Book 2.0 isn’t any more exciting than Phone Book 1.0. 

When I discussed finding the gospel in 1 Chronicles, I noted that the beginning chapters are a bit like reading through a phone book. It’s important information, but it’s really dry. Yet, we were able to discover that even there we can connect a few dots to see the beautiful gospel of Jesus — even in a genealogy filled with names we can’t pronounce. 

2 Chronicles (which was originally just combined with 1 Chronicles into one volume), thankfully doesn’t begin with a long list of names. In 2 Chronicles we get right into the action — but just because it is action-packed doesn’t mean we can easily see how it points to Jesus. How does this oft over-looked book in the OT point to Christ? 

How Do You Find the Gospel in the Old Testament? 

I suppose before understanding how to find the gospel in the OT, it’d be helpful for us to define the gospel. The simplest definition is one given by JI Packer: God saves sinners. If you’d like to put a bit more meat on your gospel presentation, I use two different frameworks with four points each. The first is God—Man—Christ—Response. The second is more of a story: Creation—Fall—Redemption—Glory. 

The first presentation centers upon God’s character and how humanity fails to meet God’s holy standard, as such the judgment of God is upon us. But the good news is that Jesus Christ fixes this by fulfilling what is required through his life, death and resurrection. Our only fitting response, then, is to respond to Him in repentance and faith. When this happens, we are united to Christ and his record becomes our record. 

The second presentation centers upon the overarching story of the Bible. God lovingly created us to love Him and enjoy Him forever. We were made for rest, rule, and relationship. But we made shipwreck of this, and so rather than having the blessings of obedience we are under the curse of disobedience. Rather than having peace (rest), purpose (ruling), and healthy relationship we often experience the opposite. Ultimately, we are alienated from God. But thankfully God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bear our curse and to fulfill what God intended for humanity. As such we now experience the blessings of Jesus’ obedience in our place. He restores the rest, rule, and relationship we were created to enjoy. Someday everything will be ultimately restored and we will live in a new heaven and a new earth. 

We could write entire books focusing on these various themes of the gospel. But every gospel story follows this basic skeleton. No matter where you find yourself in the Old Testament (or the New Testament) you can find one of these various threads. Every place in Scripture is either telling you something about God, something about our rebellion, something about His rescue, or something about our future restoration. If you can spot this, then you can fill out the rest of the story. 

How Do You Find the Gospel in 2 Chronicles? 

1 Chronicles ends with the death of King David. It’s quite the blow. What does this mean for the Messianic promises? Yet, we see that we aren’t without hope. Perhaps it will be another king, one through the line of David, that Israel will have her Rescuer. The first in line for this is King Solomon. 

Unlike 1-2 Kings, whose stories are often rehashed in Chronicles, the focus of this book is on the Southern Kingdom of Israel. Those in the Northern Kingdom are left out of this history. The focus here is upon the good and bad kings of Judah and their blessings or curses. This provides a lesson for the current generation that is returning from exile. Will you pick up the mantle of the good kings and experience blessing or that of the bad kings and re-experience the curse? 

The end of 2 Chronicles is odd. It ends with the proclamation of a pagan king, Cyrus, who has allowed the Jews to return to their land. What is most strange, however, is that the book ends on an incomplete sentence: 

“Whoever is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him. Let him go up…” (2 Chronicles 36:23).

Up where? Why does the story come to such an abrupt stop? It is because the hope of the Chronicler — the final book of the Hebrew Old Testament — is still looking forward to the Messiah. It ends without a Davidic ruler on the throne. But it ends in hope. There is hope that another king is coming, who will lead out of a different exile. That is the only hope for “going up.” 

Wouldn’t it be amazing to read this ellipsis and then immediately read in the gospel of Matthew another genealogy, an extension of the line of King David, and then to read that this Son of David “goes up” out of the water of baptism and the Spirit descends like a dove? These stories are meant to be tied together. That incomplete sentence in 2 Chronicles is begging for a completion, it’s crying out for a deliverer, for one to complete the story, for one to be the true King. Jesus ends the sentence. 

How Do You Find the Gospel in 2 Chronicles 7:14? 

2 Chronicles 7:14 is an incredibly popular verse. It’s often one of the 10 most shared verses in the Bible. We like to use it whenever we’re attempting to call our nation back to the Lord, or when we’re experiencing particular turmoil. But I would contend we almost always use this verse wrongly. It reads:

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

In 2 Chronicles, Solomon gets to build the temple which David didn’t get to build. He asks for wisdom and gets it. It seems as if Solomon might be the deliverer. Solomon wants to know that the Lord is pleased, so he requests fire to come down from heaven. It does. There are many years between 2 Chronicles 7:10 and 7:11. By the time we get to verse 14 the temple has been finished. 

Here God is using the same covenant language that was used with the Israelites in Deuteronomy. It outlines blessings and curses of obedience or disobedience. This is really the theme of Chronicles. As Stephen Dempster has said in Dominion and Dynasty: 

“After the judgment of the exile, the command to rebuild the temple is nothing less than a catalyst for the fulfillment of the prophetic hopes…The goal of the canon is clearly the great house of God, which is as inclusive as the globe…But this has to be understood in the dual sense of ‘house’, meaning ‘dwelling’ and ‘dynasty’…The [Hebrew Bible] orients its readers to the future. As such the Story is unfinished. The long, dark night of exile awaits a sequel — the dawning of a new light that will radiate to the ends of the earth.” (227)

We must ask, why is the Chronicler highlighting this prayer of Solomon and God’s response? Solomon’s temple had been destroyed. But now they are rebuilding. Would the same promises stand for this temple? The story of Solomon, connected with the aim of Chronicles, is to call the people back to this faithfulness. They are turning their face to the Lord; will He heal their land? 

This is, then, a specific promise for a specific people. Yet, it’s a general principle that God will indeed respond when a nation (or individuals) turns to God and humble themselves. 

Ultimately, this is a promise that is fulfilled in Christ. It wasn’t about Solomon’s Temple and it wasn’t about the Second Temple either. Both pointed to something greater — to Immanuel, God with us. Jesus is the ultimately fulfillment of these hopes. When we turn to Christ, we know that we can experience redemption. Not necessarily nationalistic healing but the forever redemption which comes through the kingdom of God.

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