NOTES for Sa2 24:14

How often we catch ourselves thinking that we would have acted quite differently, guided by our ideas about what is proper or improper, expedient or inexpedient, realistic or unrealistic, just or unjust. But he sweeps all these considerations aside, taking into account only his relationship with God. And no one has the right to stand between him and the Lord, because he is the king of the people of God. None among human beings dares raise a hand against the anointed one, while David leaves to God the full authority over his life. David's highest dignity is inseparably bound to his complete responsibility before the Lord.

Do we understand that this also has to do with us? For it is to us that it is said: "You are a royal priesthood" (1 Pet. 2:9). Yet we are always trying to place someone between ourselves and God: now a king or some other superior, now a priest or some other minister, if only we do not have to bear responsibility for our own life. But already David, in Old Testament times, understood that the mercy of God is great; to us this has been revealed in all its fullness by the Son of God. And still we are afraid.