The Politics of Cheap Grace
Introduction: The Tyranny of Sentiment
We live in an age that has enthroned sentiment as the highest virtue. What matters most, our culture tells us, is not what is true, but what feels right. Not what is just, but what is compassionate. Not what is righteous, but what is nice. We have replaced the objective standards of God's law with the fickle and shifting tides of human emotion. The result is a society that is soft in the head and rotten in the heart. We want reconciliation without repentance, forgiveness without consequences, and grace without cost. We want to bring the banished home, not because justice has been satisfied, but because their absence makes us feel bad.
This is the very heart of the problem we find in our text today. King David, a man after God's own heart, is paralyzed. His son Absalom, a murderer and a rebel, is in exile. Justice demands that Absalom remain banished, or worse. But David's fatherly heart aches for his handsome, charming, murderous son. He is caught between the clear demands of his office as king and the powerful pull of his feelings as a father. And into this paralysis steps Joab, the ultimate political pragmatist, a man who knows how to get things done, not by appealing to God, but by manipulating men.
What follows is a masterclass in worldly wisdom. It is a carefully orchestrated piece of political theater designed to give the king emotional permission to do what his heart wanted to do all along, even though he knew it was wrong. This is not just an ancient story about palace intrigue. It is a profound warning against the danger of letting our feelings override God's revealed will. It is a case study in the politics of cheap grace, a grace that papers over sin instead of dealing with it, and in so doing, plants the seeds of far greater destruction down the road.
The Text
Now Joab the son of Zeruiah knew that the king’s heart was inclined toward Absalom. So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there and said to her, “Please pretend to be a mourner, and put on mourning garments now, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but be like a woman who has been mourning for the dead many days; then you shall go to the king and speak to him in this manner.” So Joab put the words in her mouth. So the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, and she fell on her face to the ground and prostrated herself and said, “Save, O king.” And the king said to her, “What is your trouble?” And she answered, “Truly I am a widow; my husband has died. And your servant-woman had two sons, but the two of them struggled together in the field, and there was no one to deliver between them, so one struck the other and put him to death. And behold, the whole family has risen against your servant-woman, and they say, ‘Hand over the one who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed, and destroy the heir also.’ Thus they will extinguish my coal which remains, so as to leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.” Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give a command concerning you.” And the woman of Tekoa said to the king, “O my lord, the king, the iniquity is on me and my father’s house, but the king and his throne are guiltless.” So the king said, “Whoever speaks to you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you anymore.” Then she said, “Please let the king remember Yahweh your God, so that the avenger of blood will not continue to bring about ruin, so that they would not destroy my son.” And he said, “As Yahweh lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.” Then the woman said, “Please let your servant-woman speak a word to my lord the king.” And he said, “Speak.” Then the woman said, “Why then have you thought up such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring back his banished one. For we will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life, but thinks up ways so that the banished one will not be cast out from him. So now, the reason I have come to speak this word to my lord the king is that the people have made me afraid; so your servant-woman said, ‘Let me now speak to the king, perhaps the king will perform the word of his maidservant. For the king will listen and deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who would destroy both me and my son from the inheritance of God.’ Then your servant-woman said, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king be a resting place, for as the angel of God, so is my lord the king to listen with discernment through the good and evil. And may Yahweh your God be with you.’ ” Then the king answered and said to the woman, “Please do not hide anything from me that I am about to ask you.” And the woman said, “Let my lord the king please speak.” So the king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?” And the woman answered and said, “As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken. Indeed, it was your servant Joab who commanded me, and it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your servant-woman; in order to change the appearance of things your servant Joab has done this thing. But my lord is wise, like the wisdom of the angel of God, to know all that is in the earth.”
(2 Samuel 14:1-20 LSB)
The Worldly Solution (vv. 1-3)
We begin with the diagnosis and the prescription according to Joab.
"Now Joab the son of Zeruiah knew that the king’s heart was inclined toward Absalom. So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there..." (2 Samuel 14:1-2)
Joab is a shrewd operator. He is a man of action, not deep piety. He sees the king languishing, and he understands the political problem: the kingdom has no clear heir, and the king's grief is causing a leadership vacuum. He correctly diagnoses that David's heart, his affections, are with Absalom. But David is constrained by his conscience and his duty. So what does Joab do? He doesn't arrange for a prophet to come and speak God's word. He doesn't call the elders for a judicial council. No, he hires a "wise woman," which in this context means a clever actress, a skilled performer. He scripts a play, complete with costumes and stage directions, designed to manipulate the king's emotions.
This is the wisdom of the serpent. It is the methodology of the world. When the world wants to change minds, it doesn't primarily use logic and reason. It tells stories. It makes movies. It crafts narratives that bypass our critical faculties and appeal directly to our sympathies. Joab's plan is to create a parallel situation, a parable in action, that will force David to make an emotional judgment that can then be turned back on him. He puts the words in her mouth. This is not an appeal to truth; it is a public relations campaign.
The Sentimental Trap (vv. 4-11)
The woman plays her part to perfection. Her story is a masterpiece of emotional manipulation.
"Truly I am a widow; my husband has died... they will extinguish my coal which remains, so as to leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth." (2 Samuel 14:5, 7)
Every detail is calculated to pluck at David's heartstrings. She is a widow, the most vulnerable class of person in that society. She has lost one son to violence. And now, the "whole family," representing the impersonal and harsh demands of the law, wants to take her only remaining son. The key phrase is the emotional climax: "they will extinguish my coal which remains." This is not an argument about justice; it is a plea about legacy. It is about a name being wiped out. For a king, whose entire life was about establishing a dynasty, a remnant, this was a potent appeal.
And David falls for it completely. He doesn't ask for witnesses. He doesn't investigate the crime. He simply reacts with his feelings. His response is swift and absolute. "As Yahweh lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground." David makes a vow in the name of God to subvert the law of God. God's law was clear that a murderer was to be put to death by the avenger of blood (Numbers 35). David, the chief magistrate of Israel, unilaterally sets aside God's law based on a sob story. He has been led by his compassion into an act of injustice. And in so doing, he has walked straight into Joab's trap.
The Trap is Sprung (vv. 12-17)
Having secured the king's sentimental judgment, the woman moves in for the kill. She applies the principle of his foolish vow to the real issue at hand.
"Why then have you thought up such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring back his banished one." (2 Samuel 14:13)
The logic is this: "O king, you have just established a principle that preserving a family line is more important than executing justice for murder. If you would do this for a poor widow, how can you not do it for your own son, for the sake of the whole kingdom?" She even co-opts theological language, suggesting that God Himself "thinks up ways so that the banished one will not be cast out from him" (v. 14). This is a half-truth, which is the most dangerous kind of lie. Yes, God is merciful. But she is using this truth to justify bypassing justice, which is something God never does.
Her argument is deeply flawed. The case she presented was of a death in a sudden struggle. Absalom's crime was a premeditated assassination of the crown prince, followed by fleeing from justice and showing zero repentance. The two cases are not parallel at all. But the emotional momentum is too great. David has already committed himself. The woman seals the deal with a heavy dose of flattery, comparing the king's wisdom to that of "the angel of God" (v. 17), even as she is successfully deceiving him.
The Compromised King (vv. 18-20)
To his credit, David is not a complete fool. He has been played, but he knows who is pulling the strings.
"So the king said, 'Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?'" (2 Samuel 14:19)
He sees through the scheme. He knows this was all a setup. The woman immediately confesses that Joab was behind the whole affair, that he put the words in her mouth "in order to change the appearance of things" (v. 20). And here is the tragic heart of the matter. David sees the manipulation. He understands he has been maneuvered. And he goes along with it anyway.
Why? Because Joab's scheme, as worldly and manipulative as it was, accomplished what David wanted deep down. It gave him a public pretext for following his heart rather than his duty. It allowed him to bring Absalom home while appearing to be acting on a grand principle of mercy. He was able to justify his sentimental weakness. But this act of cheap grace would prove disastrous. By bringing an unrepentant murderer back into the heart of the kingdom, David was not healing the breach; he was setting the stage for a bloody civil war that would nearly cost him his life and his throne.
The Gospel of Costly Grace
The woman of Tekoa was right about one thing, even if she used it for the wrong reasons. God does indeed think up ways so that the banished will not be cast out from Him. But His way is nothing like Joab's way. God's way is not a clever story that allows Him to set aside His justice. God does not ignore sin; He confronts it and punishes it.
When we were the banished ones, exiled from His presence by our treason, God did not simply say, "As I live, not one hair of their heads will fall." If He had, He would have ceased to be a just God. His own law demanded a penalty. The avenger of blood was coming for us, and rightly so.
So what was God's plan? What was the way He devised? He did not send a clever woman to tell a sad story. He sent His only Son. To bring the guilty sons home, God's own innocent Son had to be struck down. To satisfy the avenger of blood, the blood of Christ had to be shed. God's mercy and His justice did not stand in opposition. At the cross, as the psalm says, they met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
God does not change the appearance of things; He changes the reality of things. Our sin is not swept under the rug; it is nailed to the cross. Our guilt is not ignored; it is paid for in full. This is not cheap grace. This is the most costly grace in the history of the universe.
Therefore, let us not be like David, allowing our sentiments to lead us into compromise. Let us not be like Joab, using worldly manipulation to achieve spiritual ends. Let us be people of the cross. Let us deal honestly with sin, both in our own lives and in the lives of those around us, calling for true repentance. And let us glory in the costly grace of God, who did not spare His own Son, so that He might justly bring many banished sons home to glory.