Bible Commentaries
1 Chronicles 1

Verses 1-54

Man Succeeding Man

There are men immediately behind us who are waiting for us to get on, and to go, and finish our prophecy, our commerce, our function, whatever it may be. The breath of the next man is hot on my neck. Do not lose the spiritual impulse and spiritual edification of such texts as these by calling them commonplace. Do not say that we are uttering trite sayings when we say that man lives that he may die, and dies, says the Christian faith, that he may live. We 6poil the estate of God and the inheritance of Zion when we say that all these things are the commonplaces of life.

I. Succession is an argument for Providence. We did not know where the men were to come from, but God knew. God says, I know of seven thousand men who have not kissed the lips of Baal, who have turned their back in scorn upon him, and I will call them up. The reserves of God are twenty thousand and thousands of thousands. It is wonderful how God conducts things; it is marvellous where His men come from to conduct the business, the commerce, the civilization, the nationalization of the world just so many, no more, not overcrowded.

II. There is no guarantee that the next man will be better than the last, but he is on the way to a better. The line of God's world is a line of progress, upwardness; here and there he may have depressions, but they are depressions on the highlands, they are not depressions from the common level. In God's way the undulations are on the highland country, and they lead to hill after hill, conquest after conquest: haply one fool may be a misfit, but he will not spoil the succession.

III. This law of succession holds good on a wider scale It is a great law, with great meanings, wide applications, it holds good in the Christian life. These men mentioned in the text may have come to the throne by right of blood, by claim of birth, or genealogy the very poorest of all claims; but in the Christian life men succeed not by line of inheritance and breeding, but by the line of faith and virtue and nobleness. Who will be baptized for the dead? There are many vacancies now.

IV. 'Reigned in his stead... reigned in his stead... reigned in his stead.' And so the history flows on as a matter of course. What is the great application of all this? I will tell you. What have I been aiming at in this long introduction? I will tell you. There is a King in whose stead no monarch shall reign. Name him. I will: Jesus Christ. It will never be said in the annals of history, 'And Jesus died, and somebody reigned in His stead'.

Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. VI. p. 223.