Samson and the Crucifixion

 

In Judges 16:21-22 God tells what happened to Samson after coming into his “lukewarm” state of feeling that he was rich, increased with goods and needing nothing (Revelation 3:17) that he found that he ended up with being poor, blind, and naked. Yet in Judges 16:22 God says that Samson’s hair began to grow back. Now that could be clearly a literal statement that Samson’s hair was normal and his hair began to grow after being cut off by the hireling of Delilah, or God is stating that Samson was now willing to desire having the Nazarite relationship that he so easily let slip out of his grasp. I prefer to believe that Jesus was stating that communication had reopened with Samson and that they were talking in ways that only God can know and understand. So it would appear that Samson had reestablished his relationship with God and it was growing in grace and truth just like his hair was growing.

 

Soon after this Judges 16 states that the Philistines were going to have a great feast to celebrate the idea that their god had given them victory over Samson, their enemy (Judges 16:23). This is very much like worldlings to view Jesus, and those who represent Him to the world – His church, as enemies. They respond as though those who carry the gospel to them would harm them by giving them the greatest gift in the world – freedom from sin, and a personal relationship with almighty God.

 

When they had their celebration they brought Samson to the temple, insulted him and made sport of him, and then Samson came to the pillars of the temple that supported this temple to the god of the Philistines – Satan. When Samson knew that he had been brought, by the providences of God Himself, to the central support pillars of the temple, he asked Jesus to grant him the gift of strength once more so that he could pull the temple of Satan down and gain a victory for God. Jesus granted Samson’s request and Samson pulled the temple down, and in the act of his death, he represented the death of Jesus on a wider and grander scheme, for Jesus pulled down the temple of Satan by stretching out His arms, and revealing the love of God in that He was willing to die for each and every sinner on the planet including those in the Philistine temple on that fateful day in the past. As Ellen G. White states it in Volume 5 of the SDA Bible commentaries page 1107 “Christ has made of none effect the power of Satan. He (Jesus) laid hold of the pillars of Satan’s kingdom, and passed through the conflict, destroying him that had the power of death.”

 

It is one of the mysteries of Providence that he who had failed so miserably in his experience with Delilah and the Philistines was allowed to reveal the life and death of Christ in his final moments. Samson fell, somewhat like Peter did when he denied Christ three times just before the crucifixion of Christ, and yet God redeemed Samson and helped him get this thinking turned around so that he was used by God to display the power of God in bringing down the temple of Dagon, which was s symbol of Satan’s kingdom. This display of grace on the part of God was one of the many ways in which He has sought through history to tell all of his fallen children that no matter how bad they have sinned that Jesus has a way to redeem them and that they will display His grace for all of the world to see. All who have seen this grace displayed through sinners have the opportunity to claim faith in Jesus just as Samson did in Judges 16. His relationship was restored by faith and then God used him in a special way to reveal Himself through Samson and thus to the world, that all sinners, no matter what their ages, nationalities, sins, crimes, or failure, can come to God and He will restore them to their positions as sons and daughters of God. He will then use them to reveal Jesus and His grace and they will lift Him up so that all may claim salvation by faith in Jesus.