1Sam015 Rejected!

It is quite likely that 1 Samuel 15 is the most shocking passage in the Bible, and gives almost any passage you can think of a run for the money for being the most jaw dropping. Consider its parts: God rejects Saul because he does not kill enough people and creatures, God commands the slaughter of even infant children, and Samuel the prophet slices and dices Agag to pieces, leaving only a pile of guts in a pool of blood. Passages like this call for careful contextual evaluation and analysis in order to extract the theology, Christology, and ethics. And careful analysis yields the conclusion that the main burden of the prophet in this chapter is to proclaim the absolute standard that kings are obligated to conduct their magisterial calling under the exclusive authority of God's sovereign divine word. Had Saul obeyed this call he would have fulfilled his kingly duty serve as the earthly agent of divine wrath against the covenant breaking enemes of Christ and the church; instead, he disobeyed and left it to righteous Samuel to chop Agag into pieces in order to administer the Lord's holy wrath against Amalek and in so doing foreshadow Christ in His kingly office as judge when he returns at the end of the age in power and glory.