In Psa. 16 it is divine life in dependence, obedience, and communion. The first characteristic of divine life is trust-Christ putting His trust in Jehovah. As a man He does it. We see Him praying, the true expression of dependence; and in Luke's Gospel this is especially brought out. Then another principle of divine life is the consciousness of integrity, there may be both these-trust in God and consciousness of integrity, without peace with God. Job said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;” and he pleaded his own righteousness against God. “Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.” He had the consciousness of sin and the sense of righteousness, integrity in himself, at the same time. The soul cannot be at peace in this state. Job was wrong in making a righteousness of his integrity.
This second principle of divine life we have in Psa. 17 It is the kind of righteousness the Jews will have in the latter day-the same which they had of old. God stays up the souls that trust in Him until they see Christ. Having a promise, they trust, but cannot say, “I have the righteousness of God.” Christ having taken up their condition, and borne it, they have the consciousness of integrity through Him; and it is the stay of their souls, but not peace. They will find such utterances as this, “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee,” suit their own experience; they will be comforted by finding the word of God giving expression to their thoughts and feelings; it will be a prop and stay to them in the midst of their exercises, but they will not get peace in it. This Psa. 17 applies to the remnant surrounded by their enemies-ours are spiritual enemies. Here is the reality of enemies pressing round Christ. The remnant will find every imperfectly formed feeling of their hearts has been perfectly gone through and expressed by Him, He having put Himself in their place. In trusting, and in the consciousness of integrity, He has been before them.
In the Psalm mercy for man goes before righteous. ness, and they never meet till Christ appears at the end to the remnant. It cannot be said, “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other” until the perfectness of redemption is known. I may get. hope, but I cannot get peace until I get righteousness. It maybe said, “Righteousness and peace have kissed each other” for the Jew. When Christ comes again, a Jew under law would put righteousness before mercy-that is the law—and Israel stood on that ground. They had made the golden calf before the law was given to them; then God retires into His own sovereignty, and, to spare any, mercy comes in. It was the resource of God when wickedness came in. They have been going about to establish their own righteousness, they would not have Christ who is the end of the law for righteousness, &c., and when they come back, it will be on the ground of mercy and hope.
We, on our proper ground, are not like those who refine to believe until they see Him; we have the end of our faith now, even the salvation of our souls. We know that righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Christ has gone into the holy place, as the Holy Ghost has come out to us, the proof of it, and we are certain Christ is received within, the full accomplishment of divine righteousness. Rom. 3:20: “By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh,” &c. But it is said, “In Jehovah shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.” It is not “shall” to us, but “being (that is, having been) justified by faith,” Sec. God had been forbearing in mercy with the Old Testament saints, because He knew what He was going to bring in. Now it is declared. It was not declared then.
“Not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things,” &c. “To declare at this time his righteousness.” They could, say, “being fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able also to perform.” I do not simply believe that He is able, but that He has raised up His Son from the dead. I may trust He will help, but not be conscious of being helped yet; that was the patriarchs' portion. Yet I do not expect Him to do it, but know that He has done it; it is the ministration of righteousness. I have the knowledge of accomplished righteousness; righteousness is declared to faith. I am not merely hoping for mercy, trusting, and having consciousness of integrity. They could not judge sin in the same way when they had not righteousness as a settled question, which it now is forever for those who believe. The Spirit of God now demonstrates righteousness to the world by setting Christ at God's right hand. Christ said, “I have glorified thee on the earth,” &c.; God says to Him, “Sit thou at my right hand until I make,” &c.
As regards the believer now, righteousness is on the right hand of God for him. The affections ought to be more lively now that there is the certainty of accomplished righteousness.
There is another thing connected with righteousness here; righteousness is appealed to on the ground of promises, as well as that mercy goes before it. In their state there must be alternation of feeling, in the sense of hope in His mercy-trusting in God; in the consciousness of sin-down in the depths. Yet they will find One has gone down into the depths for them. The Spirit of God in Christ going through all these things shows that not one place, from the dust of death to the highest place in glory, but He has been in-sins and all having been gone under.
The weakest saint now knows more than the apostles could when Christ was on earth. They trembled and fled at the cross. We feed on that which frightened them—a dead Christ. When once founded on righteousness, our position is so different. It is sad to see a saint crouching down on the other side of divine righteousness, instead of having on the “helmet of salvation,” having communion with Him in the efficacy of His death.
There is another thing to mark in these Psalms-the character of hope running all through them. Christ looked onward to being in the presence of God, where is fullness of joy; this was the reward He looked for as the end of trusting in God's love. (Psa. 16)
The reward of righteousness-glory: “I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.” Christ looked to return into the same glory He had left for the path of humiliation down here; the reward for it would be glory as a crown. The reward of walking with God in communion is joy in His presence (end of Psa. 16); the reward of faithful walk, the place in glory (end of Psa. 17), It is the same difference for us. Paul looked for the crown of righteousness, but his highest hope was to win Christ.
Christ will come to set everything to rights in power; judgment will return to righteousness, and all the meek of the earth shall see. This has never been known yet. When Christ comes in power, judgment and righteousness will go together. Power will be given to the Judge, who will act in righteousness. The great hindrance to our understanding the Old Testament scriptures is our putting ourselves into them. God's faithfulness, of course, is always true; but when the Spirit of prophecy speaks of the people, and state of the people (e.g., God biding His face from them), we know it does not apply to us literally. He cannot hide His face from us. His face is shining on us in Christ. Does He hide His face from Christ?
Psa. 18 Here are Christ's sufferings even unto death. The death of Christ is the ground of all Christ's dealing with the people from Egypt to glory.
Psa. 19 is the witness of creation and witness of the law (7). Whatever man touches he defiles; but the heavens maintain the glory of God-they are what man cannot reach. Law is broken. Man cannot change it, but he has broken it.
The Psalms that follow, namely, Psa. 20; 21; 22, are all connected, and show the result of the position Christ takes in Psa. 16, where He stands in the place of caring for “the excellent of the earth,” &c.; as though saying, The old world, the people in the flesh, I have done with, and now all My delight is with the excellent. These are they who have received Him. The connection of that, as we have seen, is that He must go through death. He must be the resurrection Man. There must be atonement. Peter was reproved for desiring this to be avoided. Flesh cannot go there; Christ must go there. “Whither I go thou canst not follow Me now.” The moment He has to do with us, it must be Hades or death. He cannot bless man with union with Himself in the flesh. In the millennium He will; and we are blest now, but it is all in virtue of this-He has died and risen; therefore we are told to reckon ourselves dead. The life has come into the world that had power to go through death; the life has gone through death, and risen out of it.
Psa. 20 The remnant sympathize; and, looking on Him in His trouble, pray for Him.
In Psa. 21 The excellent of the earth come to this terrible conclusion-that they must give their Messiah up as to the flesh. They never could understand how it was to be. In the history we know the result of this when He was on earth; they all forsook Him, and fled. Then, mark, we have the character of His sufferings brought out-sufferings from man. They hated Him. “Their soul abhorred me,” as Zechariah says. The history of the Gospels is that they would not have Him. They sent a message after Him, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” All this was from the hand and heart of man. One betrayed Him, another denied Him in the hour of trial, even of His disciples. Then look at the priests: what heartless indifference and unrighteousness in Pilate, who was afraid of the Jews, and washed his hands to be clean of His death! Christ looks round for companions, but finds none, for righteousness, none! for sympathy, none for intercession, none Mary at Bethany was a single exception; a gleam of light was there in the midst of the darkness. She, spending her heart on Him, was an appropriate witness to the Son of man-the Son of God All except that was darkness. The more perfect His feelings, the more He suffered. It was a deep mire in which He was standing. He had to prove the wickedness of the human heart, that it is open and complete enmity to what is good.
Such is flesh. Christ experienced what it is on His own person. The result of all that suffering from the hand of man is judgment on man. (See Psa. 21) “Thou hast given him what he asked of thee.” (See Heb. 5 also: “Heard for his piety.") “Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies.”
There are two very distinct characters in Christ's sufferings. There was His suffering in the world, and especially in connection with Israel; and there was this other-He came to give His life a ransom. “This is my blood of the new covenant, shed for many:” that is outside all dispensation. “We are by nature children of wrath;” ALL are one as to that condition. There was a ministration “of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises,” &c., and the Gentiles, the objects of mercy; but through Christ's coming into the world there was the end of promise. There are blessed promises made good to us as Christians, and God will fulfill all He has said for earth, but this will be in the world to come. Christ came as the vessel of promise. He came into the world, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Then there was a third party; “As many as received him,” &c. The world knew Him not; His own received Him not. But some did receive Him; these were born of God. It was a new thing, not from the first Adam. Every Christian knows we are born anew. It is no modification of the first Adam, but a new life. “The Life was manifested, and we have seen it,” &c.; and in chapter 2 of that epistle it is said, “which thing is true in him, and in you.” In chapter 1 of the Gospel He had said, “the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” John the Baptist drew attention to the “Light;” the Light comes into the world, and the world knows Him not. Then, again, He comes among the Jews with everything to attract; but they saw nothing in Him to desire Him. This gives a double character to Christ's coming into the world. He was connected with all who came of Adam, being born into the world. He was the Life and the Light of men. He did not receive life-He was it. He was the Life from heaven. God has given to us life, and that life is in His Son; not life in ourselves. This divine person comes into the world, “God manifest in the flesh.” This is the first thing-He tries human nature, that is, the world and the Jews. He was a minister of the circumcision, bound to come because of the promises.
Christ's coming as God manifested in the flesh tests man. Then, secondly, He became the Second Adam (I am not now speaking of Him as Head of His body, the church, but as risen man), the Head of everything, the First-born from the dead. In the Second Adam-Christ-we have the Man of God's counsels; as Zechariah has it, “the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts.” This is a different thing from His merely testing the old thing, which even in Him, ends in death. True, He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Even then He could speak of resurrection, and in that resurrection He becomes the Head of a new thing, and He will be this forever. This new position He never took on the earth. It was in resurrection. We could not have had it with Him without death-” Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone,” &c. Such is the essence and center of all our relationships with God. If man could have had connection with God in the flesh, on this side death, it would prove flesh good for something. It is the best thing it could be if it could delight in God; but all testimony shows us this is impossible.
Christ was here in perfect graciousness, speaking as never man spake, bringing out all His resources to meet the need of men; but the result of all this is entire and utter rejection. The history gives us Him presenting divine grace and graciousness, but His rejection in consequence. Not only has man broken God's law-that he had done already, made a calf, &c.-but now the question was raised between the display of God's heart and man's heart. He says, For my love I have hatred” they hated me without a cause.” That is the whole history of the flesh-God was reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them. It is this gives the true character to the world now. Christ has been here, and has been rejected. The people were prepared by prophecy, promise, &c. Messiah came in by the door, was feeding the hungry with bread, doing all things well, as some were constrained to acknowledge; but they would not have Him.
John begins with His rejection; there is no genealogy given by him. The other Gospels give us the history of His rejection, but in these three verses of John 1 we have the results of what is told in the rest. The Jews are treated as a reprobate people; Christ is taken up as the rejected One. This is the starting-point with John, but grace is brought out. The result of man's treatment of Christ will result in judgment on man.
The result of His atoning work is exactly the opposite. Why did He suffer from man? It was for righteousness. When He suffers from God, is it for righteousness? Just the opposite. He suffers for sin under the wrath of God. He was made sin! Aye, and He suffers for sin. The moment He was made sin, He had to do with God about it. He was absolutely alone in this; there were none to look on, man could not contemplate. We have not such an expression as that we have in Psa. 20, “Jehovah hear thee,” in this Psa. 22. The disciples were even as the world-they could not go there. The ark must stand in the midst of Jordan until the people are over. There was Satan's power, God's wages against sin. When He appeals to God for deliverance, He is not heard (on the cross). He tasted death for every man. He must drink the cup of wrath-it is between God and Himself. If He had had the least comfort from God, He would not have drunk the cup. Man had nothing to do with it. If man had been there, it would have been damnation; He must be alone when suffering from God. In the thought of this suffering from sin He prayed against it. Could He say of that, “My meat is to do the will"? &c. No! not on the cross. This was the power of death, and in prospect of it, in the garden of Gethsemane, He said to His disciples,” Tarry ye here and watch;” and to God, “If it be possible, let this cup pass,” &c. Then He takes the cup from His Father's bands. When on the cross He cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He is forsaken of God. His soul drinks the cup of wrath due to Him when He is made sin. We have His thoughts and feelings expressed where the facts are going on. In the Psalms we have the privilege thus of knowing how He felt when under them-Psa. 22 gives “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” His feelings-the fact was atonement.
All that was closed in the death of Christ, and now it is another and a new thing. He comes out free, discharged, clear of all He bore on the cross, and is the resurrection Chief, the heavenly Man according to the counsels of God. It is into union with Him we are brought by faith: a place of unmingled and perfect grace is the result. Verse 19 shows what was the peculiar character of Christ's sufferings through the place He took in this world, and then the place before God which results in this full blessing to us.
“Save me from the lion's mouth for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.” He was transfixed, not saved from it, so as not to be on it; when on the horns of the unicorns (a figure expressing the awful suffering of that moment), He was heard. “Thou hast heard me from the horns,” &c. “He hath appeared once in the end of the age to put away sin,” &c. All is judged, and this new resurrection Man is now in the presence of God, instead of the sinful man cast out of the presence of God; the risen Man heard from such a death.
Then He is seen coming to give testimony of the place into which we are brought as delivered. Angels had never seen such a thing as this! God has now a new character as Savior-the Savior-God. Christ had thus manifestly revealed it. It is not now responsible man; which has been gone through and settled in the death of Christ. Man would not have Him: then there must be judgment on enemies (not only wicked people); this is the result. Now God says, “I am going to do something in the Second Adam.” “What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead,” &c. “And you who were dead in trespasses and sins” hath he quickened, &c. “Not of works,” &c. “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” There is the responsibility of Christians.
This new name of Savior God, so often mentioned in Timothy, is made known by that Man who is set at His right hand by divine power, giving new life. God came down in the person of Christ, who went into death and rose again. He is the Savior. What is the first thing He does after His resurrection? He comes and tells His brethren of the full deliverance He has wrought. He comes to tell them, You are saved-you are brought before God-by virtue of this that I have done. Then He says to Mary Magdalene, Touch me not; I am not here among you as a King, but “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father.” He puts them into the same relationship as Himself. “I will declare thy name unto my brethren; in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.” When He has told them of the blessedness of being saved, the full joy of the deliverance, He is not going to let them praise alone. The first thing is to reveal the new relationship, and then to praise in the midst of them. What is the character of His praise? Can a single note jar in His praise? If He praises, it must be in the power of a full redemption, a finished complete deliverance; and everything not founded on this does not answer to His note of praise.
Speaking of our answering to God on the ground of this redemption, what position are we to take? We can take none but what He has taken. He comes and declares His name to His brethren, and He leads the praise Himself, so that we must in worship acknowledge the full blessing into which He has brought us. We have to follow Him in His praise in this new relationship, not in flesh but in risen life. People say, But I must be humble! Nothing is so humble as following Christ, and He has left sin behind-death behind; and, blessed be God for it, there is no other position for us, “Ye that fear Jehovah, praise him.” This goes on to the end of verse 24.
But we come in verse 25 and the following verses to millennial time-” in the great congregation,” when all Israel shall be satisfied. Not only they are meek, but they praise Him. They shall praise the Lord that seek him.” People now are often sorrowful and, unhappy in seeking, but not then.
Verse 27. All Israel is not enough, but “all the ends of the world shall remember, and turn to the Lord.”
Verse 31. “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness, &c., that he hath done this” (borne their sins).
All this latter part (vers. 25-31) as we have seen refers to millennial blessing on earth; but we know our position is spoken of as “sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” He has suffered from God, and there is not a word of judgment afterward; He has suffered for sin, and exhausted it. He is the exalted Man, and as such He will execute judgment as the result of His being rejected of man. As to the saints” the excellent"-His connection with them is the key to all the blessing for us. Two things are connected with this: first, unbounded grace; and, secondly, the place we are practically set in-a new footing. We have new life from God, we are not of the world, and should be nothing in the spirit of grace, because not of the world.