Psalms 52—67
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Scripture Reading: Psa. 63; Psa. 64; Psa. 65; Psa. 66; Psa. 67
Our appreciation of the Bible, in particular of the Psalms, depends upon the kind of discernment we have. Just as the discernment and appreciation of a mature person differs from that of a child, so our appreciation of the Bible differs according to our degree of spiritual experience, understanding, and maturity. There is a vast difference between what an aged grandfather would value and appreciate and what a two-year-old child would value and appreciate. Let us suppose that a number of items are placed before them. Among these items the child may appreciate a small, beautiful, empty, round box, but to the grandfather this box and all the items he sees before him are worthless. What he appreciates and desires is a great diamond. This shows that we appreciate things according to our maturity and our capacity to discern what is of real value. Whereas some will appreciate Ephesians 3, a chapter on God's eternal economy and the preaching of the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles according to God's plan to produce the church, others may appreciate a portion such as Psalm 65:11-13, which speaks of God's crowning the year with His goodness, His paths overflowing with fatness, the hills girding themselves with exultation, and the valleys shouting for joy and singing.
In this message we will consider Psalms 63—67. As we read these psalms, we need to exercise adequate discernment so that we may realize how these psalms compare to the standard of the teaching of the New Testament.
In Psalm 63 the psalmist compares his enjoyment of God in His house with the punishment of his enemies. On the one hand, the psalmist treasures the enjoyment of God; on the other hand, he also rejoices in God's punishment of his enemies.
In verses 1 through 4 the psalmist says, "O God, You are my God; I seek You diligently./My soul thirsts for You,/My flesh faints in longing for You,/In a dry and weary land without water./So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary, /Seeing Your power and Your glory./Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,/My lips praise You./Thus I bless You while I live;/I lift up my hands in Your name." To seek God and thirst for Him are very good. However, we need to ask these questions: For what do we seek after God? For what do we thirst for God? In our seeking and thirsting, are we looking for something that is of great spiritual value? For what was the psalmist seeking God? For Christ? For the Divine Trinity or the life-giving Spirit? It seems that the psalmist was seeking mainly for God's lovingkindness (v. 3). The poetic writing here is marvelous, but the contents are very limited. Nevertheless, some readers of these verses may highly appreciate them.
In verses 5 through 8 we have the psalmist's enjoyment of God. He declares that his soul is satisfied with the rich fatness and that when he remembers God while on his bed and considers Him in the night watches, his mouth praises God with lips of joyous shouting (vv. 5-6). In verses 7 and 8 the psalmist says, "For You have been my help,/And in the shadow of Your wings I will shout joyously./My soul pursues after You;/Your right hand upholds me." Here the most precious thing is the shadow of God's wings.
In verses 9 through 11 the psalmist concludes by speaking concerning God's punishment of his enemies.
What do you find in this psalm that is of value? Perhaps you will point out the matter of seeking after God. Yes, we should have a heart to seek after God, but are you satisfied with this? In my opinion, this psalm is quite lacking in content.
In Psalm 64 we have the psalmist's complaint of his enemy's evil plan and God's judgment on the evildoers.
In verses 1 and 2 the psalmist asks God to hear the voice of his complaint, to preserve his life from the enemy's dread, and to hide him from the throng of evildoers. The evildoers have sharpened their tongue like a sword and have aimed their arrow, their bitter word, to shoot in secret places at the perfect man (vv. 3-4). The psalmist's use of the words "perfect man" indicates that he considers himself perfect, one who should not be hated by anyone. Then the psalmist goes on to speak of his enemies, saying, "They firm up an evil matter; /They plan to lay snares secretly;/They say, Who will see them?/They devise injustices, saying:/We have completed a carefully sought out plan./Indeed each man's inward thought /And heart is deep" (vv. 5-6).
In the next two verses, the psalmist proclaims God's judgment on the evildoers. "But God will shoot an arrow at them;/Suddenly they are wounded./They are made to stumble over each other by their own tongue;/All who see them shake their heads." The psalmist was surely happy about this.
"All men will fear/And declare God's doing,/And they will ponder what He has done./The righteous man will rejoice in Jehovah and take refuge in Him,/And all the upright in heart will boast" (vv. 9-10). This indicates that the psalmist considered himself not only perfect but also righteous and upright in heart. Like the previous psalm, this psalm is lacking in content. It is hard to find anything here that is of some greater spiritual value.
In Psalm 65 we first have the psalmist's praise to God for his enjoyment of God in His house (vv. 1-4), and then the psalmist's praise to God for His goodness to the earth for man (vv. 5-13).
In his praise to God, the psalmist says, "Iniquities prevail against me;/As for our transgressions, You make propitiation for them./Blessed is he whom You have chosen and bring near/To dwell in Your courts./We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,/Of Your holy temple" (vv. 3-4). Literally, the Hebrew word translated "iniquities" means "instances of iniquities" or "matters of iniquities." Here David is saying that God should remember the iniquities of David's enemies but should propitiate his transgressions. The word about dwelling in God's courts and being satisfied with the goodness of His house is good, but once again we need to ask the question, "For what do we dwell in God's courts?"
In his praise to God for His goodness to the earth for man, the psalmist says, "You visit the earth and water it;/You enrich it greatly:/The river of God is full of water./You provide men grain, for so You have prepared the earth./Saturating its furrows, settling its ridges,/You soften it with showers;/You bless its sprouting out" (vv. 9-10). What is meant by the poetic expression "the river of God"? This may refer to the water in the air, to the source of the rain that falls upon the earth so that it may produce grain for the benefit of man.
What do you get from Psalm 65? Some may appreciate the good poetry, but what do you receive from the psalmist's word about grain, ridges, and furrows? The content of this psalm cannot compare with chapter four of Ephesians, which speaks of keeping the oneness of the Spirit and which reveals that the Body is an entity mingled with the Triune God.
Psalm 66 covers three matters: the psalmist's advice to all the earth for praising God (vv. 1-4); the psalmist's gratitude to God for the past (vv. 5-15); and the psalmist's recounting of God's gracious doings to him (vv. 16-20).
The psalmist begins by advising the earth to shout joyfully to God, to sing forth the glory of His name, to make glorious His praise, and to say to God, "How awesome are Your deeds!" (vv. 1-3). Then the psalmist tells God that all the earth will worship Him and sing psalms to Him and to His name (v. 4).
In expressing his gratitude to God for the past, the psalmist says that He turned the sea into dry land (v. 6), that He rules by His might forever (v. 7), that He has kept their soul in life (v. 9), and that He has brought them forth into abundance (v. 12). Then the psalmist says, "I will come into Your house with burnt offerings;/I will repay my vows to You,/Which my lips uttered/And my mouth spoke when I was in distress./I will offer to You burnt offerings of fatlings /With the smoke of rams;/I will offer bullocks with goats" (vv. 13-15). These verses indicate that the psalmist is engaged in a business transaction. His offerings are his repayment to God for His goodness. First, the psalmist receives God's goodness, and then he pays for it with his offerings.
"Come, hear, all you who fear God,/And I will recount what He has done for my soul" (v. 16). The psalmist then concludes this psalm by recounting God's gracious doings to him. As he does this, he again speaks of God's lovingkindness (v. 20).
In Psalm 67 the psalmist entreats God for more grace and blessing (vv. 1-2, 6-7) and advises all the nations to praise God (vv. 3-5).
In verses 1 and 2 the psalmist asks God to be gracious to them, to bless them, and to make His face to shine upon them, that His way may be known on earth and His salvation among all the nations. In verses 6 and 7 he declares, "The earth has yielded its increase;/God, our God, blesses us./God blesses us;/And all the ends of the earth will fear Him."
In verses 3 through 5 the psalmist advises the nations to praise God for His equitable judgment and kind guidance. In verse 4 he says, "Let the nations rejoice and shout for joy,/For You will judge the peoples equitably/And will guide the nations on the earth."
Since the Bible has sixty-six books, we all need to learn to exercise discernment in reading the Bible. In order to understand the Psalms, we need all the other books. This means that in order to evaluate the Psalms properly, we need to consider such books as Genesis, Leviticus, Matthew, John, and the fourteen Epistles of Paul. If we read the Psalms in the light of what is revealed in Paul's Epistles, we will realize that the content of the Psalms is below the standard of the teaching of the New Testament.
At this point, I would like to emphasize a matter that I have often mentioned — that the divine revelation in the Bible is progressive. The Psalms are in the middle of this progression, and thus they are below the standard of the New Testament. However, without the earlier books we cannot realize the value of the later books. Suppose you read the entire Old Testament and then study the Epistles of Paul. If you do this, you will realize that the Epistles of Paul are a deep mine full of gold and precious gems. If after studying the writings of Paul for a long period of time you return to the Psalms, you will realize that by comparison the Psalms do not contain many treasures.
This does not mean, however, that there is nothing to treasure in the Psalms. In certain of the psalms we have a wonderful revelation concerning Christ as the centrality and universality of God's economy. Although the revelation of Christ in the New Testament surpasses that in the Psalms, some aspects of this revelation are unveiled in a particular way in the Psalms. For instance, Psalm 2:7 reveals that Christ was born in His resurrection to be the Son of God, and this verse is quoted in Acts 13:33. This indicates that without Acts 13 we cannot understand Psalm 2 and that without Psalm 2 we do not have the ground to declare, as the New Testament does, that Christ as the only begotten Son of God was born in His resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God. From this we see that we need both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
In order to learn anything, we need both the capacity to learn and the proper instruction to help us learn. Students in a university may study the same book, but how much they learn will differ according to their capacity and according to the kind of teaching they receive from their professors. Those with a lesser capacity will learn less than those with a greater capacity. Hebrews 5 shows us that our capacity to learn spiritual things increases with exercise. Through exercise, our capacity to understand the Bible will grow and develop. In particular, we will become more able to understand the Bible according to its controlling lines and governing principles. I believe that if we have the heart to stay with the Lord's ministry in His recovery today, we will eventually become different in our view, in our capacity, in our understanding of the Word, and in our discernment of spiritual things.
In order to have the proper appreciation of Psalms 63—67, we need to see the revelation of God's economy. God's eternal economy is to impart Himself into man and dispense His riches into man's inner being (Eph. 3:8-9) that He may be man's life and life supply. By His life and the bountiful supply of His life-giving Spirit (Phil. 1:19b), man can live Him and magnify Him (Phil. 1:20-21a) for His manifestation (1 Tim. 3:16a). In this way, all His chosen people can corporately be His expression as His fullness, His organism, the church (Eph. 3:19-21).
However, in the five psalms covered in this message, we cannot see anything of such a kind of spirituality. Instead, these psalms only cover the psalmist's praises to God for God's goodness to him, his concern for the safety of his person and for prosperity in his affairs, God's care for the psalmist, and the psalmist's trust in God. All these are good things. But good things often become the replacement of the best, the opposition against the best, and even the enemy to the best. Many seekers of the Lord are held back by these kinds of good things and would not seek the Lord further for His best that they might participate in the life-giving Spirit's bountiful supply for them to live and magnify Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12, 16) and for the accomplishing of God's eternal purpose.
Hence, in studying the Psalms, on the one hand, we should receive all the marvelous revelations concerning Christ as the centrality and universality of God's economy, but, on the other hand, we should discern that the Psalms are pious expressions of the psalmists uttered out of their natural concepts, and some are based on the principle of good and evil, not on the principle of the divine life. All of these expressions are far below the standard of the requirements of God's new creation (Gal. 6:15).
As a result of studying the Psalms, we should have an increased appreciation of the Epistles of Paul. The standard of the divine revelation in Paul's Epistles is high compared not only to the Psalms but also to the four Gospels and Acts. For example, the expression the Body of Christ, used by Paul, is not found in the Gospels or in Acts. The Body of Christ is not simply a composition of His believers, but is actually an organism produced by the Triune God's dispensing of Himself into the believers to make them His counterpart. As a result of this dispensing, Christ is not only the Head of the Body but even all the Body (1 Cor. 12:12), the new man. Concerning the church as the new man, Colossians 3:10 and 11 reveal that "Christ is all and in all." In the new man there is room only for Christ. He is all the members of the new man and in all the members. He is everything in the new man and actually is the new man. If we do not believe that Christ is us and is in us, then we have not yet seen the revelation concerning the new man in the New Testament. We need to know Christ to such an extent that we realize that He is us and that He is in us. He is within us to make us one with Him.
We praise the Lord that we have both the Old Testament and the New Testament. We have the Psalms, and we have the other sixty-five books of the Bible with which we may compare the Psalms. The more we make a comparison, the more we will realize that the divine revelation in the Bible is progressive, and the more we will appreciate the standard of spirituality revealed in the New Testament.
