Celebrating Christ the Covenant Redeemer (Psalm 103)
by tim on Feb.02, 2017, under Sermon
On his journey to faith, and even for some time after he became a believer, C. S. Lewis struggled with the Biblical commands to praise God. Was God like the man seeking reassurance of his own virtue or wit; or the woman who requires constant affirmation of her beauty or intelligence? Does God need reminding of his power and might? Or does he just want to make sure his generosity and philanthropy are known by all?
Worst of all was the suggestion of the very silliest Pagan bargaining … More than once the Psalmists seemed to be saying ‘You like praise. Do this for me, and you shall have some.’ … It made one think what one least wanted to think. Gratitude to God, reverence to Him, obedience to Him, I thought I could understand; not this perpetual eulogy.1
Lewis only overcame this difficulty when he realised that it is when we enjoy something that we spontaneously overflow with praise. Lovers praise their beloved and parents their children. We praise athletes, restaurants, musicians, cars, art, food, weather, actors, authors, holiday destinations, coffee, tradesmen… we live in a cacophony of praise! In Lewis’ own words,
I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment… It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.2
More than that, we avidly invite others to join in that same praise: ‘Wasn’t that awesome? Isn’t she lovely? Does it get any better than this?’
In Psalm 103, we find David delighting in his God, and inviting others to join in doing the same. These invitations echo out in ever-widening circles, starting with his own soul and eventually encompassing the whole of heaven and earth.
1. Praise the LORD for his blessings to you
The first invitation David gives is to his own soul:
Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.– Psalm 103:1–5
Why does David feel the need to summon his soul to praise? In spite of being one of the most prolific praisers in the entire Old Testament, David had his ‘up’ days and his ‘down’ days much like we do. No doubt, some days he sprang from his bed with a song on his lips;((e.g. Ps. 56:16; 92:2.)) other mornings, however, saw him hard pressed, on the run and fearing for his life.3
Perhaps that is your experience as well? Perhaps you woke up this morning eager to meet with God’s people and proclaim together his greatness, goodness, glory and grace. But maybe your enthusiasm was muted, crowded out by sickness, sorrow or sin. Even at Christmas time, traditionally a time of great joy and praise to God, there will be some who find it difficult to rejoice, as they contemplate the empty place at the dinner table or the uncertainty of the year ahead.
Whatever your starting point, David models for us a right response: praise the LORD! In inviting us to praise, he is neither naive, nor unsympathetic. After all, David himself endured great trials throughout his life: he lived on the run from Saul and, later, his own son, Absalom; several of his children died before he did; and the psalms are full of his desperate prayers for deliverance from his enemies. Yet in this psalm, he invites his soul to consider his blessings rather than his trials. He does not ask for anything but focuses on benefits already received.
Chief among these benefits is the one he mentions first: God has revealed himself (v. 1). Wherever you see LORD in all uppercase, this represents God’s covenant name, the name by which he chose to reveal himself to Moses and hence to Israel. This is the ‘holy name’ which David’s ‘inmost being’ must praise. David uses this name nine times in this psalm.4 There can be no mistake about which God David praises: ‘Praise Yahweh, O my soul… Praise Yahweh, O my soul… Praise Yahweh, you his angels… Praise Yahweh, all his heavenly hosts…. Praise Yahweh, all his works… Praise Yahweh, O my soul’.
By revealing his name to Israel, God placed himself in a special relationship with them, what we call a ‘covenant’ relationship. And this relationship carried with it many benefits. David wrote elsewhere, ‘For the sake of your name, O LORD [Yahweh], forgive my iniquity, though it is great.’ (Psa 25:11). Centuries later, the prophet Ezekiel would write, ‘You will know that I am the LORD [Yahweh], when I deal with you for my name’s sake and not according to your evil ways’ (Ezek 20:44). Note the close connection between the name of the LORD, Yahweh, and forgiveness.
The name of the LORD is also closely associated with healing. Yahweh spoke to David’s son, Solomon, and promised that ‘if my people, who are called by my name [Yahweh], will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.’ (2 Chr 7:14). Similarly, the prophet Malachi promised, ‘But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings’ (Mal 4:2). Is it any wonder that David praises Yahweh for healing and forgiveness received in his name?
In verse 3, David mentions Yahweh ‘redeeming [his] life from the pit’. Perhaps he has in mind a literal pit, such as that in which Joseph’s brothers tossed him, and from which he was ‘redeemed’ for the price of twenty shekels, or like when the Israelites under Saul hid in caves and pits and cisterns to escape the Philistine army (1 Sam. 13:6). Elsewhere in the psalms, however, this same language is used to describe death itself.5 Either way, what is certain is that the pit is not a good place to be… and that Yahweh redeems his people from it. Praise the LORD!
In place of whatever destruction is to be found in the pit, David says he has been ‘crowned’ with ‘love and compassion’. Rather than death, he received not only life but life lived in the love and favour of God: he overcame his enemies, he was raised king (literally crowned!) over all Israel, he married and had children, and he lived to see his son crowned king after him.
2. Praise the LORD for his patience with his people
Then, from verse 6, David starts to consider the blessings of God to his people. Yahweh revealed himself not just to Moses but to the people of Israel (v. 7). Yet Israel consistently disappointed him. Repeatedly through their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, they demonstrated the disobedience, idolatry, and lack of faith in Yahweh’s provision. Moses warned them of the consequences that would follow if they kept on like this in his final sermon before they entered the Promised Land, saying,
See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.
– Deut. 11:26–28
You see covenants are not all about blessings; they also come with obligations, and failure to meet those obligations results in curse rather than blessing. Yet, in spite of this warning, Israel continued in their disobedience, earning the curse6 of the LORD many times over. David himself had committed adultery and murder. They all stood accused and under God’s wrath. Yet, astonishingly, David can write,
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
– Psalm 103:8–10
David himself was witness to this in a very graphic way. He once ordered that a census be taken of his fighting men (2 Sam 24), though was later conscience-stricken saying, ‘”I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, O LORD, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant.”‘ (v. 10). God gave him a choice of punishments: three years of famine; three months of fleeing his enemies; or three days of plague. David chose the plague, saying, ‘”Let us fall into the hands of the LORD, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”‘ (v. 14). Indeed, Yahweh demonstrated his mercy by relenting before the destruction of Jerusalem was complete (v. 16).
Are we not in the same boat? If God were to repay us according to what we have done, who of us would escape judgment? Yet God is patient with us. How can this be so? Why does God refrain from pouring out the curses promised by Moses for those who are disobedient?
David attributes this mercy to Yahweh’s love for his people.
3. Praise the LORD for he loves those who fear him
David describes this love using a series of analogies:
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;– Psalm 103:11–13
In Hebrew thought, heaven is unimaginably far above the earth; so it is with Yahweh’s love. Can anything be further from the east than the west? Yahweh removes transgressions that far from us. Is there a greater compassion than a parent’s for a child? That is the compassion Yahweh has for those who fear him.
What is even more astounding, Yahweh offers an eternal love to those who are only temporary. Usually our love is in proportion to the amount of time we spend with someone: casual acquaintances get only a little love, whereas our family gets a lot. From Yahweh’s vantage point as eternal God, the years that I spend on earth are like bumping into a stranger on a train. Yet in that relative instant, he pours out his love upon me, upon you, upon us, upon our children and upon our children’s children!
On the other hand, Yahweh’s love is not indiscriminate. It is offered to those ‘who fear him’ (vv. 11, 13, 17), ‘who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts’ (v. 18). And this presents a problem because, as we have already seen, Israel was notoriously bad at doing any of these things. How can Yahweh’s love be said to be ‘everlasting’ if it is only for those who ‘fear’, ‘keep’ and ‘remember’ – as Israel often did not? What if we can’t meet the covenant obligations and so incur – again! – the covenant curses?
This problem is answered by Jesus Christ. Jesus was the only one who ever feared Yahweh perfectly throughout all of his life, who remembered Yahweh’s covenant and obeyed his commands. You see, Yahweh was so determined to demonstrate his faithfulness in delivering the rewards of the covenant that he took upon himself the requirements of the covenant also. According to Paul,
[N]o matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. (2 Cor 1:20)
The promises of Yahweh to his people are ultimately and fully given to Christ as the fulfiller of the covenant. All that remains for us is to speak the ‘Amen’ – ‘I agree’, or ‘let it be so’ – to the glory of God.
When we realise that, the language of this psalm becomes even more significant. ‘As far as the heavens are above the earth’, that’s how far Jesus came to demonstrate the love of Yahweh. The Father withheld compassion from his one and only Son – in Gethsemane and on the cross – in order to show compassion to us. Jesus took away our sins, not just from east to west, but all the way down into death. Yahweh treated Jesus as our sins deserved, repaid him according to our iniquities. No longer does Yahweh accuse, because the curse has fallen on Jesus instead of on us. It is not our faithfulness to the covenant but Jesus’ that guarantees the covenant blessings. Paul would later write that,
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (Gal 3:13)
The curse fell on Jesus and we are redeemed from the pit.
4. Praise the LORD for his kingdom is over all
But there is another fundamental problem: how can we who are not descended from Abraham and so not part of this covenant in the first place lay claim to these promises?
Once again, the tension is resolved in Jesus. The very next verse from Galatians 3 reads,
He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. (Gal 3:14)
Christ met the requirements of the covenant, endured the covenant curse on behalf of we who could not… and offers us the covenant blessings that are his by right. In fact, he proclaims a new covenant, one in which the only covenant obligation is to repent of our sins and trust in Jesus himself to work in and through us by his Holy Spirit.
And this new covenant is guaranteed. In ancient times, a covenant lasted only as long as the king who made it, and only within the borders of his realm. But this king, King Jesus, rules a kingdom that is ‘established… in heaven’, and that ‘rules over all’ (v. 19) and so his covenant is not bound by race or place. Nor is it a covenant limited by time, for this king has risen from the grave, and lives for eternity past, present and future! Jesus is able to guarantee the covenant blessings for us because he is sovereign over all time and space.
As a personal aside, the fact that Jesus both fulfils the covenant obligations and guarantees the covenant blessings is tremendously encouraging to me. Earlier this year my Gran passed away, and this psalm was one of the readings she selected for her funeral. My Gran was one of the godliest women that I have ever known. Yet if my hope of seeing her again in eternity rested upon her ability to fulfil the obligations of the covenant – let alone my own poor ability to do the same – it would be a slender hope indeed. But the glory of the gospel is that it does not depend on her, or me. It depends on Christ, and is therefore a sure and certain hope.
There is only one covenant requirement: repent of your sin and put your trust in Jesus. As you do, you gain access to blessings seen only in shadow in the earlier covenant. Everyone who believes in Jesus receives eternal life (John 3:16), and his love remains on them literally ‘from everlasting to everlasting’ (v. 17). Friend, I beg you to receive it as the good news that it is and respond: turn away from your sins and turn to Jesus. He will bestow his many blessings upon you according to his goodness, mercy and wisdom. He will be patient with you, for he himself knows what it is like to live in a wicked world, to be tempted, and to feel weakness (Heb 4:15).
Conclusion: Praise Jesus because he is the LORD
Let’s close by considering the movement of the psalm: David starts with the individual, then Israel as a chosen people, and finally climaxing in the proclamation that, ‘The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.’ (Psa 103:19) As Christians we recognise that climax in the distinctive work of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. It is an accomplished fact, a completed work. Yet we must also remember Jesus’ parting words to his disciples that echo so closely what David is doing in this psalm: ‘you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). As followers of Christ we have the responsibility to declare Jesus Christ throughout the whole world, starting with our own heart. As Lewis wrote, that praise not only expresses but completes the enjoyment; and that joy naturally overflows into an invitation to others to share it with us.
David knew the LORD -Yahweh, which means ‘I-am-who-I-am’, or ‘I-will-be-who-I-will-be’ – and he couldn’t help but praise him and call his nation and, indeed, all creation to praise him. As we approach this Christmas season, let us remember that we know our Lord by another name – Jesus, Yeshua, ‘Yahweh saves’, Immanuel, ‘God with us’ – and let’s proclaim him in our praise!
Please pray with me:
We praise you Lord Jesus, for you are the Lord over all creation. As high as the heavens are above the earth, that’s how far you came to demonstrate your love, not just to those who fear you but on your enemies (Rom. 5:8)! Though eternally crowned with the love and compassion of your Father, you set aside that crown and were born as a human child to a humble family.
Lord, we delight in your name. Before your birth Isaiah prophesied your coming, saying that ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel’ (Isa 7:14), which means ‘God with us’. He also named you, ‘Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’ (Isa 9:6). The angel who appeared to Joseph instructed him to name you Jesus – ‘Yahweh saves’ – because you would ‘save [your] people from their sins’ (Matt 1:21).
And having lived a perfect life you did exactly that – saved us, your people, from our sins. You redeemed our life from the pit by going there in our place, and so you ensure that we no longer stand accused because our sins are blotted out forever. By rising to new life you proclaim that your sacrifice on our behalf has been found acceptable and is ‘from everlasting to everlasting’. And we know that God has exalted you to the highest place, and given you the name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:9-11).
Therefore we delight to bear the name of ‘Christian’ – those who belong to Christ. As the Apostle Peter declared, ‘Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12).
Praise the Lord Jesus, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name!
Amen.
Bibliography
Lewis, C. S. Selected Books. London: HarperCollins, 2002.