“For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)
Ever read the Psalms? It’s easy to see that continually in the Psalms we are confronted with two very distinct groups of people. We have the enemies and we have the sons. We have the adversaries and we have the afflicted. We have the godless and we have the righteous. And all throughout the Psalms we read about those magnificent promises that regardless of what the current situation looks like we know that God is going to crush the wicked and deliver the righteous. God is going to silence the adversary and save His sons. God will vindicate the afflicted and God will punish the enemy. Some Psalms are written to request that victory, some Psalms are written to rejoice in the victory. You’ve probably seen what I’m talking about.
The great temptation for each of us (especially in our day of self-love and high self-esteem) is to always read those Psalms as though I am the good person who God loves and anyone who disagrees with me or who sets themselves as my enemy is the bad person whom God will destroy.
Take Psalms 14 for example.
Psalms 14
1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds;
There is no one who does good.
2 The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men
To see if there are any who understand,
Who seek after God.
3 They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt;
There is no one who does good, not even one.
4 Do all the workers of wickedness not know,
Who eat up my people as they eat bread,
And do not call upon the Lord?
5 There they are in great dread,
For God is with the righteous generation.
6 You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted,
But the LORD is his refuge.
7 Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When the LORD restores His captive people,
Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.
The temptation is intense isn’t it? We have the “fool” who rejects God, who is called the worker of wickedness and who consequently eats up God’s people as though they were bread and who does not call on the Lord. And we have Zion or Jacob or Israel who although they are currently afflicted wait expectantly for God to deliver salvation and crush the enemy and allow them to rejoice.
How do you read that Psalm? Well I certainly don’t want to be on the side of the “fool” so I’m going to say that in that Psalm I want to be Israel and all of my opponents can be the fool and I’m going to sing about how God is going to crush my enemies and restore me to salvation. That’s the temptation isn’t it?
But have you read Romans 3? In Romans 3:9-18 Paul quotes from about 6 Old Testament passages as he reveals the human condition. (Not just the condition of some, but the condition of all humans) In that passage Paul actually quotes Psalms 14:1-3. Only Paul does not apply those verses to our enemies, Paul applies those verses to God’s enemies. What is even more difficult to grasp is that Paul says that is exactly who we are. We are those fools! We are those godless thugs who never understand, never seek for God, and never do good. According to Paul I was reading Psalms 14 incorrectly. I was trying to apply those promises of blessing to myself when in reality God was talking about me in the first 3 verses. In fact, God was talking about all humans in those first 3 verses.
Well that poses and interesting question. If all humans were spoken of in those first 3 verses then who are those who are receiving all those promises and blessings? The answer: Christ. He is the beloved recipient of all of the promises and blessings of God. When the Psalmist spoke of God’s favor and God’s blessing and God’s promises being on someone, he was referring to Christ and Christ alone because only Christ was ever truly righteous.
Listen to Paul speak even of the Abrahamic covenant. “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.” (Galatians 3:16) Christ is the One who is the recipient of all those promises of blessing. That means that the only way we partake in those promises and blessings is through Christ! “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.” (2 Corinthians 1:20).
When you read about all those blessings in the Psalms that are on the righteous; when you read about all of that faithfulness that the righteous expect from God; when you read about the salvation that God promises to His beloved children you should know that those promises are NOT for you unless you are in Christ. It is He who “rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,” (Colossians 1:13) Apart from Christ we are always the adversary in those Psalms regardless of how good we think we are. In Christ we are always the righteous in those verses, regardless of how much we fail.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,” (John 1:12)
“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” (Romans 5:6-11)
Today, thank God for Jesus and His righteousness and the fact that by grace through faith Jesus imputes His righteousness to us and thus allows all of those promises and blessings to be applied to our account. He is the One who transfers us from the position of God’s enemy to the position of God’s son. It is only when we are clothed in the very righteousness of Christ that we can read those Psalms and claim the blessings for ourselves. Apart from Him we are all nothing more than adversaries!
