Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens
Tue, 25 April, 2006: Today’s Bible readings.
1 Transgression speaks to the wicked
deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God
before his eyes.
2 For he flatters himself in his own eyes
that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
3 The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;
he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
4 He plots trouble while on his bed;
he sets himself in a way that is not good;
he does not reject evil.5 Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
your judgments are like the great deep;
man and beast you save, O LORD.7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
8 They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
9 For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light do we see light.
What a contrast between verses 1-4 and 5-9. The psalm begins recounting the depths of the depravity of man, and then abruptly turns to the heights of God’s love.
What do we learn from this?
The psalmist is correctly recounting the heart of the unregenerate, and what he writes sounds much like Paul in Romans 1. Outside of God’s salvation, we really are that bad.
But in contrast, God’s love is vastly beyond our comprehension, extending to the heavens and the clouds. We can not grasp it any more than we can grasp the mountains or the deeps of the ocean. Quite simply, it is beyond us.
God’s merciful love is precious, and we can take refuge in Him. When we come to Him in faith, He blesses us from His abundance. He grants us life for, as the psalmist tell us, He has the fountain of life. We can then see because He is the source of light.
What a great and merciful God, that because of His vast and abounding love, He can save people as bad as we are.
Where is Christ in this passage?
As we are in rebellion against God, we are like the wicked described in the beginning of this psalm. But as we come to God in faith, trusting in what Jesus Christ has done for us, we are greeted by the love of God described in the next section of the psalm. It is because of the work of Jesus Christ that we are accepted by God, and find God’s mercy to be beyond our comprehension.
