Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Path of Life and the Joy at God’s Right Hand (Psalm 16) | Charles Spurgeon

Transcript

The Path of Life and the Joy at God’s Right Hand (Psalm 16) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is the show where we take a
• 0:03
  deep dive into the sources, the texts, the commentaries, the
• 0:06
  history, and try to distill what's really going on.
• 0:09
  And today we are getting into a really remarkable text.
• 0:13
  We are. We're looking at Psalm 16.
• 0:15
  It's a text that historically has been known as the Golden
• 0:19
  Song. Right.
• 0:20
  And that label is key. Our whole mission today really
• 0:23
  is to unlock what some have called the precious secret
• 0:26
  inside Psalm 16. A precious secret I like.
• 0:29
  That yeah. And the sources we've looked at,
• 0:31
  they all agree the reason it's golden isn't just because it's
• 0:35
  beautiful poetry is because we don't have to guess what it's
• 0:37
  about. We don't need to rely on, you
• 0:39
  know, just human speculation. Exactly.
• 0:41
  We have the clear, authoritative witness of the Holy Spirit
• 0:44
  speaking directly through the apostles in the New Testament.
• 0:48
  They tell us beyond any doubt this Psalm is about the Lord
• 0:51
  Jesus Christ. So it's a mystery that's been
• 0:53
  officially unveiled. By divine authority, yes.
• 0:56
  I really appreciate that focus on authority.
• 0:59
  It feels like, you know, finding an ancient scroll with some
• 1:02
  obscure writing on it, but then finding a second document, a
• 1:06
  royal decree that tells you exactly what it means and who
• 1:09
  it's about. That's a great way to put it.
• 1:11
  O how are we going to aroach this?
• 1:13
  We'll start by looking at the title itself, that Hebrew
• 1:16
  heading mictum. We'll dig into what that might
• 1:19
  mean. And then we turn to the New
• 1:20
  Testament. Right, we'll use what we could
• 1:22
  call the golden key from the apostles to open up the
• 1:25
  Christological meaning that really anchors the entire
• 1:27
  discussion. Let's get into it, OK?
• 1:29
  So let's start right at the top of the text.
• 1:32
  If you open your Bible to Psalm 16, you see that Hebrew word
• 1:35
  mictum. Now our our sources are really
• 1:38
  clear that the precise meaning of this word is, well, it's a
• 1:44
  bit hazy historically. It's shrouded in obscurity.
• 1:47
  Scholars will admit that freely. And yet what's so interesting is
• 1:50
  that even with that obscurity, you have these 4 main
• 1:53
  interpretive traditions and they all point in the same direction.
• 1:57
  They do. They all point to the incredibly
• 1:59
  high value of this specific composition.
• 2:02
  It's fascinating, isn't it? The word itself is uncertain,
• 2:05
  but the conclusion everyone draws from it is that this song
• 2:08
  is something special. It's a cumulative weight of it.
• 2:12
  It's as if whatever mictum actually meant in practice,
• 2:16
  musically, literally whatever, it was a signal that this was a
• 2:19
  work of the absolute highest quality.
• 2:22
  So let's breakdown those four major interpretations because
• 2:25
  together they really do build a strong case.
• 2:27
  OK, give us the first one, the one that you know most obviously
• 2:30
  connects to that Golden Psalm title.
• 2:32
  That would be the most common view, that it simply means the
• 2:36
  golden Psalm, signifying its incredible preciousness.
• 2:39
  OK, so where does that come from?
• 2:40
  It's derived from the Hebrew noun for gold.
• 2:43
  Some scholars even trace it back to a very specific kind of gold,
• 2:47
  the gold of Ofer. And Ofer Gold was the best of
• 2:50
  the best. Right.
• 2:51
  It was the standard for excellence, for purity, for
• 2:54
  rarity in the ancient world. So this isn't just a nice
• 2:57
  adjective. No, it's a designation of
• 2:59
  supreme value. Exactly.
• 3:01
  It means it's a composition of surpassing excellence, poetry
• 3:05
  that is quote worthy of being written in letters of gold.
• 3:08
  And this wasn't just a guess, was it?
• 3:10
  There's a tradition here. A very strong one.
• 3:13
  The King James translators for instance.
• 3:15
  They left mictum in the main text, but in the margin they put
• 3:19
  a note suggesting the translation A Golden Psalm of
• 3:23
  David that tells you this idea was deeply respected.
• 3:26
  You mentioned a parallel in another ancient culture.
• 3:29
  Yes, with renowned Arabian poets there was a tradition where
• 3:33
  their best works were literally called golden.
• 3:36
  And they were actually written in gold.
• 3:37
  Some were, yes, illuminated in gold leaf and then hung up in
• 3:41
  very public places like the Kaaba in Mecca, so everyone
• 3:44
  would see them and recognize their immense cultural and
• 3:48
  literary value. So Psalm 16 was meant to be seen
• 3:51
  in a similar light, set apart, revered.
• 3:54
  Right. It immediately signals that this
• 3:56
  isn't just another song in the collection.
• 3:58
  OK, so that establishes its value, but the second
• 4:00
  interpretation is a bit more theologically loaded.
• 4:04
  It speaks to the content itself being hidden.
• 4:06
  It does. This brings us to the idea of
• 4:08
  the precious secret. This view was favored by a
• 4:11
  number of commentators like Doctor Alexander.
• 4:13
  And he derived the word from a different route.
• 4:16
  Yes, from a verb that means to hide or to conceal.
• 4:19
  So if you follow that path, the title itself denotes a secret or
• 4:23
  mystery. Meaning the text contains truths
• 4:26
  that were not fully understood at the time.
• 4:28
  Exactly. Doctrinal truths so deep, so
• 4:31
  specific, especially about the future work of the Messiah, that
• 4:34
  maybe even David himself, the human author, only had a dim
• 4:38
  understanding of what he was writing down.
• 4:40
  South David is writing under the impulse of the Spirit, saying
• 4:43
  things he knows are true about God's plan, but the the fine
• 4:46
  details were still concealed. That's the key.
• 4:49
  It points to a depth of theological meaning,
• 4:52
  particularly about the suffering and, crucially, the resurrection
• 4:55
  of Christ. The idea is that this truth was
• 4:58
  hidden in plain sight in the Psalter, just waiting.
• 5:01
  Waiting for the apostles to come along and provide the definitive
• 5:04
  explanation. Yes, and Charles Spurgeon, he
• 5:06
  tried to bring these two ideas together, the value and the
• 5:09
  mystery. He coined this wonderful title
• 5:11
  for it, The Psalm of the Precious Secret.
• 5:14
  That's a great description. It captures both things
• 5:16
  perfectly. It does.
• 5:17
  It honors it's priceless worth and it's prophetic hidden
• 5:20
  nature. All right, what's the third
• 5:21
  interpretation? This one has to do with
• 5:23
  permanence, with security. Right.
• 5:26
  The third view is that it means a permanent inscription.
• 5:30
  This comes from a verb that means to cut or to engrave or to
• 5:34
  write. So something meant to be
• 5:36
  physically lasting, a message that has to endure.
• 5:39
  Yes, and some of the earliest translations seem to point this
• 5:42
  way. The Child D version, for
• 5:44
  example, renders it as a straight sculpture of David.
• 5:48
  A sculpture like it's carved in stone.
• 5:50
  And the Septuagint, the Greek translation, calls it an
• 5:53
  inscription upon a pillar. So yeah, it's not meant to be
• 5:57
  read once and forgotten. It's meant to be carved in
• 5:59
  granite and remembered forever. Does this fit with the other
• 6:02
  songs that have this title? It fits perfectly.
• 6:04
  There are five other songs with the MCTIM heading psalms 56
• 6:08
  through 60, and they all share a similar pattern, which is they
• 6:11
  often start with the psalmist in some kind of great distress or
• 6:14
  trouble, but they always end on a note of decisive triumph,
• 6:18
  deliverance, victory. And Psalm 16 does that.
• 6:22
  It moves from prayer for preservation in verse one to the
• 6:25
  promise of eternal joy in verse 11.
• 6:27
  Exactly. It was intended as a permanent
• 6:30
  commemoration of a victory, and as we'll see, that victory is
• 6:33
  Christ's victory over the grave. OK.
• 6:36
  And the fourth view, this one is a bit more technical.
• 6:39
  It's the simplest one really, that mictum is just a musical
• 6:42
  term like Michelle or Sayla. Some instruction for the Temple
• 6:46
  Singers that we've just lost over time.
• 6:48
  Pretty much it's actual function, a specific melody
• 6:52
  maybe, or an instrumental arrangement is likely
• 6:55
  unrecoverable now. But even if it started that way,
• 6:57
  it feels like the content of the Psalm has sort of redefine the
• 7:01
  word it really. Has the consensus around its
• 7:04
  weighty content has completely eclipsed what might have been a
• 7:08
  simple musical note? So if you were to bring all this
• 7:10
  together for us, what's the big picture on the title?
• 7:14
  You can think of it like a sealed royal treasure.
• 7:17
  It's golden because it's so valuable.
• 7:19
  It's hidden because it contained this mystery about Christ's
• 7:22
  resurrection that only the New Testament could really unlock,
• 7:26
  and it's engraved because it's truth.
• 7:28
  The victory it announces is permanent.
• 7:30
  And now we have the key to that secret.
• 7:32
  Now we have the key. I think that's a perfect
• 7:34
  transition. We've looked at what scholars
• 7:36
  think the word might mean. Now let's move to the certainty
• 7:39
  of what the apostle said the text means.
• 7:41
  Right, we have to pivot here completely.
• 7:43
  We're leaving the world of scholarly debate over one Hebrew
• 7:46
  word. And we're stepping into the
• 7:48
  courtroom of scriptural certainty.
• 7:50
  That's it. The reason Psalm 16 is so
• 7:52
  central to Christian teaching isn't because we as the church
• 7:57
  decided to give it that meaning. It's because the New Testament
• 8:00
  apostles, under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
• 8:04
  said so explicitly, repeatedly. This Apostolic authority is the
• 8:09
  non negotiable proof. It locks it down.
• 8:12
  It absolutely locks down the Christological interpretation.
• 8:15
  And this is such an important point.
• 8:17
  A lot of people today can get tripped up on this text.
• 8:19
  They see David's name on it, they read his life story, and
• 8:23
  they just assume it must be about David's personal
• 8:24
  experiences. Of course, persecution,
• 8:27
  preservation, and so on. So how do we draw that line
• 8:30
  clearly between David the historical person and David the
• 8:33
  prophet speaking about the Messiah?
• 8:35
  The line is drawn at the point of fulfillment.
• 8:38
  You could say the key, the words of the Psalm.
• 8:40
  It might seem to fit the lock of David's life.
• 8:44
  You know, partially. It turns a little.
• 8:46
  Bit a little bit. David trusted God, He was
• 8:48
  delivered from his enemies many times, but it fails to turn the
• 8:51
  final bolt because David, like every other person before
• 8:55
  Christ. He saw corruption.
• 8:57
  He saw corruption. He died.
• 8:59
  His body decayed. The central promise of the
• 9:02
  Psalm, the one about not seeing corruption, breaks the Davidic
• 9:05
  application completely. So it proves he had to be
• 9:08
  speaking about someone else, someone greater.
• 9:11
  Precisely, David ruled A prophecy that he himself could
• 9:15
  not possibly fulfill, and this is the intellectual weapon that
• 9:18
  the apostle Peter uses on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter
• 9:21
  2, he. Picks this Psalm specifically.
• 9:23
  He selects Psalm 16 and uses it as the definitive scriptural
• 9:28
  proof for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• 9:30
  Walk us through his argument there.
• 9:32
  It's such a masterful piece of logic.
• 9:34
  Well, Peter quotes verses 25 through 31 of the Psalm, and his
• 9:38
  method is simple but just devastatingly effective.
• 9:42
  First, he establishes a historical fact that no one in
• 9:45
  the crowd can deny. David, the patriarch, the author
• 9:48
  of this text, is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is
• 9:52
  with us unto this day. Peter is basically pointing to
• 9:55
  David's tomb, which was still a known landmark in Jerusalem.
• 9:58
  So he's using the tomb as physical evidence.
• 10:00
  Undeniable evidence that David himself did not fulfill the
• 10:03
  promise the tomb proves that a different interpretation is
• 10:07
  necessary. So then Peter quotes those
• 10:09
  crucial lines. Thou wilt not leave my soul in
• 10:12
  hell. Neither his flesh did see
• 10:14
  corruption. And he argues that David,
• 10:17
  because he was a prophet and because he knew God, had sworn
• 10:20
  to raise up Christ from his lineage.
• 10:22
  He foresaw. He foresaw and he prophesied it.
• 10:24
  He spoke about the Messiah's final, absolute victory over
• 10:27
  death. Peter's conclusion is just.
• 10:29
  It's unambiguous. David spoke specifically of the
• 10:32
  resurrection of Christ. The entire sermon really hinges
• 10:35
  on that transfer from David to Jesus.
• 10:37
  It does. Peter settles the argument.
• 10:39
  But then you have Paul, who ensures we connect this
• 10:42
  historical event, the resurrection, to our own
• 10:45
  personal salvation. This is later in Acts 13.
• 10:48
  Yes, in his sermon in Antioch and Paul uses the same Psalm to
• 10:52
  testify about the man through who is preached unto us, the
• 10:55
  forgiveness of sins. So he's showing why the
• 10:58
  resurrection is necessary for the Gospel itself.
• 11:01
  Peter focuses on David's failure to rise.
• 11:05
  And Paul focuses on Christ's successful rising and what that
• 11:08
  means for us. He confirms Peter's logic.
• 11:11
  David fell asleep and saw corruption.
• 11:14
  But the promise not to see decay?
• 11:16
  It was fulfilled solely in Jesus.
• 11:19
  Christ is the Holy one of God. The one who entered the grave
• 11:22
  and definitively overcame the pains of death.
• 11:24
  He is the guarantor of the forgiveness, Paul preaches.
• 11:27
  The sources are clear. When you get to verses 9 and 10,
• 11:30
  the verses about victory over the grave, you can see no man
• 11:33
  but Jesus only. The resurrection promise is like
• 11:37
  a a divine filter that's a. Good way to put.
• 11:39
  It if the person in question saw corruption, they aren't the main
• 11:41
  subject. If they didn't, they are the
• 11:43
  Messiah. And that's why this text is so
• 11:45
  precious. Its value comes because the Holy
• 11:49
  Ghost, through the apostles, has shown us that its entire focus
• 11:52
  is all about the Lord Jesus Christ, and that certainty that
• 11:57
  lets us go forward and analyze the rest of the text as a
• 12:00
  Christological portrait. OK, so with that Apostolic key
• 12:04
  firmly in our hand, we can now read the Psalm not just as you
• 12:07
  know, David's diary, but as a detailed prophetic painting of
• 12:11
  the Messiah. Right, and this isn't a modern
• 12:13
  idea. This reading is supported by the
• 12:16
  earliest Church Fathers and was consistently held by later
• 12:19
  Reformed theologians. Let's ground this in that
• 12:21
  history for a moment. What did the early church
• 12:24
  recognize here? They saw the Messianic
• 12:26
  interpretation immediately. You have Jerome in the 4th
• 12:29
  century who says plainly the Psalm pertains to Christ, who
• 12:32
  speaks in it in the human nature that he had assumed.
• 12:35
  So Christ speaking through David.
• 12:37
  Yes, and Augustine agreed. He said our King speaks in this
• 12:40
  Psalm at the time of his passion.
• 12:42
  And then much later, Spurgeon just synthesized it all, saying
• 12:45
  that in this Psalm, Christ is all.
• 12:47
  That gives us a really solid foundation for treating the
• 12:50
  voice of the psalmist as the voice of Christ in his humanity,
• 12:54
  in his work to secure our salvation.
• 12:57
  So let's look at how the specific verses sketch this
• 13:00
  portrait. We can start with that cry for
• 13:02
  dependence in verse one. OK, the Psalm opens with
• 13:05
  preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust.
• 13:09
  Now if this is Christ speaking, how do we make sense of the
• 13:13
  perfect Son of God needing to ask for preservation?
• 13:16
  We have to understand this as the prayer of the manhood of
• 13:20
  Jesus, as the commentators put it.
• 13:22
  He was fully divine, yes, but he also took on a full, genuine
• 13:26
  humanity. And as a representative, he
• 13:28
  voluntarily humbled himself. He did, and in that state he
• 13:31
  didn't rely on his own divine strength alone.
• 13:34
  He looked entirely to the Father for keeping, for preservation.
• 13:37
  It's the perfect example of faith for us.
• 13:39
  It sounds a lot like his prayer in the Gospel of John.
• 13:41
  Father saved me from this hour. It's the same posture He chose
• 13:44
  to rely wholly on divine keeping rather than exercising his own
• 13:48
  power as God. And the specific name for God
• 13:50
  used here is significant too, isn't it?
• 13:52
  Very much so. The Hebrew name here is El.
• 13:56
  It's not Jehovah which speaks of the Covenant or Elohim the
• 13:59
  Creator. El specifically means the mighty
• 14:02
  God or the Omnipotent Helper. So in a moment of felt weakness,
• 14:06
  he calls on the name that signifies all powerful might.
• 14:09
  That contrast is the key insight.
• 14:12
  The commentators note that this is the name Jesus would use when
• 14:15
  he was under a sense of great weakness, like on the cross.
• 14:18
  My God, my God, that's L. It's the human soul of Jesus
• 14:22
  carrying the weight of sin, turning to the vast
• 14:25
  inexhaustible resources of the Father for strength.
• 14:28
  The weak man relying on the mighty God.
• 14:30
  It frames the entire Psalm as a declaration of complete
• 14:33
  reliance, which makes his final victory all the more secure.
• 14:36
  OK, let's move to verse 2. Christ's allegiance is
• 14:39
  reaffirmed. All my soul thou has said unto
• 14:42
  the Lord, Thou art my Lord. And this is Christ as our
• 14:45
  Mediator, making a solemn vow of service to the Father.
• 14:48
  He's submitting himself completely to the divine plan
• 14:51
  for our sake. But then comes one of the most
• 14:53
  theologically dense and maybe misunderstood phrases in the
• 14:57
  whole Psalm. My goodness extendeth not to
• 14:59
  thee. If Christ's obedience is
• 15:01
  perfect, why doesn't that goodness extend to God?
• 15:04
  We have to be really precise here.
• 15:06
  This phrase is a statement about God's acidity, his complete
• 15:10
  self-sufficiency. Meaning God doesn't need
• 15:12
  anything from us or even from Christ's work.
• 15:15
  Exactly. Christ's perfect work, His
• 15:17
  obedience, His atonement, his righteousness, none of it was
• 15:20
  necessary to add anything to God's infinite perfection or
• 15:23
  happiness. God doesn't gain anything from
• 15:26
  it in his divine being. So God is already perfectly
• 15:28
  whole. It's like adding a single drop
• 15:31
  of water to an infinite ocean. The drop is perfect, but the
• 15:35
  ocean size doesn't change. That's a great analogy.
• 15:37
  Jehovah is infinitely glorious and happy with or without us.
• 15:41
  The only reason Christ performs this work is not to improve God,
• 15:44
  but to save man. So if his goodness doesn't
• 15:47
  benefit God directly, who is the recipient of all that perfect
• 15:51
  merit? That merit, His goodness,
• 15:53
  extends to the sinks that are in the earth, the benefits of His
• 15:56
  atonement, His righteousness. All of that is treasured up for
• 15:59
  His mystical Body, the Elect Church.
• 16:01
  This is the heart of substitutionary atonement.
• 16:04
  He acts outside of himself for the benefit of his people.
• 16:07
  Absolutely. And in return Christ calls these
• 16:10
  Saints his redeemed people. The excellent he says in them is
• 16:14
  all his delight. That's a staggering thought.
• 16:17
  It is, Spurgeon called them His blood bought portion, the reward
• 16:21
  he received for all his suffering.
• 16:23
  It shows that Christ's motivation, even in His agony,
• 16:27
  was the redemption of His chosen people.
• 16:29
  OK then verse 4 shows his total separation from sin.
• 16:32
  Yes, which confirms confirms his fitness to be our substitute.
• 16:36
  He refused any association with idolatry.
• 16:39
  Those who hasten after another God, he would not offer their
• 16:42
  drink. Offerings of blood which were
• 16:43
  linked to violent Pagan sacrifices.
• 16:46
  He had no communion with the works of darkness, and that
• 16:49
  separation is immediately followed by this radical
• 16:52
  statement of contentment. Yes, verse 5.
• 16:54
  It's His declaration of perfect satisfaction, even knowing the
• 16:56
  suffering that was ahead. The Lord is the portion of mine
• 16:59
  inheritance and of my cup. This is the ultimate rejection
• 17:02
  of the devil's temptation in the wilderness.
• 17:04
  It is when he was offered all the kingdoms of the world, He
• 17:07
  essentially declared that he required no other portion than
• 17:09
  the Father himself. He is entirely satisfied in God.
• 17:13
  And that satisfaction is what makes him our perfect mediator.
• 17:17
  He drinks from a divine supply, so he has no need to chase after
• 17:21
  false idols or lesser treasures. Right.
• 17:23
  And that brings us to verse 7 and the divine counsel he
• 17:26
  received in his suffering. The psalmist blesses the Lord
• 17:28
  for giving him counsel as a man. Jesus constantly turned to the
• 17:33
  Father for direction. And this counsel goes deeper
• 17:35
  than just general wisdom. The Puritan commentator Thomas
• 17:38
  Goodwin argued this was the Holy Spirit instructing Christ during
• 17:41
  his most intense trial, the agony in the Garden of
• 17:45
  Gethsemane. So this is the divine direction
• 17:47
  that led him to say not my will, but dine be done.
• 17:51
  That's the idea. And it wasn't just external
• 17:53
  instruction, The text says my reigns also instruct me in the
• 17:56
  night seasons. What are the reigns?
• 17:58
  It's an old term for the deepest inner person, the affections,
• 18:01
  the conscience, the seat of moral understanding.
• 18:04
  It's guidance that comes from within, in the quiet place of
• 18:07
  prayer. And the night seasons are the
• 18:09
  times of darkness, of solitude and suffering.
• 18:12
  Yes, the commentators describe these as hours of profitable
• 18:16
  commerce with himself where Christ would review his
• 18:19
  position, his duty, his commitment to the Father's will.
• 18:23
  Wisdom grew in his soul during these quiet hours.
• 18:26
  So the battles were fought and won in his mind and on his knees
• 18:30
  long before the conflict actually arrived.
• 18:32
  That's the model for us. True spiritual guidance is often
• 18:36
  forged in our own night seasons, in quiet solitude.
• 18:39
  When the world goes dark, that's the time for us to allow our own
• 18:43
  reigns, our deepest affections, to be calibrated by the Father's
• 18:47
  will. Which?
• 18:48
  Brings us back to verse 10, the central non negotiable proof we
• 18:51
  started with. That wilt not leave my soul in
• 18:53
  hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy one, to see
• 18:56
  corruption. We should probably clarify hell
• 18:58
  in this context. Right.
• 19:00
  The Hebrew word is sheol. It's generally understood as the
• 19:03
  invisible world of disembodied spirits, the state of souls
• 19:06
  after death. Christ knew his soul would go
• 19:08
  there, but he knew the visit would be very, very short.
• 19:10
  He would not be left there. But there's another layer to
• 19:13
  this, speaking to the spiritual weight of the cross itself.
• 19:16
  Yes, and this is a key Reformed interpretation from theologians
• 19:20
  like Nicholas Byfield. He argued that Christ in his
• 19:23
  soul descended into hell, not spatially, but when, as our
• 19:27
  surety, he bore the hellish sorrows and the full wrath of
• 19:30
  God that we deserved. What do you mean by surety and
• 19:33
  hellish sorrows? As our surety, Christ stood in
• 19:36
  our place, legally bound to pay our debt to God.
• 19:39
  The hellish sorrows aren't a literal trip to a place of
• 19:42
  torment after death. They describe the experience of
• 19:45
  being judicially forsaken by the Father on the Cross.
• 19:47
  The spiritual separation. And during the full measure of
• 19:50
  divine judgement against sin, that was the true descent.
• 19:53
  His soul endured the wrath due to sinners, but the Father did
• 19:56
  not abandon Him to be held by it forever.
• 19:58
  And that brings us to the resurrection guarantee for His
• 20:01
  body. It does.
• 20:01
  The body would not see corruption.
• 20:03
  This was literally fulfilled though.
• 20:05
  He was in the grave from Friday. His body was raised on the 3rd
• 20:09
  day before any decay could set in.
• 20:12
  It's the ultimate proof that he is the Holy One of God.
• 20:15
  Death couldn't hold him. Impossible that it should hold
• 20:17
  Him. His resurrection is the divine
• 20:20
  stamp of approval on His finished work as our surety.
• 20:23
  So the final outcome of all of this, his perfect obedience, his
• 20:27
  suffering, his resurrection, is just absolute triumph.
• 20:31
  And because he secured that victory, all the blessings flow
• 20:33
  directly to the believer, Our security, our inheritance, our
• 20:37
  future joy. This last section of the Psalm
• 20:39
  uses some really powerful imagery, translating this
• 20:43
  spiritual wealth into almost legal terms.
• 20:46
  It does. Look at verse 6.
• 20:47
  The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.
• 20:50
  Yeah, I have a goodly heritage. The lines refer to the old
• 20:54
  practice of using ropes to measure and divide land by lot.
• 20:57
  So our spiritual inheritance has been measured out for us by a
• 21:01
  what? A divine surveyor.
• 21:03
  Yeah, that's a perfect way to put it.
• 21:04
  Our portion has been predestined and assigned by sovereign
• 21:07
  Providence, and the result isn't barren rock.
• 21:09
  It's pleasant places, a goodly heritage.
• 21:12
  And that heritage is secure. We don't have to worry about the
• 21:14
  property line shifting. That's the greatest comfort.
• 21:17
  The text says, Thou maintainest my lot.
• 21:20
  Some translation say Jehovah himself maintains our lot in the
• 21:24
  world. We have to maintain our own
• 21:25
  property. But here Almighty God Himself
• 21:28
  steps in to secure the believer status.
• 21:30
  Forever. Our inheritance is upheld by the
• 21:32
  Lord, not by our own weak grasp. And that security changes
• 21:36
  everything, especially how we view death.
• 21:39
  The Psalm talks about a whole person, joy, the glad heart, the
• 21:43
  rejoicing glory, which is the tongue, the organ of praise, and
• 21:47
  the flesh resting in hope. So the body isn't excluded from
• 21:51
  this triumph, the sources say. Death is transformed into a kind
• 21:54
  of deep rest. Entirely transformed, the
• 21:56
  believer's death is compared to a person going to bed.
• 21:59
  They are resting their flesh among the clods as they now do
• 22:02
  upon their couches, knowing they're covered by the covenant
• 22:04
  blessing Christ secured and. What about that prison breaker
• 22:07
  analogy? We can come back to that.
• 22:09
  For the believer, the grave is just the outer prison for the
• 22:12
  butter, but the core promise of Psalm 16 is that the inner
• 22:16
  prison of corruption is forever barred to God's Holy One.
• 22:19
  And to us through him. Through him, because he didn't
• 22:24
  see decay, he shattered the bonds of death.
• 22:27
  His resurrection is the guarantee of our future rising.
• 22:30
  We'll see temporary corruption, yes, but we will rise to
• 22:33
  everlasting life because he went first.
• 22:37
  This all culminates in that breathtaking final verse that
• 22:40
  will show me the path of life. And the original language there
• 22:43
  is so intimate. This path isn't a broad public
• 22:46
  highway. The word is Samita, a small,
• 22:49
  almost private footpath. A private escort from the king
• 22:52
  himself. Guiding us personally out of the
• 22:54
  land of the dying and into the land of the living.
• 22:57
  Jesus was the first to walk that path from the dead, and now he
• 23:00
  guides us along it. That's interesting, You'd think
• 23:02
  the way to heaven would be a Grand Rd.
• 23:03
  Why a small footpath? I think it highlights the
• 23:06
  personal nature of self. The means of getting there is
• 23:09
  singular through Christ alone, and the journey involves
• 23:12
  personal guidance. You are known, you are counted,
• 23:15
  you are LED. And the end of that path is the
• 23:17
  closest possible relationship with God.
• 23:19
  Yes, standing in God's presence literally before his face.
• 23:24
  This is what motivated Christ and this presence results in
• 23:27
  fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore.
• 23:30
  You're finally being God's right hand.
• 23:32
  The position of ultimate dignity, safety, and constant
• 23:35
  happiness. It's the seat of supreme honor
• 23:37
  that Christ has taken, and He invites us to share it.
• 23:40
  And that joy, as one commentator Trap put it, is without measure,
• 23:44
  mixture or end. An inexhaustible pure supply.
• 23:48
  So this deep dive has really confirmed that Psalm 16 isn't
• 23:51
  just a collection of pious hopes.
• 23:53
  It's a prophetic portrait painted by the Spirit long
• 23:56
  before the king was born. And the key features of that
• 23:59
  masterpiece? The perfect goodness, the
• 24:01
  imperishable body. They belong only to Christ.
• 24:04
  And I think the crucial take away for you listening is the
• 24:07
  structural certainty of our faith.
• 24:08
  It's not built on shifting emotions, but on the solid
• 24:11
  historical Apostolic interpretation of Scripture.
• 24:13
  When Peter and Paul say this Psalm is about Christ's
• 24:16
  resurrection, they guarantee our spiritual heritage is as
• 24:19
  permanent and as priceless as gold.
• 24:21
  And one final thought for you to take away that victim title
• 24:24
  suggests a pattern. The song starts with trouble,
• 24:27
  but always ends in triumph. So consider this.
• 24:30
  If you set the Lord always before you, if you try to look
• 24:33
  Him in the face even in your darkest times, think about how
• 24:36
  that discipline can cause even your most challenging night
• 24:39
  seasons to produce internal counsel.
• 24:42
  A process modeled perfectly by Christ.
• 24:44
  Which guarantees that your personal path, secured by His
• 24:47
  victory, must pass through hope on its way to eternal joy.
• 24:51
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into Psalm 16 on
• 24:54
  Reformed thinking.