Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Psalms 89:19 - 89:37

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Paul Kretzmann Commentary - Psalms 89:19 - 89:37


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The Rule of the Messiah

v. 19. Then Thou spakest in vision to Thy holy one,
to His saint and servant, namely, the prophet Nathan, who acted as God's representative in dealing with David, 2 Samuel 7, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty, upon a great champion; I have exalted one chosen out of the people, the immediate reference being to David, the son of Jesse, but the implied reference to David's Son and David's Lord, the Messiah. It is a distinguishing mark of prophecy often to identify events and persons near at hand with those at a far distance according to human understanding. We must always remember that with the Lord there are no reckonings of time, that all events, as far as He is concerned, happen in an everlasting now.

v. 20. I have found David, My Servant; with My holy oil have I anointed Him.

v. 21. with whom My hand shall be established; Mine arm also shall strengthen Him.
The Messiah, anointed with the oil of holiness, with the Holy Ghost, with the fullness of God's divinity, would be sustained throughout His ministry in His state of humiliation by the almighty power of God communicated to His human nature.

v. 22. The enemy shall not exact upon Him,
gaining power over Him, nor the son of wickedness afflict Him; although the son of iniquity, Satan, with his host, would attack the Messiah, he would not succeed in humbling Him, in gaining the victory over Him.

v. 23. And I will beat down His foes before His face and plague,
strike down, them that hate Him; all those who take the part of the arch-enemy of Christ and show lasting signs of hatred against the atonement of the Messiah would share the fate of their champion, of the murderer and liar from the beginning.

v. 24. But My faithfulness,
in fulfillment of all the promises of old, and My mercy, the merciful kindness by which the redemption of mankind would be effected, shall be with Him; and in My name shall His horn, emblem of aggressive strength, be exalted, as the Father would lay all His enemies at His footstool.

v. 25. I will set His hand also in the sea,
in the almighty power of the Deity communicated to His human nature, and His right hand in the rivers, imparting to Him the unlimited authority of divine power. Jesus Christ, even in the state of His humiliation, was the almighty God, the Creator and Preserver of the world.

v. 26. He shall cry unto Me,
the Messiah expressly calling God by this name, Thou art My Father, My God, and the Rock of My salvation, His Father by virtue of His eternal generation out of the essence of God, His God by virtue of His true humanity, and in this capacity also the Rock of His salvation, to whom He addressed Himself again and again in a plea for assistance in His work of expiating the sins of mankind.

v. 27. Also I will make Him My First-born,
God's only-begotten Son, Psa_2:7, higher than the kings of the earth; for the Messiah, as the almighty Ruler of the universe, is above them all.

v. 28. My mercy will I keep for Him forevermore,
preserving it for the Messiah as a treasure which He should enjoy in due time, with the completion of His work, and My covenant shall stand fast with Him, firm and unshakable.

v. 29. His seed also,
His spiritual offspring, those born again by faith in His atonement, will I make to endure forever and His throne as the days of heaven, the kingdom of His mercy and glory lasting through eternity. In the next section the close parallelism between this psalm and 2Sa_7:12-29 is again apparent.

v. 30. If His children forsake My Law,
if the Messiah's spiritual offspring, those who have once accepted Jesus as their Savior, will then again reject His Word. and walk not in My judgments, in refusing to lead a life in conformity with the rules of sanctification established by Him;

v. 31. if they break,
profane, My statutes, the precepts of His covenant, and keep not My commandments, the general obligations laid upon all men;

v. 32. then will I visit their transgression with the rod,
with a severe punishment for their defection, and their iniquity with stripes, His intention being to bring them to a realization of their sins. But this apostasy on the part of some believers will not change the counsel of God's love.

v. 33. Nevertheless My loving-kindness,
His merciful favor, will I not utterly take from Him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail, the truth of His promises concerning the imparting of the blessings to all who believe in the Messiah would stand secure.

v. 34. My covenant will I not break,
that contained even in the first proclamation of the Gospel in the Garden of Eden and repeated so often since, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips, in setting forth before men the salvation in the Messiah.

v. 35. Once have I sworn by My holiness,
in a solemn oath by the essential purity of His essence, that I will not lie unto David, to whom this great Messianic promise had been given,

v. 36. His seed,
in the person of the Messiah, shall endure forever, and His throne as the sun before Me, that is, throughout eternity.

v. 37. It shall be established forever as the moon and as a faithful witness in heaven,
for steadfast testimony. Selah. This is a glorious assurance of the unchangeable nature of God's covenant with men, that He will never alter His Gospel promises.