THE MAN SUITABLE TO GOD
[p. 199] THE MAN SUITABLE TO GOD
In Psalm 14 you read, in a sense, the culmination of confusion and wickedness. The passage is quoted in Romans 3. When the apostle is taking a survey of the condition of man in every position he quotes from this psalm to show what man is at his best condition here; the conclusion at which God arrived was: “There is none that doeth good, no, not one”, Romans 3:12. It is in that sense the climax of the contrariety and evil of man down here on earth.
I think in Psalm 15 the Spirit of God begins on another line, a line which we all have to learn.
Psalm 2 and Psalm 8 are two remarkable psalms. God’s King and God’s Son in the former — what is of God; in the latter, the Son of man under whom God in His purpose has been pleased to put all things; and in connection with it the glory which belongs to Christ. The three titles constitute His glory: Son of David, Son of God, Son of man. The purpose of God, and the glory of Christ are the burden and light of the first fourteen psalms. The more sense we have of these, the more sensible we become of the contrariety of everything down here. If saints were to be occupied with the counsels of God and the glory of the Lord according to divine counsel we should be increasingly conscious of the contrariety of everything down here.
The psalms which intervene are all descriptive of the contrariety of man, till it culminates in Psalm 14: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”. If God has been pleased to give us any light in regard to His counsel and the glory of the Lord we shall become deeply conscious of the state of things down here. Man is utterly opposed to it. So Psalm 15 raises the question, Where is the man to come from [p. 200] who will stand before God and who is going to stand in Jehovah’s tabernacle? The man who is suitable to God. Psalm 14 closes everything up. You may have the counsel of God and the glory of the Lord, but what is the good of it if there is no man to come into it and be blessed under it? “They are all gone out of the way”.
In Psalm 8 you get “the last Adam”. You want another thought to come in to complete the truth; you want a man. The answer to the requirements of Psalm 15 is found in Psalm 16, and therefore it gives a completely new point of departure. I come to the Man who is to be blessed in the light of the Lord, the Man who is to stand in the light of the Lord.
When you come to Psalm 22 you find He has companions: “In the midst of the congregation”, Psalm 22:22. There is expansion. Redemption comes in, and Christ stands in the midst of the assembly. Then when you come to Psalm 40 you find He puts into practice the whole will of God.
In Psalm 16 we are looking at the Lord in the place He has taken as Man in the presence of God to answer to the requirements of God as to the Man who is fitted to stand in Jehovah’s presence. “Who shall dwell in thy holy hill”, Psalm 15:1. Christ has taken that ground. It is most wonderful!
What I want to show you is that this is a new starting-point; everything has to take its character from the place Christ has taken as Man in the presence of God. I will tell you what I see in Christ in two or three words from Scripture. I see all the light of God in Christ; Christ is the revelation of God, and all the light which God has been pleased to give comes out in Christ. I see another thought in His having become Man: He is Man in God’s presence in perfection. I see Him dwelling in that light, living in it, Man to perfection according to the thought of God — that is what Christ is as Man. It is a point of the very [p. 201] greatest moment. Everything starts from that, and every family in heaven and upon earth is named after the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; it is the new starting-point. Christ is the great centre, and men are formed after that centre.
I come now to the detail in Psalm 16. “In that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God” Romans 6:10. I want to show you from this psalm what I think life to God is. It contemplates the Lord in respect to what He is in regard to God.
Now what I see in the ways of God is this, if God was to bring blessing about down here there must be a Man before Him. To begin with, God must be completely glorified in Man down here and Satan must be completely defeated. The ground down here was to be held for God completely in a Man. That is the starting-point, I believe, of God’s ways, so that Satan should be defeated in the very scene of his power. The earth is the scene of his power; he is the prince of the power of the air. Satan had ruined the first man, but there is a Man presented in Christ in whom God establishes glory and Satan is defeated. I can understand it would have been possible for God to sweep man off the earth and create another race, but that did not suit God; His way was recovery, and Satan was to be defeated in the scene of his power.
This psalm is full of life — life according to God — life morally. The beginning is an indication of the place the Lord takes — Jehovah is His Lord. “Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee”, Psalm 16:2. What it really means is, He does not take the place of God but of man who can call Jehovah ‘Lord’.
Now another point comes out, that He associates Himself with the saints, “in the earth and to the excellent”, Psalm 16:3; He says: “In whom is all my delight”. He takes them for companions. I can understand someone saying, Does not that contradict what you have been saying as to Christ being the starting-point [p. 202] as Man, because He finds those with whom He can be associated? But I think even before Christ came God was forming saints on what was to be — on Christ. What formed saints in Old Testament days was the promise of God, but Christ was the Heir of promise, the Vessel of promise. They were certainly formed on Christ — in that character.
I see another thing: He was the Man from heaven, the heavenly Man; the character is heavenly. I see in Christ the germ of every family, whether past, present or future. He was the Vessel and Heir of promise; they said, “This is the heir: come, let us kill him”, Mark 12:7.
He was also “the living bread which came down from heaven”, John 6:51. It is a wonderful thing to see what Christ was as the heavenly Man down here on earth! God was always working and acting on one line and when Christ comes in He works on the same line. Perfection of communion; oneness of mind! The Father was working in view of Christ coming, and when He came, He found these saints and He says, “In whom is all my delight”, Psalm 16:3! I do not doubt that historically it refers to the place Christ took at His baptism; the godly people at that time were baptised in Jordan confessing their sins.
Christ was baptised to fulfil all righteousness, but He identifies Himself with those who were sensible of the condition of Israel. He calls them “the saints”, and “the excellent”. They were poor things after all They were not very different from what we have been. I do not doubt they were more lowly than we may have been, for I think we have been inflated with spiritual intelligence; we have come to think too much of ourselves. They were lowly, and yet in the eye of Christ they were the saints in whom was all His delight. Christ always looked at things according to God, and what He saw was not what was peculiar and contrary, but what was of God. It is a very happy [p. 203] thing for us if we learn to look at people in that light and to estimate them according to the work of God in them. That is the light in which Christ saw the saints.
Then He will have nothing to do with the violent (verse 4); He was entirely apart from evil; and in the rest of the psalm you get the wonderful way in which Jehovah was His portion. That is what made me say the burden of the psalm was life according to God. He had not to turn to anything else: “The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup”, Psalm 16:5. We often want a little bit of portion in some other inheritance. There was nothing of that kind in regard to Christ. It has often been said as to the Lord here upon earth: He began in a manger, in His pathway He had not where to lay His head, and He passed out of the world upon a cross. He had not a penny; when He wanted one He had to say, ‘Show me one’; or to send Peter to get a fish! But He could say, “Thou art my portion”! “I have a goodly heritage”, Psalm 16:6! I wonder how far we can say that? It is a man in the full light of Jehovah.
The gospel is the full light of God; are you content with that and nothing else? No man is powerfully affected by anything except by the knowledge of God; that is the one principle and there is no other. A man may .be affected up to a certain point by other things, but I do not think anything will affect a man powerfully but the knowledge of God. Christ was, by reason of what He was, in the full light of God. He could say, “I have a goodly heritage”, Psalm 16:6. Are you content with it? Personally, I think I am beginning to be more so. We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage”, Psalm 16:6. A man who could say that would not be badly off! He would live in the sunshine of divine love. That is where Christ lived, in the consciousness of the Father’s love. The christian [p. 204] has the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit, and he can say, “I have a goodly heritage”. It is all life.
The next point is He had not to turn to man for wisdom (verse 7). It is a wonderful verse because there are very few of us so free of man that we do not turn to man for counsel: “I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel”, Psalm 16:7. He never turned to man; He found Jehovah enough for Him; He was in the blessed light of Jehovah; Jehovah maintained His lot. There is a very beautiful expression in John’s gospel: “As I hear, I judge”, chapter 5:30. He did not judge by the seeing of the eye as He might have done, but His judgment of man, His thought, came from above. He could have judged them well enough Himself, but He says: “I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel”, Psalm 16:7. What a wonderful expression for the Lord to use! He had no heritage as Man, no wisdom from man, no counsel from man, all from Jehovah.
I get a further point in verse 8. Jehovah was His power; Jehovah was His support: “He is at my right hand”, Psalm 16:8. He had three things from Jehovah — a heritage, counsel and support. He was Man to perfection in the full light of the goodness of God. “There is none good but one”, Mark 10:18, He said, but He was in the full light of divine goodness and all His resource was in Jehovah. If you take that to heart, if you have those three things, I do not think you are badly off even in the midst of this world. If God is at your right hand you will not be moved. I think it is the most wonderful psalm that can possibly be! The most wonderful opening up of divine perfection in a Man! He finds everything in Jehovah; that is the beauty of the psalm, and Jehovah comes down to Him here.
I speak of these things because He has traced a pathway in which we are to walk. Do you think that you are not to find these things in Jehovah — a goodly [p. 205] heritage, counsel and support? They are just the very things you are to find. It is our privilege to walk in the same path in the light of God. It is very different in regard to us in one sense, because naturally we are not at all in the light of God, but God has revealed Himself to us in Christ and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts Romans 5:5. God shines out to us in that way, and then we walk in the light of it. “We walk in the light as he is in the light”. Christ brought the light of God, but He was in it and therefore Man to perfection. He knew He had His resources in God and nowhere else.
The psalm is one which teems with life. It is a wonderful thing. Satan could not touch Him: “The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30), and that because He had everything in Jehovah and Jehovah had everything in Him. Satan might come as a subtle tempter or as a roaring lion, but he had nothing in Him. It is a most wonderful path! God has been pleased to come out fully in the light; we are brought into it and to be down here supported by Jehovah and looking to God for everything. I deplore to see saints looking to man for everything here. I have been turned from it for many a long day myself. It is a wonderful thing to be brought to find everything in God.
I turn now to verses 9-11. Three things are spoken of in verse 9, His heart, His glory, His flesh; they were, in a certain sense; what constituted Christ. “My heart”, the secret of His affections — His glory, there was more about Him than appeared outwardly, and so with the christian. “My glory rejoiceth”, Psalm 16:9. The psalm takes Him right up to the right hand of God. He had found what it was to have God at His right hand down here, but when you come to Hebrews you find He is at the right hand of God; Hebrews 12:2. It is not merely a man treading a path in great haste and going up to the right hand of God.
[p. 206] The essence of the psalm is what He found in God down here. I would not be without this psalm because it expresses so perfectly what a man can find in Jehovah in a world like this — Jehovah his unfailing portion. Satan has been completely defeated and God completely glorified in Man. A Man has been here upon earth who has found His portion exclusively in Jehovah, outside of man altogether. That is the path Christ inaugurated, and that is Man to perfection, and that is the starting-point of everything.
I venture to say again, every family is to take its character from Him; nothing of the first man is to abide in the issue and result of God’s ways. The first man has been set aside in order that God might introduce the second, not merely personally in Christ, but that everything might take its character from the second Man. What do you get in regard to us? “The second man out of heaven”, 1 Corinthians 15:47; and what follows? “As the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones”, 1 Corinthians 15:48. How could it be otherwise? How could any but a heavenly man be independent of man and find his portion in Jehovah?
Now at the close of the psalm (verses 10, 11) we find another feature. It is a great thing not only to have a portion in heaven, but to learn the good of piety down here. I find in the New Testament, “Piety is profitable for everything”, 1 Timothy 4:8. There is such a thing for the christian as gladness down here and for the ‘glory’ to rejoice down here. I do not think it is merely a man hurrying through and finding nothing here. It is a great thing to find your resource in Jehovah and for your tongue to be glad. The path leads on in our case to heavenly glory. To Him at Jehovah’s right hand there were pleasures for evermore.
In closing I would draw your attention to a point or two in the succeeding psalm (see verses 2-14, 13-15). Psalm 17 is not so exclusively applicable to Christ as Psalm 16; it may be more or less the experience of [p. 207] others. But there was a great question between Him and man. When Christ came, man was in opposition. There is still the question between Him and man, and what I see in this psalm is, Christ does not decide it for Himself, but leaves His sentence to Jehovah. I think Jehovah has given the sentence; He whom men have rejected God has exalted to His right hand.
The point of Psalm 15 to Psalm 17 is thus different from the previous psalms. It is no longer the divine counsel, the glory of the Lord; all that has been fully established, but we come to the other side, that Christ is the complete answer to the question: Who is going to abide in Jehovah’s tabernacle? If man is going to be placed in relationship to God and to be happy with God, the starting-point must be Christ. It is Christ; and you must be prepared to let everything go which is not Christ.
This is an experience which we have to learn. In Romans 6 I learn death upon me; in Romans 7 I learn death in me-a much deeper experience. I can accept Marah, death upon me; but it is a much deeper thing to learn there is no good in one. What then? There is only one thing for me now, and that is to find all my portion in Christ. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” Romans 8:2. I have to find in Christ my starting-point, and everything has to go that is not of Him. Everything of Him will stand, whether in the church or in Israel to come; and nothing but what is of Christ will stand. Christ is the One who is to stand in the presence of Jehovah.
You get two blessed things in Christ: the full light of God, all His glory made known, and His love made good to us by the Spirit.
And I see in Christ Man according to God. We want to lay hold of these things! Then I can see the wisdom of God with regard to the world. I am not surprised at all one hears, but one can leave all that.
God’s starting-point is Christ and He is working all to one blessed end, that He will fill all things. I wonder if all of us are prepared for what we get here — to be so independent of man as to find all our support in Christ — Himself our heritage and support? It is a great thing to be brought to that, and I pray that God may bring us to it in His grace.