God’s Blessing Precedes Godliness

How can descendants of Adam, fallen human beings (Genesis 3), delight in the law of God? Who would ever meditate upon it day and night? How can sinners keep the two great commandments in the law: to love God with all their heart and mind and soul, and to love their heighbour as our themself (Matthew 22:35-40); and keep all the moral law involved in properly keeping these two great commandments?¹ Their heart is as the Lord Jesus Christ describes it: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man” (Matthew 15:19-20). And where there are “none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10), there is no inclination to become righteous before God, or to become part of the “congregation of the righteous” that shall “stand in the judgment” on the last day, forgiven by God for their sins (Psalm 1).

God’s blessing must necessarily precede godliness in fallen sinners. We must infer that the man, woman or child who becomes the blessed man of Psalm 1 is already a transformed man, since he now delights in the law of the LORD as only those people who have a new heart can. He is godly because he is blessed by God; it can never happen the other way round. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” says the Lord Jesus Christ (John 3:3).

We need the work of God in our souls that Ezekiel prophesied of: “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20).

As the apostle Paul teaches of the Christian, “And you hath he [God, the Father of glory] quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)” (Ephesians 1:17; 2:1-4).

Without the blessing of God, the man whose life we consider in the first Psalm would have remained like other men, who are in the land of spiritual famine, drought, barrenness, and death; where they are unable to produce any fruit or leaves at all, let alone keep them from withering; and where nothing they do shall prosper. (Understand that this Psalm is teaching us about spiritual things.) But the blessed man is not driven away “like chaff” to perish, as they are.

God Must First Bless

Some people think that if they can be good, if they can do good, then God will reward them by making them like this prosperous tree. Others deny that God must first bless people in order to make them godly; they argue that the first Psalm (and all the Old Testament Scriptures) cannot be “Christianised” or “evangelicalized” in this way. But it is they who are contradicting the truth, not us. Can you keep God’s law and become righteous and worthy of eternal life by your own efforts? Will you ever delight in the law of the LORD, and make it your meditation day and night?

It was Moses, or rather, the Holy Spirit through Moses, who taught the children of Israel, “Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them” (Deuteronomy 27:26). The apostle Paul’s doctrine, also given by inspiration of God, is no different: “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10).

What about those places in the Bible where the order seems to be flipped? Does the Holy Spirit teach works-salvation anywhere? No, there is nothing in Old Testament Scriptures or in the New that contradicts the gospel. Nothing that says any man made his own way into heaven without salvation by God’s grace alone, through God-given hew-heart’s faith alone in the Son of God, the Messiah alone.

To give one example: the twenty-fourth Psalm says, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation” (Psalm 24:3-5). Does this Psalm say that the man must first have clean hands and a pure heart, and must keep them clean and pure, so that God will approve of him and give him the blessing he deserves? No, because there is no man, except for the Lord Jesus Christ and those whom he saves and cleanses from sin by his blood (Matthew 26:28; 1 John 1:7), who has clean hands and a pure heart.

It is “the God of his salvation” who saves this man and gives him righteousness, not his own hands or his heart. If there are morally clean hands and pure hearts in any fallen, sinful descendants of Adam, this can only be because God has given them new hearts and washed away their sins. Wherever there is a pure, clean, circumcised heart, this is God’s work (Psalm 51:10; Deuteronomy 30:6; Jeremiah 24:7; Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26; see also 2 Corinthians 5:17).

In the Psalm immediately before the 24^th, it is written that it is Jehovah who restores the souls of his people, and leads them in paths of righteousness for his own name’s sake (Psalm 23:3). Soul-restoration and being led by God in a righteous life-walk is all part of the blessing of God in salvation.

But the blessing being spoken of in Psalm 24 is the further, greater blessing given to such a saved man. It is the consummating, perfect state of blessedness in heaven itself, dwelling in that city where the King of Glory, the LORD of hosts rides in triumphantly after securing total victory over all his enemies, through the eternal gates and everlasting doors (vv.7-10).

God’s Blessing Is Only Found in Christ

One sin caused the fall of mankind, and the expulsion of Adam from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:14). And one sin prevented Moses from being permitted to enter the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 32:51-52). But here is a blessed man in the blessed land; he is not in the fallen, dead-in-sins state any more, but he is drinking from the “rivers of water” that flow from God.

God’s blessing² is upon this man’s life. He has God’s blessing manifested in his prospering in “whatsoever he doeth” (in everything he does). This allegory is not about physical health and wealth. However, some people whom God truly blesses may also be blessed with health, or wealth, or both health and wealth. Many healthy and wealthy people in this world are among the most openly wicked. You may know some of them; the names of many more are in the news. What they have is not the blessing of God; and if they die in their sins then they will never have it. Whereas the blessed people of God may be poor, weak, frail, suffering from imprisonment, torture, disease or injury, and they may be on their death bed. You may know some of them personally.

The blessing from God in the first Psalm means the spiritual blessing of salvation, and all that is included in salvation. The happy state of this man, his desirable residence beside the “rivers of water”, and all his prosperity, is spiritual. We do not understand Psalm 1 if we think that it teaches an obedience-prosperity “gospel”—that is not the gospel. This Psalm does not speak of a system of self-help, or personal development from cursedness to blessedness, ungodliness to godliness, spiritual death to spiritual life. It does not teach works-religion or self-salvation at all. That is not taught anywhere in the Bible.

God is the source from whom all blessings flow. He is the Blesser. The rivers of water, the fruit, the unwithering green leaves, the prosperous growth and fruitfulness, and the membership in the congregation of the righteous—this all comes from God; it is all the blessing of God. It is not that the man, while he was previously planted in a barren, dry, dead place, showed signs of green, or proved there was something good within him; and then for these promising signs God selected him for transplantation to the blessed land beside the rivers of water. No. And neither did he uproot himself from the cursed land and then roll or walk into the blessed land to reestablish himself there by his own work or power. It is all God’s work of grace, not of debt or reward for loving or obeying God’s law.

The first Psalm does not teach us how to get into the wonderful state of being blessed by God, and is does not hint that there is such a way within the power or reach of the fallen men. But it presents how things are with the people of God. “Blessed is the man”, present tense. Or as we have it in the Scottish Metrical Psalter: “That man hath [has] perfect blessedness”. This is their present reality. And this is how it shall be with them forever, as this first Psalm will teach us in its concluding verses.

The first Psalm is about the saved man, the man saved by the Saviour, the Messiah himself. The blessed man is saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Yes, this is true, though he is in the Old Covenant.

That there is this blessing from God—is the gospel. This blessing can only be bestowed upon fallen sinners by the covenant of grace and the Mediator of that covenant.

The Rivers of Living Water

The “rivers of water” that Jehovah plants the blessed man beside (Psalm 1:3) are actually one great river described in the plural to emphasise its magnificent flowing abundance, allegorically represents the full covenant blessing. The Hebrew word for “river” can also mean a stream or channel, but here we are to picture a great abundance of waters. A similar allegory can be found in Isaiah, where the LORD says: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters … Come to me and drink … hear and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David” (Isaiah 55:1-3).

Come to God and drink the waters: the everlasting covenant, the sure mercies of David. Be planted by God beside the rivers of water that produce abundant fruitful prosperity in the blessed man and the congregation of the righteous, who stand before God in the judgment. These are the same waters, since they produce the same outcome. And they are the none other than the living water that the Lord Jesus Christ gives his people.

“Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:9-14).

God has called this man in Psalm 1 to the rivers of water, and God by his sovereign grace has gifted him with the undeserved and unmerited favour that includes every blessing that flows from his throne. The blessed tree’s planting, watering, growth and prospering in everything is symbolic of the blessed man’s justification, sanctification, and ultimate glorification in Christ, the Lamb of God. There is only this one way of salvation, and only this one Saviour (Psalm 2:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5; Galatians 3:19-25). The first Psalm does not teach anyone another way. There is only one way that leads to standing in the congregation of the righteous before God in the judgment, followed by Heaven forevermore.

The rivers of water that provide spiritual life and prosperity is brought into the soul the Holy Spirit, whom Christ gives to those who come to him. Jesus directly quotes from the first Psalm: “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” (John 7:38-39). Do you see how Jesus clearly quoted from Psalm 1 to claim and prove that he was the Son of God?

Therefore, to drink of this water in Psalm 1—is to turn to Christ and believe in him. Taking up these rivers of water symbolises hearing and believing in the Messiah. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). Those who are in Christ Jesus shall not come into condemnation because they have been given its opposite:³ they are justified, i.e. righteous, as the congregation of the righteous is righteous.

In the Book of Revelation, this same great covenantal blessing is again symbolised as a river. It is a symbol that we understand because it has been copied from the earlier Scriptures that we have mentioned above: “a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1-2).

This living water is still being sent forth into all the world—to Israel, and to Samaria (as to the Samaritan woman in John 4), and to the Gentiles (all the nations of the world); and it is still bringing repentance and remission of sins (cf. Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8; 11:18; 20:21).

The Same Rivers of Water All Along

The Lord Jesus Christ sent the Holy Spirit to indwell his people after he was put to death on the cross, raised again the third day, and ascended into heaven in glory to his throne at the right hand of God (John 14:16-29; 16:7; Acts 1:9; 2:2 ff.; Ephesians 4:8). Christ’s giving of the Holy Spirit has provided the New Testament Church with the full measure of the spiritual revelation, gifts and power of the Spirit. However, Christ himself coming in the “fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4; Mark 1:15) to die for the sins of his people does not mean that those of his people who lived and died before the incarnation were not saved, or not included in him. They were, and are, also covered by the Messiah’s one atoning sacrifice that takes away sins.

Jesus has saved them from their sins. And he saves his people even today, along with them: “And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11; see also 22:32).

Similarly, this giving of the Holy Spirit consequent to Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension does not prove that the Holy Spirit was also gifted by God to the Old Testament saints. For not one fallen descendant of Adam of himself can seek God, delight in God, hunger and thirst for righteousness, or repent of his sins, or have righteousness imputed or imparted to them, or have the presence of God with him, in his soul—unless he or she is saved.

In the first Psalm we are taught of how Old Testament saints loved the law of the LORD, and this is also taught in later Psalms (e.g. Psalm 19; 63:1-4; Psalm 51:11; 119; etc.). And God the Holy Spirit’s presence with the people of God is necessarily implied in the Aaronic blessing: “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them” (Numbers 6:22-27).⁴

We also remember those people whose faith and godliness was recorded in the Gospels, some of whom died before Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension and sending of the Holy Spirit (recorded in Acts 2): namely, John the Baptist, his parents Zacharias and Elizabeth, Simeon the prophet, and Anna the prophetess (Luke 1). Doubtless there were many others not mentioned by name. Others, such as Mary the mother of Jesus, whose spirit rejoiced in God her Saviour, outlived Christ’s crucifixion and continued to believe in him (Luke 1:46; John 19.26; Acts 1:14). Not forgetting the eleven disciples, the many who did not “go away” from following Christ, the hundred and twenty who gathered in one place, and the hundreds who saw Christ after his resurrection (Matthew 28:16; John 6:67-68; Acts 1:15; 1 Corinthians 15:6).

Their faith in the Messiah, and their godliness, as we have said, all required a gracious work of God in their souls by the Holy Spirit. And these also are in the one congregation of the righteous, in Christ in the covenant of grace, that shall stand before God in the judgment.

When we Christians sing Psalm 1 we are not, as it were, reading back into the Psalm the New Testament allegory of some different rivers of water that Christ taught us about. It is all one and the same river; that flows from the same source; that has the same effect in the soul, welling up and flowing out into the life lived; and that continues on to the same everlasting life. “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”—“but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”.

This immense water of which Christ speaks in both Psalm 1 and in John’s Gospel is symbolic of the great blessing of God in the man, woman and child of God, welling up within their soul and affecting their whole way of life and lasting forever.

The blessed man shall live the life of spiritual growth, flourishing, increasing and prospering even in the midst of this cursed world—because he has come to Christ and he drinks from him. In this world, the Christian already has the abundant and full blessing of God, though he or she benefits from it in instalments. It is God’s work of grace, wrought within this soul by the Holy Spirit, that the blessed man is enabled to delight in the law of the LORD. This law he delights in no longer condemns him, because the Saviour has saved him from his sins and has taken his sins away (Matthew 1:21; John 1:29; 1 John 1:7; Isaiah 53). The law of God that he now delights in continues to instruct him in the godly life.

God’s blessing upon the man, woman, child of God in the here-and-now promises them what they shall have and what they shall be in the perfect state to come. The Scottish Metrical Version is correct in translating Psalm 1:1 as “That man hath perfect blessedness … .”

The Transformation of the Heart

The first Psalm lifts our eyes up from one particular blessed man to view the whole congregation of the righteous (Psalm 1:5), the people of God whether under the Old Covenant or the New: the one people who shall stand before God in the judgment: they shall not perish but have eternal life of perfect blessedness in heaven (vv.5-6; John 3:16). But before that, while still in this world, they are already the congregation of the righteous.

While they live in this world, all who become true members of this congregation increasingly look like this blessed man, this flourishing and prospering tree, by being blessed by God the same way. In Psalm 119 we are given the following to sing from our hearts in our prayer and praise to God, for we are all this blessed man: “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day … I cried with my whole heart; hear me, O LORD: I will keep thy statutes. I cried unto thee; save me, and I shall keep thy testimonies. I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried: I hoped in thy word. Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word” (Psalm 119:97; 145-148). Yes, the people of God are all this blessed man.

The psalmist himself was already such a blessed man as this. He was a saved, converted “holy man of God”, as all the writers of the Holy Scriptures were (2 Peter 1:21). This psalmist is even now among the “spirits of just men made perfect”, as all who are saved shall be (Hebrews 12:23). But while in this world he shunned ungodliness; he truly loved God’s law; he possessed of every spiritual blessing from God in these rivers of water. And when we look back at the Scriptural record, we see him as one member of that “cloud of witnesses” that ran the race before us, whose testimony encourages us on the same course (Hebrews 12:1).

He had the the early green leaves and the fruit already growing, but not the perfection in this world. Increasingly in his earthly life, and completely in the future glory that lies ahead for the psalmist and all who are blessed by God, “whatsoever he doeth shall prosper”. This all-inclusive “whatsoever he doeth” promises the perfection of the shall-be state. All those whom God blesses shall one day stand in the judgment, where they will be accepted and welcomed by God into the eternal state—and where they will continue to drink from that same great river of blessedness that have been taking in already. For in Heaven, it is still Christ who everlastingly sustains them in their glorified state. But before that, in the now, here we drink from Christ and we grow in grace. Here we bear fruit unto God, here we delight in God’s law and we keep it, and here we prosper in his blessing upon us. Or we should, and we shall, if we are his people and he is our God. Yes, even today.

To emphasise this again: in describing the singular “he”, the blessed man who shall stand like a tree, he is simultaneously describing the “they”. The blessed man is put for all the people of God. His state in this world is their state in this world. Thus the Psalmist’s words speak of the present blessed state of himself together with those around him in this household, fellowship, and people: they are already the congregation of the righteous, and they are all the blessed man.

We Shall Be like Him

But what about the afflictions, trials, temptations, remaining sin, and coming death that both the blessed man and the congregation have in this world (unless they are in the last generation before Christ returns; see 1 Thessalonians 4:17)? The first Psalm does not mention that, but later Psalms do, as do other parts of the Bible. We may be struggling in pain and anguish. We may be heavily burdened with worries and stresses and distresses. In our internal war against the lusts of our flesh and our remaining indwelling sin, we may fail to see that we are making any progress in godliness and fruit-bearing, and we may doubt that we are saved. We may be in total despair, when we only look at what we are in ourselves.

In such times we may ask, how can it be said of me that I am in the blessed state? “Blessed is the man who …”—how is that my reality? Could even the psalmist himself compose the first Psalm if he was going through what I am going through?! How does God expect me to sing it? Our comfort at such times is to remember how blessed we are in Christ Jesus.

In his own here-and-now, the psalmist saw the prospering trees that he and all the people of God are growing up into: he saw the congregation taking up the rivers of water, and he saw the green leaves and spiritual fruit that he and they had in small but increasing measure. And he knew that God will have his abundant harvest from each and every one of them. For when the blessed man “bringeth forth his fruit in his season” he is a well-watered and well-favoured tree that is fully laden.

That is how things shall be for all the Lord’s people. And in their here-and-now they are not lifeless, barren, or unfruitful—because of the same rivers of water that they are drinking up. Quite the contrary: this is now for the Lord’s people the well-watered spring and summer of the spiritual life. Their growth phase, though it may be hard to see the growth and the fruit sometimes.

The blessed man is pictured as a tree that shall be full of fruit, none dropped early by insufficient watering, none wasted by disease or insects: he “bringeth forth his fruit in his season”—all his spiritual fruit comes to the harvest (John 15:8; Romans 6:22; 7:4; Galatians 5:22; Philippians 1:1; Hebrews 12:11).

Then, notice that after this harvest it is said of him, “his leaf also shall not wither”—spiritually speaking (not physically speaking) autumn and winter never comes for the blessed man, but he is this way forever (Psalm 1:3).

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him [like Christ, the Son of God]; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).

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1. see the previous article in this series, The Blessed Man, at the section The Two Great Commandments in the Law. ↩︎

2. The word “blessed” in Psalm 1:1 is the Hebrew word רשׁא, ‘esher, which can also mean “happy” (Strong’s Concordance, Hebrew Dictionary, number 835). This has to do with the state or condition of the man, before his feelings. The word implies that he has received the blessing, and that he possesses something to be happy about. ↩︎

3. “‘Condemnation’ is the opposite of justification (cf. Romans 5:16; 8:34) and justification implies the absence of condemnation. Since the justification which is the theme of this epistle is the complete and irreversible justification of the ungodly, it carries with it the annulment of all condemnation.”—John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans. Wm. B. Eerdmans (one volume edition, 1968), commentary at Romans 8:1, p. 274. ↩︎

4. There were also occasionally special fillings of the Spirit (Exodus 31:2; 35:31; Numbers 11:17, 25; Judges 6:34; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14), especially upon the prophets (2 Chronicles 15:1; 20:14; 24:20; Joel 2:28-29; Luke 2:25). ↩︎