The Blessed Man

The Book of Psalms is a God-breathed and God-preserved collection of songs. What was is true of “all scripture” in its origination is still true is true of each of its parts: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). “For whatsoever things were written aforetime” in these Holy Scriptures, including in the Psalms, “were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope” (Romans 15:4).

The Psalms are the whole Bible in a concentrated summary.¹ The doctrine, morality, history, prophecy, life concerns of the people of God, and everything else in the Psalms relate to the whole Bible—both the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Taken together, the Psalms comprise a course of doctrinal, practical and personally experienced truth that God himself has provided for his people to give their full heart’s attention to, and to use in their worship of him.

The more we get into the whole Bible, the more we will get out of the Psalms. And the more we get into the Psalms, the more we will get out of the whole Bible. And especially, the Psalms reveal to us the Messiah, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we would do very well to let them dwell richly in our hearts.²

We must begin our worship of God with the first Psalm. But we must not remain upon its surface, and we must not stop here. Many theologians say that Psalms 1 and 2 serve together as a foundation for the whole Book of Psalms. We will find this to be true, if we get to know them. Let us dig deeply into that foundation, let us learn to appreciate how the first two Psalms prepare us for the whole Psalter, and let us see how they introduce us to some of its most important recurrent themes.

The Righteous Man

When we seek a thorough understanding of the first Psalm, we find the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone deserves the blessing of God, for he alone is without sin. Of himself, therefore, Christ the Son of God is the only righteous man whom we first meet in this Psalm, and whom we meet again and again throughout the Psalms.

Mankind fell into sin in the original sin of Adam; and upon this we each heap up our own lifetime of sins (Genesis 3:6; Romans 5:12; 3:23). Our sins shut our mouths so that we cannot claim to be righteous in ourselves (Romans 3:19; 7:18). “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10; quoting Psalm 14:3), Christ alone excepted. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only man who has never sinned (Hebrews 4:15; 1 John 3:5; 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 2:22).

Some Christians think that only Christ can be seen in Psalm 1, since he is the only righteous man. But it is equally accurate to see the Lord’s people as the righteous man, for they have been made righteous in Christ.

God blesses people who do not deserve the blessing of God in SALVATION. The Saviour’s sacrificial death on the cross is the satisfaction of Divine justice for those whom he saves from their sins (Matthew 1:21). God imputes his own righteousness to his people when he saves them: “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just [i.e. the righteous]³ shall live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17; quoting Habakkuk 2:4). “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Romans 3:21-22). “Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9).

God also imparts his righteousness to his people increasingly while they live in this world, when he gives them a new heart that delights in his moral laws and makes them walk in his ways. God’s work of grace in their souls makes them hunger and thirst after this righteousness from God, with which he increasingly fills them (Matthew 5:6). And they will be perfectly just and glorified in heaven, when they are fully conformed to the image of the Son of God in true righteousness and holiness (Hebrews 12:23; Romans 8:29-30; Ephesians 4:24).

So, true Christians are righteous because they have Christ’s righteousnss imputed to them when God justifies them, and they have it imparted to them by the Holy Spirit in God’s work of grace in their souls in their sanctificaton and eventual glorification.

John Brown of Haddington has a simple and helpful summary of what the Bible teaches concerning the Christian, in his An Help for the Ignorant:⁴

Q. How are these that are united to Christ ordinarily called?
A. Believers, saints, godly, righteous.

Q. Why are they called believers?
A. Because they credit or believe God’s word, and live by faith.

Q. Why are they called saints?
A. Because the are made holy in heart and life, 2 Peter 1:4.

Q. Why are they called godly?
A. Because they fear God, and study to be like him, Matthew 5:48.

Q. Why are they called righteous?
A. Because they are clothed with Chris’s righteousness, and study to practise what is just and righteous, 1 John 3:7.

The just, that is, the righteous, shall live by faith. All who believe in the one Saviour, the Messiah, are made righteous by their salvation.

It is only with faith in Christ and an understanding of this double transaction, this great exchange of our sin upon Christ and Christ’s righteousness upon us, that we can properly participate in singing the first Psalm from our own heart. Or else we are not the blessed man, and we are not the righteous man. If we do not have this saving relationship with Christ—if we are outside of Christ, then we will never drink of these waters like the prosperous tree in this life, and we will not stand before God in the “congregation of the righteous” in the judgment, but we will be among the ungodly that perish (Psalm 1:3, 5-6).

The Prosperous King

But let us also remember to take a good look at Lord Jesus Christ in the first Psalm. Like no other, he is the Man who “walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (v.1)—for he is the One who is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26). His ways are altogether opposed to theirs. He is not with ungodly, with sinners, or with those who scorn God and godliness but he is set against them; and they are set against him (as we see in Psalm 2:2). But like the king that he is—even as the God’s Anointed King, Christ Jesus takes the law of the LORD that he loves and he makes it his life-long study: “his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (v.2; compare Deuteronomy 17:14-20; Joshua 1:8).

The Lord Jesus Christ’s is blessed by God, have no doubt about that. Aand therefore his kingdom shall grow and grow by God’s blessing upon it: “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper” (Psalm 1:3). What does this Blessed Man do, that shall prosper like this great tree with this great abundance of fruit in his harvest season? He is the Son of David, who sits on David’s throne, and he lifts up David’s fallen tabernacle so that all the Gentiles might come in (Acts 15:15-18; Amos 2:11-12).

The increase of his government shall know no end (Isaiah 9:6-7). Be builds his church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever” (Daniel 2:44). So that eventually, all the nations and their kings shall bow before him, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:9-11; compare Psalm 110:1 and Hebrews 10:13).

God the Father gives to God the Son all the nations for his inheritance (Psalm 2:8); and he will be with his church always as she fulfils his Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), ensuring that there shall be: “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9-10). Indeed, it is said of New Jerusalem, the Church, the Lamb’s wife: “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it” (Revelation 21:22-24). Whatsoever the King of kings does shall prosper.

The second Psalm will give us a clear view of the Messiah, the Son of God himself, and it will plainly tell us that the blessing of God is upon “all they that put their trust in him” (Psalm 2:12). We need the second Psalm to more fully reveal to us the Anointed One than we see of him in the first.

The people of God under the Old Covenant looked forward to their Messiah and Saviour in Psalms 1 and 2 and all the Psalms, though they saw him dimly there, compared to we now see him in the Psalms.⁵ For Christ had not yet come to fulfil all righteousness and to give himself as a sacrifice for both their and our sins. And they did not have the later New Testament revelation that we now have. Nonetheless, the Old Testament saints saw and believed in the Messiah before he was “manifest in the flesh”—and they were also saved by him (see Isaiah 53:5-6; Matthew 8:11; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4; Hebrews 11; Revelation 21:9-14).

As Christ himself would later proclaim: as with all the Old Testament Scriptures, the Psalms too “are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). And he has come to fulfil all things “which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms”, concerning himself (Luke 24:44).

The righteous man, blessed man of the Psalms is ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ. But he is also all his people in him, cleansed of their sins and clothed in his righteousness, from both the Old and New Covenants. And it is through Christ that they have the blessing of God upon them, and within them.

That is why we Christians should love the Psalms so much.

The God-Blessed Man

The first Psalm begins by introducing us to the man who is blessed by God, and the way he lives. The source of the blessing is the LORD himself. If there is a blessing then there must be a Blesser who bestows the blessing upon the one who is blessed. This has not been seriously disputed.

The God-blessed man is the one who “walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:1-2). But who are those ungodly sinners that scoff at God? This is the state of all fallen mankind in Adam; the state of all who are under the curse of God, not his blessing (Genesis 3; 6:5; 8:21; Deuteronomy 27:26; 30:19).

What does the “law of the LORD” mean? The word for “law” is torah in the Hebrew. The name given to the Five Books of Moses (Genesis-Deuteronomy) is “The Torah”. But the word torah ultimately includes all of Jehovah’s law wherever we find it taught in the Bible, because, as Paul said, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

Many commentaries and sermons preached on this Psalm say that Psalm 1:2 means we should delight in the whole of the word of God. Well, of course we should delight in and meditate on the whole Bible. But that is not what this Psalm is primarily teaching us, and this broader truth can be used to obscure the fact that the Christian ought to delight in and meditate on the “law of the LORD”. The way of godliness, the way of loving God’s torah of verse 2, is set in contrast to the way of ungodliness, sinning and scoffing against God in verse 1.

Before the Psalm briefly describes the LORD’s blessing upon this man’s life, it takes us to see his heart. This first Psalm, and therefore the Book of Psalms, starts here—and so should we. The blessed man’s heart is different from that of the ungodly, the sinners, the scoffers around him. Now we must ask, what makes that difference, and where does this difference come from? Does he have his own innate spark of goodness? Did moral goodness emerge from his “only evil continually” fallen nature? (Here I mean the saved man, not Christ himself, who had no fallen nature and has no sin.) Or is this difference of heart part of the blessing of God in this man?

This is not about being part of a chosen race or a chosen people—this is about the heart. You may be a physical descendant of Israel; but as the apostle Paul will later say, “They are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Romans 9:6). You may be part of the visible Church; but what the Lord Jesus Christ himself says about false prophets is also true about false Christians: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:16-21).

So, we must each ask ourselves, am I nothing but a “corrupt tree”? Do I do God’s revealed will? Does my heart delight in it, and do I meditate upon it? Have I found at least a beginning of these things in my heart? In my heart, do I have the spiritual life of this blessed man, or am I only “dead in sins”, as someone who is still “in the flesh” that cannot please God (Ephesians 2:1-10; Galatians 5:17; Romans 8:7-11)?

God has given us this Psalm to make us take a serious and honest look at whether we have God’s blessing in our own hearts and lives, both now and in the eternity to come.

The Highest Moral Standard

In the first two verses of the first Psalm, the highest moral standard (there is none higher) is summarised, both negatively and positively. This is what the God-blessed heart and life should look like, and shall look like: turning from the influence, company and culture of sinners and turning to enjoy the deep study of God’s law, so that its influence reforms us internally and changes our external lives; and we then influence our family, society and culture. For what is true for this one blessed man is true for all the people of God, who are represented here.

All Christians should recognise the two contrary, antithetical ways of life with which Psalm 1 begins. In the New Testament Scriptures, this turning from sin is also known as repentance of heart, mortification of deeds, putting off the “old man”, being no longer conformed to this world, and no longer walking “in the flesh”. Together with turning from sins is turning to God for forgiveness of sins and salvation from sin. This double turning is called conversion. And we call living in increasing obedience to God’s moral laws: sanctification, putting on the new man, walking in the Spirit, walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful unto every good work, bearing fruit unto God, bearing the fruit of the Spirit, growing in grace, partaking of the divine nature, being conformed to the image of the Son of God in godliness, righteousness and true holiness, and having a pure soul and a pure heart. There are many other ways and metaphors we use to describe these two ways of life, drawn from the Scriptures.⁶

Besides all these symbols, these allusions to Old Testament Scriptures, there are actual commands, proverbs and practical applications—the same moral law instructing us in the New Testament Scriptures:

• “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:28-32).

• “Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:1-8).

• “Charity [love] suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

And there is much, much more.

We must acknowledge and confess that all our turning from sin and turning to God, all our salvation and its outworking in our life, is the work of our Triune God within us, from beginning to end. This work of God is the very same blessing of Psalm 1.

No life-walk under the teachings and influence of the ungodly, those who hate and reject God. No taking sides with the sinner in his sins, or standing with them in the way that they are going. No union with leading or professional scoffers at God and godliness, and no condoning them or sitting alongside them in the same office or on the same platform, whether they are in the seat of the teacher or leader, whether in religion, politics, business, or the entertainment industry. What Psalm 1:1 teaches us still holds true for the people of God today.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18).

The first thing that God the Holy Spirit has put in the Book of Psalms, for us all to learn and sing in our worship of him, is this: the blessed man, who is emblematic of every man, woman and child of God, turns from sin and turns to God. And turning to God necessarily involves being so filled with love for God’s law that we meditate upon it day and night. Not that it is all we should think about, but that all we think about should be brought into conformity to it, so that God’s moral law shapes our heart and mind and life. This is what people who are blessed by God do.

Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness

According to the first Psalm, those people whom God blesses—those in whom God works salvation and conversion—come to be totally in love with God’s law. They find in their hearts what they never had before: a delight to study God’s law and to live it out. Yes, they have a real delight in it, not merely a mild fondness of it; and they certainly don’t strive to banish it from their life as though it were not for the Christian. They esteem it more highly than any amount of gold and far better than the sweetest honey (Psalm 19:10).

Now, the Psalms are the word of Christ, and we should let them dwell in us richly (Colossians 3:16); therefore we should all agree with the first Psalm. But if you are a Christian and you are not persuaded to love and sing the Psalms, and you are not persuaded that you should delight in the law of God, then have you at least taken onboard what the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ says? Christ certainly agrees that we should delight in the moral law of God; indeed, he doubles down on this matter.

In his Beatitudes at the start of his Sermon on the Mount, in one line Jesus says all that the first Psalm is saying: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Blessed by God by being filled with his righteousness. To hunger and thirst after righteousness necessarily involves delighting in God’s law.

Later on in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us that the people of God become like salt that brings good savoury flavour and preservation from corruption. Here physical corruption is a metaphor for moral corruption. They become a light to the world and a city that cannot be hid. And they let their light so shine before men that they see their good deeds and glorify their Father in heaven (Matthew 5:13-18).

So, according to our Lord Jesus Christ, we must live in the opposite way to the ungodly, the sinners, and the scornful, such as are briefly described in the first verse of Psalm 1. Putting it the other way, Psalm 1:1-2 is a summary of the Sermon on the Mount. Do you see?

Now, how can anyone live like Jesus teaches—like Psalm 1 teaches? It can only be by the blessing of God. And this is what both the words of Christ in Psalm 1 and the Beatitudes teach us.

The Two Great Commandments in the Law

Before we fear we will be overwhelmed with thoughts about which laws and how many laws should be delighted in and meditated upon by the God-blessed man (and should be obeyed, of course), and before we consider the question of whether God’s blessing or our delighting in God’s law must come first, let us understand what our Saviour calls the two great commandments in the Law.

“Then one of them [Pharisees], which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:35-40).

According to the Messiah there two great commandments in the Torah, that have to do with man’s duty toward God and toward man. After quoting the law of total love for the LORD, Jesus teaches there is a another that is “like unto”⁷ it, one that is second in number but equal in greatness.

This second great commandment in the Torah is at the heart of Christ’s last instructions to his disciples in how they ought to live and be toward each other. It is as new again, as all the moral law is to the Christian, in that it now has the perfect law-keeping Christ himself⁸ as the Example par excellence to follow in its obedience: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35).

The apostle Paul is not overstating the second great commandment when he teaches us: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14). Paul says again and again to the churches to whom he writes how thankful to God he is for this ourward sign of conversion that he sees in their midst—their love “for all the saints”, by which he means fellow Christians—and how he prays that they would show continual increase and improvement in this hallmark of the Holy Spirit on the saved soul (Ephesians 1:15; Colossians 1:4; 1 Thessalonians 3:12; Philemon 1:5).

Concerning this love to our neighbour, especially in the church, the apostle Peter urges Christians to redouble their love for one another, “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently” (1 Peter 1:22).

John, whom someone has nicknamed the “apostle of love” for his writings on this distinctive mark of the true Christian, the outward manifestation of the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, echoes and echoes again his Saviour’s words in his epistle:

• “Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:7-11).
• More: “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” (3:10-11).
• Even more: "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” (3:14-18).
• Again: “And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” (2 John 1:5-6).
• And again: “Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church” (3 John 1:5-6a).

Now, see John links the second great commandment to the first:

• “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (4:20-21).
• More: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (5:2-3).

Love God by loving the children of God, says John.

Have you begun to see how the apostles meditated upon the law of God day and night, as well as Christ’s teachings on the same, like the blessed men that they were (and still are), and then by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16) wrote out their meditations in their epistles?

Our Saviour first quotes the law of love to God that sums up what is often called the first table (tablet) of the law, i.e. the first four of the Ten Commandments. Then he immediately joins to it the law of love to neighbours, which embraces all the second table, the other six commandments. Therefore these two great commandments combined are the sum and substance, the centre and the whole of God’s law. And, not only do they summarise the Ten Commandments, but Jesus says that “on these two hang all the law and the prophets”.

Now, which and how many laws of God should we keep? Paul says “all the law”, i.e. all the moral law that is summed up in “love thy neighbour as thyself”. And of course, he does not exclude the law of heart-soul-mind love to God himself. We should keep, in full, every law that enables us to properly keep what Jesus says are the two great commandments in the Torah. This, whether or not they are restated or touched upon in the New Testament Scriptures; for as with all Scripture (that the Jews call the Law, Prophets, and Writings), all the moral law is given for our doctrine, our reproof, our correction, and our training in righteousness. Delight in them, and make them your meditation day and night. Start with the two great commandments in the Law, and you will inevitably embrace and delight in all of God’s moral law. Learn to love the highest moral standard.

Keeping the law of love to God, and the law of love to your neighbour—that involves keeping all the moral law in order to keep these two great commandment—this is what righteousness looks like. And godliness. And Christ-likeness. And sanctification. And the Christian, living as a Christian ought to do.

Keep God’s Commandments

But should Christians keep God’s commandments? Not in order to become Christians, but as Christians? This is, surely, an absurd question. However, some Christians argue that for Christians to delight in and meditate upon God’s law would be foolish. They say that for Christians to intently study God’s moral law in the Old Testament Scriptures in order to keep it—is to try to be make themselves perfect by the flesh, and to return to the Schoolmaster, and to be brought under the law again (Galatians 3:3, 23-25). They say that “the law is not made for a righteous man” (1 Timothy 1:9); which they think means that God’s moral commandments are not for the Christian.

But we are not trying to make ourselves perfect “by the flesh”. And the blessed, righteous man in Psalm 1 was not meditating on God’s law in order to earn his salvation by obeying it. The Christian is already saved, is already a Christian. And the blessed man of Psalm 1 is already the blessed man. He has the imputed righteousness of Christ. His heart has been so transformed by the blessing of God that he now truly delights in his law, and he is now the tree planted by the rivers of water, that shall make him produce fruit in his season, shall make his leaves afterwards to remain green and not wither, and shall make all he does for the glory of God to prosper.

There are not two ways of salvation, but one. And in this one way, you must come to delight in the law of God. You must love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind; and you must love your neighbour as yourself. Christ did not say one thing to the Jews and another thing to Christians.

The teaching of Paul, that the Christian is not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14), is not a rejection of any part of the highest moral standard. What the apostle teaches is how the born-again, new heart, spiritually alive man, woman, and child of God should live: “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace … But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness … But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:13-14, 17-18, 22-23).

No, the morality of the New Testament is not an alternative to, or a subset of, the Old Testament moral law. It is the very same highest standard of morality, not a lower standard. God’s moral law has not been abrogated. The Christian way is fully the way of righteousness, true holiness, and godliness. And of love to God and to his people. The Christian life-walk goes in the same one opposite direction to the way of the ungodly, sinners, and scoffers of this world as is referred to in the first Psalm—the way that has turned from sin to God. And this is the way of delighting in God’s law and of spiritual prospering even in this world, and of being part of the one congregation of the righteous that is comprised of all who shall stand in God’s judgment of man on the last day.

Of course, there is much more that is profitable to the people of God in the whole Bible—and we are to delight in and meditate day and night in all of it. But if, by the “all scripture” of which Paul writes, we are are to be reproved, corrected, and instructed in righteousness in order to make us perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works, then we cannot set aside God’s law in those scriptures. Antinomianism makes no sense. And again, no, it is not legalism to delight in God’s moral law and to seek to live according to it, as a Christian.

The first Psalm should drive us to honest and humbling introspection. And it should cause us to ask vital, ultimate questions about who and what we really are: godly or ungodly. And what we really receive from God: the blessing or only the curse. And what we really deserve from God the Righteous Judge on the Day of Judgment: will we stand in glorified state of eternally perfect blessedness with the LORD and his people in Heaven, are will we be condemned to perish in the never-ending torment of Hell. We must get our answers to these questions from the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures.

The Way of Godliness

Unless we are saved from our sins we will only walk, stand, and sit in our sins, going from bad to worse. If we had been left to ourselves in the ungodly state, we would have willingly continued under teachers, mentors and influencers who blaspheme and scoff at God and all that is godly. And if we were well-educated enough to sit in a seat of learning or in a seat of authority, then we would have become yet another master mocker of God, teaching and leading others in our own mad rush to Hell.

Before God made us Christians (for it was, and is, all of God and not of our works), if we could have honestly looked at our own heart in the fallen, dead-in-sins state in those days, we would have seen no sign of delight in God’s law, but only delight in sin. No, we were not godly then. We were definitely ungodly. But are we godly now? When we honestly examine our own hearts, we know we still fall short of God’s perfect moral standard, even now as Christians. We admit that our life is not conformed to God’s moral law. Not yet.

So, where am I in Psalm 1? Where are you? How can we already be in the state of perfect blessedness? Are we truly in the congregation of the righteous, that God causes to stand and not perish in the judgment (Psalm v.5)?

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1. Martin Luther called the Book of Psalms a “little Bible”. John Calvin called it “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul’. For these two quotes, see a previous article in this series, Richly in All Wisdom at the section A Little Bible, and an Anatomy of All the Parts of the Soul. ↩︎

2. See another article earlier in this series, The Word of Christ. ↩︎

3. Our English words righteous (from old English) and just (from old French) translate the same Greek word δίκαιος (dikaios). These two words both mean the same thing: what is morally right. (Strong’s Concordance, Greek Dictionary, number 1343). ↩︎

4. John Brown of Haddington, An Help for the Ignorant (1761) questions supplemental to the Westminster Shorter Catechism questions 29 & 30 combined, Of the Saints’ Privileges, and Of Justification. ↩︎

5. See a previous post, The Lord Jesus Christ in The Psalms. ↩︎

6. Many more examples could be given than those listed here. We can of course refer to the Old Testament Scriptures: the Law, the Prophets, and the Wisdom Writings, including the Psalms. But these phrases I have given above are all from the New Testament Scriptures: Matthew 3:8; 4:17; 5:6, 16, 20; 18:3; Mark 1:4; Luke 13:1-5; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 11:18; 17:30; 20:21; 26:20; Romans 5:17; 6:6, 22; 7:4; 8:1-14, 29-30; 12:2; 15:16; 2 Corinthians 1:30; 3:18; 6:11; 7:1; Galatians 5:16-25; Ephesians 2:1-10; 4:17-24; Colossians 1:10 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 1:9; 3:13; 4:3, 7; 1 Timothy 2:2; 3:12; 2 Timothy 4:8; Titus 1:1; 2:12; 8:8; Hebrews 12:14; 13:21; 1 Peter 1:2-5, 13-16, 22; 3:12; 4:1-3; 2 Peter 1:3; 3:11; 1 John 3:7. ↩︎

7. Greek ὅμοιος αὐτός, homoios autos, meaning like the other, corresponding to the other, or equally the same with (Strong’s Concordance, Greek Dictionary, numbers 3664 and 846). ↩︎

8. Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 8: Of Christ the Mediator, sections 3 & 4:
   “III. The Lord Jesus, in his human nature thus united to the divine, was sanctified and anointed with the Holy Spirit above measure; having in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, in whom it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell; to the end that, being holy, harmless, undefiled, and full of grace and truth, he might be thoroughly furnished to execute the office of a mediator and surety. Which office he took not unto himself, but was thereunto called by his Father, who put all power and judgment into his hand, and gave him commandment to execute the same.
   “IV. This office the Lord Jesus did most willingly undertake, which, that he might discharge, he was made under the law, and did perfectly fulfill it; endured most grievous torments immediately in his soul, and most painful sufferings in his body; was crucified, and died; was buried, and remained under the power of death, yet saw no corruption. On the third day he arose from the dead, with the same body in which he suffered; with which also he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth at the right hand of his Father, making intercession; and shall return to judge men and angels at the end of the world.” ↩︎