Delightful Justice

I join the saints (Hasidim is the central word in the Hebrew psalm) in their exultant praise of our Lord and King–the King who is everything that the kings in Kings are not. I store verses 4 and 5 in my memory for sleepless nights. How am I to cherish verses 6-9 as a revelation from God and the glory of all his saints (9)? This psalm is pre-Christian but not sub-Christian (2 Thess. 2:9-10; Phil. 1:28; 1 Pet. 2:8).

For many people in the world the news that one day there will be a just Judge is Good News! With some trepidation I offer this further trajectory of thought: I promise my 10-year-old son a bicycle when he is 17, but in the event I give him a motorbike: the promise is fulfilled but transcended. Many passages of the Old Testament, like our psalm, picture the victorious, saving work of God in militaristic terms (Isa. 45:13; 49:23; 63:1-6), but the fulfillment of these passages transcended these terms–for example, the foreign kings did not lick the dust, but worshipped the Child with expensive gifts.

The New Testament also predicts a day of judgment; the most urgent warnings are on the lips of our Lord himself, and when we contemplate the diabolical evils that have been committed in just the last century, how can we not long for this day to come and for the new heavens and earth, where justice reigns, to come to pass? It will be a day of justice and retribution (not vengeance and revenge: the “sentence,” in verse 9, is written; the psalm does not refer to vigilantes prowling around with machetes to settle private scores). We know, however, that God is love, so perhaps the retribution will utterly transcend the terms in which it is here described. The psalmist reminds us that “Surely the wrath of man shall praise You…” (Psa. 76:10, ESV).

Renew your commitment to share the Good News of a transforming Savior.