Psalm 16

Psalm xvi. With these few remarks, I pass on io psalm xvi., which applies directly to Christ, but in which we shall find the sweetest instruction also for ourselves. It is essentially Christ taking the place of a man, and pointing out the path of life before him through death, since He came for us, but trusting in Jehovah, into His presence, where is fulness of joy. We must not lose sight of the direct prophetic character; still this path is an example for us. The Good Shepherd has gone before the Bheep. The great principle proposed in the psalm is trust in the Lord, even in death. — the place of dependent obedience, and the Lord Himself’s being the whole portion of man, excluded all inconsistent with this. We may add, having- II im always in view. These are the great principles of divine life, and of divine life come into the scene of sin and death. No doubt we should speak of communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ in this path of life; but the great moral principles, the subjective state of soul, is brought out before us here, and that in Christ Himself. And note here, it is His perfection as man and before God and towards God. It is not divine perfection — God manifested to man; but what He was as man dependent on God. We have not even His offering Himself, in which we have also to follow Him; (1 John iii. 16;) but His place as man in perfection. It is perfectness before God — the principle that governed Him. Hence, even the word, My goodness extendeth not to thee, has its application also to us. That our goodness does not actually reach God it might seem almost absurd to affirm; but when it is applied to Christ as man, who was absolutely perfect, it affords us an apprehension of the nature of this goodness, a principle which we can apply to ourselves, and which puts us in our place. It is man’s perfection towards God — the new path of which Christ is the perfection and example in the earth. But this thought shows the unspeakably blessed place which we have as Christians — though in our own case in the midst, not only of weakness, but of internal conflicts, which were not in Christ, in whom was no sin. But Christ’s place is the perfect expression of our place before God.

THE PSALM8. — PSALM XVI. ol

This is fully unfolded at the close of the Gospel of John, and particularly in the 17th chapter.

The Epistle of John, too, which first presents Christ as the manifestation ou earth of that eternal life which was with the Father, its manifestation in a man whom their hands had touched, teaches that this was true in Christians as in Him, (1 John ii. 8,) and unfolds the character of this life in righteousness and in love, adding the presence of the Holy Ghost, through which we can dwell in God and God in us. We have this eternal life which is come down from heaven, but is only said to be in the Son; and he who has the Son has it. Indeed, this gives it all its value. No doubt the Epistle of John unfolds it in all its extent and value, as it cannot be unfolded in the Psalms: still in this psalm we have Christ taking the place itself as amongst the excellent of the earth. I may remark here, that the writings of John, though intimating it, and just showing that we shall be with Christ above, do not pursue this life to its presentation in glory before God. This is Paul’s office. Indeed, he had only so seen Christ. John presents the life in itself, and manifested on earth. The life is the light of men.

I have already made some allusion to a restriction which we must put, in speaking of this psalm, to the development of the life of Christ on earth. But this restriction only brings out more directly and blessedly in its place, that part of Christ’s life, which is the subject of the psalm itself. Christ was the manifestation of God Himself (I speak of the divine traits of His character, not of His divine nature and title) in His path in this world. Perfect love was seen there

—perfect holiness and righteousness. He was the truth in the revelation of all that God is. And this is most blessed. And in this we have to imitate Him. (See Eph. iv. 32; v. 1, 2; Col. hi. 10.) But this is not the aspect in which the psalm views Him. It depicts His place as the dependent devoted man. It depicts Him as taking” His place among the remnant of Israel, in contrast with the idolatry of that people. But on that I do not dwell now. The character of the blessed Lord’s life will alone occupy our thoughts. The expression, My goodness extendeth not to thee, would not suit the divine manifestation of goodness on the earth. But taking His place entirely as a man here, the Lord shows us the true place of man living to God — not in his innocence, not surely in sin, but the very opposite; but perfect, in a world of sin, in righteousness and true holiness, having the knowledge of good and evil, tempted, but separate from sin and sinners, not made higher than the heavens, but fit for it in the desires of his nature, and in the path towards it: dependent, obedient, taking no place with God, but before Him as responsible as man upon earth, and looking towards the place of perfect blessedness as man with God by being in His presence, which would be fulness of joy for him, a place which, when having His nature, we can have with Christ. It is man trusting God, deriving his pleasure and joy from God, living by faith and in that sense apart from Him- — not God manifested in the flesh, which we know was also true of the blessed Lord. This, while it is our place on earth as sanctified through the truth, is above the place of the Jewish remnant. We have another in the consciousness of union with Christ through the Holy Ghost. The Lord takes the place we are considering’ when He says to the young- man, Why tallest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God. If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. Thus far it went outwardly well with the young ruler, but there was more than this to characterize this life where divine life was, in a world of sin and sinners, in its path towards the place of the fulness of joy — what had been shown in Abraham and in the saints of God, in the Davids and the prophets. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance. Having the Lord Himself as that which governed and led the heart, Go sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and come, follow me. But the Lord was not, at any rate then, the portion of his inheritance. Only one knows not what may have become afterwards his state through grace.

The state described in this psalm is that of man considered apart from God; (I do not mean of course morally separated, nor touch upon the union of the divine and human nature in Christ;) but it is man partaker of the divine nature, for so only it could be, but having God for his object, his confidence, as alone having authority over him, entirely dependent on God, and perfect in faith in Him. This could only be in one personally partaker of the divine nature, God Himself in man, as Christ was, or derivatively as in one born of God; but, as we have seen, Christ is not here viewed in this aspect nor the believer as united to Him. The divine presence in Him is viewed not in the manifestation of God in Him, but in its effect in His absolute perfection as man. He is walking as man morally in view of God. Christ here depends on Jehovah for His resurrection. He says, Thou wilt not leave, though He could say, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Yet He could say, as perfect man, Father, into thy hands I commeud my spirit. As Peter among the Jews could say, He hath made Him, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ; while Thomas could say, My Lord and my God. Indeed Peter never leaves this ground — the rejected man, the Messiah exalted by God — nor preaches the Son of God as Paul did at once in the synagogues, though the first, by divine revelation, to confess Him such. Hence Christ is a perfect model for us — shows what the perfect man is. The first great principle, and that which characterizes the whole psalm, is the referring Himself entirely, and with confidence, to the care of God. He does not preserve Himself, take care of Himself, nor depend at all on Himself: He refers to God. “Preserve me 0 God, for in thee do I put my trust.” But this goes far. As God, Christ could have preserved Himself; but He did not come for that. In that sense it was impossible. He came in love to suffer, obey, and so by grace also save — but glorify God. From this, morally speaking, He could not swerve; but as to power, He could have preserved Himself, or as to title to favour as Son, He could have asked and had twelve legions of angels. But thus, as He says, He could not have fulfilled the counsels, the revealed counsels, of God.

It was free submission and dependence, but perfect submission and dependence — the one right thing in the position which ILe had taken. This was perfect faith. He was the leader and completer of faith, absence of self, dependence, and confidence: and we may add, the word of God was the revelation on which Bfe acted, that which He obeyed, the weapon He used, as we see in His temptation in the desert. He was the word and the truth personally, and all He said expressed what He was. (John viii. 25.) But it is not less true that He used and acted on and obeyed the Scriptures as man. But here He takes the place of dependence and confidence. As man He says, ‘” Preserve me, 0 God. In thee do I put my trust.”

The next point, partly necessarily anticipated in what I have said, is entire subservience to the will of God. Here to God, as revealed among the Jews, Jehovah: to us it would be the Father and the Son — one God, even the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, ‘•’rin m hast said unto Jehovah, Thou art my Lord.” Remark, ‘• Thou hast said.” He had taken this place. He was Jehovah, but not taking that place at all here in J lis path. In the form of God, thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, He had taken the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man. Freely taken, perfectly preserved in, through death, His taken place is humiliation. Freely to take it is a divine title and action. Creatures have to keep their own; though when not kept by God, none have done so. His given, but deserved, place as man in glory. (John xvii.) lie humbles Himself, and is highly exalted. He had said to Jehovah, “Thou art my Lord;” that is. I am subservient to Thee, lie had taken a place, while never ceasing to be God, and which Godhead alone could fulfil the conditions of, outside Godhead; but in which as man to satisfy God, to glorify7 God in an earth of apostacy and sin, indeed with all on earth, and Satan’s power against Him — at the close, even God’s wrath, if to fulfil His glory in righteousness. Hence He says, My goodness extendeth not to thee — up to thee. He was to fulfil man’s place in the condition in which God’s glory was now concerned in it. A perfect man, when a perfect man, was alone in perfectness; none to sustain — none even to have compassion on Him. He must trust God in life and through death — yea, through wrath. But here it is in the path of life, and even this shown Him. (Ver. 11.) But, further, there were objects of divine favour from which He did not dissociate Himself. But He does not speak of them as chosen by Himself here — as in John of His disciples, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” — (though there also for service,) nor as chosen of God in grace, but as objects of divine delight in the path they trod, as manifested morally — those who were in the path He had to tread in — the saints that are in the earth, the excellent. This is fiul of interest. It is still His moral place as man, delighting in what God delighted in, as becomes one perfect with God, as we see in full figure in Moses. (Heb. xi. 24 — 26.) He takes His place with the saints — those really sanctified to God. This we see in fact, and in the way of the most perfect obedience and humiliation, in that the Saviour went to be baptized with the baptism of John, when those moved by the Spirit of God to humble themselves went there. In the first ami lowest step of divine life, that of the heart giving- itself up to God in the acknowledgment of sin, lie who knew no sin went with those who owned it; for their owning it was divine life, and it was consecrating themselves to God. They were the true excellent of the earth. How sweet and consoling in the wilderness to see Christ treading this path, victorious over all temptation in it, as shown directly after His baptism by John; bindingthe strong man, in life possessed and victorious over all the power of the enemy. One sees easily here, that though it be the divine life, the fruit of grace, it is not in se God manifesting Himself, a goodness in its character in itself reaching to God; for it was owning sin, though it was divine grace in Christ to do it. Just as it was not properly of God, as such, to die; though nothing but the perfect love, that is, one who was God Himself could have died as Christ did, given Himself, laid down His life, given a motive to His Father to love Him, for what He did. We see one acting as man in man’s place, (only absolutely, perfectly, and freely as loving the

Father, which He could not have done if not divine), before God and towards God as men had to act. That a divine person should do this has a value beyond all thought, and it is what, as much else, the blessed Saviour did for us, a man in our place, that is in the perfection of it as God’s delight, and according to what it ought to be, in the midst of this sinful world, what glorified God in it. And it is of all importance for us to see Christ thus an object of delight, adoring delight, for instruction and confirmation to the soul. It is a path the vulture’s eye has not seen and that no man’s thought could have traced, if Christ, the perfect One, had not walked in it. We have it in life — in a person — as it only so could be, the path of life in a living one who was the thing to be loved. No doubt the written word gives us the elements of this life in all details, but at the same time it gives much of it, however many blessed precepts direct our path, in the life of Christ Himself; so that this life is understood according to the degree of spirituality which apprehends that life as depicted in the gospels or other parts of Scripture, its motives or rather its motive and nature. Even in precept we find a direction to walk worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing. How evidently does this require the true knowledge of what He is. The view which we have taken of this divine life, perfect in itself, but displayed in a knowledge of good and evil and proved in the midst of evil — in us renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him that created us — is brought out distinctly in positive separation from evil, but especially in the motive and spring of life, the confession of Jehovah. He (ver. 4) repels all that can be called another God. He will have nothing at all to say to it. It is absolute rejection. He cleaves to Jehovah. Fidelity to Jehovah characterizes the life of Christ as so walking on earth. We can say fidelity to Christ Himself. Christ is all and in all. Jehovah is not only Lord to obey, He is the portion of his inheritance. He sought nought else; as of the priest of old and yet better, as in heart and desire, the Lord was his inheritance and the portion of his cup, his lot here, which he had to drink. His enjoy-THE TSALMS. — rSALM XVI. 39

ment in hope, his portion by the way. This I apprehend is the difference between heritage and cup; the inheritance is the permanent portion of the soul, the cup what its feelings are occupied with, what comes to a man to occupy his spirit by the way. He gives the cup of wrath to the wicked to drink; the blessed Lord had to drink the cup of wrath on the cross. My cup runneth over — was filled to overflow with blessing; so we say, habitually, it was a bitter cup. It is not merely the circumstances we pass through, unless the soul be subject to them; but that which we taste in the circumstances, what our spirits feel, that which presses on them in the circumstances. Thus, in psalm xxiii., the circumstances were all sorrowful, but the Lord being shepherd all through them his cup ran over with joy and blessing. Thus Jehovah was the permanent portion of the heart of Christ, and. as walking through this world, that on which His heart rested; what formed and characterized His feelings umre than the sorrow He went through, save on the cross. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work. Man, no, not even His disciples, never entered into His thoughts. One who sat at His feet once in affection felt that to which ne could give a voice but only to bring out more Badly the failure of all else; “but He had meat to eat they knew not of. Jehovah was the portion of His cup, nearer than all circumstances which otherwise could have pressed upon His heart as man, and which lie fully fell, if we except the cross, or rather, indeed, more than ever there, for it was the wrath of Jehovah Himself that pressed upon His soul in the cup He then drank. But otherwise so truly was Jehovah the great circumstance and substance of His life in and through everything, that He could only wish that His joy might be fulfilled in His disciples. But, then, it was from Jehovah only, and therein His perfection; the world was absolutely a dry and thirsty land, where no water was, but Jehovah’s favour was better than life; and was nis life, practically, through a world where all was felt, but felt with Jehovah realized; Jehovah and His favour, the life of His soul, between Him and all. So the Christian, forsaken, perhaps, and imprisoned. Rejoice in the Lord alway, and, again I say rejoice. Nature has circumstances between itself and God; faith has God between the heart and circumstances. And what a difference! No peace like the peace, which hiding in the tabernacle from the provokings of all men gives. But this is a divine life through the world. Jehovah — we say the Father and the Son, a brighter development through the Son Himself — the permanent portion of the soul, its inheritance. Jehovah, the present joy and strength that fills the soul and gives its taste to life. (Comp. lxiv. and xxiii.) And, thirdly, the blessed confidence that Jehovah maintains our lot; we trust not ourselves, not favourable circumstances, not a mountain which the Lord Himself has made strong, but Jehovah Himself. Delight thyself in the Lord, He shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Faith leans on Jehovah, on the Father’s love and Jesus’; for the securing iufallibly happiness and peace we need not look to circumstances, save to pass through them with Him. This was perfect in Christ. He had only this, nor looked for aught else. We see it brightly manifested in Paul. In principle, it is the path of every Christian; and some time or other he is exercised in it. The life of faith is this: God Himself the portion of our inheritance and of our cup: He maintaineth our lot. This is blessedly developed for us in the knowledge of the Father and the Son. But the great principle is the same. It is the life of Christ, and this is enjoyed in contrast with and to the exclusion of all else that could become the confidence or the portion of the heart; expressed here in Jewish relationship, but always essentially true.

I may here remark a distinct characteristic of this psalm which comes into greater relief by the contrast of the one which follows. It touches on no circumstances, tin nigh it supposes them. It is divine life with God and knows and lives in the present consciousness of only Him. We find that there must have been death, hades, and the grave, but they are only mentioned as the occasion of the power and faithfulness of Jehovah. The psalm is man living through, with, and in view of God in this world, and so enjoying Him for ever in spite of death. Circumstances are but circumstances, and not the subject of the psalm; divine life never passes away. ;- While we look not,” says the apostle, at the tilings that are seen, but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, hut the things that are not seen are eternal.” Such is the Christian expression of this. The former part of the phrase, which I do not cite, tells the effect of this as to circumstances, and is to be compared rather with the following psalm. The apostle beauti-D fully expresses life itself in one word: “for to me to live is Christ; to die,” no wonder, was “gain.” But it is important to remember, that there is an inward divine life which dwells and joys in God, having nothing to do with circumstances, though enabling us to go through them, and in us helped by them, because annulling the flesh and the will, so that we live more entirely of the inward life with God.

But the consequence in the soul, is the deep consciousness of blessing. “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.” Christ could not have said that in the same way, had He had the kingdom living on earth; nor could we, were we in the garden of Eden, or the world at our disposal. This living relationship with God casts a light, a halo on all; lights the soul up with such a direct consciousness of divine blessing that nothing is like it, save the full realization of it in the presence of God. A man with God, enjoying Him in a nature capable of doing so with all the necessary conscious result where it shall be fulfilled without a cloud, a man as Christ was in this world with God — is the most perfect joy possible, save the everlasting fulfilment of all known and felt in it. It is not Messiah’s portion, it is that joy of which Christ speaks when He says, “that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” No doubt; He will inherit all things: but I do not think this to be the thought here. This was not the joy set before Him for which He endured the cross and despised the shame. There is “an inheritance incorruptible, undefined, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us.” This is known in joying in God. Life has its delight there. In Cud’s presence is fulness of joy.

The lines fallen in pleasant places, I believe to be His joy as man in God, and in what was before God. Compare Col. iii. 1 — 3. In what follows we have the active expression of this life, in reference to God. “I will bless Jehovah who giveth me counsel.” We need in divine life the positive instruction of wisdom — counsel; wisdom, a divine clue and direction in the confusion of evil in this world — to be wise Concerning that which is good. Not as fools, but as Avise, redeeming the time; not unwise, but understanding what the wrill of the Lord is. Jehovah gives counsel. So if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to every man liberally and upbraideth not. There is the immense privilege of the positive direction and guidance of God. The interest He feels in guiding the godly man aright, in the true path suited to Cod Himself, across Hie wilderness where there is no way. For innocence enjoying the blessings of God, there was no need of a way. In a world departed from Coil, what way can be found.’ It would be i return, but that is impossible; do sinner ever returned to innocence. The way of the tree of life is shut up mi (hat side — but how a. way in a world without God.’ But God can make a way, if He gives a new life, with a new object, to that life — Ilimself as known in heaven — if there is a new creation and we are new created. Now Christ is a new life, and passes through the world, according to this life. t<> a new place given to man, and lie does bo as man, dependent man. God has prepared the path for man endowed with this life.

and so for Christ, who was this life, and so the light of men. He has even prepared the special works suited to it — “good works which He hath afore prepared that we should walk in them.” This last thought indeed goes somewhat beyond our psalm. It, at any rate, includes the activity of divine nature in man, and is not limited to the right and holy path of man having this life before God, a thing as important in its place as the other. So Moses asks not, “Show me a way across the desert,” but “Show me thy way that I may know thee, and that I may find grace in thy sight.” What Moses sought Jehovah gives — the counsel and guidance of nis love. So Christ walked; so He guides His sheep, going before them; and now we are led of the Spirit of God, as ourselves sons of God. It is the divine path of wisdom which the vulture’s eye has not seen: the path of man, but of man with the life of God, going towards the presence of God, and the incorruptible inheritance, in an uncorrupted way — the path of God across the world; but God gives counsel for it. There is dependence on God for this, and Christ walked in it. “Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel,” says even the remnant of Israel; and, psalm xxxii., “I will guide thee by mine eye.” I repeat, He is interested in the guidance of the man of God, and the soul blesses Him. In this path Christ trod. The written word is the great means of this; still there is the direct action of God in us by nis Spirit. But there is also divine intelligence. “My reins instruct me in the night season.” The divine life is intelligent life. I do not separate this from divine grace in us, but it is different from counsel given.

We can be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding-. Col. i. 9, 10. Why even of yourselves, (says the Lord to the Pharisees,) judge ye not that which is right?” Thus, when removed from external influences, the secret workings and thoughts of the heart show what is suited to the path and way of God in the world. A man is spiritually minded and discerns all things. It is the working of life within (in us through grace) on divine things, and in the perception of the divine path, what is well pleasing. In Christ this was perfect, in us in the measure of our spirituality; but that to which the Christian has to give much heed, that he neglect not the holy suggestions and conclusions of the divinely instructed life when freed from the influence of surrounding circumstances. It may seem folly, but if found in humbly wailing on Cod will in the end prove His wisdom. It can always be discerned from an exalted imagination.

In the first place, the state of the soul is exactly the opposite, for pretension to special spiritual guidance is never humble. But besides, the controlling judgment of God’s word which overrules the whole divine life is there to judge false pretensions to it. T<> this, divine life is always absolutely subject. Christ who was this life, yea, was the Word and Wisdom; yet, (and because He was) always wholly honoured the written

word as the guidance and authority of God lor man. But guidance by the Lord is not quite all the practical process of the exercise of divine life. It looks entirely to the Lord. “1 have set, (says Christ, walking as man on earth.) Jehovah a&mys before me.” Eekepl

Him always in view. How have our hearts to own that this is not always so! How withdrawn from all evil — how powerful morally in the midst of this world should we be, were it always so! There is nothing in this world like the dignity of a man always walking with God, Yet nothing is farther from failure in humility: indeed it is here, it is perfect, ^elfexaltation is neither possible nor desired in the presence and enjoyment of God. What absence of self, what renouncement of all will, what singleness of eye, and hence bright and earnest activity of purpose, when the Lord is the only object and end! I say the Lord, for no other such object can command and .sanctify the heart. All would go against duty to Him. He alone can make the whole heart full of light when duty and purpose of heart go together and are but me. Indeed this is what James calls “the perfect law of liberty”- — -perfect obedience, yet perfect purpose of heart, as Jesus says, “that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, so I do.” We say, as Christians, Christ is all, and lie that loves Him keeps His commandments. Thus Jesus set Jehovah always before His face. This is man’s perfection as man. This is the measure of our degree of spirituality, the constancy and purity with which we do this. But if Jesus did this, surely Jehovah could not fail Him nor us. So walking, He maintains the saint in the path which is His own. “I. set Jehovah always before my face: He is on my right hand, so that I shall not fall.” This is known by faith. He may let us suffer for righteousness’ sake — Christ did so — be put to death — Christ was; but not a hair of our head can He let fall to the ground, nor fail id making us enter into life according- to the path in which we walk, but here it is confidence in Jehovah Himself. It is faith, not the question of righteousness in Jehovah, which is in the next psalm. Faith in walking

in the path of man, according to I rod’s will and towards God solely as the sanctifying end and object, knows thai (jod is at its right hand. Jehovah will serine. How, or through what, is not the question. It will be Jehovah’s security. What strength this gives in passing through a world where all is against us, and what sanctifying power it has! There is no motive, no resource but -Jehovah, which could satisfy any other craving, or by which the heart desires to secure itself in seeking aught else. Ilence come what would, Christ waited patiently for Jehovah, looked for no other deliverance. Nor have we to seek any other, and this makes the way perfect. We turn not aside to make the path easier. And to this the psalm turns. Death was before Christ. As Abraham was called to slay his son, in whom the promises were to be fulfilled, Christ as living on the earth had to renounce all the promises to which lie was entitled and life with them. The sorrow of this to Him — for He felt all perfectly — is depicted in the 102nd psalm; but as Abraham trusted Jehovah and received Isaac from the dead in a figure, bo the Lord here, the leader and finisher of faith, trusts Jehovah in view of Ilis own death — is perfect in trust in it. He had sci Jehovah always before Him. He was at His right hand,

therefore ilis heart was glad and Ilis glory rejoiced; His flesh rested in hope, for the Jehovah He trusted would not leave His soul in hades nor suffer His Holy One to see corruption. Holy One is not here the same as “saints in the earth.” Saints are those set apart — consecrated to God. Thy Holy One is one walking- in piety, agreeable to God. It is Christ known in this character. He is also given this name in psalm lxxxix. 19, where read u of thy holy one.” Remark that it is thy Holy One, One who morally belongs to God by the perfection of His character. Christians are such only full of imperfections. They are saints, set apart to God, but they are also — and are to walk as — the “elect of God, holy and beloved;” and as such to put on the character of grace in which Christ walked. The former part of Col. iii. displays this life at large in us. Eph. i. 4 shows it in its perfection in result. This confidence of the pious soul in the faithfulness of Jehovah, the reasoning of faith from this nature that it could not be otherwise, and the consciousness of relationship with God as His delight, is very beautiful here. It is not, “thou wilt raise me,” but it is not possible in the thought of One in whom is the power of life, that Jehovah shouldleave the soul that has this life in hades, far from Him in death; and the object of His delight to sink into corruption. This moral confidence and conclusion is exceedingly beautiful. “It was not,” says Peter, “possible that He could be holden of it.” This may include His person, but His power cannot be separated from this grace. The same confidence, flowing from life, is manifested as to Jehovah’s showing Him the path of life. It is the perfection of faith as to life, but in Jehovah. “Thou wilt show me the path of life,”

perhaps through death; for there, if He was to be perfect with God, this path led — but not to stay there, or it were not a path of life. Jehovah could show Him no other. Man had taken, in spite of warning, the path of death — the path of his own will and disobedience; but Christ conies, the obedient man. There was no path for man in paradise — no natural path of life in the desert of sin. Man had not life in himself; but what path of the new divine life in man could there be for man in a world of sin, amongst men already departed from God? The law had indeed proposed one, but it only brought out the sinfulness of man’s nature. The knowledge of sin was by it. and its exceeding’ sinfulness. Christ, who had life, no doubt, could have kept it; yea, did so, because in Him was no sin, but there He was in this wholly dissociated from as who are sinners. He was alone, separate from sinners. But in a path of faith, He could be associated with those quickened by the word — con-Feasors of sin, not keepers of law, judges of all evil, separated by quickening grace from sinners, and treading the path of faith across the world, not of it. towards the full issue of this divine life, which was not here, which must go through the death of flesh. He had nothing to judge, nothing to confess, nothing to die to or for in Himself; but he could walk in the holy path of faith across the world in which they, as renewed, had to walk. But for them this holy path was necessarily death, for there was a life of sin. He

could have abode alone, and had twelve legions of angels, and gone on high; but, speaking reverently, though this would have been righteous as to Him, there was no sense in His becoming a man for this. And not only does He die for them, (for expiation is not the subject of this psalm, but life,) but having set out to go with, yea, before, them, He treads this path through death, that He may destroy its power for us, and treads it alone, as He had overcome Satan’s power in this world, and now destroyed it in death too — treads it alone. The disciples could not follow Him there, till He had destroyed Satan’s power in it. “Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me after.” No earnestness of human will, no affection could abide there. But when dead to sin, and strengthened with the strength of Christ, he could let another bind him and carry him (as Jesus did) whither nature would not. Christ then associated Himself from John’s baptism with these saints in the earth — trod the path, only perfectly apart from sin, and only with God, doing His will, showed this path of life in man; then, having died to sin, and, in the full result of this life in its own place, where no evil is, lives to God. He did so, by faith, when down on earth always, but as man, in a world apart from God, and taking the word as His guide, living by every word that came out of the mouth of God, as we have to do. The resurrection demonstrated the perfectness of a life which was always according to the Spirit of holiness; but now He lives in it in its own place, and this is what, though through death, in an undiscontinued life, He anticipates. “In thy presence is fulness of joy.” This, always His delight, was now His perfect enjoyment, “and at thy right hand.” (Divine power had brought Him to this place of power and acceptance — the witness of His being perfectly acceptable to God) are “pleasures for evermore.”

Such is life as life is with God — life shown as man in this world, associating itself with the saints on the earth, and (reading their path; not Christ uniting them to Himself. Life before God, and looking- ever at Him: a life which, though free from sin, neither innocence nor sinful man could know — which, in fact, had not to be lived in paradise — which could not be lived as belonging to the world, but which was lived to God through it: setting Jehovah always before it as its object. Such is the life we have to live. “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Sou of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Christ, as the psalm shows us, lived the life of faith, and never of anything but faith; and this was His perfection. In this world there is no other for a man. A life which has no object but the Lord Himself. This is a wonderful point — not one object in the world at all. For otherwise, it is not faith, but sight, or lust. Innocent man had no object: lie enjoyed in peace God’s goodness. .Man departed from God — had many objects; but all these separate his heart from God, and end in death. Morally separated from ‘.’oil. he may find a famine in the land, but has noway God for his object. But the new life which comes down from the Father looks up with desire to its source, and becomes the nature in man which tends towards God, has the Sou of God for its object — as Paul says, that [ may win Christ.” This life has no portion in this world at all; and, as life in man, looks to God, leans on God, and seeks no other assurance or prop, obeys God, and can live only by faith. But this is a man’s life, does not extend to God. God as such is holy, is righteous, is love; but cannot, it is evident, live by faith. He is its object. Nor is it exactly an angel’s life, though they are holy, obedient, and loving. It is man’s life, living wholly for and towards God in a world departed fiom Him — hence, towards Him and by faith; for it is not merely that they serve in it. That angels can do; but though not morally of it, for the life is come down from heaven, “They are not of the world, as I am not of the world.” Yet, as to their place as man, they are of it, and hence have to live in order not to be of it morally; objectively entirely out of it; thus having to say to God, or it would be idolatry. But, thus, while it is a man’s life, and no more as such, yet it must be absolutely for God according to His nature: and it lives, in that it lives, to God. The living Father had sent Christ, and He lived (5ta top Rarepa) for the sake of the Father: so he that eats me shall live for me. God is the measure of perfection in motive — hence, hereafter in enjoyment, and a heart wholly formed on Him. This life of man Christ led and filled the whole career of. Out of this Satan wanted Him to come in the wilderness, and have a will, make the stones bread, distrust, try if the Lord would fulfil His promise or fail him, have an object — the kingdoms of the world. This last destroyed the very nature of the life, and Satan is openly detected and dismissed. Christ would not come out of man’s dependent, obedient place of unquestioning’ trust in Jehovah. His path here was with the excellent of the earth, perfect in the life which was come down from heaven, but which was lived on earth, looking up to heaven. Whatever our privileges in union with Christ, it is all-important for the Christian to live in the fear and faith of God, according to the life of Christ. It is not man’s responsibility without law or under law as a child of Adam: it is all over with us on that ground. It is the responsibility of the new life of faith, which is a pilgrim

and a stranger here — a life come down from heaven. “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son: he that hath the Son hath life;” but a life which man lives in passing through this world, but wholly out of it in its object — a life of faith, which finds in God’s presence fulness of joy. A man’s life does not extend to God, though perfect for God, and in its delight in God. Such was Christ, though He was much more than this. Such are we as far as we are Christians; only we have to remember that the development of this life in us is not, as in the psalm, in connexion with the name of Jehovah, but with the full revelation of the Father and the Son. The blessed one who thus lived as man on earth is as man at God’s right hand, where are pleasures for evermore, with BTim in whose presence is fulness of joy. His flesh saw no corruption, and His soul was not left in hades. He despised, for this joy set before Him, the shame and endured the cross, the leader and finisher of faith.

This psalm gives us the inward spiritual life of Christ, and so ours, ending in the highest joy of God’s presence.