Psalm 35

Psalm xxxv. is the direct demand for judgment of the Spirit of Christ in the remnant, so that I have not much to remark upon it. But nimself was the first to suffer what here will be judged ;. but, as we have seen, never personally looks for judgment. Still this psalm shows us the spirit in which judgment is demanded. It was after patience and unwearied grace, and when this grace was of no avail, when there was no self-revenging, but casting themselves on the Lord, that at the end the Lord is looked to for deliverance. This is important to remark, as regards the judgment looked for. (See verses 12 — 14.) And it was only when he would be swallowed up that he looks to the Lord Himself to interfere, and so He will. The poor will not always be forgotten, nor is it right that heartless, unjust, and cruel evil should always have the upper hand unhindered. It is right that the saint should be patient, bear all till the Lord Himself interferes; and this is the spirit of this psalm, and then it rejoices in the Lord’s salvation. There is a

THE rSALMS. — PSALMS XXXV. Ill

righteous feeling that the Lord’s recompensing the cruel wickedness is right, and so it is; besides this, what we have is the character and way of the wicked, and the preceding entirely gracious walk of him who found the wicked too strong for him. Verses 2G and 27 have a special application to Christ, but the whole .psalm, in the mouth of any one forward in faithfulness, was to bring the tide of evil on himself. I would refer to one or two passages to show the working of this spirit, and how far the Lord points to it as to the remnant. As to Himself, save to prophesy the fact, lie did not ask for it. He never does. See 1 Samuel xxiv., xxv., xxvi. — the spirit in which David was kept, though weak, yet still, then, the instrument specially fitted by grace to attune the mind of Christ in these psalms to the circumstances in which the remnant, cast out like him, will be, and rising up, when God pleased, to the prophetic declaration of what Christ Himself should pass through, and provide words, wonderful honour! in which Christ could express Himself, (see particularly xxiv. 11-13, and the end of xxvi.,) for so many of the psalms. So Abigail keeps him in this spirit through mercy, but there is no self-avenging, but casting himself on the Lord.

The way in which the Lord directs His disciples in Matt. x. marks the spirit, too, in which the remnant are to bear witness for His commission, and goes on to His return, (ver. 13 — 15. Comp. Psalm xxxv. 13.) It is important that the Christian should understand that while the Spirit of Christ in His own walk in the world was quite different, and so ought the Christian’s to be, from the desire of judgment expressed in the psalms, yet that that desire is righteous and right in its place, and that the desire of judgment is not self- vengeance, but an appeal to a delivering and righteous God after the perfect patience of the heart under unrighteous oppression, as bowing to the will of God, and learning the lesson He had to teach. (Comp. Psalm xciv. 12, and following.) Still the Christian is on quite different ground. In this point of view this psalm is an important one. It is one in which the spirit of the remnant is exercised before God by trial, and, inwardly subdued, is cast upon God to look for deliverance, according to the way in which it was promised to Israel and to the remnant under the divine government revealed in the law and the prophets.