Psalm 50:23 Whoever offers praise glorifies me: and to him that orders his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God. For Asaph, see 1 Chronicles 6:39. He was a prophet, a musician, a poet. The main function of the prophet was to teach, illustrate and enforce the great moral and spiritual truths which lie at the foundation of all true religion. The main office of the Hebrew prophets was to preserve and enlarge that Gospel which, Paul says, was "before the law." It is because this prophetic, this spiritual element pervades most of the psalms that the Psalter has become the hymn-book of the Church in all ages and in all lands. This is specially noticeable in Asaph's three psalms, which treat of the spirituality of all true worship, and of the mystery of the Divine providence — themes which have always had a singular attraction for all deeply religious and prophetic souls. 1. The fiftieth psalm has for its theme the spirituality of all true worship. Asaph suffers his imagination to play round this great theme. Asaph reaches his fine catholic conclusion, that none but those who sacrifice thanksgiving, and dispose their ways aright, can truly serve and please the Lord. This prophetic truth is the common property of the human race. 2. In Psalm 73. and 77. Asaph, from slightly "different points of view, deals with a problem interesting to all thoughtful minds. The root of his sorrow is, that "the hand of the Most High doth change," that it moves uncertainly, inexplicably, as if it had no set purpose, and were working for no definite end. Apparently, the blessings promised to the righteous fell to the wicked, while the threatenings addressed to the wicked were fulfilled on the righteous.Asaph offers us one or two calming and helpful thoughts which any of us to whom this problem is alive and pressing will acknowledge to be of unspeakable value. 1. He holds fast his faith, let facts say what they will, in the law of retribution. He is sure that "punishment is the other half of sin," that the two cannot be divorced for long. 2. Then he discovers that as sin is its own punishment, so also piety is its own reward, but a reward in a far higher sense than that in which sin is its own punishment. For here ha does not dwell on and apply the law of retribution. No; God Himself is to be his reward. 3. He looks, and bids us look, for an everlasting reward, an immortality of service and joy. "Afterwards receive me to glory." Asaph's two main contributions to the theology of his time, and of all time, were this doctrine of worship and this vindication of the ways of God with men. Neither of them was new. But they came with special force from the lips of one who was a minister of the altar, and who had himself passed through the agonies of doubt. They were not new then; they are not obsolete now. (Samuel Cox, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God. |
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