Psalm 89:2-4 For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: your faithfulness shall you establish in the very heavens. Thy seed will I establish forever. The keynote of the psalm is the "faithfulness" of God to his word. "God had entered into 'an everlasting covenant' with David, and had confirmed that covenant with an oath. In the most absolute and unconditional form, God had pledged himself to establish the kingdom of David and his seed forever, to beat down all their adversaries under their feet, and to maintain their throne as long as the sun and moon should endure" (see 2 Samuel 7:8-16; Isaiah 55:3). The psalmist lived when men were tempted to think God was forgetting his word, or failing to fulfil it. But he persisted in it that, whatever appearances might suggest, God never forgot his word, never failed to fulfil his word, and the covenant with David was being kept, in the fullest and best sense, though it might prove to be a spiritual rather than a material sense. I. GOD'S WORD MUST ALWAYS BE TAKEN WITH GOD'S MEANING. So often men fix their own meanings to what God says or promises, and then they are surprised and disheartened because that does not happen which they expect. Take two illustrations. Men said that God's covenant with David meant that there should always be a Davidic kingdom, and always a member of David's house on its throne. That was man's meaning put on God's words; that was not God's meaning put into his own words. So the Jews read into the prophecies their expectations of a temporal, delivering Messiah, and the Messiah who came was no fulfilment of their dreams. We need to learn that, whatever God says, using material terms and figures, is but illustrative of spiritual fact or truth. David's perpetual kingdom is Messiah's spiritual kingdom. Head with God's meaning, God's word stands eternally true. And if spiritual sensibilities are duly awakened and cultured, the spiritual meanings and spiritual fulfilments come to be regarded as really the only important ones. II. GOD'S WORD TO SOME MUST BE TAKEN TO REPRESENT GOD'S PURPOSE FOR ALL. Much mistake has been made by regarding God's covenants with individuals as mere privileges of the individual. God puts his covenant into a form for some, that all men may be helped to understand what his covenant with all men is. The illustrative character of all local covenants needs to be more fully apprehended, and more clearly pointed out. "Every Divine promise is but a limited expression of a general principle; every Divine covenant, even if it be made with a few, is nevertheless made for the benefit of the many, and can only be an instance of his ways, an illustration of a mercy as wide as the heavens, and of a faithfulness which extends to all generations of man kind." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. |
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