GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 119:167-168
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167 My soul keeps your testimonies,
I love them very much.
To say “my soul” instead of “I” is a common thing in Hebrew, especially in poetry. Here in the Great Psalm there are eight examples. The human soul shares almost all of the characteristics of the human body apart from flesh, solidity, and so on. The soul has and shares (with the mind) the person’s full memory, mental capabilities such as comprehension and knowledge, opinions, faith, sense of humor, love, passion, compassion, desire, and also the capacity for sin, repentance, and forgiveness as well as error. Otherwise, the soul would not be treated as a man is treated, being subject to heaven and hell (Luke 16:23). The soul can be in anguish (Psalm 6:3); the soul can yearn (Psalm 84:2); the soul has the faith of the body (1 Peter 1:9). The spirit or soul of man animates the body, giving it life, and “enables man to lay hold of things incomprehensible, invisible, and eternal. It is, in brief” (explains Luther) “the dwelling place of faith and the Word of God” (LW 21:303).
I have used the phrase “very much” for the Hebrew adverb ma’od (מְאֹד). In Genesis 1:31 it is also translated “very (good).” Other translations have “greatly” here, but we usually say we love “very much” in English as opposed to loving “greatly.” The testimonies of God are those things that God has spoken as a witness, either to his holy will or to the truth in some special manner. For example:
168 I keep your precepts and your testimonies,
for all my ways are known to you.
Here we come to the reminder, which so many ignore or forget about, that all our ways are known to God Almighty. There are two main ways of saying that we are known to God or seen by him. The first is to be “in his sight” or “before the face of God” as in Ecclesiastes 5:2, “Do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God.” The other is to be “before God,” as if one stands naked before God on a platform for his inspection. This second one is what our Psalm has here. Every single act, word, mistake, and thought of ours is brought before God for his inspection and judgment, constantly, without fail, every moment of every day. Nothing escapes his gaze; nothing is missed or mistaken in the chaos of our thoughts or in the dark chambers of our loneliness and gloom, fatigue, despair, grief, distress. What songwriter Haven Gillespie wrote about Santa Claus is ultimately and only true of God in Heaven: “He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good.” The problem for all of mankind is that none of us can be good. “No one living is righteous before you” (Psalm 143:2).
But the child of God stands before God in God’s full gaze and knows the glorious truth. When God looks at his dear children, all of those who have faith in Christ, he looks at us with a special lens: the lens of the cross. And with this lens, he sees the perfect life that Christ led in our place, for this is the victory of the cross of Jesus Christ. His active obedience to the Father’s will and the Father’s holy and uncompromising law becomes our obedience through faith. “The sanctifying work of the Spirit is obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood. This is grace and peace, which are yours in abundance” (1 Peter 1:2). And again: “Men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ” (2 Corinthians 9:13). And Paul also said: “Through the obedience of the one man, Christ, the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). Therefore we stand calmly before the Father’s gaze and inspection, and know that his own holy testimony is this: We are righteous through faith in his Son, Jesus our Lord. Therefore we who fail according to the flesh, stand obedient and forgiven according to the spirit. For we are saved through faith in Jesus.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Psalm 119:167-168 The lens of the cross