By J.G. Bellet
Psalms 103-107
These Psalms form the different chapters of another little book. The contents prove that; and the first of them alone having a title favours it.
It is a fine celebration of God's resurrection-power, or pardoning restoring grace.
Psalm 103 celebrates this grace or power in the Psalmist's own Person. He rehearses the forgiveness of all his sins, and the guiding of him onward to the kingdom by the safe and tender hand of his heavenly Father.
Psalm 104 looks at Creation in the same light. God's providence rules over all even now; but in the end His resurrection strength will be applied to Creation, which therefore will again, as of old, become the object of divine delight, and though it now groans and travails in pain, will then be delivered.
The 105th, 106th, 107th, celebrate the same thing in Israel;
Psalm 105 looking at Israel blest of God till they were brought to Canaan, and there set under the law;
Psalm 106 looking on all that as failing, and Israel bringing ruin and death on themselves; and then
Psalm 107 presenting the resurrection grace and strength of God, calling Israel from the place of death to know His loving-kindness and declare His goodness as a people who had been dead and were alive again, who had been lost but now were found.
Psalm 106 closes with rehearsing the cries of Israel so often heard in the days of their distress throughout the Book of Judges (v. 43-46). The Psalmist then takes up the same cry as for Israel's Present distress, and anticipating mercy and deliverance, blesses the God of Israel (v. 47, 48). Psalm 107 gives God's answer, realizing these anticipations of faith.
This little volume of Psalms may thus come happily after Psalm 102, where we heard the cry of Him who sought deliverance from death, and was heard, and whose deliverance or resurrection is the grand pledge of the same to all whom He heads; for "in Christ shall all be made alive." His own mystic body, the Church, will rise in the likeness of His glorious body, Israel and the nations will revive in the earth, and the creation itself be delivered from corruption.
There will, it is true, be different orders and glories, but all will be as in resurrection or new creation. When Jesus preached He healed. So did His Apostles and the disciples whom He sent forth. Disease departed where He came, sickness cleared off, and the voice of health and thanksgiving was heard in the villages and cities of Israel. As of old when He led His people from Egypt, it was as God their Healer. (Ex. 15) He led them. Their feet had not swelled for forty years,--Caleb's strength was green and fresh as when he set out--the witness of what would have been for all the congregation had they been obedient. And so, when the kingdom comes, the lame will leap as an hart, the tongue of the dumb shall sing. These shall be again the works of the Son of David. (Isa. 35, Matt. 12) For the earthly people shall then be in lovely healthful tabernacles (after the long leprosy, the flesh becoming like the flesh of a little child), while in the higher celestial places, the children of the resurrection will shine in spiritual bodies of glory, according to the mighty power of Christ, whereby He is able to subdue even all things unto Himself.
Resurrection or Redemption (for they are one in principle) has been God's great purpose from the beginning. Without faith in resurrection "the power of God" is not known (Matt. 22: 29), neither is "knowledge of God" attained. (1 Cor. 15: 34) Creation is but the avenue or ante-room. Creation was for redemption and not redemption after Creation. Because in counsel before the foundation of the world, all was to stand in redemption. The law of the jubilee shows us this. (Lev. 25) And the man of God, the pardoned accepted sinner celebrates all this in this magnificent series of Psalms, rejoicing, as we have said, in redeeming or resurrection power as displayed in himself, in creation, and in Israel--seeing it every where, as his soul surveys the glorious prospect.*
*The purpose of the Spirit in these Psalms being moral and not historical--to vindicate Jehovah in His dealings with Israel, and to convict Israel in their dealings with Jehovah--the Psalmist in 104 and 106 does not give the events to which he refers in strict or accurate order. He speaks of the plague of darkness, for instance, before that of flies, and of Korah's rebellion, before the making of the golden calf This is natural, and what we ourselves would do very probably, if our purpose in narrating circumstances was, like the Psalmist's here, moral and not historical.
Having thus viewed these Psalms together, they are left to the consideration of the saints; judging, however, that a minute observation of each would confirm this general impression. And a sweet meditation they afford to the renewed mind. A poor sinner, in Psalm 103, stands, in spirit, at the golden altar (that is, in the full certainty of salvation) with his incense of praise, and from that happy place anticipates or surveys the past and future dealings of the same Lord, who had thus blest him in all His works and ways, whether in creation itself or in the midst of His people. And indeed the only adequate power of interpreting the divine way is to bear in our souls a sample of it, as is done here. For the believer is "a kind of first-fruits." (James 1) He already stands in the reconciliation, as all will by and by. (Col. 1) God's way is in grace or in resurrection, and the consciously pardoned sinner is, therefore, the only full Prophet of God--the only one who can to the full either enjoy or declare Him. "Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldest taste His works."
It is well to add, that parts of Psalm 105th and Psalm 106 were sung at the removal of the ark in 1 Chr. 16, as we have already observed; Psalm 96 furnishes another part of that same beautiful composite hymn. For that occasion, typically, set forth the season of Israel's coming joy; and these Psalms are songs of praise suited to that season.
Resurrection--the glorious interpreter of God's ways and purposes, and the full and eternal witness of His love and power--being thus the theme of this book, we may say, in the closing words of it, "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord."
NOTE.--The fourth division of the Psalms, according to the Jews, ends with Psalm 106.
