Ps 98 > Joy in Judgment

I mentioned that three words jumped out to me in this Psalm: salvation, joy, and judge. I considered salvation yesterday; joy & judge today.

It seems an odd pairing: joy & judgment. When we contemplate joy, we think of exuberance, delight, freedom, happiness! Thoughts of judgment bring ideas of somber sentencing, tears, pleading, restraints, punishment, imprisonment. These two are functionally opposite ideas.

Except when the verdict is “not guilty!”

Then the courtroom becomes a party, hugs of relief and tears of joy are shared as acquittal is announced and freedom thought lost is now fully realized! Sometimes at the same time the truly guilty party is identified in the course of the trial, and his being taken into custody so that justice might finally be served only adds to the community’s joy over the innocence just proclaimed!

Joy in judgment!

Apparently, it’s possible.

Psalm 98 inextricably marries these two “opposites.” All people and all of creation are encouraged to get in on the joy-wagon (v.4-8), “for the Lord is coming to judge the earth” (v.9a).

It seems a strange reason for a party, and I can think of no one who throws a ticker-tape parade in anticipation of a coming verdict.

Yet, that’s what we’re encouraged to do.

How can we celebrate God’s act of judgment? How can we get excited about what He’s going to say, how He’s going to rule?

Because we know His character. “He will judge the world with righteousness and all the peoples with equity” (v.9). Whatever He decides, it will be right; we have no fear of needing to call for a mistrial or even file an appeal. As the Lord Himself is good, so are His judgments.

What’s more, we know the contents of His judgment. For it’s in His judging that “the Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (v.2-3).

God’s act of judgment is a platform for Him to show forth His righteousness, grace, mercy, love, and faithfulness. He doesn’t convict those who have been purchased and covered by the sacrifice of His Son. He doesn’t turn His back upon those who truly repent and desire to know Him. His hands aren’t bound by mandatory minimum sentencing or “three strikes and you’re out” laws. In all cases, He can exercise His Fatherhood–He is never constrained by the Law.

This doesn’t mean that there is no condemnation, or that all are acquitted. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be any tears at judgment (Luke 16:19-31; Matt 13:49-50).

But it does mean that there is an opportunity for the experience of joy in judgment. The only way it comes is to know God ahead of time, because the joy comes in knowing, anticipating, and celebrating the outcome of the verdict before it’s even pronounced…because you know Him, His character, His promises, His love, His sacrifice, His Son.

Ps 94:1 > God of Vengeance

We have many names and labels for God.

The Good Shepherd. Comforter. King. The God Who Provides. The God Who Sees. The God Who Heals. The God of Angel Armies.

Psalm 94 offers us an additional epithet, one which I’m quite certain I’ve never heard used in any prayer book or praise song.

God of Vengeance.

And for good measure, just to make sure we didn’t miss it, it’s repeated for us.

And lest we make any mistake, it’s combined with the personal, covenantal name of God (YHWH).

O LORD, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, shine forth!

And what are we asking of this God? Not that He would stay in the background, not that He would hold back, not that He would hide His vengeful character, but rather that He would shine forth in His glory, splendor, might, and majesty.

Are we crazy?

I have studied many of the world’s religions, and traveled and lived extensively amidst Islamic and Buddhist cultures: this Christian name for God certainly strikes me as out of the ordinary. It alone is a guarantee that we’re not talking about the same god that other religions seek.

Many prayers and sacred texts referring to the god of Islam (Allah) begin, “Most Gracious, Most Compassionate.”

And how does Psalm 94 begin? “God of vengeance.”

On this basis, if you put the two next to each other, who would most people choose?

This observation brings me to two thoughts.

First, we hopefully know that there’s more to God than vengeance. His vengeance is mentioned in a dozen verses or so, but it hardly begins every chapter of the Bible. And many other statements about His grace, mercy, love, justice, and compassion exist alongside of this label to ensure that we don’t get the wrong idea.

Nevertheless, vengeance is there as well. And it would be inappropriate for us to ignore it entirely. Perhaps the rest of Psalm 94 will be an opportunity for us to explore this facet of the character and nature of God.

The second thought I have is this: what kind of faith does it take to be able to name and proclaim God as the God of vengeance? To make this statement and then invite this God to act seems like a fairly risky undertaking. After all, I recognize that I’m worthy of punishment, that I have offended the holiness and righteousness of God in my life. Do I really want Him to flex His majestic muscles?

I think, in fact, that it takes great faith to make this declaration. A deep relationship that knows the heart of God as Father, Redeemer, and Savior can confidently invite God to be all that He is at all times, without fear or hesitation. Because God does not cease to be merciful or good while He is being vengeful. He does not cease being just, fair, and righteous. I do not have to worry about Him becoming capricious or forsaking His promises while engaging in a bloodthirsty rage of vengeance against humanity.

I can say, “You are God and I am Yours…and I receive You for all that You are.”

Challenging perhaps to put ourselves at risk, but what about the other people that don’t know the rest of His character, that might experience the force of His wrath more directly, without the hope or faith that believers rely on?

In that case, it moves me to pray, to plead with God that He would demonstrate the fullness of His mercy to those people.

Some would say that it’s foolish to worship such a God.

But it’s not actually a choice. I don’t get to choose what God is like. I don’t get to shape Him according to my own whims and preferences. In His own words (Exodus 3:14), He is Who He is. I can only live in light of that truth, getting to know Him for who He is, engaging in relationship with Him.

Yet, it is still a struggle to type this:

“I love You, God of vengeance.”

 

Ps 86:15 > Learning the Lord’s Words

My wife and I are part of a home group Bible study that’s working its way through the book of Exodus.

Last night, the facilitator took us through the story of the Golden Calf (Ex 32), and did a really tremendous job in taking us more deeply into considering this act of idolatry, the disobedience of the Israelites, and the reactions of both God and Moses.

That chapter contains some rather intense occurrences: Moses smashing the newly written tablets of the 10 Commandments (Ex 33:19), the Levites being ordered to kill their fellow countrymen (v.26-28), and God unleashing a plague of punishment on the nation (v.35)…and all of this happened after God and Moses had a chat (v.11-14) and God came away committing to not destroy the people for their waywardness.

Although it may at first appear to be a rather obvious act of wickedness, this narrative takes us more deeply into the character of God and His relationship with His chosen people.

My reading of Psalm 86 this morning connected perfectly with that story and its aftermath.

As we observed previously, Psalm 86 begins with petitions of God, but moves more and more toward affirmations of His character. The final verses continue in this vein.

But You, O Lord are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth. (v.15)

This is a great declaration, a nearly comprehensive summary of the nature of God. How profound!

But what we find is that the psalmist didn’t come up with this on his own.

I couldn’t wait for our next group meeting in a few weeks, so looking at the events immediately following the Golden Calf, we find that God sets about replacing the broken tablets of the 10 Commandments and He makes a special appearance to Moses. As part of that conversation, God says of Himself,

The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth. (Ex 34:6)

I read a note that this Hebrew sentence is actually word-for-word exactly the same as what appears in Ps 86:15 (though it doesn’t come through that way in my English translation).

The psalmist in Ps 86 didn’t come up with this pronouncement on His own; He was using God’s own words about Himself to acknowledge the truth of who God is.

In fact, the words of God continue on in Ex 34:7 to talk about God’s tremendous forgiveness and also His punishment of the guilty–something we saw very clearly in the Golden Calf story. It’s as if God and Moses debrief the whole event, with God providing some further clarity on exactly who He is and how this relationship will look.

Obviously, there are many words about God in the Bible; descriptions of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are plentiful. How often do we adopt these words as we think about God? It can be tempting for us to apply our own labels, our own standards, and our own expectations to God; in effect, we pick and choose what we like about Him and otherwise basically create our own way of worshiping and following Him. This is what the Israelites did with the Golden Calf, and God made it pretty clear how He felt about that choice!

But we don’t have to make it up for ourselves. God hasn’t left us in the dark, wondering who He is, how to relate to Him, what we can expect from Him, how we can rely on Him and depend upon Him. He has described Himself for us, given us words to use when we are going through crisis, confusion, and uncertainty. But it’s left to us to learn the Lord’s words and to apply them, to live them out, to adopt them into our lifestyle and perspective…rather than trying to make it up for ourselves as we go along.

I’m grateful that we have opportunities to read the Word of God, individually and in groups, to talk about it, to rehearse it, to examine it, to apply it. For the psalmist, who most likely wrote about 500 years after the time of Moses, these words of God were an important part of His ability to weather a trying situation. So too for us, our lives require that we look to the truth that we have about God–from both the Old and New Testaments–and to lean on this wonderful revelation of our compassionate, gracious, merciful, loving, forgiving, true God.