Verse 15. “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.” There is the dreadful and there is the joyful sound. The dreadful was at Mount Sinai. The joyful sound is from Mount Sion. When the people heard the former, they were far from beholding the glory of God’s face. Moses only was permitted to see His “back parts;” the people were kept at a distance, and the light of God’s glory that they saw was so terrible to them, that they could not abide it. But they that know the “joyful sound,” they shall be admitted near, nearer than Moses, so as to see the glory of God’s face or brightness of His countenance; and that, not only transiently, as Moses saw God’s back parts but continually. The light of God’s glory shall not be terrible to them, but easy and sweet so that they may dwell in it and walk in it. And it shall be to them instead of the light of the sun; for the sun shall no more be their light by day nor the moon by night, but God shall be their everlasting light.
Verse 15 “… they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.” They are totally mistaken who suppose that “the light of God’s countenance,” and the privileges of the gospel, and the comforts of the Spirit, conduce to make us indolent and inactive in the way of duty. The text cuts up this surmise by the roots. For, it does not say, they shall sit down in the light of thy countenance; or they shall lie down in the light of thy countenance; but “they shall walk in the light of thy countenance.” What is walking? It is a progressive motion from one point of space to another. And what is that holy walking which God’s Spirit enables all His people to observe? It is a continued, progressive motion from sin to holiness; from all that is evil, to every good word and work. And the self-same “light of God’s countenance “ in which you, O believer, are enabled to walk, and which at first gave you spiritual feet where with to walk, will keep you in a walking and in a working state, to the end of your warfare.
Verse 19. “… I have laid help upon one that is mighty: I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” The Lord had made David a mighty man of valour, and now he covenants to make him the helper and defender of the Jewish state. In a far fuller sense the Lord Jesus is essentially and Immeasurably mighty, and on him the salvation of his people rests by divine appointment, while his success is secured by divine strength engaged to be with him. Let us lay our faith where God has laid our help. “I have exalted one chosen out of the people.” David was God’s elect, elect out of the people, as one of themselves, and elect to the highest position in the state. In his extraction, election, and exaltation he was an eminent type of the Lord Jesus, who is the man of whom people, the chosen of God, and the king of the church. Whom God exalts let us exalt. Woe unto those who despise him; they are guilty of contempt of court before the Lord of Hosts, as well as of rejecting the Son of God.
Verse 26. “He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father …” When did David call God his Father? It is striking that we do not find anywhere in the Old Testament that the patriarchs or prophets called God their Father. You do not find them addressing him as Father; they did not know Him as such. This verse is unintelligible in reference to David; but in regard to the True David it is exactly what He did say, - “My Father, and your Father; my God, and your God.” Never until Christ uttered these words, never until He appeared on earth in humanity as the Son of God, did any man or any child of humanity address God in this endearing character. It was after Christ said, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father,” that believers were enabled to look up to God and say, “Abba, Father.” Here you see distinctly that this applies to Christ. He was the first to say this; David did not say it. If there were no other proof in the whole psalm, that one clause would be a demonstration to me that no other man than the Lord Jesus Christ can here be spoken of.
(To be continued.)