REFORMED WITNESS
Volume VIII, March 2000, Number 3
No Grace But Wrath
Psalm Seventy-Three
by H. Hoeksema
From the July 15, 1926 issue of The Standard Bearer.
The superscription of Psalm 73 informs us that Asaph was the human instrument through whom the Spirit of God revealed to the Church of all ages the profound and abounding wisdom contained in this beautiful song. There are some, among them also Calvin, who prefer to think that it was not Asaph but David who composed this psalm and, "That the name of Asaph was prefixed to it, because the charge of singing it was committed to him, while the name of David, its author, was omitted, just as is it usual for us, when things are well known of themselves, not to be at the trouble of stating them". (Calvin.) But there is no reason to accept this view as true. For first, the ground adduced for this opinion is a mere conjecture and not in harmony with the facts, for many of the psalms in Scripture do bear the name of David, from which it is evident that it was by no means customary to leave the name off, when it was well known and a matter of fact that David wrote a certain psalm. And secondly, the Word of God introduces Asaph to us, not only as a chief singer or precentor in the sanctuary, but also as an author of psalms. For in II Chronicles 29:30 we read: "Moreover Hezekiah the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer." Asaph, then, was not only a singer but also a seer. He not only directed the sacred music in the sanctuary but also was instrumental in the composition of songs to be chanted there. And it was, according to the superscription, through him that the Holy Spirit gave this beautiful gem of divine wisdom and consolation in suffering to the Church of Christ Jesus in the world.
Asaph was a singer, a leader in music, one of the three precentors that were appointed to direct the music accompanying divine worship in the sanctuary. We know from the Word of God (I Chron. 23:2-5) that David the king, himself a singer and a lover of music, and besides, deeply concerned with the things that pertained to the house of God and the dwelling-place of Jehovah, divided all the Levites into four groups or companies. To the smallest of these four divisions, a group consisting of four thousand Levites, was assigned the music that accompanied divine worship. From this division of four thousand was chosen again a smaller group of two hundred and eighty-eight. These were all select singers. These were once more subdivided into twenty-four classes, all of which were placed under the direction of three precentors, Heman, Asaph and Ethan or Jeduthun. This Asaph is at the same time the author of some of the psalms of Holy Writ, and he composed the song we will now proceed to consider a little more closely and in detail.
A mere superficial perusal of the whole psalm will immediately make it plain why, in this connection, we consider it important to dwell more or less at length upon the significance of this part of the Word of God. For the theme of the entire psalm may be expressed in the one question: Is God good to the ungodly? And this is also the important question involved in the controversy concerning common grace. Still more: the author of Psalm 73 does not deal with this question in the abstract. On the contrary, it is to him a question of profound practical significance. He was led to consider the question by considering things as they appeared to him in the world. He saw the wicked prosper in the world. This seeming good fortune and prosperity of the ungodly in the light of God's all-overruling providence and government is the problem with which the poet deals in this psalm. This is the problem of common grace. But we ought to notice from the outset that the spiritual attitude of Asaph over against this problem is radically opposed to that of the protagonists of a common grace in our day. The latter glory in their view; Asaph is troubled in soul as long as he imagines there is such a thing as common grace. This is so plain from the first part of the psalm, that no one can deny it. If it should prove to be a fact that God favors and is gracious to the ungodly, Asaph will have no rest for his soul; he cannot be comforted and it seems to him that he loses his God. For it has been well emphasized repeatedly, that the question of common grace above all concerns our conception of God. So does the author of psalm seventy-three conceive of the matter. But instead of teaching or even inferring that a denial of common grace is based upon a wrong conception of the Most High - implies that God is cruel and even monstrous, as our opponents would fain maintain, the author of our psalm emphatically teaches that the affirmation that God is good to the ungodly and wicked implies a denial of the very holiness and righteousness of God as well as a denial of His love over His people. It is to Asaph a denial of the very Godhead of God. To hold that God is gracious to the wicked and that He blesses them is sufficient to lead him to the unhappy suggestion that there is no knowledge in the Most High and that the affairs of this world roll on at random and are governed by chance rather than by the direction of a righteous and just and almighty God. Such is the spiritual attitude of Asaph over against the question in distinction from those who in our day extol the view, that God is good to all without distinction and that He is gracious over the ungodly. To the poet the very idea is intolerable. It upsets him. It brings him trouble and conflict. He cannot conceive of his God favoring the wicked. Secondly, it must also be noted that Asaph, even if he would have to come to the conclusion based upon an impartial observation of the facts in life that God is indeed good to the ungodly, is incapable of noticing anything common in this grace of God. In that case, if you will let the facts of life speak and draw your conclusion from them, you will have to arrive at the view that God is gracious to the ungodly in preference to the godly. For it is the ungodly, not the godly, that prosper in the world and for the most part triumph. They enjoy all things, and that in spite of the fact that they seem to exert themselves to provoke the Most High to anger and to challenge Him to take vengeance upon them for their iniquity. Would it not seem, then, that God takes pleasure in their wicked deeds? All the more this question urges itself upon the mind and heart of the poet when he considers the lot and way of the righteous in the world. They suffer. They are "pinched with poverty, oppressed with many troubles, harassed with multiplied wrongs, and covered with shame and reproach" (Calvin). They groan and sigh and cry out to the Almighty, but there seems no God in Heaven that inclines His ear unto their lamentations or is mercifully moved with their afflictions. If grace is for the wicked, there is nothing common in it, for the righteous, according to the same basis of judgment, seem to be deprived of it in proportion to the seriousness of their effort to walk in the way of the Lord!
Such in general is the content of the first part of the psalm, narrating the troubles and conflicts of heart and mind the poet experienced, and extending through verse 16. The author begins the psalm by stating from the very outset the positive conclusion to which he had come, however painful and grievous his experience had been, when his soul had been agitated by many doubts and temptations. He had gained the victory. He had not been overcome by these doubts and murmurings concerning his God, but entering into the sanctuary and having been taught by his God to view all things in the light of eternity, he had come out of the battle victorious and even encouraged in hope and confirmed in the faith. What he had learned in that sanctuary he states first of all, before he continues to speak of his doubts and conflicts. "Truly, God is good to Israel!" Such is the positive theme of his song, and this he would impress upon every soul of the godly in trouble and affliction. It is the outcome of all his temptations that he may now confidently state this. Surely, that is, however things may appear to the contrary, God is good to Israel. And we may note that it is the intention of the poet to have the emphasis placed on Israel. To Israel God is good, not to the wicked. And, lest he should be misunderstood because of lack of definiteness, he adds immediately: "to such as are of a clean heart." For not all that lay a claim to the name of Israel belong to the true Israel of God. There are wicked even among them, the Israel according to the flesh. The poet, therefore, "with a view of blotting out from the catalogue of the godly all the degenerate children of Abraham, acknowledges none to belong to Israel but such as purely and uprightly worship God; as if he had said: 'When I declare that God is good to Israel, I do not mean all those who, resting contended with a mere external profession, bear the name of Israelites, to which they have no just title; but I speak of the spiritual children of Abraham, who consecrate themselves to God with sincere affection of heart'" (Calvin). To these, then, God is good. To none other. This is now finally established in the mind of the author, however he may have been troubled at first by things that seemed too deep for him to scrutinize.
But the author continues to narrate the soul-battle he had fought before he had arrived at the conclusion, that God is good to His people and not to the wicked. There had been a time, when he had not possessed the comfort of that assurance, when his feet were almost gone and his steps had well-nigh slipped off the path of the godly. He had been so harassed with doubts concerning the government of all things, he had been so filled with bitter feelings and rebellious murmurings concerning his God, that he had felt himself slip away from the way of the righteous. For it is a fact that doubts concerning our God are of the most painful and serious doubts, and they do indeed affect our whole life and conduct, and the author goes on to describe the occasion for this bitter conflict. He had been doing a bit of observation and comparison. He had glanced about himself in the world especially with a view to the way in which things were governed. He had become envious at the foolish, which is merely a generic term to designate the wicked. The specific cause of this envy was that these foolish enjoyed continual prosperity in the world. He, therefore, really had a quarrel with God, who sent them this prosperity, "For," says Calvin, "we are ready to imagine that, since God grants them so much of the good things of this life, they are the objects of His approbation and favor." So did Asaph imagine. He relates to us his inner reasonings and disputes he had with the Most High. He noticed with regard to these foolish and ungodly that there are no bands in their death. They know no death-struggle, and the pangs of death never seem to take hold of them. During their whole life they are strong and vigorous, for their strength is firm, and at the end they quietly and peacefully seem to glide away into eternity. They are not in trouble as other men are, neither are they plagued like other men. They seem to dwell in sweet repose and undisturbed luxury and prosperity; poverty and want they know not and fierce trials do not seem to assail them. They appear exempt from the common miseries of men in proportion to the measure of their wickedness, and especially are they exempt from the many trials of the righteous. Now because of this, pride compasseth them like a chain, they boast in their pride, they adorn themselves with it as with a chain of gold. It is their glory to be haughty. "They are as great in their own esteem as if they were aldermen of the New Jerusalem; they want no other ornament than their own pomposity. No jeweler could sufficiently adorn them; they wear their own pride as a better ornament than a gold chain" (Spurgeon). Violence covereth them like a garment. They seize and covet, they rob and plunder and in their greed and covetousness they oppress whomsoever they will, particularly the righteous. "They brag and bully, bluster and browbeat, as if they had taken out a license to ride roughshod over all mankind" (Spurgeon). They wallow in wealth and prosperity and they feast and live sumptuously every day, so that their very eyes stand out with fatness; and their income and possession even far exceed their own greedy expectations and imaginations, for they have more than heart could wish. They are wicked and their heart is corrupt, neither do they take pains to dissemble their own ungodliness, for proudly they speak of oppression and furiously they foam at the poor and the righteous. Still more: as they do with men so they do with God. Also over against Him they assume an attitude of boastful pride and wicked haughtiness. Rebelliously they speak blasphemies against the Most High, challenging Him as it were to take vengeance of their wicked deeds. And affecting that they are God they let their tongue wander through the whole earth as if they were masters of the universe. Such is the picture the psalmist draws. Thus he saw them. These were his observations. On the basis of these one would seem to be bound to arrive at the conclusion that God is gracious to the wicked at least in this present time and with respect to the things of the world.
In verse 10 the poet introduces another group of people and there is a difference of opinion among commentators with regard to their identity. Whom does he here introduce as saying: "How doth God know and is there knowledge in the Most High?" According to some, these are the followers of the most preeminent among the ungodly. Those who are not as elevated in their positions in the world, but who spiritually assume the same attitude and take the same stand with them, boasting with them against the Most High in their sinful pride. Others are of the opinion that the poet here refers to God's people, their steps well-nigh gone, envying the foolish and feeling their feet slip away from under them. They begin to murmur and to have a quarrel with God. In our opinion this latter interpretation is correct. The author himself never slipped away as far as these people of God, whom he now introduces. But it is a fact that many children of God in the world, still imperfect and sinful, limited in their understanding of the ways of the Lord, are tempted to charge God foolishly, when they see the prosperity of the wicked, while they themselves are in trouble and sorrow every day, and their punishment is there every morning. It is then that they return hither, that all their attention is concentrated upon this seemingly unequal and unjust government of God in respect to the things of this present time; and they are tempted to say: How doth God know and is there knowledge in the Most High? Like Jeremiah they expostulate: "Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee; yet, let me talk with thee of thy judgments; Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal treacherously?" And, tempted by their own sinful heart, though they do not break forth in open rebellion against the Lord and in the blasphemies of the ungodly, yet within their inmost heart they fret and criticize God and His dealings with men, accusing Him of injustice in conniving at wickedness. They like to complain against Him, they reason and plead with Him and actually imagine that they have a ground for their murmurings against the Most High. That ground is expressed in the words: "Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches." And when they turn away from the ungodly and toward their own lot, they discover that their only reward for their righteousness is a daily scourging! For carefully they walked, and they can wash their hands in innocency. They have no part in the boastful pride of the wicked. Yet their affliction is there every morning as sure as the light of the morning sun dissipates the night's darkness and of their calamities there is no end! Thus they wail and complain and murmur; and if it were not for the sustaining power of God's almighty grace, they would be swallowed up in this dark abyss of doubt and conflict.
But the psalmist now changes his tone. He will not speak thus. Even if the thought should for a moment be entertained in his heart the expression of it will not come over his lips. He realizes the deep sinfulness of such deliberations. He is conscious of the danger and of the evil such thoughts might work should they ever be expressed by such a man as he. If a man like the psalmist, a leader in Israel, should speak thus of a grace of God over the ungodly, he realizes that he might probably find support with some profane hypocrites, whose hearts are filled with the love of this world and who have no spiritual part with the inheritance of the true Israel of God; but he would surely sin against the generations of the true spiritual children of God. The timid among them, in their sufferings and afflictions, would by such speech be carried still deeper into their darkness and into the distress of their soul. Surely, there would be no comfort in the thought for them! Why carry the conflict of his own soul into the hearts of others? No, somehow he realizes that his conclusion cannot be right. Even though he does not understand the ways of God, he will not accept the conclusion that God loves the ungodly and that He is really good to them. He will hold his tongue. He refuses to offer as an explanation for the apparent disorder in the government of the world by God, that the Most High is good to the wicked. Though the thing is still painful to him and he fails to see light in the deep ways of God, he will bury his trouble in his own heart for the present, bear it alone and hold his peace, realizing that by acting otherwise he would but sin against the generations of God's children. Would to God that Dr. Kuyper had followed the same course, and that he had held his tongue rather than sinning against the generation of the true children of God by offering an explanation the heart of which is that God is a friend of the wicked, even standing in covenant-relation with them for the present!
But no, even here the psalmist cannot rest. He cannot live with this conflict raging in his own soul He must fight it out. He turns in the proper direction to finish the battle and come out as the victor. He goes to the sanctuary of his God.
Various explanations have been offered of the psalmist's meaning when he tells us that he went into "the sanctuary." Some, even among eminent Hebrew commentators, understand by this sanctuary a reference to Heaven, God's celestial abode and the dwelling-place of the angels and of the saints made perfect. The significance then is that in the spirit the poet entered Heaven, and from there, instead of contemplating the lot of the righteous and of the wicked from a mere earthy point of view, he now takes within the scope of his view also their end. He looks at all things now, not merely from the viewpoint of the world and things present, but in the light of eternity. There is without doubt an element, a very important element of truth in this interpretation. For this is exactly what the psalmist does, as is evident from the rest of his song, and it alone becomes the end of all his troubles and the cure of all his conflicts and doubts. It is true, that one cannot understand the ways of God in this world with respect to the godly and the ungodly, if he refuses to widen the scope of his vision so as to embrace eternity. The wisdom of the world is earthy and for that very reason also devilish. The fool only it is who considers things earthy all by themselves, divorcing them from things heavenly. Yet, this is exactly what they must do, who would speak of a grace of God over the wicked in the things of this present time. They separate what plainly belongs together. They divide earth and heaven, they separate the way from the destination, the means from the end. And having thus made a division, they foolishly call the way grace no matter whither it leads. They designate the means as favor, no matter what they may work. Is a beautiful road grace, as long as it leads to sure destruction? Is a sweet poison a good, because it affords a pleasant taste for a moment, afterward working sure death? No, indeed! And the moment you look at the way of the righteous and of the ungodly in the light of eternity, which is the only proper way of considering things the talk of a common grace becomes absurd. Well then, this is exactly what the psalmist does now, and we should keep that element in our interpretation, according to which the sanctuary is Heaven into which the poet enters in the spirit. Others, among whom also is Calvin, have it that the sanctuary into which Asaph entered must be explained as the oracles of God - God's testimony, celestial doctrine, the school of God. According to this interpretation Asaph intends to tell us that he was instructed by the Lord and that the Lord Himself taught him to understand those things which were too painful for him. Submissively he allowed himself to be instructed by divine wisdom, and thus taught by God Himself and considering all things in the light of divine wisdom, he was cured of his murmuring unbelief. This interpretation is not excluded by, but rather implied in, the former explanation. Certainly it was through instruction from above that the poet learned to contemplate the government of God regarding the righteous and the wicked in the light of eternity and of heavenly things. Lastly, all this does not exclude but is rather supplemented by that interpretation which explains that Asaph went into the sanctuary in Jerusalem in the literal sense. How proper it is to explain, that Asaph, leader in the music that accompanied the worship of the sanctuary, literally turned to the sanctuary, where he was wont to worship, there unburdened his troubled heart before his God, and there received instruction and light from above!
In the sanctuary he understood the end of the wicked. By the end the poet makes no reference to judgments executed upon them in this world, whereby all their prosperity is removed from them or all their plans and aspirations fail. There are indeed many commentators, who, guided by their evolutionary tendencies according to which they cannot grant that in that early age there was a clear conception of eternal things, refuse to find any reference here to the eternal retribution of the wicked. They therefore eliminate the thought of eternity from the otherwise so perfectly plain language of the psalm and interpret that Asaph refers to temporal judgments of God upon the ungodly. After all, the poet noticed that this temporal prosperity of the wicked does not endure but soon and suddenly comes to an end. But it is evident that such an explanation is in conflict with the central thought of the whole psalm. For the chief thought of the entire psalm is exactly that the wicked prosper with undisturbed peace even to the very end of their earthly way. There are no bands in their death and they are not in trouble as other men are. With respect to this earthly prosperity of the wicked, the view of the poet is not altered. Besides, in the rest of the psalm the poet certainly makes mention of the blessed end of the righteous in glory. Therefore, also, the contrast demands that by the end of the wicked we understand their eternal desolation - not their death proper, but their state after death. The thought, therefore, is that he was cured of his foolish envying of the wicked and of his sinful murmuring against God, when he watched the end of the way of the ungodly, when his attention was called to the final goal to which their way of earthly prosperity was leading them.
How then was the conception of the psalmist changed when he viewed the earthly way of prosperity of the ungodly in the light of their end? What was the conclusion he reached with respect to that prosperity? And in what respect did he change his mind with regard to the present government of God over the righteous and the unrighteous? The poet begins to tell us in verse 18: "Surely, thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction." Here is the heart of the psalm. Arriving at this verse, I would challenge the defenders of the common-grace faith to elicit any possible comfort out of it for their conception. Or, if they will admit that there is nothing to support them in their conception in this particular passage, I would ask them nevertheless to offer any interpretation of this verse in its context that is in harmony with sound rules of exegesis, and yet does not radically contradict their entire theory of a grace of God over the ungodly with respect to the things of this present time. They cannot offer the explanation that God would bless these ungodly and does bless them, but that they frustrate His good will by turning His bounties into slippery places on which they slide into eternal desolation. That would be such a distortion of the poet's meaning as to take the very heart out of the comfort contained in this psalm. For the question that troubled the psalmist was not at all what the wicked did with the things of God, but concerned God's dealing with the wicked. His anxious query was: Must I believe that God favors the ungodly, when He makes them increase in riches and walk in unbroken prosperity? If so, He cannot be comforted for such a thing he cannot conceive. But with that question he goes into the sanctuary and he receives an answer. What is the answer? How does God instruct him? In brief, this is what the Most High teaches him to see: God is not graciously inclined to the ungodly when He makes them to prosper, neither does He intend to bless them with this prosperity. But in doing so He deliberately sets them upon slippery places in order to cast them into deeper destruction. Calvin says, commenting on this verse: "God for a short period thus lifts them up, that when they fall their fall may be the heavier." Spurgeon comments as follows: "Here, to meet the case, he sees that the divine hand purposely placed these men in prosperous and eminent circumstances, not with the intent to bless them but the very reverse." The poet now dwells on this thought a bit, for it is sweet to him, and it sets him at rest before his God: to discover that God does not favor the wicked but considers them even in this present time in His wrath, that He does not bless them but sets them on slippery places for their final and terrible destruction. For God also it is Who does cast them into that destruction. He not only exalts them temporarily but He also brings them low eternally. "The same hand that led them to their Tarpeian rock also hurled them down from it. They were but elevated by judicial arrangement for the fuller execution of their doom" (Spurgeon). Swiftly, their desolation comes upon them and that by means of their worldly prosperity, and according to God's intention. What is seventy or eighty years of apparent joy, if they must be means to an eternal woe and desolation? The momentary glory of the graceless is in a moment effaced, their loftiness is in an instant consumed. They are to the Lord what a dream is to a dreamer when he awakes. The latter realizes the vanity of his dream images and he despises them as a vain thing, and so shall the Lord despise the image of the wicked when he awakes to judgment. He will utterly consume them with terrors.
Thus then is the explanation we receive in the sanctuary of God concerning the bestowal of prosperity and the things of this present time upon the ungodly on the part of God. If we look about us in the world and see the things as they manifest themselves to our natural eye, and if then, with our sinful mind we pass judgment upon them, we may probably come to the conclusion that God is gracious to the ungodly even in preference to the righteous. For God gives the wicked many things and He makes them very great in the world. But entering into God's school and receiving instruction from above and considering all these things in their proper connection with and relation to the end of the wicked, they change their aspect and we notice our mistake. It is not love but wrath that sets a person on slippery places in order to cast him very low into eternal destruction. Such is very plain. There was no reason indeed to envy the wicked in their wealth and peace, no more than there is reason to be envious at the fattening of an ox that is prepared for the day of slaughter. The poet ends this part of his psalm by rebuking himself sharply for his foolish murmurings and rebellious attitude over against God. Foolish and ignorant, he had been a great brute without reason, when he envied the wicked because God prepared them for their final doom.
In what follows the poet turns our attention to the other side of the picture and sings of the blessed condition and taste of the righteous. He is now completely reconciled with his own way even though that be a way of afflictions and tribulations. Does he not possess God? Having God he has all, even as: "To live apart from God is death." Let afflictions come and suffering await him at every sunrise in this brief span of life. God is his portion. Let the way be steep and rough. What of it, as long as the Almighty holds his right hand in paternal love? He is confident now that all is well and that his God shall lead him by His counsel in order to take him to everlasting glory afterward. Though all else fail, even his own heart and flesh, yet God shall be his portion forever. No longer shall he foolishly murmur; no more will he give himself to brutish criticism of his Father's government of things. He is assured now that God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. Henceforth he will put his trust in the Lord God in order to tell of all his wondrous works.
Clearly then, Psalm 73 teaches that it is sinful and brutish to teach that God is gracious to the wicked, even in bestowing upon them the things of this present time. Entering into the sanctuary of God will cure us of the folly of believing in a theory of common grace.
H. H.
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