Psalm 16

The Risen King

This Psalm of David is actually a Psalm of Jesus. The apostle Peter says we know this because David’s tomb near where he stood was still inhabited. When David penned this, he did so as a prophet, foretelling that his greater son, Jesus, would not be held in the grave but be resurrected to everlasting life in the presence of his Father (see Acts 2.24-33).

When we rested our faith in Jesus, we united ourselves to him. His righteousness, his riches and his reality then become our own in him.

We can then pray and sing with the words of this Psalm in Christ, knowing God is our supreme delight and our highest treasure.

A miktam of David.

1 Keep me safe, my God,
    for in you I take refuge.

2 I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord;
    apart from you I have no good thing.’
3 I say of the holy people who are in the land,
    ‘They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.’
4 Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.
    I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
    or take up their names on my lips.

5 LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.
7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me.
8 I keep my eyes always on the LORD.
    With him at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

9 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
    my body also will rest secure,
10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
    nor will you let your faithful one see decay.
11 You make known to me the path of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence,
    with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

This Psalm voices the heart of total dependence. This is the song of a soul which has rejected the seduction of the world and rested all its hopes in God. He is our refuge, shelter and home.

Notice in v2 that there is both LORD and Lord. LORD is the name of God revealed to Moses (Ex 3.14). LORD is the way that English translations render YHWH, the Hebrew for “I am that I am”. And what the King says is that, in a world of many competing idols, he had pledged his allegiance and hope in YHWH, the great I AM, as his Lord and Sovereign.

It is for this reason why he refuses to fall in line with those who are chasing lifeless idols and empty promises. He knows that they only multiply sorrows. Being aware therefore of the vanity of idols, he refuses to participate in the futility of their of worship.

But it is not just that the LORD is our Lord. In vv5-8, we see that God is our inheritance and treasure, he governs, guides and guards us. The Psalmist says that “You alone are my portion” (v5). In this he professes that God is precious beyond all else. I think this is because unlike everything else we own or long after, he alone is eternal and unchanging. All else decays and rusts and withers (Ecclesiastes 1.2; Matthew 6.19; Isaiah 40.7). Our phone batteries falter and fail ultimately and often at the most inconvenient time. Our food moulds and disintegrates at the back of the fridge. Our family heirlooms will get tarnished and eventually corrode. But our inheritance is “imperishable, undefiled and unfading” (1 Peter 1.4).

The King knows there will be a future reckoning, when God will shake the world (Haggai 2.21). And all that is not rooted in God and his word will blow away like chaff. But our confidence is that we will stand secure and steadfast in Christ (v8). This is because in Christ, we are seated with him at the right hand of God, safe in the awesome power of the LORD.

In v9, we see then we have great grounds not just for rejoicing but relief. We need not fear death ultimately. Because we know and abide in the Resurrection and the Life, Jesus. God will not allow his Son, the perfectly faithful one to rest in the tomb. His body was not subject to the usual trajectory of entropy. Worms did not get a chance to feed on his corpse. Blood started pumping again. His lungs started breathing. His eyes opened. Because God raised him again from the dead on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures, v10 being one of those promises!

In the intro, I mentioned that we could know Christ’s reality. We see here his reality was knowing the resurrection power of God. And that is our reality when we unite ourselves to him by faith. The same Spirit who gave life to the Son now dwells in each one of us, taking us from death in sin, to life in Christ, with the certain hope of future bodily resurrection (Romans 8.11; 1 Corinthians 15.42). For in Jesus’s words, though we die, yet shall we live.

So in this Psalm, we sing of Christ’s resurrection, but also of our own in him.

It is our own, because in the gospel, God has made known to us the way of life and the fount of joy. And it is found in the presence of God, revealed and experienced in his Son, Jesus.

Glory be to God the Father, who raised up the Son, loosing him from the pangs of death.

Glory be to God the Son, the risen and living King.

Glory be to God the Spirit, who empowers us with the resurrection life of Christ.