God Rose Up to Establish Judgment

Meditations on Christ in the Psalms 

October 18, 2022

God Rose Up to Establish Judgment

From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still when God rose up to establish judgment, to save all the oppressed of the earth.     Selah

Psalm 76:8-9 (NRSV)

All of scripture was written in the context of life as it was unfolding, in what we call today “real-time.” The writers were not isolated from the fray. The writers were not looking back and writing from hindsight. The people of God, whose real-life experiences are the basis for scripture, lived in very violent times. Appreciation of the sanctity of life has developed only in recent times and is far from being widespread. In the psalmist’s world, differences between people and nations were settled with violence. Psalm 76 was written to celebrate a victory.

The attacks against Israel were not only fought to gain the land, but they were also fought to destroy Israel’s God. The psalmist presents the anger and wrath of God against God’s enemies. We don’t like to think about God’s wrath and anger. We’d rather focus on God’s love, patience, mercy, and forgiveness. However, we need to realize that the way God’s enemies strike at God is to strike against God’s people. If God did not respond in anger against those who do violence to His people, God would not be moral and just.

Psalm 76 is ultimately fulfilled in the Cross, where Jesus, equipped with God’s anger and wrath, took on the forces of evil:

“For God in all his fullness

    was pleased to live in Christ,

 and through him God reconciled

    everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth

    by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.”

Colossians 1: 19-20

I do not believe we can fully appreciate Jesus’ victory over evil until we accept that the evil within us was included in the victory of Jesus:

“This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”

Colossians 1: 21-22

My Takeaway: Thanks be to God!

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2022 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.