(To watch the video teaching on this study, click here)
How do we know anything about God?
The truth is, we wouldn’t know anything about God, including his very existence, apart from his revealing himself to us.
But these revelations of God are by no means hidden. In fact, in Romans, Paul says that since the creation of the world, God’s invisible attributes have been clearly perceived (Romans 1:20).
Evidence for the existence and power of our Creator God is everywhere. Everyone can see it.
In Psalm 19, David considers two of the ways God has revealed himself to people. First, he considers how God has revealed himself through his creation (called general revelation) and then how God has revealed himself through his Word (known as special revelation).
How ought we to respond to God’s revelation of himself? For certainly such spectacular revelation demands some sort of response.
Today, in Psalm 19, we’re going to look at how David responded to God’s revelation (both general and special) and learn from him how we ought to relate to this God who proclaims his glory by revealing himself to his children.
The General Revelation of God
Why do human beings love being outside?
Both believers and non-believers alike are drawn to the outdoors because of its beauty and majesty. Nearly everyone has caught their breath at a spectacular sunset. Nearly everyone has been soothed by the sounds of the ocean breaking upon the shore. Nearly everyone who has visited the grand canyon has gaped in awe at the wonders they’ve beheld. No one is immune to the captivating grandeur of God’s beautiful creation. Even those without sight experience the wonder of God in the sounds, smells, and tastes of the creation around them.
But why is creation so captivating?
Psalm 19 holds the answer:
The heavens declare the glory of God,
Psalm 19:1-4
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
The skies above and the creation below are all incessantly declaring the glory of God, day after day, and night after night, simply by doing what he created them to do. The sky declares God’s glory by being the sky. A bird declares God’s glory by being a bird. And we learn from the parallelism in verse 1, that God’s handiwork, the skies, the bird, all the earth, is a part of God’s glory.
All of creation declares the presence and glory of a good God, and in his presence, there is joy abundant, regardless of whether or not you acknowledge his existence. Because of God’s common grace, everyone benefits from experiencing the joy of being near God in his creation.
In Romans, Paul says, that because creation is revealing evidence of God’s power and glory, men are without excuse for knowing that God exists.
David gives an example of the way part of God’s creation reveals his existence and glory by personifying the sun. He says:
In them he has set a tent for the sun,
Psalm 19:4-6
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
Picture an exultant and happy bridegroom ready to wed his bride. And then picture a strong man, who feels the presence and happiness of God as he uses his strong body to compete in a race. The exultant joy expressed by these two images is how it feels to be a part of God’s creation doing the things he created you to do. David poetically surmises that this is what it must feel like to be the sun doing all the things God created the sun to do.
David also considers how the sun is a revealing part of God’s creation. Nothing is hidden from the sun. The sun brings dark things to light. Thus the sun is an example of part of God’s creation that reveals the glory and existence of its creator. But David probably also included verse 6 as an appropriate segway to the second part of his poem. For there is something else that God has given to mankind that reveals and brings light to the darkness.
Psalm 119:105 says:
Your word is a lamp to my feet
Psalm 119:105
and a light to my path.
The second revelation, the special revelation of the Word of God, like the sun, is a light in the darkness and there is nothing hidden from the Word of God.
The Special Revelation of God
Verses 7-11 form multiple parallelisms that proclaim the beauty, glory, and practicality of the Word of God.
I created a table with the corresponding words of the parallelisms in the image below:
The first column in the chart shows all of the different synonyms used for the word law. In Hebrew the word law is Torah. Torah not only refers to the written laws of God but to all of God’s instructions, therefore including all of God’s Word. In his Word we find:
- laws – to show us how to live and how we ultimately fall short and point us to our need of a Savior
- testimonies – to provide us with evidence of God’s hand at work in the lives of his people
- precepts – to give us pleasant boundaries that we might know how to live out our calling to love God and love others
- commandments – that we might know the character of God by the things that are important to him
- fear – used as a synonym for law – that we might know the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 9:10)
- ordinances – that we might know the judgments of God and exalt him as a God of justice and righteousness
All of these words serve as synonyms for the word law. All of these means of revelation require our obedience. We can begin to see how the Word of God reveals the thoughts and intentions of the heart, nothing is hidden from it.
A very Americanized way of thinking about laws, precepts, and commandments is that they are restrictive and unpleasant. We value our freedom in the United States and mistakenly think that true freedom means freedom from all restrictions, freedom to do as we please. Therefore, we tend to sometimes view laws and rules as terrible, oppressive, joy-killers. We even balk at the rules we find in God’s Word.
But this is not how David perceives God’s laws, precepts, and commandments. The words he uses to describe the law of God are high accolades indeed. He says they are:
- perfect – reviving the soul – because they address every aspect of life
- sure – trustworthy and unchanging – giving wisdom to unwise people
- right – good – God’s laws bring joy to the heart and happiness to the one who abides by them
- pure – the NIV translates this as radiant – bringing light to things that once were dark, including our own hearts
- clean – without blemish and untainted – they never grow old or wear out or become irrelevant – they endure forever
- true – never false – by them, we are warned away from the kind of living that leads to death and despair
Verses 9b – 11 are one expanded thought ending with what the rules of the Lord do which is to warn God’s servants. But in this expanded thought, David describes the words of God as:
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Psalm 19:10
So not only are the words of God all of those good things that David described but they are also precious and sweet. They are not just practical, they are delightful. The words of God bring a joyfulness more abundant and enduring than the purest gold or the sweetest honey could ever bring.
Responding to God’s Revelation
Such a beautiful, wonderful revelation requires a response from us. But, David’s response is somewhat surprising.
12 Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
13 Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Psalm 19:12-14
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
After considering how God has revealed himself through his creation and through his Word, you might think an appropriate response would be praise or thanksgiving.
But David’s first response to the revelation of God is a supplication for God’s forgiveness.
I’m reminded of Isaiah’s vision in Isaiah 6 when the holiness of God is revealed to him.
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Isaiah 6:5
The revelation of the character and holiness of God through his creation and his Word should inspire in us a response of woe. When we behold who God truly is as he has revealed himself, our response ought to be, “Who am I, a person of unclean lips, that you would reveal such glory and beauty to me?”
Studying the holiness of God through his general and special revelation should rightly remind us of how short we fall in imaging his holiness.
And so in the last verses of this Psalm, David pleads with God to rid him of his sinfulness. He pleads to rid him of his:
- errors (vs 12a) – those innocent wrongs of which we are ignorant
- hidden faults (vs 12b) – the sins we commit without even realizing it, the sins that are hidden from our eyes
- presumptuous sins (13a) – deliberate sins, outright rebellion against God
- great transgressions (13b) – those deliberate sins that have the power to change the course of our lives
David asks that he would be forgiven (declared innocent) of his errors and hidden faults and that God would keep him from committing any deliberate sins.
And then David offers a prayer. In his prayer, he asks that God would make the thoughts of his heart and the words of his mouth pleasing to God. And he ends by calling God his rock and his redeemer, for that is what David needs. He needs a rock against which his sins will break and on which he can build his firm foundation to stand against great transgression. And he needs a redeemer to buy back the life he has lost to sin and to pay for his forgiveness.
When God truly reveals himself to us, and we gaze in awe at his majesty and holiness, we realize that we fall so short in living up to all that God would have us be, and we cry out for our rock and our redeemer.
Christ in Psalm 19
What David didn’t know, that we now know, is that Christ is our rock and our redeemer. Standing firm on the rock that is Christ guards us against committing great transgressions. And Christ himself bought us back from sin and death at the price of his own blood.
But the last line of Psalm 19 isn’t the only reference to Christ in the Psalm. Especially when we consider the words of John chapter 1 verses 1-5:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
We rightly understand the Word referred to in John 1 as referring to Christ. All things were made through him and he has overcome the darkness with his light. Christ himself is the living Word of God. The most complete of all of God’s revelations.
So when David referred to the law of God as meaning all of the Words of God, he couldn’t have possibly imagined that God’s Word would one day take the form of a person. But we know this to be true. And when we read Psalm 19, we can rightly read it like this:
Jesus is perfect,
reviving the soul;
Jesus is sure,
making wise the simple;
Jesus is right,
rejoicing the heart;
Jesus is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
Jesus is clean,
enduring forever;
Jesus is true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired is he than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Not only is Christ the living Word but he perfectly fulfilled, in his life and death, all of the laws, testimonies, precepts, commands, and ordinances. And because he did so we can be assured that we no longer come under condemnation for not obeying the law but we have been granted forgiveness, through his blood, for all of our errors, hidden faults, presumptuous sins, and great transgressions.
David looked in faith toward God as his rock and his redeemer, but he could not yet see how that redemption would come. But we see. We see the living Word of God living the life we could not live, dying the death that we deserve thereby redeeming us from the grave and granting us the forgiveness we so desperately need for not living up to the law of God.
It is the coming of the living Word, Jesus, that gives Psalm 19 its greatest hope.
Psalm 19 and Me
I love Psalm 19 because I love God’s Word. His word does revive my soul and rejoices my heart. His Word does make my simple mind wise and brings light to my darkened eyes. But what I love most about God’s Word is how to draws me close to Christ and slowly but surely makes me more like him. Only the living Word of God can do that. And therefore the Word of God is sweet and precious – more to be desired than anything this world has to offer us.
Has God’s Word become precious to you? Do you desire God’s Word more than anything?
The best way to increase your desire for the living Word of God is to increase the time spent in the written Word of God.
So go spend some time drawing near to Christ in the ways he has chosen to reveal himself: in his creation and his living and active Word. f
CLICK here to read the first part of the Psalms study – Psalm 8.