Of the Messiah and His Kingdom
In the next section the close parallelism between this psalm and 2 Sam. 7, 12-29 is again apparent.
V. 30. If His children forsake My Law, if the Messiah’s spiritual offspring, those who have once accepted Jesus as their Savior, will then again reject His Word. and walk not in My judgments, in refusing to lead a life in conformity with the rules of sanctification established by Him; v. 31. if they break, profane, My statutes, the precepts of His covenant, and keep not My commandments, the general obligations laid upon all men; v. 32. then will I visit their transgression with the rod, with a severe punishment for their defection, and their iniquity with stripes, His intention being to bring them to a realization of their sins.
But this apostasy on the part of some believers will not change the counsel of God’s love. V. 33. Nevertheless My loving-kindness, His merciful favor, will I not utterly take from Him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail, the truth of His promises concerning the imparting of the blessings to all who believe in the Messiah would stand secure.
V. 34. My covenant will I not break, that contained even in the first proclamation of the Gospel in the Garden of Eden and repeated so often since, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips, in setting forth before men the salvation in the Messiah.
V. 35. Once have I sworn by My holiness, in a solemn oath by the essential purity of His essence, that I will not lie unto David, to whom this great Messianic promise had been given, v. 36. His seed, in the person of the Messiah, shall endure forever, and His throne as the sun before Me, that is, throughout eternity.
V. 37. It shall be established forever as the moon and as a faithful witness in heaven, for steadfast testimony. Selah. This is a glorious assurance of the unchangeable nature of God’s covenant with men, that He will never alter His Gospel promises.
LAMENT AND COMFORT. — V. 38. But Thou hast cast off and abhorred, rejected, Thou hast been wroth with Thine Anointed. The vicarious nature of the Redeemer’s work is here stressed. So completely does He become the Substitute of man in the work of atonement that He can say He was rejected of God, that God was wroth with His Messiah.
V. 39. Thou hast made void the covenant of Thy Servant, apparently spurning it in His anger; Thou hast profaned His crown by casting it to the ground, He Himself being bowed down to the dust in the extreme misery of His Passion.
V. 40. Thou hast broken down all His hedges, the fences which kept the enemies from assailing Him; Thou hast brought His strongholds to ruin, the Proxy of mankind having all His fortifications taken from Him and reduced to ruins, thus giving all His adversaries an opportunity to work their will, as it seemed.