Blessed Is the Man (Part 1)

Introduction

The psalms are a priceless treasure, a precious gift to God’s church of his grace and salvation. They are a present so expensive and expansive that we who are so limited hardly know how to begin opening their depths. The psalms are so full, but we are so empty. The psalms are so rich, but we are so poor. The psalms are so glorious, but we are so shameful. How shall such as we know anything about these beautiful psalms? Ah, but here is God’s grace displayed in the psalms. Our God gives us the fullness of the psalmist for our emptiness, his riches for our poverty, his glory for our shame. By the psalmist, who is Christ, and by his Spirit, we not only possess his psalms as our treasure, but we understand them and rejoice in them and sing them as well.

So where shall we rich poor begin our investigation of the psalms?

Shall we begin with the place of the psalms in worship? That would be fitting, since God created man “to glorify and praise Him” (Lord’s Day 3, Q&A 6). Man was made to worship God. The fact that fallen mankind now rebelliously worships anything and everything except the true God does not change the fact that man was made to worship God. And worship God he shall! Against his will, as he is being condemned, the knee of every man shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. But now God gathers his church to worship him. Out of the world through all ages, God gathers his elect people in Christ, delivers them from their sin and death through the perfect work of his only begotten Son, brings them together into the congregation, and tunes their hearts to his praise. What a special place in this worship the singing of the congregation holds for the child of God. With his heart full of the gospel and with his voice full of song, redeemed man sings the praises of his God.

Or shall we begin our investigation of the psalms with a theological study of the nature of God? This too would be fitting. All truth begins with God, including the truth of the psalms. One who sings unto God must know who God is. He must know that God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The singer must know that God is glorious and that God will not give his glory unto another. The psalms themselves are theological, which is just to say that the psalms are of God, through God, and to God. Such a starting point would connect our study of the psalms with our study of theology in Reformed Pavilion, which is simply the theology of the Reformed faith. God is God! This great truth the psalms declare song by song, verse by verse, line by line. In fact, it was my intention to begin our study of the psalms exactly here, with a theological study of the nature of God.

But then I remembered that I know nothing. I do not even know where to begin. Here before us is all this treasure that is the psalms, and I do not even know how to put my hand in to take it! How poor we are even in so simple a thing as this!

What shall we do then?

Let us do this. Let us open the psalms. Let us turn to the first psalm, which is first by God’s inspired order, just as the second is second by divine appointment (Acts 13:33). For there at the beginning, God shall give us his own starting point for the psalms. Even in the gift of a starting point, God is gracious and makes us poor, rich.

Blessed Is the Man

Here at the beginning of all the psalms, in the first words of the first verse of the first chapter, we find this wonderful thing: “Blessed is the man.”

What a beginning! Blessed is the man!

Great things are said concerning this man. This man is ethically and morally perfect. He walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. He standeth not in the way of sinners. He sitteth not in the seat of the scornful. This man hath no delight in wickedness. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

This man is blessed. He is blessed because he is perfect. He is blessed because he does not assemble with the wicked. He is blessed because he delights in the law of the Lord. Blessed is the man!

Being blessed by God for his obedience, this man prospers. Can you picture the scene? Over there is a river with clear water rising high on its banks, meandering through a fertile field that is planted thick with wheat. By the rivers of water there is planted a tree that is laden with fruit in its season, whose leaf never withers. The blessed man is like that tree. Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

So perfect and so prosperous and so blessed is the man that he shall even stand before the face of the living God. When all this man’s deeds are laid bare and all his heart is opened before the eyes of him who sits in his everlasting tribunal, this man does not falter in the judgment but stands. This man is judged righteous by the perfectly righteous judge. And being judged righteous, he enters into the congregation of the righteous.

Blessed is the man!

All the more blessed does the man appear when one compares him to the ungodly. The ungodly are not like that blessed man. They are not ethically perfect but laden with sin. The ungodly hold their counsels of wickedness. The ungodly make their way in sin. The ungodly condemn the righteous from their judgment seats of scorn.

Blessed is the man! But the ungodly are not so. They are not blessed but cursed. Can you picture the scene again? There in the rich fields, the wheat is being cut down and threshed. There, against the backdrop of the fruitful tree, a great cloud of chaff threshed clean from the kernels of wheat blows away on the wind. The ungodly are like that chaff.

The reality of the picture is sobering. For the ungodly also come before the tribunal of the living God. All the works and all the souls of the ungodly are opened before the eyes of him who knows the heart. The ungodly, defiled with their sins, shall not stand in the judgment. These sinners, being judged guilty by Jehovah, shall not enter into the congregation of the righteous. The way of these ungodly shall perish.

But blessed is the man!

Oh, it is such a wonderful beginning! Its wonder is that there is only one who can possibly fit the description of this blessed man. There is only one who is ethically perfect. There is only one who is blessed because of his own work and his own worth. And that one is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the blessed man of Psalm 1! Jesus walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. Jesus standeth not in the way of sinners. Jesus sitteth not in the seat of the scornful. Jesus’ delight is in the law of the Lord. In the Lord’s law doth Jesus meditate day and night. Jesus is like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season, whose leaves do not wither, and who prospereth in whatsoever he doeth. Jesus is the one who standeth in the judgment and who entereth into the congregation of the righteous.

Blessed is the man! Blessed is Jesus Christ!

And what of you and me? You and I are not the blessed man, not in ourselves. You and I cannot say that we are ethically perfect. You and I cannot say that we meditate in God’s law day and night. You and I, by depraved nature and by despicable sin, resemble the ungodly in the psalm.

But the beautiful gospel of these opening words of this opening psalm is that our gracious God has included his people in all the work and reward of his blessed man. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous! He knoweth our way not as one who discovers our way and our righteousness. But he knoweth our way as the sovereign, electing God. He knoweth our way as the one who decreed that our way is Christ. He knoweth our way as the one who elected us in the blessed man. What the blessed man has done, he has done for us. What the blessed man has accomplished is given to us. In the blessed man we have not walked in the counsel of the ungodly. Not because we did or did not do it but because the blessed man did not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, and his obedience is imputed to us. In the blessed man our delight is in the law of the Lord. In the blessed man we are like a tree planted by the rivers of waters. In the blessed man we stand in the judgment. In the blessed man we enter into the congregation of the righteous. In the blessed man we are righteous because the electing God knoweth the way of the righteous.

Blessed is the man! And blessed are all we in him, whose way the Lord knoweth!