This verse frightens me every time I pray it.
I suppose that sounds strange to many ears. Our instinct is to think that reading the Bible is supposed to comfort us, not make us afraid. God’s word should make us feel good.
Perhaps that is what mainstream American Christian-style religion would teach. We like to mine verses for our comfort. The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We repeat them to ourselves as though they are true out of context.
The LORD is indeed my Shepherd. We cannot, however, ignore that something called the valley of the shadow of death is also involved. We aren’t afraid because Yahweh is with us, but we walk through the valley, nevertheless.
The Law is supposed to make us afraid. It should terrify our consciences. Jesus summarized the Law in two parts: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That should make us afraid. Only someone who is tremendously naïve would think they could keep this law perfectly. Only someone who was delusional, or lying to himself would claim that he actually kept it.
So, when in the course of my prayers I pray verses like Psalm 7:8, it frightens me. It is the Law which terrifies the conscience and drives me to repentance. The last thing I want to do is to ask God to judge me according to my righteousness and my integrity. I know precisely how righteous I am because I am with me 24 hours a day. I am aware just how flimsy my integrity is.
In his immediate context, the psalmist is writing a prayer for deliverance from the physical danger which threatens him. He’s pleading with God to save him from their wickedness because David trusts in Yahweh, and his wicked persecutors do not. So, when he writes that he is righteous, it is like when Job is described as blameless. To say Job is blameless isn’t saying that he was without sin. It is saying that Job was an outwardly good man. He is a believer. He is a Christian.
That isn’t the only context, however. The Psalm is also gospel.
These words of David are also Jesus’ words. When you understand the Psalter as the prayer book of Christ, these verses that sound like harshest law are also sweetest gospel. If the law is what God requires of us, the gospel is what God has done for us. And since I am baptized into Christ, and His righteousness is now my own, I can be bold to pray, “Arise, O LORD, in Your anger; lift Yourself up because of the rage of my enemies; rise up for me to the judgment You have commanded (v.6).”
My defense is of God, who saves the upright in heart. The upright in heart is me, because of Christ. He became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. Because we are in Him, because He has given us His righteousness and taken away our sin, we can pray His prayer and know we have what He promises. ###
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