The next three strophes of Psalm 119 are centered around finding God in his Word. We will spend several weeks looking at these verse, beginning with the first half of the stanza “waw,” in verses 41-44. You can see it here:
The first of these three stanzas is all about God’s love, and the psalmist starts right off with that thought in verse 41. He will also end with that thought in verses 47 and 48, which we will look at next week.
What may be surprising to some readers is that this is the first time the psalmist has addressed God’s love in Psalm 119. What many consider to be the greatest of all of God’s attributes has been largely ignored to this point. Now, however, he jumps right in and speaks of the unfailing nature of that love.
This is also the first mention of God’s salvation in Psalm 119. To be sure, the author has implied it a few times, but here he specifically speaks of God’s promise to save.
Those two concepts go hand in hand however, so it is not surprising that they appear together here. God’s salvation of mankind, of you and me, is entirely dependent upon his love for mankind, and for you and me. The evidence of his love for us is that he saves us, and perhaps it is best stated in 1 John 3:16: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”
While John gives us the perfect description of love, and the salvation that comes through it, the psalmist only had a rudimentary understanding of it, at best. He had the writings of Moses, and portions of the history and prophets, but he lived before the cross, he lived before God’s love was fully and finally demonstrated. But we can see the full effects of God’s salvation and love, and we can understand more fully the tremendous sacrifice that God experienced in bringing about our salvation.
Paul states in Romans 5:8 that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The psalmist only had a glimpse of what we see more fully. And compared to the understanding that will one day come, when we stand in his presence, our more full knowledge is also but a glimpse of the totality of God’s love.
For you and I, and for the psalmist, there are two responses that must flow out of our lives as a result of God’s love pouring in: obedience to God and sharing his love with others. Those are the topic of next weeks passage.
Question: How have you specifically experienced the love of God in your life? You can leave a comment by clicking here.