Examining Another "Claimed" Promise in Context (Psalm 5:12)

There are a number of YouTube channels that feature daily prayer. That's fine. Of course these range from the charismatic to the Catholic to the ultra Orthodox and everything in between and beyond! The prayer I want to address today is from an Evangelical channel. Clearly I would most likely be at odds with a Catholic or Orthodox prayer, but what of the Evangelical offering?

I wrestled with the idea of posting the video listing the channel, but I decided against both as this is not an attack on the man. I do not know him and I am not familiar with the full breadth of his beliefs. So, I will limit myself to a few points in today's prayer video.

The overall goal of this blog (and of my podcasts) is not to tell you what to believe. I encourage every individual believer to seek to "rightly divide the Word of Truth" (2 Tim 2:15). This is a lifelong process, but I fear most believers never seek to rightly divide God's words and find themselves claiming things for themselves or even confusing the hope of this current age with promises and plans for other people in other ages.

The YT prayer in question quotes a number of verses but builds its foundation on Psalm 5:12.

For You, Lord, will bless the righteous;
You surround him with favor like a shield.

-Psalm 5:12

So, what's the problem?

First, just so we understand, I am sure to emphasize that ALL the Word of God is profitable. I want to be sure to note that God does bless the righteous and God will surround the righteous with favor. That is part of God's character. "God is Love" is also relevant in all ages and is unchanging. But just because God's character doesn't change, doesn't mean his promises and plans and applications do not change. God's love and God's blessings manifest in different ways according to his different plans and purposes. 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ...

-Ephesians 1:3

This comforting verse has a much different realization than a physical or financial blessing on earth.

This is the generic problem I see: believers in the current age will take the words of Psalm 5 and assume bless and favor mean today what they have always meant. This is a problem that we also encounter when we see believers ripping Jeremiah 29:11 or Ezekiel 36:26 from their contexts. There we are dealing with national promises to a group of people that many want to extract and apply to themselves or to individuals.

While recognizing the plan and purpose in view and differentiating the manifestation of blessings, we do not exclude the idea of blessing itself in all passages. If a specific blessing is part of a future prophecy for the nation of Israel in the land then, yes, we are excluded. Psalm 5:12 is different, however, in that it does have universal principles. We can recognize that while still rightly dividing how the blessing attached is manifested differently in different ages. All three verses in question must still be rightly divided in context.

We are dealing with a national "you" in Jeremiah 29 and Ezekiel 36, so we cannot insert ourselves in there or redefine the blessings as stated.

For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

-Jeremiah 29:11

Also, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

-Ezekiel 36:26

In Psalm 5, there are principles for individuals. What needs to be rightly divided there is are definitions of words like "bless" and "favor." 

Again, right division of the Word of Truth does not just involve dividing the promises and plans of God, it also involves righty dividing principles and outcomes. Whereas the "new heart" promised in Ezekiel is a future promise for Israel and it change will be known among the nations what God has done for Israel. Part of that promise there is that God "will cause you to dwell in the cities, and the waste places shall be built" (Ezekiel 36:33). As noted above, the pronoun "you" here is not universal. It is specific to Israel as is same pronoun in verse 26 of the chapter (often quoted in evangelistic meetings). These refer to God's plans for the earth.

The righteous in Israel addressed in Psalm 5 includes those of Israel faithful to the Law. Those who were "blameless" regarding its tenets (not sinless, but blameless in sight of the Law which included sacrifices for sin). We must rightly divide the subject (as we have above), but we must also rightly divide the application of descriptive words and definitions.  

The Book of Psalms opens with this sort of righteous living (according to the Law).

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor stands in the path of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and in His law he meditates day and night. 

He will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,
that brings forth its fruit in its season;
its leaf will not wither,
and whatever he does will prosper.

-Psalm 1:1-3

Is the promise here true for the believer of this age? Do we meditate on the Law of Moses and thus whatever we do prospers?  Obedience to the letter of the Law in the current age would be disobedience to the call upon Gentiles today. Even in that day, an uncircumcised Gentile could live peacefully among Israel, but he could NOT participate in the Passover. Not observing the Passover meal would not be disobedience for a Gentile. This was not a question of "salvation" (the gift of Life from the curse of death), but connected to blessings in the promised land.

How often did Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or Joseph observe the Passover? Never. And Adam and Noah were never circumcised while Abraham was justified while still uncircumcised. The Law distinguished between Israel and the Nations, and it even distinguished among the circumcised and un uncircumcised among the nations.

Observe the month of Aviv and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Aviv the Lord your God brought you [Israel] out of Egypt by night. Therefore, you must sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God, from the flock or the herd, in the place where the Lord shall choose to place His name.

-Deuteronomy 16:1-2

 

So the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: This is the ordinance of the Passover: No foreigner may eat of it. But every man’s servant bought with money, when you have circumcised him, may eat it. A foreigner or a hired servant shall not eat it. In one house shall it be eaten. You shall not carry any of the flesh outside of the house, nor shall you break a bone of it. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. Now when a stranger sojourns with you and keeps the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it. And he shall be as one that is born in the land. However, no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. The same law shall apply to him that is a native and to the stranger who sojourns among you.

-Exodus 12:43-49

Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? We are saying that faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it credited? When he was in circumcision? Or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

-Romans 4:9-10

Abraham's faith was counted as righteousness while Abraham was in a state that would forbid him from obeying the command to observe the Passover (which he never did anyway as he was never a slave in Egypt).

Obedience depends on our definitions and our definitions depend on our calling. We might prosper in our hearts when we meditate on the teachings of Paul in Ephesians. There we are filled with thankfulness for what the Lord accomplished on our behalf on the cross and in his glorious resurrection. We would find none of this in the Law. We would know nothing of the heavenly calling. The focus in this age is not the Law for us gentiles and the hope is not earthly.

We, today, should also avoid the counsel of the ungodly as they were instructed, but we do not meditate upon the Law day and night.

When we expand our look at Psalm 5, we can see truths that clearly cannot be followed directly.

But as for me, in the abundance of Your mercy
I will enter Your house;
in fear of You I will worship
at Your holy temple.

-Psalm 5:7

What men do with verses like this is redefine "Your house" and "Your holy temple" as being some gentile local church today anywhere on earth.  They have no problem redefining certain clear references that need no redefining. They readily turn the very specific temple with its priesthood, separate courts, and holy of holies in either a nebulous concept or a big building in suburban USA as they hold steadfastly to limiting corporate promises like prospering and blessing to the physical.  

This is convenient, but it robs from the original intent and it robs from the prophecies concerning the future temple and Israel's blessings in an age to come when Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 29 come to pass for that nation. The New Covenant itself is specifically give to Israel, the same people that had the Old Covenant. Yet those clear words are dismissed (as well as the future scope of the passage in Jeremiah 31) so men today can spiritualize and claim parts of it for themselves.

A temple and a land, and a nation are immovable objects. When we encounter the idea of mercy, however, we understand that it may manifest today differently.  While "worship" will look differently today, God's "holy temple" is very specific. The temple is the dwelling place of God. Yes, our bodies may be a temple, but if we try to equate the two, the equality falls apart quickly when we read of the Jerusalem temple past and the temple future.

Some additional context in Psalm 5: 

 Declare them guilty, O God;
may they fall by their own counsels;
cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions,
for they have rebelled against You.
 But may all those who seek refuge in You rejoice;
may they ever shout for joy,
because You defend them;
may those who love Your name be joyful in You.

-Psalm 5:10-11 

Again we not the difference between a principle and a direct application. We can pray this principle in the current age. David is singing of his enemies. Those enemies were both of Israel and outside Israel. David could expect to God move physically on his behalf. There is a twofold reason for this. In that age, God intervened directly in the life of Israel on her behalf according to his promises if they obeyed as a nation. We have no conditions or assurances today. God also made individual promises to David. We can claim neither set of promises or conditions for ourselves.

Neither your descendent nor my descendent will sit on the throne of David.

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of His kingdom there will be no end.

-Luke 1:32-33

 

Blessed is the kingdom of our father David That comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! 

-Mark 11:10

David is the father of Christ and of the Kingdom in Israel. There is no way to insert some Gentile body into those promises and prophecies. Even when Gentiles were grafted into Israel in the Acts age for the state purpose of "making Israel jealous," the gospel of the Kingdom was still "to the Jew first."

As we pull the lens even farther back in scripture, we see that God's earthly blessings involve God's earthly plan and the earthly hope. Adam hoped for a restoration of Paradise on the earth. Israel hoped for all the land promised to Abraham on the earth. Israel looks forward to the new temple and reestablishment of the Kingdom under her Messiah on the earth. Even those who looked for something greater in the "city whose builder and maker is God" (the New Jerusalem) will see that city come down to earth. These speak of future things.

By faith he dwelt in the promised land, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of the same promise, for he was looking for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

-Hebrews 11:9-10

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth.” For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. I, John, saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, “Look! The tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them. They shall be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.

-Revelation 21:1-3

Our hope is in the heavenly places. So the blessings we seek are spiritual and not earthly. If I pray from the Psalms, I should not expect "favor" or "blessings" to necessarily arrive in some tangible, physical, financial form as Israel would. 

I would not rob any believer of any part of God's word, but I would assert that if he wants to rightly pray with biblical expectations, he must rightly divide and interpret in context what he is reading and what he is praying.

If, as it seems, those commenting on the video are expecting financial gain and physical healing because of a promise in the Law, the Psalms, the Prophets or even in the earthly ministry of our Lord (which he said was for Israel alone, Matthew 15:24), they are wrongly dividing the Word of Truth.

That is a very different understanding than whether God can bless financially or heal physically or protect experientially. He very much can. It is not sinful to pray to that end. The distinction is in the expectation and the plan in sight. I would never say do not pray for healing or financial rescue. But don't expect that by "claiming" some promise to Israel or David or by thinking you meet the requirements for such blessings in the Law and the Psalms that God is obliged to bless or rescue. There is a very real difference there that must be understood.