Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee;
And let thy judgments help me.
Without the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scripture we cannot possibly fulfill the holy end for which we were created in the first place, namely, to glorify God as his worshipers. A spiritually-minded man knows this and prays earnestly for the indispensable divine gifts, as the psalmist does in this verse.
The biblical creation account (Gen 1-3) says that in the beginning God made man upright (Eccl 7.29) and granted him the privileged blessings of both the divine Word and Spirit, but we forfeited these unspeakably great spiritual advantages by transgressing his law and grieving his Spirit. In judicial wrath, God in a great degree took them from us. No longer did Adam hear the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Gen 3.8), for the Lord had justly cast him out of Paradise (Gen 3.23) which had been his portion conditionally. No longer was the LORD by his Spirit dwelling and reigning in Adam’s soul, for by an act of his free will, Adam himself had by voluntary rebellion thrust out the LORD (Luke 19.14).
Grace alone accounts for any remnants of Word and Spirit among sinners like us. In this fallen world under God’s curse, we should not wonder that millions of us through long ages have suffered a famine of hearing the words of the LORD (Amos 8.11), and that God has taken away his Holy Spirit from us on account of our sin (Psa 51.11). We should not be amazed in these post-Eden circumstances that the natural man has absolutely no disposition toward worship, and has no knowledge of how to worship God as he should, but is willingly enslaved to the wicked world (1 John 2.15-17), the insatiable leech of his carnal desire (Prov 30.15), and the lying, murderous devil (2 Tim 2.26). Indeed, “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor 2.14). Our case is desperate.
David knew these truths deeply and personally and so made earnest petition to the Lord. Essentially, his plea is this: “Let me truly worship you, O Lord.” There is no better prayer request for ourselves than this. There is no higher priority than worship, and nothing is more conducive to our own well-being, both in this life and the life to come.
We can only elevate this plea by broadening its scope, so that it encompasses the whole human race. Let “all the people of the earth . . . know thy name, and fear thee” (2 Chron 6.33). “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt 6.9-10). Because these requests are conducive to God’s glory, they shall be answered, as God’s settled purpose is that in everything and for all eternity, his name shall be glorified.
The psalmist’s worthy petition is in two lines corresponding to equally necessary aspects of grace for fulfilling his sacred role.
GIVE ME THE LIFE OF THY HOLY SPIRIT
“Let my soul live” is an implicit admission of natural spiritual deadness and impotence. Dead people need life; dead people are not able to resurrect themselves.
It helps to consider that David the human writer of this text was already spiritually alive, and yet he pleads to the Lord for life. The prophet is confessing that his vitality not only came from the Lord in the first place, but that it continues and thrives by the steady impartation of divine life. His sense here, then, is, “invigorate me.”
David implies that for this invigoration, and not just for his original quickening, man is completely dependent upon God’s sovereign grace to the unworthy. Man lives only because God imparts and sustains his life.
That David’s desire for life takes the form of prayer implies that God works by means, and the means here used is a tacit confession of need with humble reliance upon the Lord to meet it.
Other legitimate translations of this first phrase include “let me live” and, more strictly, “Give life to my nephesh,”1 that is, “to my soul.” Sometimes this word refers to the whole person, including the body, but in this context a special emphasis upon spiritual life is surely intended.
Now as any Bible student knows, the impartation, sustenance, and flourishing of life generally, and of spiritual life in particular, comes in the Trinitarian economy particularly by the gracious and powerful ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is not to deny the life-giving activity of the Father (John 5.26; Jas 1.17-18) and of the Son (John 10.28; 17.2), but to recognize that it is especially the Spirit of God who quickens and revives the soul.
This truth is apparent from the very first page of Scripture. When “the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep,” it was then that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Gen 1.2-3). The Spirit himself built the Temple, ordering and assembling all the inanimate materials, and then he filled it with all living things, placing at the very center God’s image, that is, humankind, for God’s glory.2 The Lord “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen 2.7). The Hebrew word for Spirit also means breath or wind.
By the infallible guidance and inspiration of the Spirit, Elihu confessed, “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (Job 33.4). The LORD said to Israel, “And I shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live” (Ezek 37.14). Paul wrote that Christians who “live in the Spirit” must also “walk in the Spirit” (Gal 5.25).
Thus even the best Christians are in great need to offer the petition warranted by our Lord Jesus Christ by his telling us, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11.13). Yes, we have the Spirit, but we continue in need of the Spirit, and we ought to yearn for an effusion and increase of his invigorating effect upon us.
“Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee.” The expected effect of spiritual life is to stir up Psalm-singing and other expressions of “praise” to the Lord, holy boasting of him and in him (so the Hebrew term). David is saying to the Lord, “Give me life so I may give you praise.” This devout man has God’s glory uppermost in his desire, with his own salvation as a desirable secondary consideration. Oh, that we were so consumed with zeal for God’s honor in all our thoughts!
GIVE ME THE HELP OF THY HOLY WORD
The second aspect of necessary grace for worship is the aid of Holy Scripture. “Let thy judgments help me” is a very careful rendering. This particular psalm constrains us to understand “judgments” as a reference to the verbal revelation which is Scripture. The “help” in view is most naturally related to the end mentioned in the first line, even divine worship.
Scripture helps us to worship God in many ways. It splendidly reveals God to us so that our spiritual gaze might by arrested by his glory. It exposes the utter folly of our idolatry, whether we worship our creaturely and sinful selves, or any other created beings. It awakens us to the absolute priority of worship, and shows us the way to salvation, even Jesus Christ our Lord. The Bible contains the blessed gospel which is God’s instrument for quickening sinners and transforming them into saints. Holy Scripture also expresses God’s will for how he would be worshipped, which sacred manner is indispensable to all true worship, as the Second Commandment abundantly testifies. Scripture rehearses God’s greatness and goodness. It proclaims his mighty deeds of Creation and Providence, and especially celebrates the great redemption of his people by his power and grace. And Scripture rouses us to praise God for all these things—exhortations we need to persevere as active and enthusiastic worshipers of the LORD.
The church’s most discerning teachers through the centuries have deeply appreciated the coordinate roles of the Spirit and the Word in the worship of God’s people. Christian mystics have erred not by their belief in the Holy Spirit but by their relative disdain for Holy Scripture. Christian intellectuals have veered just as far from a safe path by fixing upon the reasonable Word while denigrating the life of the Spirit, at least by their neglect of him. Word without Spirit makes us puffed up (1 Cor 8.1). Spirit without Word makes us blow up.3 The Word and the Spirit working together make us grow up, maturing for our place in the worshiping host of the New Creation.
John Calvin is exemplary in his equal emphases upon the Word and Spirit in true worship. Who equals him in his devotion to the careful exposition of Scripture? And yet he frequently exalts the Spirit and teaches the necessity of his co-operation with the Word. According to Calvin, Holy Scripture
affects us in real earnest only when it is impressed and sealed on our hearts by God’s Spirit. Then, however, we are enlightened by his power and believe that Scripture comes from God, that “it flows to us from the very mouth of God.”4
Let us, like Calvin, and like David, fully embrace the truth that we can only worship God aright in Spirit and in truth, and keep up our pleas for grace.
Notes:
1 UBS Handbook, in loc.
2 See the illuminating discussion of “The Primeval Temple” (2.1.4) in God’s Glory in Salvation Through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (2010) by James M. Hamilton, Jr. Also invaluable are Sinclair Ferguson’s comments in The Holy Spirit: Contours of Christian Theology (1996; see “The Holy Spirit and His Story,” chapter 1, especially the section, “Holy ruach”).
3 By this I mean we would be led into carnal counterfeits for revival, like those characterizing many charismatics.
4 Institutes, I.vii.5.
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