I am thine, save me;
For I have sought thy precepts (Psa 119.94).
It is superficial to ask a stranger, “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” If you are astute, you already know the answer, no matter whom you ask. Everyone has a “personal relationship” with Christ! Both parties are persons, and they are relating to each other in some personal way. Unbelievers are Christ’s enemies (Rom 5.10; 8.7; Col 1.21), and most would be shocked to hear that he is their enemy as well (Lam 2.5; Isa 63.10; Rev 19.11-13). That is very personal, and it exposes the sinner’s desperate need for reconciliation on both sides. God’s anger toward them must be appeased, and theirs for him replaced by grace with love. On the other hand, believers are Christ’s friends—another kind of personal relationship (John 15.13-14). A better question would be, “Do you have a special relationship with Jesus Christ?,” that is, “Does he love you more than others, and do you love him in return?”
In the simplest of terms, Psalm 119.94 reflects the truth that a believer is in a special relationship with God, a relationship that only believers have. Perhaps the best Bible word to describe that special relationship is “covenant,” but we would qualify this by adding that the covenant binding God and believers is a covenant of grace. This is specific enough to distinguish the relationship in view from God’s relationship with the reprobate, those destined for destruction in his wrath, who are related to God by a covenant of works.
A “covenant” is essentially that which binds two parties together, and in its religious use, the parties are God and a human person or persons. “The religious use was really a metaphor based on the common use but with a deeper connotation.”1
From the earliest times men have discovered the practical necessity of relating to one another by covenant. An important example is between a king and a rescued, dependent people. When a weak nation was threatened by hostile powers, a strong and benevolent king might be pleased to take an interest in them, defending them, and then imposing his terms upon them for the nature of their future relationship. This was called a “suzerainty treaty.” A suzerain is a sovereign or state having some control over another state that continues to exercise a measure of self-rule. Such treaties had a common form, typically including a preamble (identifying the sovereign), historical prologue (the circumstances leading up to the covenant), stipulations (their responsibilities), sanctions (benefits and penalties, conditioned upon keeping the sanctions), and ratification (sacrificial rite of initiation).2 Ancient extrabiblical treaties of this nature between earthly nations are still extant in clay tablets and such. All this is intensely interesting to biblical scholars because divine-human covenants have a similar pattern.
God executes his plan of salvation through means of a covenant in which he declares his own sovereignty over his chosen and redeemed people, rehearses what he has done to save them, promises the blessings of free grace (unconditional for those in the covenant), and reveals his will for their lives with his commitment to discipline them for reformation from sins. The salvation covenant is predicated upon the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, so all the elements of a suzerainty treaty are there.
With amazing brevity, Psalm 119.94 “expresses the essence of psalm’s theology.”3 It presupposes the foundational reality of a covenant between the psalmist and his God. Realizing this throws a flood of light upon its profound meaning. The psalmist speaks to God of substantial covenantal matters from a preamble, blessings, and stipulations.
COVENANTAL PROPERTY
“I am thine,” that is, I belong to you in a way that others do not. There is a sense in which everyone is the Lord’s because he made them. The “most high God [is] possessor of heaven and earth” (Gen 14.19) because he is the Creator of heaven and earth (Gen 1.1). That ownership is all-inclusive. “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods” (Psa 24.1).
Some sinners have been the object of God’s special love and saving purpose from eternity, and he has a special claim upon them. Both creation and redemption relate to ownership. “But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine” (Isa 43.1). We can even say a believer is God’s “property,” which can mean “the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing.”4 This being especially owned by God is foundational to a special relationship with him, and it is a great comfort and confidence to the Christian, as the first Q&A of the Heidelberg Catechism so beautifully states:
What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.
A more modern hymn also exults in this.
Jesus, my Lord will love me forever, / From him no pow’r of evil can sever, / He gave his life to ransom my soul; / Now I belong to him; // Now I belong to Jesus, / Jesus belongs to me, / Not for the years of time alone, / But for eternity.5
COVENANTAL PLEA
When the vassal was seriously threatened, his first impulse was to send a messenger to his lord with the SOS. This pictures the believer’s urge and practice of calling upon the Lord for salvation.
In ancient times each nation had its own deities. Jehovah was Israel’s God, and prayer directed to him for help was one expression of faith he wanted from them. It was no imposition for Israel to
call upon her covenant Lord, for his power and resources were infinite. Rather, he received glory to be exalted as Deliverer by desperate prayers.
The psalmist’s petition is a microcosm of the same thing. “Save me.” In this context, while deliverance from physical harm may be included, deliverance from sin and spiritual harm is his foremost concern. He is not praying for the initial salvation of a sinner that is justification (pardon of sin and imputation of righteousness), but rather for grace to overcome the sins remaining in his heart and life. This is in keeping with the lofty spiritual tone of the psalm, and its fixation upon keeping God’s commandments. Also, the psalmist realizes that ultimately there is no safer course for him than faithfulness to God and his Word.
Some modern Christians ought to broaden their conception of salvation beyond past conversion to include our continual and future need, because unlike the psalmist, they have stopped pleading for it. Do your prayers regularly feature this brief, worthy petition: “Save me?” We would “work out our salvation” (Phil 2.12) more effectively if we more deliberately begged daily salvation from God.
COVENANTAL PIETY
“For I have sought thy precepts.” One loyal to his God has an earnest desire to keep the covenant stipulations. This is a reliable indicator of the actual (not nominal) object of worship. Only parties of the covenant of grace really do “seek” (original means “to seek with care, inquire,”6 “consult”7 [with the intention of obedience]) God’s precepts. It comes from a root word meaning “to follow.”8 See the Lord’s complaint to his people in 2 Kgs 17.7-8, 35-39.
The psalmist is not appealing to his own merit by mentioning his attachment to God’s law. Rather, “he proves by effect that he is God’s child, because he seeks to understand his word” (1599 Geneva Bible, mg.). The pre-existing covenantal ownership and plea for salvation is the basis for Christian piety. See how Paul exhorts the church to glorify God based upon his special claim upon them (1 Cor 6.19-20). This is the evangelical order: first he owns you and saves you, and then you respond in obedience. Never does the Bible press our obedience so that we might become God’s. Remember the preamble of the Ten Commandments, preceding prescriptive legistlation (Exod 20.1-3 ff.).
Finally, it is critically important to understand that these three aspects of a special covenantal relationship with God are all together or not at all; one part cannot exist in isolation from another. For example, you cannot expect salvation while you remain your own; if you belong to God in the covenant of his grace, then you cannot fall short of ultimate salvation. Further, genuine piety is as impossible for those outside the covenant, as it is inevitable for those inside the covenant. Also, only those who belong to God do humbly cry out for his salvation from sin, and they can testify sincerely that they seek to do his will. Paul spoke of “the God whose I am [covenantal property], and whom I serve [covenantal piety]” (Acts 27.23).
Now the question begging to be asked is, “Do you really have this special, covenantal relationship with Jesus Christ?” The Lord grant assurance that you do. Amen.
Notes:
1. ISBE Revised, “Covenant.”
2. See Grace Unknown by R. C. Sproul, Chapter 5.
3. The Jewish Study Bible, mg.
4. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, in loc.
5. By Norman Clayton, first verse and chorus.
6. TWOT #455.
7. Abridged BDB Lexicon.
8. New Strong’s Dictionary #1875.
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