Be surety for thy servant for good:
Let not the proud oppress me (Psa 119.122).
“God our Savior” was a favorite expression of the apostle Paul (1 Tim 1.1; 2.3; Tit 1.3; 2.10; 3.4; cf. Jude 25, only other occurrence). It acknowledges our desperate need without God, our resort in trouble to God, and our hope of deliverance by God. When we recall that Christ is at the center of God’s redeeming work, there is no better summary of the gospel message which is the Christian faith than “God our Savior.”
All thought, religious or secular, outside of Christianity, has no place for “God our Savior.” Deep down, arrogant sinners despise the idea, as they are loathe to admit their utter helplessness (Hos 13.9), they do not see fit to acknowledge God (Rom 1.28), and they imagine that they shall end well without him (Psa 49.11).
B. B. Warfield wrote an important little book entitled “The Plan of Salvation” (1915). In a chapter entitled “Autosoterism” (which means self-salvation), he started with this brilliant analysis, citing another great theologian who saw the same thing very clearly.
There are fundamentally only two doctrines of salvation: that salvation is from God, and that salvation is from ourselves. The former is the doctrine of common Christianity; the latter is the doctrine of universal heathenism. “The principle of heathenism,” remarks Dr. Herman Bavinck, “is, negatively, the denial of the true God, and of the gift of his grace; and, positively, the notion that salvation can be secured by man’s own power and wisdom. ‘Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name’ (Gen 11.4). Whether the works through which heathenism seeks the way of salvation bear a more ritual or a more ethical characteristic, whether they are of a more positive or of a more negative nature, in any case man remains his own saviour; all religions except the Christian are autosoteric.”
Two glaring examples of autosoterism are religious humanism and Islam—and both would be embarrassed to discover they are saying essentially the same thing. “Humanist Manifesto I” (1933) positively glories in its autosoterism:
Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.
Our whole society is shot through with the substance of this sentiment—a naïve optimism about merely human resources. This idea has doubtless been preached in ten thousand commencement addresses of high schools and colleges. The problem is not merely that it leaves God entirely out of things, but it makes a superhero and savior out of godless man.
Islam teaches no need for the salvation offered in Jesus’ atonement on the cross for all of humanity. . . . By rejecting the concept of the fallen nature of man, Muslims refuse to acknowledge their need for redemption, which is at the heart of the differences between the gospel and Islam. Muslims mistakenly believe that repentance and good deeds combined with the mercy of God are sufficient to pave the way for a Muslim to receive God’s forgiveness.1
From cover to cover, the Bible exalts God as mankind’s great Savior, and the righteous are those only who come to trust in him and his promises. Our Psalm text here is one of many thousands of examples that could be brought forward.
The two lines make basically the same petition, but it is expressed differently, in the customary form of Hebrew poetic parallelism with its literary beauty and interpretive clarity. The repetition increases intensity. Comparing the two lines keeps us from misunderstanding the psalmist’s intent.
Line one is positively stated, evoking the desired state; line two is negative, naming the misery against which he prays. In line one the psalmist presents himself as God’s servant, which is a warrant to expect a favorable answer, though not on the grounds of personal merit, but rather because of a covenantal relationship that includes fellowship and cooperation with God. In line two David prays to be saved from his enemies, designated “the proud,” a fair description, and especially aimed to arouse God’s righteous anger against them.
“LORD, SAVE ME”: FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
The key feature of the first line requiring explanation is its usage of the term “surety” (Heb. ârab2). A surety is “one who has become legally liable for the debt, default, or failure in duty of another.”3 The wise man warns against being a surety, as it is dangerous thing, most likely involving personal suffering, and lightly entered into by fools (Prov 6.1-5; 11.15; 17.18; 22.26).
Though alternative renderings have been offered,4 Calvin, discussing three possibilities, justified the sense that found its way into the Authorized Version:
But as from the last clause of the verse it is obvious that David here desires succor against his enemies, the verb “Become surety” is the more appropriate rendering. “Lord,” as if he had said, “since the proud cruelly rush upon me to destroy me, interpose thyself between us, as if thou wert my surety.” . . . It is a form of expression full of comfort, to represent God as performing the office of a surety in order to effect our deliverance. He is said metaphorically to become surety for us, just as if, on finding us indebted in a large sum of money, he discharged us of the obligation, by paying down the money to our creditor. The prayer is to this effect, That God would not suffer the wicked to exercise their cruelty against us at their pleasure, but that he would interpose as a defender to save us. By these words the Prophet intimates, that he was in extreme danger, and that he had nothing else left him in which to hope but the help of God.5
A surety is a savior for the helpless, and that is exactly what God is to all his people. The same Hebrew word is found as a verb in Isaiah 38.14: “O LORD, I am oppressed; undertake for me.” The psalmist probably uses here it in this general sense: “Undertake for me, for my good,” that is, “Save me.”
With the increasing light of more and later revelation, it has become perfectly clear that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, accepting the punishment for his people’s sins, so they would inherit the eternal life they forfeited by their transgressions, and not be destroyed as the law required. “By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament” (Heb 7.22). Jesus is the Surety of the New Testament for every Christian believer—our Sin-bearer, substitute Sufferer, and scape goat. He saves us by assuming all the liabilities which we deserved on account of our sins, and paying them in full by his death on the cross. “What David prays to God to be for him, that Christ is for all his people” (John Gill, in loc.).
All those who hear the gospel and refuse to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus for salvation are manifesting that wicked spirit of self-idolatry and autosoterism, and thus prove themselves enemies of God and his Son, no better spiritually than humanists, Muslims, and all the heathen. Only those who confess their heinous sin with its well-deserved guilt and impending punishment, turning from it with contrition and reliance upon Jesus the Surety, can expect salvation. “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom 10.13).
“LORD, SAVE ME”: LITERAL LANGUAGE
“Let not the proud oppress me.” The plea implicitly teaches that God is sovereign, even over the psalmist’s enemies, and that they do oppress him only by divine decree. As Providence ordains persecution of the saints, it only promotes their ultimate spiritual good (Rom 8.28).
Nevertheless it pleases God that his dear, suffering ones should cry out to him in prayer for relief, as here. Their tormentors are “the proud” (Heb. zed; arrogant, insolent, presumptuous6) whom the psalmist has characterized as cursed, as having him greatly in derision, and having forged a lie against him, and dug pits for him (vv. 21, 51, 69, 85). Thus he prays that they might be ashamed, since they dealt perversely with him without justification (v. 78). Pride is a mother sin that gives birth to slander, strife, violence, and a brood of similar children.
This plea also suggests that the psalmist knows that he is no match for his enemies, and that God must save him if he will be saved at all.
Unbelievers generally have very little sense of their lostness, misery, and vulerability to eternal destruction, and it is no small part of our compassionate ministry to make them aware of their danger. From our conversion we began resorting to God our Savior in prayer, and persevering faith in him makes this our constant habit, to the praise of his powerful grace. Amen.
Notes:
1. “Key Issues for Understanding Islam and Muslims,” SBJT Vol 8, No 1.
2. Strong’s #6148.
3. MWCD.
4. “Give your servant a pledge of good” (ESV). “Guarantee the welfare of your servant” (NET). “Ensure your servant’s well-being” (NIV). NASB is nearly identical to the AV.
5. In loc.
6. Strong’s #2086.