Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me,
As thou usest to do unto those that love thy name (Psa 119.132).
God is a holy, glorious, loving, spiritual, and personal Being with deep thoughts, intense feelings, and deliberate plans. Our personhood derives from his, and reflects his. God created us in his image because he designed us, unique among his creatures, for special intimacy with him. He intends us to get close to him, to draw near, to be enveloped in his bosom, to commune with him, as one spiritual being to Another.
The eternal sweet communion between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the epitome of exalted spiritual intimacy. The man Christ Jesus continues to enjoy this experience with his heavenly Father, and in Christ, we enter into the same mutual love. Writing to believers on behalf of the other apostles, John said of Christ,
that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full (1 John 1.3-4).
Jesus’ high priestly prayer is even more stunningly glorious, since he asks for God’s elect
that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me (John 17.21-23).
Here Christ clearly asks his Father that all who will ever believe the gospel be taken into the fellowship which has been enjoyed from eternity! Getting intimate with God is our exalted privilege
and opportunity as human beings, and this is your destiny if you are chosen for salvation. And such intimacy that will flower in the new creation begins in this life, in the here and now of authentic Christian experience.
Much of biblical religion is public and corporate. In our day of crass individualism, we should stress this group aspect of Christian faith, but the focus of this text is different. Ever so graciously, God here lets us behold the most intimate dealings of a godly soul with him. We are witnesses peering into David’s prayer closet, hearing and seeing what transpires when God is powerfully working in the heart of a saint, and that blessed one worships his God in private.
At first it may seem improper that David should write this way, but never forget that he is acting as a prophet in a public capacity, infallibly conveying God’s message to God’s people. The Spirit of God is carrying David along as he writes, mysteriously filling him so that in some way beyond anything we can fully grasp, David’s intellect, sensibilities, and volition are all active, and yet the very words he writes originate from heaven.
Centuries later, Jesus taught his disciples to pray in secret rather than in public to be seen by men, as hypocrites do (Matt 6.5-6). Surely David had pure motives in writing this. He intended the edification of God’s beloved ones. It is entirely appropriate for godly ones now and then to speak of their private dealings with God, as long as they aim for the beneficial instruction of fellow worshipers. David showcases the power of grace in the redemption of sinners to restore our communion with God. His testimony ought to stir in us a holy jealously and guide us into the blessedness of intimacy with God.
To us as divine image-bearers who have fallen, God is simultaneously attractive and repulsive. It has often been observed that man is incurably religious, a worshiping creature. Instinctively we know God exists and that he deserves our all, but on account of his holiness and our sin we innately possess a dread of him, a fear of rejection and impending judgment.
When Moses tells us of “the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden (Paradise) in the cool of the day” (Gen 3.8a), he speaks in a figurative way as if God were a man, and evidently tells us not only what transpired on this occasion, but also of God’s habitual, customary way with Adam before the fall. God and Adam communed together, talking with each other as Friend to friend. Adam had nothing to hide; his soul was open and naked before God, and yet Adam seems to have had no particular awareness of this. Indeed he had known nothing else from the first moments of his creation.
Then Adam sinned, and when God came round again, “Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden” (Gen 3.8b). Feeling ashamed of themselves, they had made fig leaf aprons, and now were very conscious of their vulnerability and diminished glory. They had become suddenly afraid of intimacy with God, even though he had not changed at all.
Now we see David, a fallen son of Adam, boldly reentering that Paradise and pleading for God’s company and favor. Note well David’s exact words. They are all the more striking when we consider that he is addressing God Almighty, against whom David had already sinned many, many times in his life. And yet he so speaks.
LOOK AT ME!
“Look thou upon me,” he supplicates his Creator and Savior. The imperative verb, in other contexts having the force of command, here communicates David’s sense of urgency and the serious importance of his prayer request.
The Hebrew verb could also be translated, “Turn.” It is an idiom, poetically speaking to God as if he were a man in a human body, and would have to turn around and face the one to whom he would give special attention. David behaves verbally somewhat like we would if we gently grasped the shoulders of a spouse who was distracted when we desperately needed to communicate face to face, so that there is no doubt we were making a personal connection with them. David is saying to God, “Face me, look at me, give me your undivided attention!”
This is the very opposite of hiding from God or fleeing from him. It is the disposition of one who is, with all his heart, seeking God. David is no longer afraid of condemnation; he knows his gracious Sovereign will raise the royal scepter and grant him access to the throne of the Most High.
BE MERCIFUL TO ME!
Also imperative, the second and related plea is, “be merciful unto me,” or, “be gracious to me,” or, “show favor to me,” as the original can variously be rendered. These all amount to the same thing. David is confessing his own insufficiency, admitting his desperate need, and crying out for salvation from all miseries, both physical and spiritual. This is a salvation that only comes from God and is granted in answer to believing prayer.
Mercy is when God withholds from us just punishment for our sins. Grace is when he grants us all undeserved blessings from his mere sovereign good will. Both mercy and grace are expressions of God’s favor because he is giving us his love rather than his strict justice. The full revelation of the gospel in the New Testament makes clear that the legal grounds for God to relate to sinners this way is Christ alone, and him crucified. No one deserves to be saved from all misery but Jesus, yet he suffered all the misery we deserve to deliver us from it. It is impossible for a Christian to ask too much blessing from the Father, because of the infinite merit of Jesus Christ, and the infinite worth of his perfect righteousness and atoning sacrifice. “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Rom 8.32).
I LOVE YOU!
The second line of the Psalm verse has an unusual expression, even for the AV: “As thou usest to do unto those that love thy name.” It does not mean that God formerly gave his favor to those who loved him, and now he needs stimulation to renew this wonderful policy. No. David is expressing his faith that when God has graciously caused sinners to love him, he can be counted upon to continue showing them his gracious favor in other respects, too. Blessing his church is God’s constant commitment, his customary way of dealing with believers. “Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is your way with those who love your name” (ESV). To love God’s name is to love God himself; his name stands for all that he is. Further, David implies that he loves God, along with all God’s redeemed people in the past, and therefore David also has the evidences of a work of grace in his soul, the harbinger of future blessing. David is saying directly to his Lord and God, “I love you, and I need you, and I know that you love me.”
I would note an absolutely horrid rendering of this verse in a Roman Catholic translation: “Turn to me, pity me; those who love your name deserve it” (NJB). Rome’s wicked legalism, their demonic anti-gospel, has ruined the inspired sentiment. True Christians do not appeal to one ounce of their own personal merit when pleading God’s favor. Rather, “we rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3.3).
Is your relationship with God very intimate and personal, as David’s was? Have you myopically fixated upon other aspects of biblical truth, like the wrath of God, in such a way that they have chilled your prayer life? In our text, behold the sweetness even of one who was a believer under the Old Covenant! In this age of the outpoured Holy Spirit, how shall we in Christ’s church be satisfied with any less? The Lord help us all to run into his arms and enjoy his loving favor! Amen.