Psalm 118

The last article ended on one verse. The LORD disciplined me severely, but did not give me over to death. Psalm 118:18. One sentence from a man who went through God's severe correction and lived. That sentence was the proof that the corrective reading of Matthew 25 is not a word game. Scripture already has a man testifying to exactly that kind of discipline in the first person.

But here is the harder question. If God's severe discipline ends in life for the Psalmist, does it end in life for the people Jesus actually condemned by name? For the Pharisees he called a brood of vipers? For the leaders he charged with every righteous drop of blood from Abel forward?

The answer is in the same Psalm. And Jesus himself put it there, in the middle of the harshest speech he ever gave.

The speech that should not end the way it ends

Read Matthew 23:33-39 and watch what Jesus does. He is in the temple. He is speaking directly to the scribes and Pharisees, the religious leadership of Israel. And he turns on them.

Snakes! Brood of vipers! How can you escape being condemned to hell? This is why I am sending you prophets, sages, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. So all the righteous blood shed on the earth will be charged to you, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all these things will come on this generation.

Vipers. Hell. The murder of future prophets predicted in advance. Every righteous drop of blood ever shed charged to this generation. There is no softening this. Jesus is not gentle. He is not hinting. He is leveling the harshest language in his ministry at the men standing in front of him.

Still speaking to the Pharisees, Jesus continues.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate.

Desolate. The word is final. The house is abandoned.

Still speaking to the Pharisees, in the very next sentence, Jesus says this.

For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.

Stop and notice what he just did. After calling them vipers, after warning them of hell, after declaring their house desolate, Jesus tells them they will see him again. And when they do, they will bless his name.

This is not a threat to vanish. It is a promise to return. And the promise is that they, the same men he just cursed, will be the ones blessing him when he does.

The Psalm he chose

Jesus did not make up the blessing. He quoted it. The line Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD comes from Psalm 118:26. And the Psalm he reached into is not a random backdrop. It is a Psalm built around one subject.

Look at how it opens.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his faithful love endures forever. (Psalm 118:1)

The Hebrew word for faithful love is חֶסֶד, chesed. It is the loyal love of a God who keeps his word to his people no matter what. It does not run out. It does not get revoked. It is the kind of love severe discipline is carried out by, not the kind that disappears when discipline begins.

And here is how the same Psalm closes.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his faithful love endures forever. (Psalm 118:29)

Same line. Opening and closing. The whole Psalm is bookended by the declaration that God's faithful love for his people endures forever.

Now read what sits inside those bookends.

I will not die, but I will live and proclaim what the LORD has done. The LORD disciplined me severely, but did not give me over to death. Open the gates of righteousness for me; I will enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. This is the LORD's gate; the righteous will enter through it. I will give thanks to you because you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This came from the LORD; it is wondrous in our sight. (Psalm 118:17-23)

A man goes through severe discipline from God. He does not die. The gates of righteousness open to him. He walks through them. The stone the builders rejected, the very thing cast off, becomes the cornerstone. And surrounding the whole testimony, the refrain that God's faithful love endures forever.

This is the Psalm Jesus pointed the Pharisees to. Not a line. A whole movement. Severe discipline inside faithful love that does not run out, ending in the rejected stone made the cornerstone, ending in the gates of righteousness opened, ending in thanks given to the LORD.

What the Pharisees will say when they say it

Jesus did not pick this Psalm by accident. He could have quoted any blessing in Scripture. He quoted the one embedded in a song about surviving God's severe discipline. The choice was deliberate. And he had already pointed the Pharisees at this exact Psalm once before.

Two chapters earlier, in Matthew 21:42, Jesus is speaking to the chief priests and the Pharisees and he quotes Psalm 118 directly.

Jesus said to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this came from the Lord and is wonderful in our eyes?

That is Psalm 118:22-23. The verse sitting four lines above the blessing Jesus quotes in Matthew 23. He told the Pharisees in Matthew 21 that they were the builders, that he was the rejected stone, and that the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone anyway. Then in Matthew 23 he told the same men they would one day bless his name, using the same Psalm.

They had already been told, from Psalm 118, that they were the rejectors and that the stone they rejected would become the cornerstone. Now they are told, from the same Psalm, that they will be the ones declaring blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. The rejectors will become the blessers. The Psalm names both moves. Jesus made both applications to the same men.

When Jesus tells the Pharisees you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD, he is not just telling them they will see him again someday. He is telling them that when they finally speak, they will speak the words of Psalm 118.

The words of a Psalm about severe discipline that ends in life.

The words of a Psalm that opens and closes with God's faithful love enduring forever.

The words of a Psalm where the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone, which Jesus had already told them was about himself.

The Pharisees will not bless his name as strangers saying a phrase. They will bless his name as men who have walked the same road the Psalmist walked. Severe discipline. Preserved life. Gates opened. Thanks given. Faithful love that did not run out.

The warning and the promise in Matthew 23 are not two different messages to two different groups. They are the same message to the same people. Jesus told them what the severe part of their future would be, and in the same breath told them what the end of it would be. He named the Psalm that holds both.

Paul seals it

Paul says the same thing plainly in Romans, and he says it about the same people.

And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. (Romans 11:26-27)

All Israel. Not some. Not a remnant. All. The Deliverer comes from Zion. He turns godlessness away from Jacob. He takes away their sins.

Paul then says it even more directly in the next two verses.

As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:28-29)

Enemies and beloved. In the same sentence. About the same people. And the word Paul reaches for is irrevocable. God's gifts and his calling on Israel cannot be taken back. That is the exact pattern of Matthew 23 stated as doctrine. Cursed and kept at the same time. Warned and promised by the same mouth. Faithful love that does not run out, even on enemies of the gospel, because the calling is irrevocable.

The usual objection here is that Jesus was only speaking to Jerusalem, not the Pharisees. The objection does not hold. Jesus was in the temple. He was speaking to the religious leadership of Jerusalem. The Pharisees were the leaders of the Israel Paul says will be saved. You cannot save all Israel without saving the men who led her. They are not excluded from the promise. They are the center of the group the promise is about.

The pattern

Paul's irrevocable is the Hebrew chesed said in Greek. The calling that cannot be taken back is the faithful love that does not run out. Psalm 118 sings it. Jesus spoke it over the Pharisees. Paul stated it as doctrine. The whole series holds together on this one point.

The mouth that warns is the mouth that promises.

The Psalmist was disciplined severely. He lived. The gates of righteousness opened for him. He gave thanks. God's faithful love endured.

The Pharisees were warned of hell. They will see him again. They will bless his name. They will speak the words of a Psalm about severe discipline ending in life. God's faithful love will endure.

All Israel was scattered and hardened in part. They will be saved. The Deliverer will come from Zion. Their sins will be taken away. God's faithful love will endure.

The pattern does not break. It holds from the Psalmist to the Pharisees to all Israel. And the one walking back through the gates of righteousness in every case is the one who went in under severe discipline from a God whose faithful love endures forever.

What the Greek said at Matthew 25 about corrective discipline, the Psalmist says in first person, the Pharisees will say in their own mouths, and Paul says as doctrine about all Israel. Four voices. One pattern. God's discipline cuts, but it keeps.

What looked like the end in Matthew 23 is not the end. It is the cut before the harvest. The same pattern as the Sheep and the Goats. The same gardener. The same purpose. The same faithful love enduring through all of it.

The rejected stone becomes the cornerstone. The rejectors become the ones who bless the name. The men called a brood of vipers walk through the gates of righteousness. That is what the Psalm says, what Jesus said over them, and what Paul said about them. The warning is real. So is what the warning ends in.