.webp?width=80&height=80&name=1517headshots-141-Edit%20(1).webp)
What God perceives is not what our eyes see; he is focused on righteousness because his love creates what is righteous.
To the Choirmaster (nasha –or “To Victory!”). Of David
David’s Eleventh Psalm distinguishes false righteousness (by the law) from God’s true righteousness (by his love). However, we cannot truly understand God’s love without understanding what he hates and why he hates it.
1 I trust [take refuge] in the Lord: how say you to my soul: “Flee away to the mountain as a sparrow…”
The Holy Fathers understood the Psalm to refer to heretics (false teachers of faith)—and rightly so, if heresy is correctly defined as teaching righteousness wrongly in opposition to God’s own righteousness. Heretics are work-mongers, self-justiciaries, flatterers who tempt the weak into believing in human righteousness. The church is filled with them, as we hear from Paul: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, following the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col. 2:8).
But Psalm 11 is not meant to warn you about false teachers; it aims to set up the church on the foundation of righteousness through God’s gracious gift. When the church neglects Christ and acts as if Moses were your guide and protector, you end up fleeing like a bird to the mountains. God’s law may seem pious, but it lacks the power for you to truly fulfill it, thus burdening the church with more sins than before teaching this law. It reminded Luther of his own teachers of “satisfactions” — such as indulgences, numerous ways of confessing guilt, and endless foolishness. Without Christ, you will end up teaching about your own works, which are inevitably made up by yourself (as the German mystical teacher John Tauler repeatedly warned Luther would happen).
The first line of the Psalm affirms true faith and God’s righteousness with the words “I trust in the Lord,” or we might say: “I take refuge only in Him.” The second line addresses the enemy that seeks to frighten our souls, telling us to “run for the mountains” as if we were not God’s chosen, but just sparrows. Paul learned the same lesson as David: “I trust in the Lord…” who promises: “He who through faith is righteous shall live!” (Rom. 1:17). This is the foundation upon which I have built my house. But now I no longer wander in uncertainty. My conscience is firmly rooted in a solid foundation. Otherwise, I might have to flee to the mountains because I would lack a secure dwelling place: “As a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man that wanders from his place” (Prov. 27:8). Or as those who build their nests “among the stars, from where I will bring you down, says the Lord” (Obad. 1:4). Instead, God desires us to come down from the mountain and be with him below. Christ’s own ministry began in this way, quoting the same message from Isaiah: “A voice cries, Prepare the way of the Lord…every mountain will be made low…” (Mark 1).
So David says, “If I were to listen to you fools, I would fly off like a bird to the mountains, and lose all my faith’s confidence in God’s promise to me: get away from me, you annoying pests!” Yet the low, flat place on the plain is the way of righteousness by faith alone.
2 For behold, the sinners bend their bow; they have made ready their arrows on the quiver, to shoot their arrows in the dark at the upright in heart.
The sinners, or “wicked” (rasha), are those who walk in their own righteousness. As terrible as that is, they will not settle for taking their false path alone—they also unwittingly bring others into their trap. David describes them as evil hunters lurking along the way to pick off their targets. Jerome translated this as “that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart” (secretly, without your knowledge). This is done with the “bow” of a tongue and the “arrows” of their theory that God justifies those called “right” by some law of their own making. They do not see themselves as hunters or plunderers; they view themselves as God’s keepers of doctrine and leaders of the church.
In Psalm 5, David pleaded for God to “Judge them, O Lord,” but they go on disguised as the Pope, to whom all things are referred for determining church teachings, as if “impossible for him to err.” Psalm 7 and 9, especially, describe what it means to have an “upright heart,” but here we understand it as those few who have managed not to flee to the mountains or to be struck down by the church’s archers. Paul calls them the “hearts of the simple,” often deceived by “big words and flattering speeches” (Romans 16:18).
The most dangerous men are those who think they carry feathers when they are firing a bow to harm their followers. In both the church and the world, something seems true, but in reality, it is the opposite. False preachers set the bow with zeal—they are determined, ready, and rarely miss their mark. The reason this happens is that, if they teach falsely, the benefits to the archers are great. The deceits of men carry with them into glory, wealth, and plenty, but, although they are ordered to tend the flock, they only end up killing the lambs.
3 For they have destroyed that which You have perfected, and what have the righteous done?
These killers have undermined the foundation (“that which you have perfected,” or “bottom” seat and buttocks of the church) that God established. So, what have the righteous done? Or, “what can the righteous do?” This could be seen as a helpless group of the righteous being slain all day long, or as a pointless crowd that has done nothing while those around them are picked off one by one. Paul understood that once he left a church, “wolves enter among you” (Acts 20:29). Meanwhile, churchgoers keep claiming they are part of the “catholic church” across all times and places, or that they thank God for the true unity of the church through history. But what they truly have is nothing but “lying teachers.”
The translation here aims to show the contrast: what you built, they destroyed, or the opposite: “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: They shall build but I will throw down” (Isa. 9:9). God destroyed the buildings of the false teachers, but the false teachers destroy the doctrine of the church—“perverting the ways of the living God” (Micah 3:9). Augustine thought this phrase (“what have the righteous done”) referred to Christ himself, whom he asserted was fighting alongside him against the imposition of the Donatists in Northern Africa, who had taught that only legally pure priests can administer efficacious baptism or the Lord’s Supper.
However, David intended to rebuke the church for doing nothing when false teachers overwhelmed them with a false “righteousness of the law.” David then wondered what the use of this salvation by faith alone was, then, if the church or tabernacle is overtaken by these false teachers who afflict the flock with labors and oppressions.
4 The Lord is in his holy temple: the Lord’s throne is in heaven, his eyes behold [look upon the poor], his eyelids interrogate the children of men.
The Latin Vulgate translation adds the phrase “look upon the poor,” which does not appear in the Hebrew. Instead, the verse means that God sees everything, primarily that the righteous will not labor in vain. They understand that God is in his temple—where the wicked neither look nor see. The world only sees the glory of man in the institutions of power, but God, who sees all from his heavenly throne, is speaking to his people in that temple. It is there, in the temple, that he reminds us of our justification by faith, not by our works.
The temple of the Lord is wherever God's people gather to hear his Word.
But what is this temple of God? The temple called by that name was built by Solomon, David’s son, long after David wrote this Psalm. Psalm 5 already states that the temple of the Lord is wherever God's people gather to hear his Word. Therefore, the temple of God is his people who listen to jim. The rest of the world does not know this God, his words, or even where he is. Yet we do know him, and he is in his holy temple, made sacred by the words he speaks to his gathered sinners: “I forgive you your sins!” This is what it means to be justified by faith, not by outward works.
Let the world scorn and subvert our faith. Yet, the temple of God remains, as 2 Timothy assures us: “the foundation of God stands firm, having his seal upon it, the Lord knows them that are his…” (2 Tim. 2:19). God reigns from heaven, and his people are far from him on earth (the temple), yet the conversation in that temple is spoken in heaven. Eventually, we could learn what it means for the presence of Christ, bodily, in the Lord’s Supper, while he “sits at the right hand of the Father,” that has so confused the Sacramentarians like Zwingli. Zwingli was confused over how Christ could be seated in heaven after his resurrection, and yet managed to proclaim in the church: “Take and eat, this is my body given for you!” Zwingli, and the bulk of Protestants since that time, have failed to understand how the “Lord’s throne is in heaven,” yet he “is in his holy temple” because they use their limited noodle rather than their faithful ear to grasp how God is truly, physically, and spiritually present in his Word. God’s mouth is in heaven while the hearing of his word is in the temple.
However, through the gospel, God’s eyelids narrow to the world but open to his chosen.
Meanwhile, God’s eyes see everything, and what they observe is not the good deeds that will earn his reward, but the faith he has given to his people—those who trust in his promise even when they do not see the results. His “eyelids interrogate the children of men,” meaning that through the law, he condemns everything, even the best acts on earth, since anything not rooted in faith is sin (Rom. 14:23). However, through the gospel, God’s eyelids narrow to the world but open to his chosen, so he only sees what his Son has done for us—what he has made us and how he who knew no sin became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21).
5 The Lord interrogates the righteous and the wicked; and he that loves iniquity hates his own soul [The Lord hates the hater’s soul].
The Greek translation differs from the Hebrew. The Greek states that the wicked love iniquity and hate their own souls, while the Hebrew says that God hates them. Luther is inclined to take the Hebrew that speaks so forcefully of God’s deep hatred of sin. God does not hate until he is driven to it, and what he hates is not disobedience to the law but unfaith. This hate stands in contrast to the Psalm's final words, which reveal God’s love—not through a comparison with our love, but through an absolute, negative contrast with our way of loving.
6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest will be the portion of their cup.
“Rain” and “cup” are frequently mentioned in Scripture. In connection with David’s “the Lord is in his temple,” they symbolize God's word, as in “My doctrine [teaching] shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew” (Deut. 32:2). Instead of faithful preachers, the wicked will only hear more fake preaching and false teaching that shine and attract, but will not only drip in but fall like fire and brimstone (as in Sodom), causing immediate death and trapping souls by falsely presenting what they love. Once the trap is set, there is no escape. Luther reminds us that heretics are always “tyrants of human laws” that sound good but trap a soul unto death. When a Christian learns to recognize the smell of brimstone, they can quickly sniff out false teachings by their stench. Then, their portion will not be false teachings “raining snares.” It will be the cup of Christ rather than the cup of the wicked. Christ’s cup involves suffering and the cross, but ends in new life rather than destruction.
7 For the righteous Lord loves righteousness; his countenance beholds uprightness.
Amidst the rain of fire and brimstone, we hold firm because we serve a righteous Lord who, unlike us, loves righteousness. The foundational teaching is that the righteousness of the Lord, who loves our righteousness, is rooted not in the law but in the gospel. What God perceives is not what our eyes see; he is focused on righteousness because his love creates what is righteous. God observes the righteousness that only he can produce. This makes God’s love opposite our own. We love what we find lovely. We are attracted to what we consider beautiful, already in itself. In this way, our love is a weak reflection that can only chase after what we love—especially when we don't even understand why we love it. Our love ends up flying to the mountains like a sparrow.
He looks upon what is unlovely to him and makes it lovely by loving what is unlovely.
Meanwhile, God’s love is opposite to our own. He does not love what he looks for and then finds, as already lovable. He looks upon what is unlovely to him and makes it lovely by loving what is unlovely. And do not be misled by this to think God is simply turning morality or righteousness upside down and loving what the rest of the world dislikes. He does not love all that is unlovely; he sees, chooses, and elects what is his and takes the unrighteous so that he makes them, one by one, righteous. He does not love everything that is unlovely. He does not transform all that is unlovely into what is lovely. He only loves what his countenance beholds—what he looks at, chooses, and saves. The righteous Lord loves his righteousness, which he gives to the unrighteous where and when he desires, so that what was unrighteous is made righteous.
God is not deceived about you, nor does he approve of everything and everyone as righteous, even when they are not. He is not counting your righteousness (even though you are not righteous in yourself) in a trivial sense of “forensic” justification (as the Lutherans of the Enlightenment of Immanuel Kant liked to say). But neither does God look down from heaven and see what is in the old world. God’s love is poured out in words that make you people of his temple—where he truly is—and when these words are proclaimed to you (“for you” by your preacher), then God’s love truly gives himself to you so that his righteousness becomes your own—in, with, and through faith itself. This is not merely our Christian “participation” or “being” as “ontology” according to old Greek philosophy (as our “new Finnish interpreters like to say)—but the much greater evangelical teaching of God’s word making you new as a sinner in yourself.
This is God's work of killing us as sinners and raising us as new saints. God first sees our death, which is certain. Then he sees our new life as a resurrected child of God who is truly, wholly, and absolutely righteous. God’s countenance, on account of Christ, beholds what you in fact are. He sees what he loves, and so sees a previously unrighteous man who is now a righteous man loved into the righteousness of God when he declares you such, on account of Christ.
This righteousness comes apart from the law. It is true, complete, and eternal, with no legal righteousness of your own participating, responding, or joining with God, nor in any way presenting to God a legal righteousness of your own. The righteous God has looked down upon you and made you righteous out of nothing but his own word. From that moment on, what God sees is the new you: a righteous man, whom he beholds as his own righteousness beyond any law at all.
.webp?width=36&height=36&name=1517headshots-141-Edit%20(1).webp){kind=small}
