Psalm 98 and God’s Right Hand

I had the chance to share the gospel with a couple of friends today.  These are relationships I’ve been building for sometime and I was pretty excited to tell them of God’s love for us in Christ.  The experience has taught me again that great joy resides in getting to tell others of the love God.

Psalm 98:1-3 – “Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.  The LORD has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations. He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”

Jesus declared in Matthew 28 that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to Him subsequent to his victory over sin and death on the cross, and his resurrection from the grave.  According to the Nicene Creed of legitimate Christian churches, “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.  He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”

Psalm 98:9 – “Let them sing before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.”

The beauty of the gospel is not that God unjustly ignores our sin or unthinkably redefines our sin as unoffensive, but that He exacts His justice and demonstrates His mercy simultaneously in Christ.  We justly deserve to be punished, but Jesus is mercifully substituted for us.  Our sin is absorbed by Him (even thought He is holy) and His holiness is absorbed by believers (even though we are sinful).

This is how the gospel can make us simultaneously “ok” with God and yet broken, sinful people at present.  Martin Luther used the Latin phrase, “Simul justus et peccator” (simultaneously just and sinful).  It is in response to the undeserved salvation given to believers that we “burst into jubilant song.”  (Psalm 98:4)

We are not celebrating because we are naturally righteous and God is coming to reward our faithfulness.  We sing before the Lord because he judges the people “with equity.”  In the case of the believer who is relying on Christ to have taken their just punishment, justice will be delivering to the “justified sinner” a reward that only a holy person would deserve.  It’s a gift from Jesus.

That’s God’s grace.  That’s the Gospel.  That’s what amazed me again this morning and I pray would amaze my two friends.

This was originally published on December 8, 2011. Pastor Churck Ryor is Lead and Teaching Pastor for Prism Church, 51 North Hill Ave., Pasadena. For more, see www.prismchurch.com.