Psalm 85 Part 2

Vs’10-13 are profound! In beautiful terms, the psalmist describes the salvation God brings to His people. It might seem that lovingkindness(NASB) unfailing love(RSV & NLT)- (mercy KJV)  and truth are set against each other, with ‘unfailing love’ looking to grant pardon and truth determined to condemn. In God’s great work of salvation, ‘unfailing love (chesed) and truth have met together. V10’

Even as chesed and truth meet, so ‘righteousness and peace embrace each other warmly(kiss). It might seem that righteousness would condemn me and prevent God’s shalom (peace) from ever reaching me. In God’s great work of salvation, His ‘righteousness and peace’ are the best of friends.
These four divine attributes (love, truth, righteousness, and peace) parted at the fall of Adam and met again at the birth of Christ. Unfailing love was ever inclined to save man, and Peace could not be his enemy, but Truth required the performance of God’s threat, ‘The soul that sins, it shall die,’ and Righteousness could not but give to everyone his due. These 4 met in Christ when He poured out His life at Calvary.

 Paul later expressed this idea in Rom3:26: ‘That He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.’ At the cross, God demonstrated His righteousness by offering man justification (a legal verdict of “not guilty”), while remaining completely just (because the righteous penalty of sin had been paid at the cross). God could be only just, and simply send every guilty sinner to his fate – “the wages of sin is death…” Only God could find a way to be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. V11 has its counterpart in Rom8:31.

The devil is the great disrupter of the universe’s harmony. God brings harmony. In these verses the four great attributes of God meet together…and then, like conquering generals, they march side by side to a victory that is the sure and certain hope of God’s people. God’s march will leave a track where his people will joyfully follow; ‘His footsteps, our pathway.’ Peter tells us to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.