Growing in Jesus Christ

Psalm 36: 5-8

Psalm 36: 5-8

V5: Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.

V6: Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.

V7: How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

V8: They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

What do these verses tell us about God?

From Verse 5, we can tell...

God's love – it is steadfast. His love is totally, absolutely, endlessly loyal, committed, firm & devoted. It does not waver, it does not falter, but it is resolutely firm and unwavering.

God's love – it extends to the heavens. The metaphor and the visual imagery of how unimaginably, and ineffably high and vast and wide the heavens are shows that God's love in Jesus Christ is not only unswervingly steadfast, but also absolutely, and incomprehensibly, and indescribably immeasurable, an endlessly infinite ocean of love without shore or bottom.

God's faithfulness – extends to the clouds. God is not only faithful; as endlessly high as the clouds are in the heavens, so is God's endlessly unquantifiable, resolute, unswerving faithfulness. He will keep His promises and fulfill them completely, holding nothing back.

From Verse 6, we can tell...

God's righteousness – like the mountains of God, God is absolutely, infinitely and resolutely just. His righteousness is never in any degree affected by circumstances; He is always infinite-percent holy & just. Right across the path of every unholy sinner who dreams of heaven stand the towering Andes of divine righteousness, which no unregenerate sinner can ever climb. God will never pervert or twist justice, but will always satisfy His perfect justice fully and infinitely.

God's judgments – like the great deep. The term judgments here does not simply refer to God's hatred & wrath against sin, but encompasses every decision God makes on what is good & bad, right & wrong. God's judgments are mysterious and unknown to us; His afflictive dispensations of His providence, or expressions of His hatred against specific sins, or God's decisions on what is morally right & wrong are beyond our comprehension and imagination. His character is inexhaustible, unsearchable and fathomlessly deep, an absolutely infinite God in every aspect of His character

He preserves both man and beast – God, by His incomparably great sovereign power & wisdom, preserves billions of men and endless numbers of billions of species of animals, of beasts, birds, reptiles, fish, amphibians, insects. He graciously provides men & beasts with all the food they need, all the water they need, and protect them from whatever dangers they face. It really displays how full & abounding in love, compassion & mercy God is.

From Verse 7, we can tell...

God's steadfast love is precious – mankind does not deserve God to love them, as they are totally depraved, morally evil beyond measure and have constantly despised, short-changed, belittled God and showed Him only hostility and impudence. Therefore, it makes God's love all the more worth cherishing for sinners who do not deserve such wonderful love from God. God's love is also precious in that it is the only thing that can satisfy our souls with infinitely abundant, and everlasting, and endlessly enriching joy & happiness.

Because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, the saints, God's adopted children of mankind, are able to take refuge in God's divine grace in Jesus from the terrors of God's endlessly all-powerful wrath. They take refuge in the shadow of God's wings, because He promises to fight for them and to avenge them, to mete out proper, full, uncompromising justice for every wrong done to them by unbelievers, which is correspondingly wrongs done to Himself.

And lastly, from Verse 8, we can tell...

God is lavishly generous beyond comprehension, full of overwhelming generosity towards us, His saints. He permits that we feast, FEAST, freely eat & glut ourselves on the abundance of His house, and gives them drink from the river of His delights. He holds nothing back, but joyfully grants His saints the ineffably immeasurable riches of His love, glory, beauty, knowledge and power to be their portion to feast on, and to drink deeply of His infinite, never-ending, holy pleasures and delights.

Jonathan Edwards puts it this way:

They have a foundation of unspeakable comfort and joy, because of their riches. They have true and infinite riches. They are the possessors and heirs of something real and substantial, and that is worthy to be called by the name of riches. The things they possess are excellent, more precious than gold and than rubies; all the desirable things of this world cannot equal them, and they have enough of it. The riches that they have given them of God are inexhaustible. It is sufficient for them; there is no end of it. They have a fountain of infinite good for their comfort, and contentment, and joy; for God has given himself to them to be their portion, and he is a God of infinite glory. There is glory in him to engage their contemplation for ever and ever, without ever being satiated. And he is also an infinite fountain of love; for God is love, yea, an ocean of love without shore or bottom! The glorious Son of God is theirs; that lovely one, who was from all eternity God's delight, rejoicing always before him. All his beauty is their portion, and his dying love is theirs, his very heart is theirs, and his glory and happiness in heaven are theirs, so far as their capacity will allow them to partake of it; for he has promised it to them, and has taken possession of it in their name.