Justice and Psalm 72

To continue in a theme that has become very prevalent around this blog I want to look at a couple of psalms and how they understand righteousness and justice. The first text is Psalm 72, specifically Psalm 72:1-7, and I want to understand how this psalmist understands righteousness, the צדק word group. If one is to understand justification from a whole-Bible perspective, then seeing how the צדק word group, or righteousness-language, is employed is key. Let us get our text before us.

1 Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the royal son!
2 May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice!
3 Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness!
4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the children of the needy,
and crush the oppressor!
5 May they fear you while the sun endures,
and as long as the moon, throughout all generations!
6 May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass,
like showers that water the earth!
7 In his days may the righteous flourish,
and peace abound, till the moon be no more!

The psalm is a prayer for the king. The superscription is not very clear as to whether or not this psalm is a prayer for the Davidic king, namely Solomon, and/or his son or is written by Solomon himself. The superscription employs the preposition לִ which can indicate both the authorship in this case or to whom the text is directed (The LXX uses εἰς to translate לִ which would mean the prayer is “for” Solomon, not necessarily “by” Solomon). The prayer itself seems to indicate that this is a prayer for Solomon the king, but Solomon could be just as easily praying for himself here.

So what observations do I see here and how do they impact justification. First the righteousness that is spoken of here is Elohim’s righteousness being asked to be bestowed upon the Hebrew king (72:1). Second, it is semantically being tied into justice (משפט) and making just decisions (72:1). Third, it is Elohim’s right judgments, to defend the cause of the oppressed and the poor (72:4). Fourth, when the king exercises Elohim’s righteousness the poor are delivered and their oppressors are “crushed;” in other words Elohim’s salvation and wrath are linked together in his righteousness (72:4). Fifth, Elohim’s righteousness not only destroys the oppressors but prospers the poor, the world as the psalmist knows it is reversed and turned up on its head (72:3). Sixth, the righteous and the poor seem to tied together as Elohim’s people (72:2, 3, 7). Thus the righteous are those who cry out for (the poor and oppressed) and rest in Elohim’s righteousness. Seventh, the people fear Elohim when he acts in his righteousness (72:6). Eight, the world that results from the king exercising Elohim’s righteousness is a world that exists in shalom.

From these observations I cannot limit justification to be a simple declaration about a person, namely that person being in the right before God, being found without guilt and innocent. God’s righteousness entails his delivering his people from their oppressors by unleashing his wrath against those oppressors and then prospering his people, creating a reversal of the current world order. When God justifies he creates a new creation where the poor are rich and the oppressors are destroyed. God’s righteousness is effective. In other words the word that the king ushers in favor of the poor effects their deliverance and the destruction of their oppressors. A new world for the poor person is created by the king’s declaration.

To be righteous isn’t merely being in the right before God forensically. It is much more than that. It is participating in the new creation where those who do prosper and live in shalom. Yes before God they are not guilty of sin and there is no condemnation. But there is much more to it. They are able to live in a world where there is no longer oppression as it has been crushed. That living here is part of being righteous.

I am more and more convinced that union with Christ and the new creation that his resurrection represents and creates is more and more central to our justification than we in the Reformed tradition want to give it. Christ’s resurrection created the new creation and he is the first born of that new creation. By our union with him, we now, at the present time and in this life, participate in that new creation where our enemies have been judged upon the cross and we become part of the righteous (2 Corinthians 5:17, 21; Colossians 2:9-15). At our resurrection and at the resurrection we fully participate in the new creation as we are then righteous. At the resurrection, we are no longer part of the righteous because we are in the Righteous One. We will be resurrected as righteous, living in a world where our enemies have been judged and we are made to prosper, living in a world we stand before God not guilty and innocent.

Some have said that the traditional Protestant articulations of justification are not wrong but inadequate (i.e. Dr. Mark Seifrid of Southern Seminary). He has been ridiculed for this but I have to agree with him. I don’t deny what is said traditionally. I am just finding that the traditional formulations of justification don’t go far enough.