“Blessed are they”… In many of the Psalms you will run into phrases like, “Blessed is the one who fears the Lord,” or “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.” When I encounter that kind of speech, I immediately think of that one with a capital “O” and that man a capital “M” – Blessed is the One…” and “Blessed is the Man…” for in another Psalm it is said, “There is none righteous, no, not one.” So that righteous man must in fact BE the Lord.

But here in Psalm 119, it starts out immediately with a declaration of a company of the righteous. “Blessed are THEY, whose ways are BLAMELESS…”

How can both of these statements be true:

How is it that the Psalmist can praise something that testifies against him? Without making God out to be a liar, I can find only one solution, and that would be the Gospel (“Almost too good to be true news”) found in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who could read this Psalm with a straight face. He is the one and only Law KEEPER. In fact, when Moses put the Law into words, it was in obedience to the heavenly pattern. Moses was actually verbalizing and describing the character and attributes of God. Therefore Jesus (who claimed Divinity) embodies every aspect of it, down to the last jot and tittle. “I did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.”

It was recently brought to my remembrance, perhaps by the Lord Himself, that several years ago, I asked the Lord for prayers that He could answer YES to. I am a firm believer that all prayer is answered. But “No” and “Not Yet” are answers just as legitimately as “Yes” is. As appropriate as the first two responses might be, they become discouraging if those are the only responses you get. I speculate that it is just as wearying for God to continually receive requests that cannot be answered affirmatively…

My interest in Psalm 119 is bound up in the person Jesus, the Messiah, who said:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Matthew 5:17

John began his gospel account by saying this of Jesus:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”