What Can the Righteous Do?
Psalm 11:1–7
For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face. Psalm 11:7
What can the righteous do? David looked around at the wicked. He looked up to God. Now he looks ahead, to the future, concerned at this point not with the destiny of his enemies but with his own destiny and that of all who trust God. This verse means: because “the Lord is righteous [and] loves righteous deeds, the upright shall behold his face.”
This last phrase is an anticipation of nothing less than the beatific vision, the ultimate aspiration of the Old Testament saints: to see God face-to-face. Strangely, many commentators seem reluctant to admit this, pleading the incomplete and uncertain view of the afterlife Old Testament believers are supposed to have had. But although Old Testament understandings are obviously less developed than those of the New Testament, based as the latter are upon the resurrection and explicit teaching of Jesus, and although the idea of seeing God’s face could mean only that the light of his favor will shine upon the upright, it is nevertheless hard to suppose that David is not thinking here of the believer’s ultimate reward and bliss. Why? He has just spoken of a future judgment on the wicked: “Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup” (v. 6). What is called for now is a parallel statement of what the same all-seeing and just God will do for those who are righteous.
They will see God! How glorious!
Remember how Moses asked this favor of God and was told he could not see him? God said, “I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen” (Exod. 33:22–23). “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live” (v. 20).
Yet this is what the Old Testament believers continued to seek. They pray for it many times in the Old Testament. Wishful thinking? Something nice, but actually impossible? Not at all. Because, when we come to the end of the New Testament, to the letters of the apostle John, who gazed often on the face of the earthly Jesus, we find him promising, “When he [that is, the heavenly, glorified Jesus] appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2, italics added). The upright really will see God’s face.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.