This Is the Day...Wait; What?

"This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."  - Ps. 118:24

Of course, fully 95% of you now have that haunting Rick Shelton chorus in your heads, and for that, I do apologize.  Try to push that aside and hope for better things.  No; the reason I bring up this verse is that we all like it, and I hope to convince you to like it still more.  First, though, we have to deconstruct a myth. 

This sort of verse is charmingly self-contained, and we quote it so often, and hang it from so many keychains, that it becomes sort of an exegetical monolith:  it seemingly stands apart from any sort of context, and we can move it about to fit within a situation.  Having an unusually good day?  Perhaps your best friend forever going through a hard time?  Go ahead and say it.  Why would you not say it?  It is certainly true enough - every day is crafted by the Lord and brought to perfect fruition, is it not?  Of course you can say it, just so long as you understand that this sort of free and easy pronouncement is not quite what the psalmist intended.

There is always a context for Scripture, and it is always profitable to explore context; it helps to fend off erroneous suppositions, and it lends us greater confidence in the conclusions of our studies.  It gives greater substance, weight, and reason.  In our present case, three verses in Psalm 118 will give us plenty to think about:  "The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone.  This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.  This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." 

We see, then, that the day in question is not at all a random day of felicity, but instead a notable day in which someone was unexpectedly exalted by God Himself.  The broader context of the psalm shows this person to be some national hero, evidently some leader of Israel, who was beset by enemies on all sides (v. 10) - therefore Israel herself was surrounded by danger.  David himself would not be a bad guess - the circumstances fit - although he is not named as the author.  Whatever the case, this impending disaster was brought about as an act of discipline by the Lord (v. 18); however, that same Lord delivered the nation and established the psalmist in one deft move - an abrupt torrent of grace!

The Lord Jesus lays another context upon this original one by naming Himself as the corner stone in question (Matt. 21:42-44), thus injecting this passage with messianic significance.  Read those three verses from Psalm 118 once more in this glorious light.  The specific "day" in Psalm 118:24 becomes, in this case, the day that Christ, rejected by His own people, became the corner stone - the day He was resurrected into that life which all believers share with Him (cf. Acts 4:10-12).

This is the day, brothers and sisters - rejoice and be glad!  This indeed is why we gather as believers particularly on Sundays - the joyful remembrance of that day of unspeakable triumph!  In fact, we see this example throughout the New Testament, in the writings of Luke, Paul, and John - the saints gathered on Sunday, the Lord's day, to celebrate their Savior.  Let these pleasing recollections soak into your mind and heart when next you go to church.

One further note, though.  The psalmist endured the just discipline of the Lord and was graciously delivered from the jaws of death by God; how brightly does grace shine when the recipient knows that he might have rightly received death!  Contrast this, though, with Jesus Christ, who by no means deserved divine discipline, yet suffered at the hands of evil men, and indeed at the hand of His own Father, nonetheless!  Even more than this, though the psalmist did not taste death in that moment of trial, Christ felt the full weight, not only of a brutal and exhausting physical demise, but of the infinite wrath of the Father, for odious sins carried out by lesser hands and sinful hearts.  Amazing.

"This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."  There is much in the context here, hidden in plain sight, specific rather than general, to command our attention and our worship, is there not?  When these words come off of our lips, may they be steeped in genuine understanding and in heartfelt joy!

Divinely-Imparted Faith in Divinely-Declared Faithfulness

Naturally, the salvation engineered by our Lord affords us no small degree of comfort, as He is the only One who could have accomplished such a thing, as well as the One in whom the greatest degree of fury was (justly) provoked by our sin.  We rejoice, then, to examine our salvation and to marvel at the exact blend of qualities that the Lord brought to bear in the unique purchase of that salvation.

There was grace, of course, as well as rock-solid holiness.  There was love, there was power, and there was justice.  We celebrate each of these, of course, but there is yet one more quality which was just as urgently vital, but perhaps not considered so often as it should be. 

It is a trustworthy statement:

For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him;
If we endure, we will also reign with Him;
If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.

- 2 Tim. 2:11-13

In this brief passage, Paul makes four very stark conditional statements that lead back to the nature of salvation.  Indeed, some believe that these lines may have been lifted from an early Christian hymn, but whatever the case, these lines are charmingly direct and truthful.  To partake of Christ's death on the cross, à la Romans 6, is to partake of His resurrection life as well.  To persevere in one's faith until the end is to move to eternal glory at Christ's side, rather like Revelation 2:10.  To deny Christ is to be denied by Christ before the Father (Matt. 10:33).  And to respond in faithlessness to Christ (that is, to pridefully spurn repentance) will by no means induce Christ to respond faithlessly in kind (in other words, He will always be true to His gospel - in just condemnation).

It is this last truth that is so interesting in our present discussion.  The Lord cannot help but demonstrate infallible integrity to who He is; He never does anything unbecoming toward His holy and perfect name.  Paul's words therefore warn that Jesus will always be faithful to confer upon the unbelieving the just doom of hell.  To do anything else would be to violate His own principles and plans. 

In a like manner, this complete integrity by the Divine assures our enduring salvation.  It is the glue, do you see, that holds together all the rest of God's wonderful attributes in salvation.  All the grace in the world avails us little if the Bestower of such blessing becomes indifferent in its dispensation. Divine power is precious only so long as it accomplishes God's established purposes - if it does not, we lose the Romans 8:28 promise that all things happen for our good as believers (and thus naught can arise to rob us of salvation). 

We need constancy of gracious attention in the maintenance of our salvation.  Consider a moment how it would be if your Savior could, at any moment, choose to revoke His mercy, to repeal His pardon, to remove His sealing Spirit.  What terrors would visit you at every turn, what demons would constantly pluck at your sleeve, if this were a real concern!  His omnipotence would yield but small satisfaction, and His grace would offer only transient comforts, were He plagued with bouts of faithlessness to Himself.  What torment would wrack our tired hearts:  Do I stand in His good graces?  Have I somehow compromised myself?  Do His fancies run contrary to my wellbeing?

We could never know where we stood with a fickle God, but we would never be surprised to find that we had fallen from His grace.  Praise be to God, though, that this is wholly, utterly not the case.  "I, the Lord, do not change." (Mal. 3:6b, emphasis added) He stands so entirely apart from moral corruption, indecision, or second guessing that these lines of thought are bafflingly foolish.  He operates with an omniscient integrity and a sovereign wisdom - He can be assailed by no surprises, for His plan encompasses all things.

Rather, our Lord Christ says, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.  My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand." (John 10:27:29) This, brothers and sisters, lies at the very center of our faith!  Our faith would be but a hollow sham, scarcely lip service, but for the fact of God's faithfulness!  His Spirit residing in us builds our faith by helping us to understand the truths of God, so in a very real manner, His divinely-declared faithfulness feeds our divinely-imparted faith.

This is the stuff of daily praise, my friends. 

The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
- Lamentations 3:22-23

The Tree of Love Thrives in the Soil of Truth

Sometimes you come across a church that says something like, "we are a loving church we dont stress knowledge we just want to love jesus thats the important thing" (note the sarcastically intentional lack of capitalization and punctuation).  If ever you find such a church, or its close cousin, the "knowledge instead of love" church, make a note of its location so you do not inadvertently find yourself there on a Sunday morning. 

The idea that we can or should afford a higher premium to either truth or love is devastatingly false, as is the concept that these are entirely separate from each other.  We separate the two ideas, and we pick our favorites, according to our natural temperaments.  Love seems like less work than truth, and it would be less confrontational, right?  Or, Truth is simpler because I do not make obtrusive sacrifices for others. 

We cannot expect God's truth to have any significance in our lives if we do not love according to that truth.  Love is not an optional feature of God's program.  Similarly - and this is what I want to discuss - we cannot love while neglecting truth.  Paul makes this clear in Philippians 1:9-10:  "And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ."

Paul's prayerful desire for the Philippians is that they grow in love - in a very specific manner.  Their love, their godly, agape love, requires two specific (and perhaps unexpected) catalysts in order to exceed its present quality. 

1.  Real knowledge.  The Greek is epignosis, which moves beyond simple knowledge to a more participatory understanding - one might say we are living the Word with epignosis.¹  It is an understanding of the Word, cemented more firmly and genuinely into our hearts and minds by the mortar of experience. 

How does this help me to grow in love?  If God's Word reveals how love is supposed to look, and then my own actions affirm that truth (whether I succeeded or failed), then my heart clamors all the more loudly for me to adhere to God in the future.  I am far less likely to act selfishly if I know that God's Word decries such behavior, and if furthermore I know from personal experience the damage that is dealt to myself and to others by my own selfish behavior.  All my experience in a given area must necessarily teach me that God is right in that area, and that any opposition of mine is always wrong - thus am I given a yet stronger calling toward love. 

It becomes my lot, then, to discover still deeper what the Bible says about how I must love God and love others, and then to go out and apply that love in every conceivable area and corner of my life.  My very real experience will marry with very true biblical knowledge, and will birth a more solid conviction about the absolute need to love even as Christ Himself does.

2.  All discernment.  The word used here for "discernment" is aisthesis; and "discenment" is a fair translation; the only other use of this word group in the New Testament is in Hebrews 5:14, where the distinguishing of good and evil is in view.²  We note immediately that this also has its roots in biblical knowledge; discernment is useless without some healthy understanding of what righteousness is.  Paul bears this out in the Philippians passage we quoted above.

But how is discernment connected to love, you ask?  Most strongly, we reply.  It does us no good at all to proclaim the profundity of our love for God, if we are going to push aside every command He makes.  Consider 1 John 5:2-3:  "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome."  We love God by obeying Him, and consistent obedience requires great discernment in the foxholes of life.  Consider the dangerous inconsistencies in seeing a person who makes no effort to discern what would please God (and thus usually fails to do so), and then watching others commend that person for "how much you love God."  Baffling, no?

Discernment is also greatly needed in our love of others.  How blessed is a brother or sister in the faith who will not lead me into temptation, but actively seeks to avoid that temptation!  How needed and how loving is such a one who gives a clear, compassionate warning, when he or she sees sin in my life (though I may chafe or cringe in that moment)?  And how utterly tragic to withhold such careful, humble warning, in the name of love!  I choose not to warn a brother about the danger of a sin I see in his life, because I love him too much.  Impossible.


Truth and love are designed to be dear, inseparable friends in the life of a believer.  As we grow in our love, let us seek to season that love with "real knowledge and all discernment," that we may find ourselves squarely within the bounds of that program of love which God, who is love Himself (1 John 4:8), has established so perfectly.


¹ Vine, W.E., Merrill F. Unger, & William White, Jr. Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. "An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words." Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1996. p. 348.
² Brown, Colin.  The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.  Vol. 2.  Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan, 1976. p. 391.

Knocking the Narratives

I suppose that I, in the course of reading the Bible, could stick solely with the historical accounts, in a bid to keep things interesting and lively.  Of course I could.  In fact, I freely admit that I have fallen prey to this sort of (insert adjective of choice here, reader - wrong, silly, incomplete, shallow, faulty, even faithless?) thinking in the past.  We need to make fuller use of God's Word - pull more fruit down off of the divinely-planted tree and feast, as it were. 

I am confident you will not argue this point with me, my friends, since all Scripture is inspired by our omnisapient Lord and is useful for His saints, as Paul told Timothy (2 Tim. 3:16).  No; the problem here is that we sometimes take the other stance, is it not?  Sometimes we become averse to the narratives because we sense that they will somehow belittle our otherwise impressive spiritual profundity in the eyes of others.  "My studies are currently taking me through Hebrews; what about you?"  "Well, um...actually, I was just reading about Cain and Abel this morning...in my Fun Adventures with Jesus Bible.  Do you want to watch the video with me?  Mark Hamill and Richard Thomas do all the voices." 

Of course this is silly as well, and I doubt that you will argue this either, but we can still prove it from Scripture.  Psalm 111:2 & 4a proclaims, "Great are the works of the Lord; they are studied by all who delight in them...He has made His wonders to be remembered."  In other words, we cannot knock the narratives.  God does unforgettable things so that we will take notice, take interest, and take delight.  He desires for us to absorb ourselves with the narratives because they reveal Him.

Can we indeed discern any act on His part that has not been less than incredible?  The very breath I just drew demonstrated His sovereignty over the created order, His faithfulness to His own counsel, His grace to a sinner, and His blessing to one of His elect.  My life should be a running prayer of thanksgiving and praise!  Every second reveals another breathtaking vista of divine glory. 

We find, incredibly, that there is no such thing as doxological neutrality with God's works.  We can rejoice over all of them.  Not only do they reveal His wonderful character, but they underscore with an inimitable uniformity that He does everything perfectly.  Not one deed has ever fallen short, has ever flown astray - each is comprehensively guarded by total deity.  So we may rejoice at His works for their glorious perfection as well.

God sovereignly purposes His revealed works for the continued joy of His people.  And if God is indeed sovereign, then we know that He had each and every one of His children in mind when He made His momentous plans.  So then I, Josh Linn, as a child of God, am fully intended to, fully equipped for, and fully capable of meeting with my God in the accounts of His wonders which He preserves in Scriptures.  I can continually meet with Him, and I can continually honor Him for the record He has given us!  Feast, then, Christian, upon the narratives which divine hands have kept for us!  Feast and be satisfied.

Plain Old Beautiful Deity

The drop of a very small hat is enough to induce us to discuss the deity of Christ.  This is one of those songs that is always in the jukebox and is always getting played.  I do not feel bad, then, in playing it now - not with the venerable John 1 or the glorifying Colossians 1, but with the tantalizing Exodus 23.

God declares to Moses in verse 20, "Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to guard you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared."  This is a mighty promise of mighty help to the homeless Israelites.  God will send them an angel to protect and escort them into their new home, but thus far all we can say is that this help will come in the form of a ma'lak (an angel or messenger).¹ 

He continues in verse 21:  "Be on your guard before him and obey his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him."  Our Lord levels the charge at Moses and His people to be attentive and obedient to this ma'lak, which stands to reason.  God is not about to send help which should be scorned, abused, or ignored.  He is always purposeful, so any help that He sends must also be purposeful.  But again, where is the deity?

To scoff this help that is sent to them is, according to God, unwise, because this guide, this protector, will not pardon their transgressions.  Who is this ma'lak that he should even be mentioned in conjunction with the forgiveness of sins?  Indeed, is not the problem of sin so very problematic because only God is able to forgive sins?  To whom might we turn, if not to God, in a bid for forgiveness?  The answer, of course, is nobody, because nobody else is the Creator, sovereign Ruler, and righteous Judge of the world.  No one else is of the slightest consequence in the arena of forgiveness.

This begins to make sense, because God effectively links the idea of sin forgiveness to the incredible statement, "My name is in him."  We know, of course, that God is not saying that the ma'lak ate a spoonful of some sort of ancient alphabet soup which, coincidentally, spelled out hayah (I AM).  In such cases as this, we understand that a person's name signifies his or her reputation - who that person is.²  It is God alone who can unequivocally declare, "To whom would you liken Me that I would be his equal?" (Is. 40:25a) It is no small matter, then, for Him to assert that His name, and thus His glory, reside within someone else. 

Who possesses the character of God except God Himself?  How could this be Moses or an angelic being, when we are discussing the glory of the very one who must humble Himself, who must stoop, to survey what transpires even in the heavenly realms (Ps. 113:6)?  This must be, therefore, but another example of the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ making a glorious appearance in the pages of the antiquity.  He is God, but distinct in His person from God the Father, who is speaking here to Moses.  In other words, "the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1b) 

If more proof (or more glory) is in order, read on through verse 23:  "But if you truly obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries."  Here is an exegetical gem.  How can it be this ma'lak's voice, and yet God is talking?  God is speaking, and yet the Israelites are admonished not merely to hear, but to obey the voice of the ma'lak.  Can we conclude anything other than the evident truth that when the ma'lak speaks, it is God who is speaking?  To clothe it in New Testament parlance, this ma'lak speaks as the Word of God.

If one has the glorious character of God, the unique abilities of God, and the divine authority of God, then such a one can be none other than God Himself.  How pleasing it is, my friends, to see our Lord Jesus Christ before His incarnation - actively at work in guidance and protection of His people.  It is good indeed to remember this work when we think about the cross of Christ - He has long been in the business of defending and aiding the weak and humble in accordance with the Father's will, and we are delivered a tangible example of this before ever He set a human foot upon this world!


¹ Vine, W.E., Merrill F. Unger, & William White, Jr.  Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words.  "Nelson's Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament."  Nashville, TN:  Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1996. p. 4.
² ibid., p. 158.