'None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.'
--PSALM xxxiv. 22.
These words are very inadequately represented in the translation of the
Authorised Version. The Psalmist's closing declaration is something very
much deeper than that they who trust in God 'shall not be desolate.' If
you look at the previous clause, you will see that we must expect
something more than such a particular blessing as that:--'The Lord
redeemeth the soul of His servants.' It is a great drop from that
thought, instead of being a climax, to follow it with nothing more than,
'None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.' But the Revised
Version accurately renders the words: 'None of them that trust in Him
shall be _condemned_.' There we have something that is worthy to follow
'The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants,' and we have a most
striking anticipation of the clearest and most Evangelical teaching of
the New Testament.
The entirely New Testament tone of these words of the psalm comes out
still more clearly, if we recognise that, not only in the latter, but in
the former, part of the clause, we have one of the very keynotes of New
Testament teaching. When we read in the New Testament that 'we are
justified by faith,' the meaning is precisely the same as that of our
text. Thus, however it came about, here is this Psalmist, David or
another, standing away back amidst the shadows and symbols and
ritualisms of that Old Covenant, and rising at once above all the mists,
right up into the sunshine, and seeing, as clearly as we see it nineteen
centuries after Jesus Christ, that the way to escape condemnation is
simple faith. Let us look at both of the parts of these great words. We
consider--