Confronting a Bad Gospel Continued
Paul continued his confrontation of a bad gospel (a gospel involving the idea that one must become Jewish to be acceptable to God) as he bore down on the false teaching he so loathed.
Paul Calls Out Hypocrisy (1-14)
Paul used a second visit to Jerusalem some fourteen years later (1) as another example of his commitment to the gospel Christ had revealed to him. Paul had gone up to Jerusalem to give an account of the gospel that had been revealed to him, which he had been preaching to the Gentiles (2). He was accompanied by Titus, a Greek, and yet Paul affirmed that Titus, being Greek, was not compelled to be circumcised (3). Even the phony followers who gate-crashed (4) into Paul’s meeting with the Jerusalem apostles did not convince any to add circumcision to the requirement for following Jesus (5-6). Paul ended up saying, in his tongue-in-cheek fashion, that even the most influential in the church believed Paul's message to the Gentiles to be as valid as Peter’s message and ministry to the Jews (7-8). Paul then made this notation: the pastor of the Jerusalem church, James; then Peter; and also the closest disciple and cousin to Jesus, John; all extended their hand of acceptance, affirming Paul’s work as being ordained by Jesus (9). They only added to what Paul had been teaching one practical request: to remember the poor as their key mission from Jesus (10).
Paul then related a story about Peter acting a touch hypocritical by not eating with the Gentiles at Paul’s home church in Antioch when intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had arrived for a visit. Paul mentioned that all of the Jews, including Barnabas, were pulled into the hypocrisy of claiming all to be equal in Christ but then treating Jewish followers as being more acceptable, based on race, by not eating at the same table with their Gentile brothers. Paul confronted and exposed Peter, not so much to expose his weakness, but seeking to show his perfect conviction and confidence in what the gospel had accomplished and how Peter’s actions were not in keeping with the gospel-reality. Paul inferred that his rebuke stood, and the issue was corrected because Paul’s revelation of the gospel went uncontested (11-14).
Clarification of the Law (15-19)
Next, aware of one of the charges the false teachers had made against him, Paul addressed it directly. Specifically, they accused Paul of teaching followers to be justified by faith and abandon the Law altogether. The false teachers went on to reason that if you abandoned the Law, you would become a sinner. Their reasoning went something like this: if God justified by faith apart from the Law, then Christ was a servant of sin because His message to be justified by faith would encourage people to keep right on sinning (15-17). Paul immediately rejected this notion out of hand and proposed a few points of logic:
Paul sinned if he rebuilt what God had torn down (18).
Paul sinned every time he tried to live for or serve something he had already died to.
Paul sinned every time he sought to obey the Law because when he tried to obey the Law, he was living for and serving the Law, not God in Christ (19).
How to Live Separated (20-21)
Paul sought to answer the question: how does one separate from trying to please the Law?
Paul used himself as an example. He was crucified with Christ; he therefore no longer lived for Law, self, or anything else, but for Christ and for Christ living through him.
In Christ, Paul died to the Law; he no longer even tried to please or satisfy the Law, just like he no longer tried to satisfy lust. Paul considered satisfying the Law or lust to be the true sin all along.
Paul was clear; he lived his life and spent his energy on the earth trusting Jesus as God’s promised Messiah sent specifically to him. Based on that trust, Paul made his emphasis in life on receiving God’s love and only then loving Christ as Christ had loved Him. Paul’s message did not lead him back into sin; it led him into a life of pleasing God through Christ, which enabled him to live for God’s will (20).
The false teachers were simply ignorant and ill-informed. It was outrageous to consider receiving the grace of Jesus and to go back to the old way of Law-keeping that never worked. For Paul, Jesus’ death had a purpose: it separated him from trying to please the Law or lust and transferred his life to a new mission, that of receiving Christ’s love and then loving and serving Christ in response to His love. Paul completely trusted Jesus with the outcome of his behavior; he simply and clearly focused on receiving Jesus’ love and then responding to His love with all his heart (21).
Psalms 120-134 are all “Pilgrimage Songs” and were written to be sung by the Jews on their way up to Jerusalem for the three feasts held there each year [the feasts: Passover, Pentecost, Booths]. Ten of the Psalms are anonymous, four are attributed to David (122, 124,131,133), and one to Solomon (127)].
I have written these chapter devotionals as Jesus would have sung them and heard them as He was going to Jerusalem to celebrate feasts as a Boy, as a Man, and then ultimately in His final ascent to Jerusalem as the Passover culminated at Calvary. I will especially let these Psalms flow from Jesus’ own lips as we imagine a bit of what might have been going through His mind as He walked His disciples to that city 3,800 feet above sea level—the city in these Psalms referred to as Jerusalem and Zion.
Some imagine these Psalms were written for Solomon's Temple, each Psalm written for the fifteen steps leading up to the inner court—one Psalm at a time sung by the Levitical choirs accompanied by musicians as the priest made his way up each step.
Others imagine the Psalms were written for the exiles returning from Babylon to Jerusalem. Still others place them at 445 B.C. during Nehemiah's time, after the walls were built, when the Jews ascended to the temple for the Feast of Tabernacles.
Whenever these Psalms were written, they became songs sung by Pilgrims moving toward Jerusalem for one of the three feasts of Israel.
Psalm 126
The Psalm of Sowing and Reaping
Some understand this Psalm to be written when Cyrus issued the decree liberating Israel to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.
Jeremiah had prophesied that Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, having been taken from their land for seventy years, would return home (Jeremiah 29:11-12). The first deportation of the Jews would have included Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. That seventy-year period was from the time of the exiles’ removal from Jerusalem until the first exiles returned with Zerubbabel.
Ezra records the proclamation of Cyrus:
“In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD roused the spirit of King Cyrus to issue a proclamation throughout his entire kingdom and to put it in writing: This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: ‘The LORD, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah.’” (Ezra 1:1-2 CSB)
Psalm 126, written in honor of Cyrus' decree, was added to the Psalms of Ascent and was sung in hope and anticipation of restored fortunes.
Outline
The Psalm is divided into two by the present tense of verse three: “The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad” (Psalm 126:3 ESV).
Past Grace (1-2)
Present Praise (3)
Future Grace (4-6)
Past Grace (1-2)
In a moment, everything changed—the fortunes of God's people reversed. Persia had a new king, and the first year of his reign was the last year of the prophet Daniel's service. Before Cyrus became king, Darius reigned. In the first year of Darius' reign, Daniel began to understand Jeremiah's word concerning the seventy-year captivity. He went to prayer, realizing those years were close to being fulfilled. He sought Yahweh in prayer and fasting for the exiles and the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah (Daniel 9:1-2).
Yahweh kept Daniel alive and in influence until Cyrus became King of Persia. Cyrus's rise to Persian preeminence had been predicted prophetically by Isaiah the prophet decades before. Daniel stayed in service, growing into an ancient man and awaiting Cyrus' arrival (Isaiah 44:28).
There is some evidence that Daniel went to Cyrus, showing him the prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah, leading the king to issue the decree.
Once the amazing, didn’t-see-it-coming decree was announced, likely Ezra or some priest wrote this psalm.
Yahweh had restored the fortunes of Zion, the place where His presence dwells with His people. The Hebrew word “fortune” bears the thought of returning to a previous condition, to provide a sense of restored fortune. Job had his fortunes restored (Job 42:10) and received back double.
The decree releasing Israel to go home, to have their dignity restored, seemed too good to be true (1).
The exiles were startled with suddenness; their hopes sprang into living color reality. They were unable to get words around their thoughts, so they just laughed and shouted, filling the air with sounds of joy.
The nations of the world could not deny it, other subjugated people could not deny it, and other ethnic groups made to live as exiles could not deny it. Without a war, without a shred of conflict, Yahweh freed the captivated people. The nations declared, “Yahweh had done great things for them” (2).
Present Praise (3)
The psalm divides into two parts around a short phrase in verse three—the line in the psalm in present tense. “Yahweh has done great things for us.” Once the nations started affirming Yahweh's “GREAT THINGS,” what seemed like a dream turned into a firm reality. “Oh yes, this is more than a daydream or a wishful fantasy—Yahweh has done great things for us, and WE ARE GLAD.” The psalm's present moment happened to the exiles of Babylon with the words, “WE ARE GLAD” (3).
Future Grace (4-6)
The exiles' minds cleared, and their hearts turned to the homeland. The farms had not been worked for seventy years but had lain fallow and uncultivated by the word of Yahweh. The weight of returning and beginning to reseed the land immediately hit them. The exiles were leaving established fields and the safe privilege of living in an empire, fed first, so to speak, by the tribute of vassal states. They would need to go into a land where the water canals and irrigation technology of their day had been overgrown and were no longer operational. They would need the rains to fall on their farms just like in the arid south. In the Negeb, the summer brooks would lie parched dry until late summer and autumn. Then the abundance of rain would fall and cause those gullies to gush with water—in the good years, causing the desert to sprout its dormant flowers and grasses. Israel would require this kind of gracious rainfall on their farms if they were to survive (4).
They would haul seed from Babylon to sow in fields that had not seen the plow for decades. They would be putting the last of their food in the ground, planting in a time of famine. They would weep to expend the last of their hope of seed sown on the wings of prayer: “Oh Yahweh, send seed-germinating rain in our time of famine.” During this period, the apparent famine may have been an added motivation for Cyrus to release the captives seeking more provision via more tribute (5).
Then the psalmist does something beautiful: the verbs “go out” and “come home” are written twice for emphasis. The psalmist is expressing certainty in Yahweh. Without a doubt, Yahweh will turn the sorrow of sowing the last bit of seed in famine into a harvest lavish enough to create joy. The phrase “shall doubtless come again” is exactly the phrase the psalmist had in mind when writing. Yahweh would not only bring the exiles back home; Yahweh would also bring the harvest of the land back home, providing the rain (6).