God inspired Asaph to write twelve of the Psalms. Asaph had a deep
faith in God. But even a person with deep faith can struggle with doubts and
hard questions. Asaph faced his hard questions head on. Thankfully, while
meditating in God’s presence, God reminded Asaph of a comforting certainty that
strengthened the heart of Asaph and should strengthen ours. That comforting
certainty is that the final destiny of the righteous and the unrighteous is far
different from the painful reality we often face in this world. Those who trust in
God will, in the end, be given eternal life in glory. Those who don’t trust God
will be destroyed. They will perish.
Let’s examine the 28 inspired and encouraging verses of Psalm 73. Here
is the Psalm:
ESV Psalm 73:1
A Psalm of Asaph. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in
heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw
the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For they have no pangs until death; their
bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are; they
are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace; violence
covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness; their
hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice; loftily
they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them, and
find no fault in them.
11 And they say, "How can God know? Is
there knowledge in the Most High?"
12 Behold, these are the wicked; always at
ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean and
washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, "I will speak
thus," I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
18 Truly you set them in slippery places; you
make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment, swept
away utterly by terrors!
20 Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when
you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered, when I was
pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a
beast toward you.
23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel, and
afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is
nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is
the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you
shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But
for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I
may tell of all your works.
A Vital Truth
In verse 1 Asaph proclaims the foundational
truth that God is good to His people. If we don’t believe this, we will not be
able to live a life pleasing to God:
ESV Hebrews
11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would
draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek
him.
The Truth Attacked by Harsh Realities
In verses 2 to 14, Asaph lays out very plainly the harsh realities
which caused him to almost stumble and nearly slip. The basic problem is that
evil people often die fat and happy. At the same time, those who trust in the
Lord often suffer oppression and severe injustice at the hands of these prosperous
evil people.
Many Christians face the same harsh reality today. There are
relatively mild versions of this in nations like the US. Those who compromise,
who “go along to get along,” and who keep quiet about unpopular parts of God’s
truth, often get bigger salaries and better positions than those who are most
faithful to God. Integrity sometimes brings suffering rather than reward. There
is a much more severe form of this problem. Christians in places like North
Korea, China, and many Muslim majority nations suffer severe persecution,
imprisonment, and sometimes death while the rich, godless leaders of those
nations live in luxury and have power. God’s people have faced this reality and
struggled with it throughout the ages.
How Asaph Responds
Faced with these harsh realities, Asaph almost stumbles. He
apparently started to become bitter (vs 21). His heart was wounded. In his
bitterness and hurt, he privately lashed out at God (vs 22).
Thankfully, Asaph did not publicly rail at God or speak in a way
as to spread Asaph’s own struggle with doubt to others. A couple of
translations capture this a bit more clearly than the ESV:
NET Psalm 73:15 If I had publicized
these thoughts, I would have betrayed your loyal followers.
NLT Psalm 73:15 If I had really spoken
this way to others, I would have been a traitor to your people.
CSB17 Psalm
73:15 If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed
your people.
Asaph did not go around openly airing his
doubts and bitterness. This stands in stark contrast to some who were once leaders
in Christian ministry and who “deconstructed” (in Asaph’s language, they
stumbled, they slipped). Some of these people have very publicly spread their
doubts and bitterness and have thus betrayed God’s people by influencing others
to also stumble (I discuss a recent example here.) When we have doubts, it is entirely right to ask questions.
Hard questions. Privately going to mature Christians whom we trust and asking
for help with our hardest questions is not the same thing as publicly encouraging
others to share our bitterness or embrace our doubts. While God does not give
us detailed, specific answers to every hard question we might have, there are
in fact good answers and very helpful truths that can strengthen our faith when
it is under attack and faltering. Asaph found some truth that strengthened his
faith.
During times of doubt and struggle, we need
to run into God’s presence, not run away from Him. It is when Asaph went into
the sanctuary of God that God reminded him of the truth Asaph needed to hold on
to in order stand firm and not fall away. As God’s children, we are always
welcomed into His presence, even if we come initially with anger, doubts, and
bitterness. Especially at these low points we need to run to our God.
Eternal Perspective and Final Destinies
God helps Asaph by reminding him of the final
destinies of the righteous and the unrighteous. The painful situation where God’s
faithful people suffer oppression from wicked people proves to be temporary.
Asaph is reminded that in this life God will
guide him with His counsel (vs 24). The outcome of trusting God in this life
will be that Asaph, and we who share Asaph’s faith in God, will be welcomed
into glory (also vs 24). God will be near us and sustain us in this life, and
then He Himself will be our great, eternal reward (vss 25-28).
What about those evil people who were oppressing
Asaph and similar evil people who pridefully reject God, oppose God’s truth,
and persecute His people today? When Asaph comes into God’s presence, he
discerns “their end” (vs. 17). The NIV
translated “their end” as “their final destiny.” While the Hebrew is not
that specific, in this context I believe that the translators of the NIV
capture Asaph’s intention most clearly. Both the context before verse 17 and
after verse 17 supports the interpretation that Asaph sees the final destiny of
the wicked and not merely their end here on earth. I say that because in the earlier
portion of this Psalm the whole problem is that in this world the wicked
sometimes appear to live happy lives. Asaph already knew that the wicked
eventually die in this world (vs 4). The problem is that they die fat and
happy. Since the righteous also die in this world, remembering that the wicked
eventually die would not seem to help resolve the main problem Asaph has been
wrestling with. After vs 17, Asaph certainly seems to be thinking of his own
eternal destiny when he looks forward to God being his portion forever. So, it
makes sense that Asaph is contrasting the final destiny of those who trust God
with the final destiny of those who do not.
The final destiny of those who do not trust
God is grim. God reveals to Asaph (and to us!) that the unrighteous will fall
into ruin, be destroyed in a moment, be swept away, vanish like a bad dream,
perish, and be put to an end.
When God reveals the final destinies of the
righteous and unrighteous to Asaph, his faith is strengthened so that he does
not fall away.
The Doctrine of Conditional Immortality Helps
Us
What God reveals to Asaph we sometimes call
the doctrine of conditional immortality. This doctrine states that only those who receive the gift of
eternal life by God’s grace through faith will live forever. Those who do not
trust God will not live forever. Their bodies and souls will be destroyed by
God (Matthew 10:28). They will perish (John 3:16). They will be burned to ashes
(2 Peter 2:6).
Psalm 73 shows us how the doctrine of conditional
immortality, which is a doctrine about final destinies, can strengthen our
faith in a world where evil people prosper, evade justice, and oppress the
righteous. On the one hand, when we trust in God despite all the opposition and
evil we face, we can know that an eternity of joy in His presence awaits us. On
the other hand, we know that justice will be carried out on evil oppressors of God’s people. Some of them,
like the Apostle Paul who persecuted God’s people before his conversion, will repent,
turn to faith in Christ, and be saved. But those who do not will face judgment
where they will be destroyed and perish.
One problem with the wrong doctrine of
eternal torment is that it understandably hinders Christians from finding
comfort in God’s final judgment of unrepentant people who persecute and oppress
Christians. We would not wish even our worst enemy to be tortured for two
hundred years, yet such a fate would be very mild compared to eternal torment.
But it is not wrong to be glad that God will destroy the unrepentant so that
they will not ruin the new earth the way they did this one. God does not tell
us that pay back and vengeance are ultimately wrong. He tells us it is wrong
for us to seek these things ourselves, but that is because He Himself will
avenge and pay back evildoers. It’s not our job, it’s His.
Conclusion and Application
When we see evil prevailing in this world we may
find ourselves in danger of stumbling and becoming bitter. At times like this
we need to go to God. God may not explain the details of why He allows each
specific instance of evil to continue for a time, but through His Word and through other
Christians He does remind us of the final destinies of both those who trust Him
and those who do not. Remembering this will strengthen our faith.
Further Reading
Psalm 73 and this blog post touch on a number
of really big topics. Here are some related blog posts and a related article.
#1 This blog post
discusses the importance of maintaining an eternal perspective:
#2 The doctrine of
conditional immortality is explained in this blog post:
#3 The issue of God
promising to pay back those who persecute Christians is discussed in this blog
post:
#4 Psalm 73 raises
questions about the nature of hell and final punishment. I’ve collected blog
posts, articles, and videos on this topic here:
#5 Psalm 37 deals
with the same problem as Psalm 73. Like Psalm 73, the solution to the problem
lies in remembering the final destinies of people. Also, like Psalm 73, Psalm
37 teaches annihilationism. William Tanksley Jr. helped me write a fairly in
depth article about Psalm 37 which is posted on the Rethinking Hell website:
#6 My life and
faith has been deeply impacted by the opportunity I had to minister together
with Christians in a Muslim majority nation for fourteen years. This experienced
caused me to think a lot about persecution. Several blog posts related to
Christian persecution are listed below:
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