Introduction

The psalm we are looking at today seems at first to be pretty disorganised.

It’s all over the place.

It raises a topic, moves away from it, then comes back to it again before the end and that can leave you thinking the guy who wrote it was being less than … well thought-out, to put it mildly.

But hold that thought, because this is the Bible, the outpouring of the words of God, Who Himself is pure rationality exemplified.

So, what’s going on here?

We really must ask that sort of question when Scripture is doing something we don’t understand.

And if you DO ask that question here and stick with it for a bit you start to notice this psalm appears to have a chiastic structure, that is …

The first topic gets repeated at the end.

The second topic is reflected in the second to last topic.

The third topic is reflected in the third to last … do you see what I’m saying?

And the effect of this literary device is to focus on the central topic which in this psalm occurs in vv. 17-18.

VV.17-18 ““I shall not die, but live, 

and declare the works of the LORD.

The LORD has chastened me severely, 

but He has not given me over to death;”

The structure of the psalm says a whole set of things we could legitimately spend time with.

We could easily spend our time today trawling through all these 29 verses dwelling on the verses that have an echo with the story of Easter and the experience the Lord Jesus was about to go through as He sang this psalm with His disciples in the Upper Room the night before He went out to Gethsemane en route to Golgotha.

But the chiastic structure takes as to the centre of the psalm and vv.17-18 , which the structure accentuates as being the big point of what’s going on.

Here’s the central axis of the psalm …

Here it is:

“VV.17-18 ““I shall not die, but live, 

and declare the works of the LORD.

The LORD has chastened me severely, 

but He has not given me over to death;”

And THAT is the heart of the final psalm the Lord sang as He ended out to Gethsemane on that crucial night in the history of salvation.

Do you think YOU have a taste, at all, for that?

Let’s see first of all where this all fits with Palm Sunday, with what some call ‘Holy Week’, and Jesus …

1) Not death that’s coming but life, v. 17a

V. 17a:

“I will not die but live …”

a) This death

Let’s do some work on this word with a Hebrew dictionary … it’s called a Lexicon … with this word:

מוּת (mut) 'to die' (H4191)’

This word occurs about 840 x

Meaning

1) to die, kill, have one executed

1a)(Qal)

1a1) to die

1a2) to die (as penalty), be put to death

1a3) to die, perish (of a nation)

1a4) to die prematurely (by neglect of wise moral conduct)

1b) (Polel) to kill, put to death, dispatch

1c) (Hiphil) to kill, put to death

1d) (Hophal)

1d1) to be killed, be put to death

1d1a) to die prematurely

It’s a word that seems particularly well-suited to the manner of the Lord’s death at Calvary.

His death was INFLICTED … He was PUT to death

His death was PREMATURE … we think Jesus of Nazareth was around thirty years old when He was executed, when He was PUT to death.

It was an intended death, intended by hostile people and executed unjustly.

But contrary to their intentions and the power of force that they cud put behind it, the Lord singing this psalm as He was about to go out to Gethsemane where He would wrestle to find conformity with His Father’s will for what was coming and be in profound disturbance of heart and soul about what in a short while would befall Him …

As He wrestled with the emotional and spiritual cost of facing up to what He would do to bear human sin and face the righteous wrath of His Father in the sinner’s place …

THIS rang in His ears:

I shall not die but live.

The resurrection was coming.

The return to Heavenly Glory, as sin’s Conqueror, lay ahead.

But the point is that the Cross precedes the Crown.

Ultimately though, He won’t be staying dead.

He’d appraised His disciples that He was going to die.

He’d appraised them that He’d conquer death.

They just couldn’t get it.

But the point is that this is Jesus, who for the JOY that was before Him ENDURED the Cross, sorting its shame, and is (therefore) now seated at the right hand of the Majesty in Heaven … from where He will return to judge the living and the dead.

He faces the Cross aware of it’s gory-ness, to greet the resurrection … aware of its gloriousness.

He won’t stay dead, killed, PUT to death, but live!

b) This life

The word ‘to live' here is חָיָה (cha.yah) 'to live’.

This word occurs about 289 x in the Old Testament, meaning

1) to live, have life, remain alive, sustain life, live prosperously, live for ever, be quickened, be alive, be restored to life or health

1a) (Qal)

1a1) to live

1a1a) to have life

1a1b) to continue in life, remain alive

1a1c) to sustain life, to live on or upon

1a1d) to live (prosperously)

1a2) to revive, be quickened

1a2a) from sickness

1a2b) from discouragement

1a2c) from faintness

1a2d) from death

1b) (Piel)

1b1) to preserve alive, let live

1b2) to give life

1b3) to quicken, revive, refresh

1b3a) to restore to life

1b3b) to cause to grow

1b3c) to restore

1b3d) to revive

1c) (Hiphil)

1c1) to preserve alive, let live

1c2) to quicken, revive

1c2a) to restore (to health)

1c2b) to revive

1c2c) to restore to life

2) Declaring the works of the Lord, v. 17b

V. 17b:

“I will not die but live,

    and will proclaim what the Lord has done.”

Now that ‘proclamation’ is not a theological exposition.

It is a telling of a personal tale.

Have you a personal tale at all like that to tell?

The word used is specific and means:

1) to count, recount, relate

1a) (Qal)

1a1) to count (things)

1a2) to number, take account of, reckon

1b) (Niphal) to be counted, be numbered

1c) (Piel) to recount, rehearse, declare

1c1) to recount (something), rehearse

And notice it is not to recount the thoughts the psalmist has had while he sat and thunk, it is far more concrete an experience than that which he’s telling.

He is talking about re-telling the deeds of the Almighty in terms of his own experience.

And the Lord has got these words recorded by the psalmist under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit running through His mind as He was out to Gethsemane, into the High Priests’ house, out to Pilate, in to the Praetorium to be mocked by the soldiers and then out to Calvary to hang and to die.

I shall not die but live, and RECOUNT what the Lord has done … testifying to the resurrection that defeats sin, death and hell and then pays the price and paves the way for sinners to enter God’s rest.

But first, he’s fully conscious’ comes paying the price, and that’s verse 18.

3) Bearing the Lord’s heavy chastisement, v. 18a

V. 18a:

“The Lord has chastened me severely …”

Now here’s the thing.

Chastening is יָסַר (ya.sar) 'to discipline'

The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following verbal idea, so it means discipline but the form of the verb is intensified … severely disciplined, severely chastised, severely punished.

We read in the account of Christ’s experience in Gethsemane in Luke 22:44 that:

“being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground”

We read in the account of the crucifixion itself in Matthew 27:45-46 “From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)

The Lord Himself, there, bears the anguish of the penalty of His past and future followers’ sin … as Peter explains in 1 Peter 2:21-25

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

22 “He committed no sin,
    and no deceit was found in his mouth.”[e]

23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,”[f] but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

He's saying that’s what Christ DID as He was suffering on that Cross … and there are going to be clear implications for those who follow Him in our lives afterwards – but we’ll come to that.

Psalm 118 addresses Christ’s bearing the Lord’s coming heavy chastisement …

4) But NOT being given over to death, v. 18b

V. 18b:

“The Lord has chastened me severely, 

but he has not given me over to death.”

The word for death here is interesting:

מָ֫וֶת (ma.vet) 'death' … the Lexicon tells us it means

1)     death, dying, Death (personified), realm of the dead
1a) death
1b) death by violence (as a penalty)
1c) state of death, place of death

Well, Easter Sunday and the resurrection doesn’t happen until next week … for now let’s just notice the resurrection seems to be written all over this!

Conclusion

Now, look, there are strong hints at Easter in the shadows of a number of verses in this psalm.

·       There are hints of the Easter that was to come in vv. 22-24 about the stone the builders rejected.

·       There are hints of Easter in vv. 26-27 with its procession up to the very horns of the altar with cries of ‘Hosanna’ and ‘blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord’ … that’s the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem in Matthew 21 and Mark 11 in fulfilment of Zechariah 9:9 which I remember from Sul y Blodau … Palm Sunday … many years ago.

But at the heart of the psalm – the stylistically and structurally central portion – lies  the reality of the resurrection:

‘I shall not die but live, and tell of what the Lord has done.’

And ALL of that takes place  in the context of v. 18:

“The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death.”

That bearing of sin’s penalty, that punishment of sin in the Saviour, is (we know) substitutionary.

He bears it as our SUBSTITUTE.

But in the saved person’s, the Christian’s experience it is formative … it is discipline in the sense of training … 

In Philippians 3 there is an astonishing passage in which Paul talks about his aspirations as a person before he was in Christ, and now his aspirations as a person who IS in Christ which comes to a climax in v. 10: 

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”

And we read about that in the OT as much as the NT experience in Hebrews 12:

This follows the account of the persecution and suffering old Testament saints in Hebrews 11 but then turns to the people Hebrews was written for and says:

“In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” 

If that’s not an obvious reference to the precious chapter about the house of faith in OT times in the chapter before I don’t know what it is

5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
6 because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” 

7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”

The point is that whilst the experience of the author of Psalm 118 hints at the experience of the Lord’s sufferings, which were of course unique because they were substitutionary (paying the price of sin on humanity’s behalf), there is still as a result of His Calvary experience in the on-going experience of His followers … but for us it is not substitutionary but comes as discipline, training, the formation of the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings which is formation to enjoy His close presence with Him in Glory.

The central awareness of this psalm, which the Lord sang on the evening He would walk out to Gethsemane and WRESTLE in great distress of spirit at what was about to take place, is this

VV.17-18 ““I shall not die, but live, 

and declare the works of the LORD.

The LORD has chastened me severely, 

but He has not given me over to death;”

And the fellowship of the resurrection is not a fellowship in His atonement once for all for human sin, but is nonetheless a fellowship of following Him through residual human suffering in this damaged, broken world (for then the OT and now the NT people of God) to Glory in the power of His resurrection.

And that is how the believer can also very truly say:

 ““I shall not die, but live,

and declare the works of the LORD.

The LORD has chastened me severely, 

but He has not given me over to death;”

Let’s seek the Lord this Palm Sunday and throughout what some people refer to as ‘Holy Week’ for His strength in the fellowship of His sufferings, and in the fellowship of His certain grasp on every vestige of the Glory that’s to follow.