Christ the True and Better David -- a study of Psalm 18

mww
Jul 9
18 min read

Do you want Psalm 18 to be true of you? Come to Jesus for salvation.

Bible Study Ideas and Commentary for Psalm 18

This week's psalm is a "Royal Psalm" and focuses on God's relationship with King David. As David pursued God with his whole heart, God led him and assisted him in winning victories and being a good king. But seeing the lows of David's life, we realize today that Psalm 18 actually points us to Jesus, the "true and better David" and salvation available in Him.

With the faithful you prove yourself faithful, (18:25)

Warning: Context

My fear about this specific passage for a Sunday School lesson is how easily it could be taken out of context. Psalm 18 has a lot going on, and the entire psalm needs to be taken as a whole. Without context, people could read this passage to mean, "I'm pretty great, therefore God loves me." Lord have mercy, but that would create some confusion!

Please make the commitment to read and study the entire psalm.

Getting Started: Things to Think About

Here Comes the Cavalry!

The cavalry arriving to save the day is a fantastic trope in storytelling. Here's a screen shot from The Two Towers that's about as dramatic as such a scene gets.

What's your favorite "cavalry to the rescue" scene? Of course, it doesn't have to literally be a cavalry. How about this scene from Avenger's Endgame?

The hero is in trouble, and the hero gets rescued in his time of greatest need. It always works in film and literature (assuming you care about the hero).

This week's passage follows my very favorite example of the "cavalry rescue" in the Bible -- Psalm 18:

4 The ropes of death were wrapped around me; the torrents of destruction terrified me. 5 The ropes of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me. 6 I called to the Lord in my distress, and I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.

7 Then the earth shook and quaked; the foundations of the mountains trembled; they shook because he burned with anger. 8 Smoke rose from his nostrils, and consuming fire came from his mouth; coals were set ablaze by it.

9 He bent the heavens and came down, total darkness beneath his feet. 10 He rode on a cherub and flew, soaring on the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness his hiding place, dark storm clouds his canopy around him. 12 From the radiance of his presence, his clouds swept onward with hail and blazing coals. 13 The Lord thundered from heaven; the Most High made his voice heard. 14 He shot his arrows and scattered them; he hurled lightning bolts and routed them. 15 The depths of the sea became visible, the foundations of the world were exposed, at your rebuke, Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.

There's no topping that. "He bent the heavens and came down." YAHH!

Anyway, I hope people in your group like exciting rescues, else they'll make this Sunday far too boring.

How Would You Describe God the Father?

Last week, I suggested "how would you describe Jesus?" as a topic. If you used that, you could follow up with "how would you describe God the Father?" this week. Psalm 18 -- the whole psalm, not just this week's focal passage -- is an astounding description of God Almighty.

Aside: "God". Every once in a while, it's helpful to clarify that when I (or most Christians) speak about "God", we're specifically talking about "God the Father".

Take Psalm 18 to Hollywood

I can't take credit for this -- I read a similar topic idea in my Serendipity Bible. Their specific question was, "If you had to express the emotions of this psalm to music, what types of music would you choose?" I'm just going straight to the movie approach.

I'm not the visually creative type, so I gave Psalm 18 to ChatGPT, and this is what it came back with:

Obviously, that's a whole lot better than anything I could come up with, though I think God's hair is kinda funny. Unleash your creative energies on Psalm 18. What would a movie of this look and sound like? (As dramatic as that ChatGPT image is, I don't think it's quite dramatic enough.)

Where We Are in Psalms: The Royal Psalms

Last week was a "Messianic Psalm"; this week is a "Royal Psalm". (How many categories of psalms are there?! It depends on who you ask. Don't worry about that right now.)

The "royal psalms" are focused on the king (often King David but sometimes an idealized king of Israel). They show the king as a wise and godly leader. Depending on who you ask, Royal Psalms might include 2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 89, 101, 110, 132, and 144. And yes, there's an overlap with Messianic Psalms.

Does this affect how we understand or interpret this psalm? No. But it does help us appreciate why the downfall of the king was so disorienting for the Jews.

About Psalm 18

This psalm has the longest title, as far as I can tell, but it doesn't actually answer all of our questions. It says that David wrote this after God rescued him from his enemies, including Saul. So, does that mean at the very end of David's life (because he fought wars throughout his reign) or after Saul's death at the beginning of David's reign? Or sometime in between?

This psalm is also found in 2 Samuel 22 -- which is placed after the records of all of David's major wars, including the death of his rebellious son Absalom. (The difference between the two -- 2 Sam 22 is worded more personally; Psalm 18 is broadened out to be more useful in Jewish prayer and worship.)

But here's where I have questions. Psalm 18 talks about David's blamelessness before God. And we all know that after David settled in as king, he made some pretty terrible decisions. There's the sin with Bathsheba against Uriah. There's the terrible leadership in his family that led to war and rebellion. And there are plenty of things he did to anger his own people with his aloof or insensitive behavior. It's certainly not very blameless!

I see two primary options for the date of this psalm. The first one, which Lifeway takes, is that Psalm 18 takes places in chronological order after 2 Samuel 21, so after all of these terrible things David did as king. If that's true, this this psalm could mean --

David is oblivious to his bad behavior (which can't be true; read Psalm 51)
David believes that his repentance has restored his blamelessness
David is speaking in very general terms (again, unlikely)

But I am not at all sure that the end of 2 Samuel was intended to be understood chronologically. After all, chapter 23 is called "David's last words", and chapter 24 continues with more of David's actions.

I wonder if Psalm 18 was actually spoken far earlier in David's reign, like after 2 Samuel 8:

8:15 So David reigned over all Israel, administering justice and righteousness for all his people.

In other words, David spoke this psalm before he fell into great sin.

The most important question: does that change anything about how we understand or interpret this psalm? No, of course not.

If David spoke this psalm earlier in life, then it's a double-lesson about getting overconfident in our own walk with God. David spoke this psalm about his wonderful relationship with God and then had an affair that led to a man's slaughter. (Jimmy Swaggart died last week; there are a lot of cautionary tales in his life too.)
If David spoke this psalm later in life, then it's a double-lesson about forgiveness and restoration. David had not kept himself from sin, but God's forgiveness had justified him (just-as-if-he'd never sinned, as the saying goes).

In my opinion, David wrote this earlier in life, which means we should emphasize the cautionary tale of it. Don't get complacent in your Christian walk!

But as I said above, that doesn't change the meaning of the psalm to Christians. We all know the truth of Paul's words in Romans 3:

20 For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. 21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. 22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

We are not blameless or righteous. But the Lord does not reward us according to our righteousness; He rewards us according to Christ's righteousness.

If we're going to teach this psalm rightly, we have to express the gospel clearly.

Psalm 18: The Beginning

I think it would be a terrible idea to start your study of this psalm at verse 16, as it is in the lesson plan. No -- go back to verse 1 and start there.

1 I love you, Lord, my strength. 2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock where I seek refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3 I called to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I was saved from my enemies.

[There are so many songs based on these verses!]

Importantly, the opening 3 verses establish that Psalm 18 is not about David and David's awesomeness; it's about God and God's awesomeness. David was in danger and despair, and God rescued him.

I would love for y'all to spend a few minutes with these verses. Look at all of the descriptors David uses -- what picture do they paint of God? How can that picture help you in your prayer life?

I already copied Psalm 18:4-15 above. If you did the "Hollywood" exercise above, here you would talk about how verses 1-3 add to that picture.

Here's the important thing for the next section of our Bible study -- and specifically the line "He rescued me because He delighted in me": David has already made it clear that he cried out to God for help. When David was in trouble, he wasn't passive and defeatist; he called out for divine help.

Part 1: God Delivers (Psalm 18:16-19)

16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he pulled me out of deep water. 17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. 18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support. 19 He brought me out to a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Based on what I said above, a big thing I want you to get in front of is the mistaken idea that "God plays favorites", that God has His favorite people, like David, and He's always watching out for them, no matter what trouble they get themselves into. (Establish this now, and the next part of the lesson will make a lot more sense.) Wrongo!

We are blessed to live on this side of Jesus, so we have a fuller picture of how God deals with humanity. If God is "delighted" in any human, it's Jesus (the God-man) --

Matt 3:16 When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”

Jesus is the only person who was ever truly righteous, and we have access to His righteousness by faith. Let me again cite Romans 3:

22 The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. 23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24 they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

So, who is the person God delights in? The person who has faith in Jesus for salvation.

In other words, if you want this psalm to be true for you, put your faith in Jesus (be a Christian). And if you are a Christian, this psalm is true of you.

Back to the psalm.

I shouldn't have to remind you that this psalm is poetic, right? David was not necessarily literally in "deep water". (My mom told me more than once that I was in deep water.) God did not necessarily literally "reach down a grab him" from it. And his "powerful enemy" could mean a lot of things.

In other words, this is one of the times in Bible study when we are encouraged to spiritualize the text.

But how does this text apply to us? This is a very important question that I wish more Bible readers asked more often. David is saying this about himself. How do we know if it applies to us?

In such a situation, you can take advantage of Bible study tools. Strangely enough, generally available tools like Google AI are incredibly helpful. Do a search for something like "are there Bible verses that say God will protect me in my time of trouble?" and you'll get a list of verses. Now, the thing to do is read them for yourself and make sure they aren't taken out of context! But here are some very clearly applicable verses from the Psalms:

Ps 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble.
Ps 50:15 Call on me in a day of trouble; I will rescue you, and you will honor me.
Ps 91:15 When he calls out to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and give him honor.

In other words, yes, David's experience can apply to us and to all who "call upon the name of the Lord for salvation".

The Big Question: What If God Doesn't Rescue Me?

If you're like me, you probably had a thought like this: "I can think of times when God did not rescue me from my trouble. Does that mean He didn't delight in me?"

This takes me back to some well-intentioned-but-callous statements from the hurricane -- "God loves me so much; He kept that tree from falling on my house" -- all the while the person sitting next to you had a tree fall on their house. Perhaps without meaning to, you just said that God loves you more than the person next to you.

If we get hung up on things that happen in this life, we will miss the forest for the trees. Paul said in Romans 8,

8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.

If that's true of the sufferings, then it is also true of the blessings. The greatest blessing given by God -- the blessing that makes every other blessing miniscule by comparison -- is eternal salvation in Jesus Christ. And God has made that blessing available to all of humanity. It's not the smartest or the most righteous who receive it -- it is those who are willing to come to God humbly in repentance with the meek but trusting spirit of a child.

In other words, if God loves you (and He does), it's not because of something you've done good or bad. It's because He created you and He loves all people and wants all of us to come to salvation.

So, if God didn't rescue you from a particular trouble, it's not because He doesn't love you. We don't know why. But we can trust that God will bring good out of it. And we can trust that God has preserved an eternity of glory with Jesus for you and all who call on the name of Jesus for salvation.

The glory of heaven will outshine anything you experience in this life. Trust God in that.

Typology

You've heard me say things like, "David is a type of Christ." Frankly, that can be confusing if you don't know what I mean.

The Greek words behind "typology" mean "to mark" or "to strike"; the specific field is metalworking, where one strikes a piece of metal to leave a pattern. For example, Moses made the items in the tabernacle "according to the pattern" God showed him. In other words, Moses' tabernacle was a "type" of the heavenly tabernacle.

We can learn about the heavenly tabernacle by observing the "type" of tabernacle Moses constructed. Likewise, we can learn about the New Testament Christ by observing "types" of Christs in the Old Testament.

Remember that "Christ" is the Greek word for "anointed one" which is the Hebrew word "Messiah". There is one capital-M "Messiah", but there were many messiahs, anointed by God to a specific task. And certain of those gave us part of the picture of the capital-M Messiah. To that end, Adam and Melchizedek and Moses are types of Christs in that they show us important parts of the Messiah -- Adam being a "head" of humanity, Melchizedek being a non-Levitical great high priest, and Moses being the deliverer of God's people and the mediator of God's covenant.

In the Psalms, David is the one most presented as a type of Christ. This week's psalm is a great example of that. When you read it, and the back of your head says "I think only Jesus could say this and be completely truthful", you get it. Only Jesus can say these words fully truthfully -- including the part about the cords of Sheol!

So, you might say that Jesus is the idealized David. But we would be better served saying that David points us to Jesus -- David is a type of Christ.

Part 2: God Rewards Righteousness (Psalm 18:20-24)

20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; he repaid me according to the cleanness of my hands. 21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not turned from my God to wickedness. 22 Indeed, I let all his ordinances guide me and have not disregarded his statutes. 23 I was blameless toward him and kept myself from my iniquity. 24 So the Lord repaid me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.

Remember everything I said above about Romans 3 and David as a "type" of Christ.

Because I believe David wrote this earlier in life, I believe it is more directly true. David was known as a "man after God's own heart" because of his early life's zeal for God and lifestyle of righteousness. He lived by God's law.

And so, his experiences in life made sense to him. God was blessing him because that's what God said He would do for the people who kept the law (skim the book of Exodus if you need a refresher).

Later in life, David is on the other side of Psalm 51, in which he fully admitted his iniquity before God (that one is after the sin with Bathsheba). So, for this psalm to have been written after that, David would have had a very robust understanding of God's grace and forgiveness -- which is absolutely possible! And in any event, this psalm's application to us is that Jesus did live His life blameless before God, and so God rescued Him from the grave and repaid Jesus for His righteousness. And what reward did Jesus ask for? That God would treat us (Christians) according to Jesus' righteousness, not our own unrighteousness.

Jesus is the true fulfiller of this psalm.

Aside: Being like Jesus

It's very, very important for us to remember that Jesus did ask God to rescue Him from the terrible events of Good Friday (prayer in Gethsemane), but God did not. Instead, God allowed Jesus to endure that terrible day and rescued Jesus after Jesus' death. My point? If God chooses not to rescue us from a particular set of circumstances, we are in good company. It does not mean that God does not love us or care about our suffering; He just has a different plan, and the reward for faithfulness is still great.

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Have your group list the behaviors David says of himself --

righteousness
cleanness of hands
not wickedness
obey ordinances/statutes
blameless
no iniquity

Then talk that through. What kind of a life does it describe? It's an incredibly daunting list!

What does that mean for us?

I almost hate to tell you, but it should be just as daunting. Paul goes off on people who claim to follow Jesus but don't care if they live sinful lives. Read Romans if you don't believe me. The whole letter.

I'll just quote from chapter 6, which is an incredible partner for Psalm 18 --

6:1 What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.

Guess what? Even if you believe Psalm 18 is about Jesus, as a follower of Christ, you are supposed to be like Him. You are now a "little Jesus".

I can't imagine that anyone in your group would argue with that. This would be a good time to plug last week's message about our church's "measures". This file is called "Matt's Notes", but it's really just our church's measures formatted to a half-sheet. Our list is broken into "Think like Jesus" "Be like Jesus" "Act like Jesus". And again, it's not comprehensive -- it's just a starting point. If we want to live the kind of righteous and blameless life God wants us to live, this list is one tool to help us check ourselves.

Aside: Forgiveness and Justification

Now -- what if David spoke this psalm at the end of his life? If David considered himself blameless after he did so many blameworthy things, this would suggest that he had an extremely robust concept of justification. And maybe he did. He was a man after God's own heart, after all. But seeing how much the New Testament disciples struggled with this concept, I just have a hard time believing that David understood it without question.

We've talked about justification before. Here's the Holman Bible Dictionary opening paragraph:

Justification is the divine, forensic act of God, based on the work of Christ upon the cross, whereby a sinner is pronounced righteous by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

It's been a while since we have studied Romans, so here are some lessons --

Justification is God's act of making us right with Him, and that (by definition) makes us righteous. And then, having been made right with God, we are freed to live for Him -- pursuing righteousness, and not fearing death.

Part 3: God Is Faithful (Psalm 18:25-29)

25 With the faithful you prove yourself faithful, with the blameless you prove yourself blameless, 26 with the pure you prove yourself pure, but with the crooked you prove yourself shrewd. 27 For you rescue an oppressed people, but you humble those with haughty eyes. 28 Lord, you light my lamp; my God illuminates my darkness. 29 With you I can attack a barricade, and with my God I can leap over a wall.

Last Sunday morning, I mentioned the oft-misunderstood verse, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil 4:13) In proper context, Paul was not saying that Jesus made him Superman; instead, Jesus gave him the strength to handle every circumstance.

Psalm 18:29 is a verse that people double-down on to misinterpret Philippians 4:13.

Y'all, this is a very standard poetic device called hyperbole. It's like when the football player says they're ready to run through a wall. That's how the halftime speech made them feel, but they're not actually going to run through a wall. Okay? David isn't leaping over tall building with a single bound. It's called poetry.

Back to verse 25 and some important truth. To this point, David has spoken of God's dealings with him personally. Now, David speaks of the ways God deals with people in general. In other words, these verses are directly true of you and me.

The verb tenses in these verses are imperfect and reflexive. In other words, "You prove Yourself faithful" is more literally "You make Yourself / reveal Yourself as faithful".

If your mom ever said "you don't want to see my angry side" to you, then you should get what David is saying. God is all of these things -- loving, merciful, holy, and just. He rewards righteousness and He punishes sin. He is gentle with the oppressed and shrewd with the oppressor. How He reveals Himself to you (or anyone) depends on how you have chosen to live your life.

We know from experience that God blesses righteousness and punishes sin in this life. But the most important thing is that God is merciful and gracious to those who come to Jesus for salvation, and He is just and terrifying to those who reject Jesus.

[Note: "haughty" means "proud", if you weren't sure.]

With all of that said, what do these verses tell us about God's relationship with us? How might this be different for Christians and non-Christians?

If there are still any questions about what David means, perhaps think in terms of how teachers and students treat one another, or bosses and employees.

But the main thing we want to come away with from Psalm 18 is a wonderful picture of God Almighty and how He deals with His people. And that should lead us to praise God for Jesus.

The Lifeway material mentions a fictional man who has fallen on hard times and asks how Psalm 18 can help your group support him. I think that's a great question. But for me, the biggest thing is helping that person have proper expectations for how Psalm 18 applies to his life. You probably have group members facing difficult times. What does this psalm say to them?