Psalm 1.
The true and perfect Manhood of the Son of God is a cardinal truth of the New Testament that is insisted on in such Scriptures as "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God" (1 John 4:3). This precious truth of Christ's Manhood is also found in many Old Testament Scriptures in which His divine glory is presented, as in Isaiah 9, where the child to be born is named, "Wonderful … the mighty God" (Isa. 9:6). Although so glorious, the Son of God would be found in this world as the Son of Man, and as Man, "Jesus … was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death" (Psalm 8; Heb. 2).
Adam, the first man, was created in innocency, and falling into sin he was alienated from God who had manifested His goodness and kindness to him in providing all that his heart could desire in the delights of Eden, in innocency Adam had not the knowledge of good and evil, but when he sinned there entered into his nature that which hated good and loved evil. On account of a work of God in his soul, Abel did what was right in the sight of God, and is called in Scripture "righteous Abel" (Matt. 23:35), even though he also possessed a sinful nature as born of Adam. It is also written that Cain's works "were wicked, and those of his brother righteous" (1 John 3:12). Right down the history of man, from the days of Cain and Abel, there have been in evidence two generations, the ungodly and the righteous.
In the 1st Psalm the marks of the righteous man are found, and while these features belong to all in whom there is the divine nature, and who walk to please God in this world, there was only One who answered perfectly to all the lovely traits of the godly, righteous man, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus did not walk through this world "in the counsel of the ungodly," but "by every word of God" (Luke 4:4).
Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them" (Luke 15:2), but they knew very well that Jesus did not stand "in the way of sinners," as identified with their ways, for He was the holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, though bringing to them the wondrous grace of God. Drawing sinners to Him by divine goodness was God's way of turning sinners into saints.
Instead of sitting "in the seat of the scornful," Jesus was the object of scorn, and this while manifesting His own rich grace and God's kindness and love towards sinful men. The moral perfections of the righteous One delight the hearts of those who have eyes to see some-thing of the beauty that God only could fully discern, such as when Jesus, as a child, was with the great at Jerusalem, or when He was sitting with the poor, lonely sinner at Sychar's well.
There was never one who found such delight in the law of the Lord as Jesus. From Psalm 119 we learn what the godly and the righteous find in God's law, that which expresses the thoughts of God for His people, that which gives pleasure to those who seek to do God's will. The Son of God delighted in His Father's will, and said, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work" (John 4:34). All the thoughts and activities of Jesus in this world were directed and controlled by God's word.
The tree planted by rivers of water is fresh and fruitful, and this freshness and fruitfulness was evinced in the "root out of a dry ground," who was "the true Vine," that brought unbroken pleasure and glory to God in His sojourn here below. Israel had become like a dry tree, fit for nothing but burning, but Jesus was the "green tree" that manifested all that God delighted in, but which wicked men thought to destroy (Luke 23:31).
What marked the pathway of Jesus at the beginning also marked it at the end. There was no withering of that life of divine perfection that yielded so much for God. The same testimony to Him was given by the Father on the holy mount as was given when He was baptised by John in the river Jordan, and the delight of the Father in Him was never greater than when He gave Himself, the true Burnt Offering, upon the cross to secure the will of God.
It might seem that Jesus had spent His strength for naught, and laboured in vain (Isa. 49:4), but there will be displayed in His glory in the coming day that all that He did prospered. He was able to say to His Father, "I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work that Thou gavest me to do."
In striking contrast to Jesus Christ the righteous are the ungodly, who seek only their own things, and do not fear the God who gave them being, the One who supplies them with all that is needful to maintain them in life. They may be the very religious who persecuted the righteous One, or those who prosper in material things, and say, "How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the Most High?" (Psalm 73:11-12). They do not realise that they will be like the chaff driven away by the wind of God's judgment unto the day of "perdition of ungodly men" (2 Peter 3:7).
There may not be much in the Old Testament regarding the impending judgment of the ungodly, but there is sufficient to warn against keeping God out of the life. Here it is plainly stated that "the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment," the judgment that we know will have Christ as Judge at the great white throne. Those who have left God out of their thoughts, their plans and ways cannot expect to be treated by God as righteous. The ungodly might say with Balaam, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his" (Num. 23:10), but if they live as unrighteous without God, and seek in this life the wages of unrighteousness, they will neither die like the righteous, nor have the blissful end of the righteous in the presence of God in His eternal home.
There will be a congregation of the righteous on earth in the day of the Lord's kingdom, but there will also be a congregation of the righteous in heaven as is shown in Revelation 4:4. Faithful Abraham and the righteous Abel will be among those in heaven that gather round the Lamb, as will all who have been accounted righteous by faith in God and in His dear Son our Lord Jesus Christ.
God's eye is ever on the righteous, and they are the objects of His care. With what joy the eye of the Father rested on His own Son here on earth, the One who said to Him, "Righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee." The way of the righteous might be lonely and thorny, as was the path of Jesus, but it leads into the place where Jesus is entered, even into the presence of the Father in heaven.
The way of the ungodly leads to eternal perdition, even as the Lord Jesus disclosed in Luke 16, where He spoke of the rich man who had his portion in this life. Like the other rich man of Luke 12, he was a fool, living without God, and only concerned with the things of the present life. How very much better it is for us to follow in the steps of Jesus, to have the knowledge of God and of His word, to have the joy of His love to sustain us from day to day, and to have the assurance of our portion with Jesus in God's eternal home.