Genealogies matter. The biblical narrative is fundamentally a record of events — births, deaths, kings enthroned, kings deposed, covenants made, covenants broken, and so on. The Bible’s genealogies are the backdrop against which these events unfold. As such, they are a basic part of the fabric of Scripture. They tell us when events happen and who is involved in them. And, by extension, they often give us clues as to why.

But before we dive into the (sometimes murky) details of the Bible’s genealogies, it will be helpful for us to consider them in broader redemptive terms.

Forming, Naming, Filling

At the outset of the biblical story, God creates the heavens and the earth. They start out like a blank canvas, formless and empty (Genesis 1:1). Then, over the course of six days, God carries out three important types of activities: he adds form to what he has made (e.g., by the division of night and day); he names what he has formed; and, last of all, he fills what he has formed (e.g., the day with the sun; the night with the moon and stars).

Afterward, God commissions man to continue his activities. More specifically, God commands man to be fruitful and multiply and to fill and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28). The Bible’s genealogies are thus firmly anchored in the events of Genesis 1. They are a record of how and to what extent mankind lives out God’s commission as he forms, names, and fills God’s creation.

Genesis 1–11 Redux

In Genesis 4, Eve forms three children and assigns to each of them a name.1 “I have [formed] a man with the help of the Lord,” she says after Cain’s birth (Genesis 4:1). (The verb “formed” — Hebrew kanah — is generally translated as “acquired” in this verse, but it often means “formed”; indeed, it is the verb used in Psalm 139:13, where David says to God, “You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”) Needless to say, Eve’s statement about the world’s first childbirth is significant. Like God, Eve adds form to what is formless, as her daughters have done ever since.

In the aftermath of Abel’s death, the lines of Cain and Seth begin to fill the earth. To some extent, the two lines unfold in parallel. For instance, both culminate in a threefold division — in Cain’s case with Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain (Genesis 4:20–22), and in Seth’s with Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis 5:32). And before that, each line reaches a mini-climax in the rise of a Lamech, who is a man of sevens. Cain’s Lamech is the seventh from Adam, heads up a family of seven (him, his two wives, his three sons, and his daughter), and says his death will be repaid with a seventy-sevenfold vengeance (Genesis 4:24). Meanwhile, Seth’s Lamech lives for seven hundred and seventy-seven years (Genesis 5:31), and he fathers Noah — the life of a man of eights who heads up a family of eight (1 Peter 3:20). Hence, while Cain’s line is terminated by the flood, Seth’s lives on to inhabit a new creation.

In the aftermath of the flood, the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth begin to multiply and fill the earth (in answer to a repeat of God’s command in Genesis 9:1). The result is the “Table of Nations” in Genesis 10.

“History unfolds in line with God’s pattern and purposes.”

Then, in Genesis 12, God chooses Abraham from the midst of the nations — or, more specifically, from the midst of the descendants of Shem. God does not, however, simply give Abraham the same command he gave to Adam and Noah. Instead, he gives Abraham a promise: “I will make you exceedingly fruitful,” he says (Genesis 17:6), which is exactly what he does. And so, as Abraham’s generations unfold, they recapitulate the structure of Genesis 1–11.

The events of Genesis 1 establish a twelve/thirteenfold structure composed of six environments (night, day, heaven, earth, sea, and land, formed on days one to three) filled by six created things (moon/stars, sun, birds, animals, fish, and humans, created on days four to six), or seven if we count plants (created on day three).2 In answer, the branches of Abraham’s family tree yield an array of twelve/thirteenfold generations: Nahor’s line opens into a generation of twelve (Genesis 22:21–24), as do Ishmael’s (Genesis 25:12–16) and Esau’s,3 and, last of all, Jacob’s line opens into a generation of twelve, or thirteen if we count Joseph’s sons (Genesis 48:5).

Meanwhile, just as the lines of Cain and Seth emerge from a background of three streams and divide into three streams, so too does the line of Abraham: Abraham is one of three sons, and his posterity divides into the sons of Hagar, Sarah, and Keturah (Genesis 11:27–28). Furthermore, just as the line of Noah culminates in a family tree of 75 individuals (the so-called “Table of Nations”),4 so too does the line of Jacob (Jacob, his four wives, and their seventy sons: Genesis 46:27; Exodus 1:5; Deuteronomy 10:22).

God’s Unfolding Story

Similar creationary echoes can be observed within the text of 1 Chronicles as the line of Judah becomes the inheritor of God’s promise. The genealogical path from Adam to Abraham consists of three distinct stages: first it descends a single genealogical line (1:1–3), then it splits into three streams (1:4–27), and finally it opens into a pool of nineteen potential inheritors of Abraham’s promise (1:28–33), ultimately to be taken forward by Isaac (1:34). In much the same way, the genealogical path from Judah to David descends a single genealogical line (to Hezron, 2:1–8), then splits into three streams (Caleb’s, Ram’s, and Jerahmeel’s, 2:9–55), and finally opens into a pool of nineteen potential inheritors of David’s promise (3:1–9), ultimately to be taken forward by Solomon (3:10). The chronicler even counts David’s sons for us to make sure we haven’t missed the point (3:1–8).

These patterns are not coincidental. They reveal the artistry inherent in the biblical narrative and, more fundamentally, God’s sovereignty over the course of history. History unfolds in line with God’s pattern and purposes. And in the Bible’s genealogies, we see precisely how it unfolds and comes to its fullness in the person of Christ — the one whose death and resurrection gives birth to a new creation, and who breathes life into a generation of twelve apostles (or thirteen if we count Paul), and who continues to give life to Abraham’s seed today as the church bears fruit and multiplies.

Redressing the Past

But the Bible’s genealogies aren’t merely intended to paint a big picture of the progression of God’s purposes; they are also rich with detail. They enable us to connect particular events in biblical history and to read them in light of one another.

Ruth’s Redemption

By way of illustration, consider a couple of the more unsavory ways in which family lines have been perpetuated in biblical history. In Genesis 19 and 38, an uncannily similar sequence of events unfolds: a resident of Canaan departs from his brother(s) in order to sojourn elsewhere (in Judah’s case in Chezib, and in Lot’s in Sodom). Soon afterward, his two sons die (or in Lot’s case his sons-in-law), which leaves his family line in jeopardy. The man’s daughters (or daughter-in-law) conceal their identity in order to sleep with their father (or father-in-law). And via such dubious means, the family line survives.

The Bible’s genealogies help us to see that these events are not isolated incidents in Scripture. Later in the biblical narrative, when Ruth approaches Boaz at the dead of night, it looks as if we are about to see a repeat of Judah’s and Lot’s transgressions. Earlier in the story, a resident of Canaan has departed from his brothers in order to sojourn elsewhere (Elkanah has left Bethlehem for Moab); his two sons have died and left his family line in jeopardy; and his daughter-in-law has now concealed her identity, possibly in order to take matters into her own hands. Happily, however, the behavior of Boaz and Ruth confounds our expectations. When Boaz sees Ruth, he does not seek sexual gratification; rather, he wants to know who she is. In response, Ruth discloses her identity. And soon afterward, Boaz takes Ruth as his wife in the full knowledge of what it will entail, and he thereby continues Elkanah’s line.

Given the above considerations, Boaz’s and Ruth’s genealogies/backgrounds are important for us to be aware of. Boaz is a descendant of Perez and by that token is a descendant of Judah and Tamar (Ruth 4:18–22). Meanwhile, Ruth is a Moabite and by that token is a descendant of Lot and his firstborn daughter (Genesis 19:37). These details are significant. Boaz and Ruth aren’t isolated actors on the stage of the biblical narrative. They are people with a rich and tangled past. And their actions redeem that past and weave it into God’s good purposes through the messianic line.

Esther Against Agag

A similar notion underlies the story of Esther. When we first meet Mordecai, we are provided with his genealogy. Mordecai is “the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite” (Esther 2:5). At least two of these names should be familiar to us. In 1 Samuel 9, we are introduced to a Benjaminite named Kish, who turns out to be the father of the infamous Saul (1 Samuel 9:1; see also 1 Chronicles 8:29–33), and a little later we encounter a Benjaminite named Shimei, who turns out to be one of Saul’s descendants (2 Samuel 16:5).

Apparently, then, the biblical author wants us to associate Mordecai and Esther with the house of Saul. (The names Kish and Shimei may have been common Benjaminite names, passed down from father to son and borne by many members of the tribe of Benjamin.5) If so, it is a significant detail, since Esther and Mordecai’s enemy, Haman, is a descendant of Saul’s old enemy, Agag the Amalekite (Esther 3:1) — the man whom Saul failed to make an end of (1 Samuel 15:9).

Like the story of Ruth, then, the book of Esther doesn’t recount an isolated incident; it describes a resurgence of an age-old rivalry and, importantly, an opportunity for Esther and Mordecai to make amends for their ancestor’s failures. Indeed, viewed against that backdrop, some of the more unusual features of the book of Esther make good sense. Why does the book go to such lengths to tell us the Jews were allowed to plunder their enemies’ goods yet declined to do so (Esther 8:10–13; 9:10, 15–16)? The answer is that what takes place is a reversal/rectification of Saul’s failures. Whereas Saul wasn’t permitted to plunder Agag’s goods and yet disobediently did so, thrice proclaiming his innocence (1 Samuel 15:13, 15, 20), the Jews were allowed to plunder their enemies’ goods and yet thrice declined to do so (see above).

Significant for a similar reason is Esther’s attitude toward Mordecai. Why does Esther go to such lengths to have Mordecai exalted alongside her in Esther 8–9 (which seems to needlessly prolong the book’s conclusion)? As before, one answer is that what takes place is a reversal of Saul’s failures: whereas Saul sought to oust a man who had been like a son to him (David), Esther sought to promote a man who had been like a father to her (Mordecai).

Hence, just as Boaz and Ruth put right what their ancestors got wrong, so Esther and Mordecai put right what their ancestor (Saul) got wrong. And such mini-redemptions set the stage for a greater redemption to come — for a redeemer who will atone for what Israel and Adam got wrong (hence Matthew’s genealogy takes us from Jesus back to Abraham, and Luke’s takes us from Jesus back to Adam).

Navigating Genealogies

Far more can be said about the Bible’s genealogies and the role they play in the biblical narrative, but the topics outlined above give us a feel for the kind of questions we can ask ourselves when confronted with a genealogy. What is its shape and structure — and what does that remind us of? Do we recognize any of its names and contents from elsewhere — and which biblical events might that prompt us to connect and read in light of one another?

Thus interrogated, genealogies can greatly further our comprehension of the biblical text as well as our place in today’s generation.

The individual human soul, rightly seeing the glory of Christ and rightly savoring the glory of Christ, is at the heart of God’s purpose in creating the world. Until we grasp, in some measure, why that is the case, we will not be able to give an account for why the corporate reality of the worshiping church is essential to God’s purpose in creating the world.

So what I hope to do in this message is steer a biblical course between two errors. On the one side, I want us to avoid the error of thinking that the relationship between the individual worshiping human soul and God is in itself the ultimate purpose of God in creation. It’s not.

On the other side, I want us to avoid the error of being so captivated by the corporate reality of the worshiping people of God — the body of Christ, the temple of God, the bride of Christ — that we lose sight of the fact that the vital, ongoing, eternal intensity of the individual soul’s affection for God is absolutely essential to the very existence of the corporate reality of the worshiping church.

The New Testament forbids us to forget, neglect, or minimize the radical, essential, eternal significance of the individual worshiping human person. And the New Testament forbids that we forget, neglect, or minimize the coming into being of the blazingly beautiful bride of Christ who is more than the sum of her flaming parts, though not less.

Individual Soul and Glory

Let’s begin by focusing on the relationship between the individual soul and the ultimate purpose of God in creation. One of the clearest statements in the Bible of God’s ultimate purpose in creation is found in Isaiah 43:6–7:

Bring my sons from afar,     and my daughters from the end of the earth,everyone who is called by my name,     whom I created for my glory.

Or there’s Ephesians 1:11–12: “[He] works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we . . . might be to the praise of his glory.” And we have Romans 11:36: “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

God created the world, he sustains the world, he governs the world, he is doing his saving work in the world, in order to display his glory — his greatness, his beauty, his worth, the whole panorama of his perfections. We see this all across Scripture:

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).
“The trees of the forest sing for joy” (Psalm 96:12).
“Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together” (Psalm 98:8).
“[The meadows and the valleys] shout and sing together for joy” (Psalm 65:13).
“Sing, O heavens . . . shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord . . . will be glorified in Israel” (Isaiah 44:23).

The heavens, the mountains, the hills, the forests of trees, the rivers, and the meadows — they all were created to sing the glories of their Maker. And they do. And so does the most brilliant assembly of one hundred and fifty unbelieving singers gathered to perform Händel’s Messiah at Easter, surrounded by the most accomplished orchestra of unbelieving musicians. When they play with excellence and beautifully sing those magnificent biblical truths, all of it reflects the glory of God, like trees clapping their hands.

Why Worship Must Cherish

So if God gets so much glory from the external echoes of his excellencies in the things he has made — including unbelieving musicians and scientists and athletes — why is there any need for the individual human soul to have any particular affections for God? Isn’t God’s purpose to be glorified being achieved anyway?

“God does not intend to be half-glorified.”

No, it’s not. God does not intend to be half-glorified.

A king may be glorified for his great achievements and power and wisdom if he rules his kingdom with an iron hand and sees to it that great fortifications are built, and beautiful buildings and gardens are constructed, and citizens, under coercion, are forced to become excellent musicians and perform for him the finest pieces of musical art. This king may have a reputation for his power throughout the world.

But he is not so great nor so glorified as a king who is loved by his people — admired, revered, cherished, treasured, enjoyed, desired — so that out of that affection for their king, these happy subjects build even greater fortifications and buildings and gardens and musical compositions. A king is more glorified by a cherishing people than a cowering people. God does not intend to be half-glorified.

Not All Sound Is Worshipful Song

Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me’” (Matthew 15:7–9). Here you have an excellent use of lips: “You honor me with your lips. My honor, my glory, is sounding from your lips. I am being glorified by your mouth, just like I’m glorified by the mountains and trees and rivers that have no souls, and just like I am glorified by unbelieving choral ensembles that sing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’”

But Jesus still says that their heart, their soul — their individual human soul — is far from him. What does he mean? Jesus tells us in Matthew 15:9: “In vain do they worship me.” In vain. Meaning: “The external echo of my excellence is a zero when it comes to the essence of the kind of worship I created this world to give. A zero.”

Why? “I did not create the world to get magnificent nothings from the hearts of humans created in my image — whether they are singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ in unbelief or going through the motions of corporate worship in church on Sunday morning. That’s not why I created the world. I created the world not only for the echo of my excellence in the external wonders of the created world, including humans created in my image, but also for the echo of my excellence in the affections of my people.”

And where those affections are missing — where Jesus is not trusted and loved and cherished and treasured and desired — the words of God through Amos 5:23 will sound out over our worship services and choral performances:

Take away from me the noise of your songs;     to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

And it almost goes without saying (but it is so crucial I will say it) that these absolutely essential affections for God happen in the individual human soul — or the heart, as Jesus calls it Matthew 15:8. This is why the vital, ongoing, eternal intensity of the individual human person’s affection for God is absolutely essential for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating the world, namely, that he be not half-glorified (as by trees and unbelieving musicians), but glorified as he ought in the affections of the heart.

Gathered People and Glory

Now we turn to this question: If affections for God in the individual human soul are the essence of the self-glorifying purpose of God in creating the world, how do those heart-affections give rise to the corporate reality of the worshiping church? Because it is clear from the New Testament that God’s ultimate purpose is not millions of isolated, independent, human souls with white-hot affections for God, like great solos.

God is bringing into being a diverse, global church pictured as the body of Christ, the temple of God, the bride of Christ. Paul pictures the church as the wife of Jesus in Ephesians 5:27 and says that Christ’s purpose in coming and dying was “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Christ means to have a beautiful wife. That’s not the same as saying he aims to have many individual worshipers. She is more than the sum of her parts, though not less.

This conference is devoted to blessing churches understood as local expressions of that emerging, global, everlasting, corporate, worshiping reality called the bride of Christ. What local churches do in their gathered worshiping assemblies is rehearse for that eternal vocation of corporate worship by the bride of Christ.

To God and One Another

The text that connects the heart of the individual worshiping lover of Jesus with this corporate reality is Ephesians 5:18–19: “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Ephesians 5:18–19). Notice those three dimensions: all of this singing is from “your heart,” all of it is “to the Lord,” and all of it is “addressing one another.”

It doesn’t matter whether the words of the song happen to be (the vertically directed) “We Come, O Christ, to You” or (the horizontally directed) “Come, Christians, Join to Sing.” Whether it is verbally directed to God or verbally directed to man, in both cases it is to God and in both cases it is addressing man because in corporate worship everybody is hearing every song, and God is attending to every song. And all the songs are sung from the heart — or they’re not worship. That is God’s design, as we rehearse for the everlasting corporate worship of the bride.

What is plain from those three dimensions in Ephesians 5:18–19 is that the birthplace and essence of worship is the individual human heart. That’s where the glory of Christ awakens the Christ-exalting affections that magnify his greatness and beauty and worth. Then from this furnace of Christ-exalting affections there flames up expressions in song to God and to people.

“God designed for Christ to have a worshiping bride and not just worshiping individuals.”

The corporate reality of the worshiping bride of Christ is brought into being by God’s combining these individual burning hearts of worship into a new reality — the worshiping bride of Christ — first in the foretastes of our gatherings and finally in the complete, perfected, eternal worship of the bride. This is the ultimate goal of God in creation.

Why? What is it about the corporate reality of the singing bride that makes her worship the ultimate end of God’s purpose, rather than simply white-hot individual worshipers? Why is it that God designed for individual hearts aflame with holy affections for God to combine into a new reality of corporate worship, the worshiping bride of Christ? I’ll give three biblical answers to that question, and they all have the effect of elevating the importance of united congregational worship as high as I know how to elevate it. It is the rehearsal and foretaste of the ultimate aim of creation.

1. Shared joy increases joy.

First, there is a pointer in 2 Corinthians 2:2–3, where Paul touches on the mystery of the union of souls as individual joy becomes shared joy. Paul says to the church, “If I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained?” And: “I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all.”

In the body of Christ, where we are spiritually united in him, something profound happens in the experience of joy in God. It’s not merely that the corporate reality is the assembly of solitary joys. Paul said, “My joy is the joy of you all, and yours is mine. My joy is more because yours is mine, and yours is more because mine is yours.”

Therefore, the totality of Christ-exalting affection that comes into being especially in corporate worship is greater than the sum of individual affections. The worshiping bride is the goal of creation because the interpenetration of Christ-exalting joy is something new, something greater, something more God-glorifying than the assembled joy of individual worshiping hearts.

2. Diverse voices sing more beautiful harmonies.

Second, the unified harmony of diverse voices is more beautiful than the greatest sound of voices in unison. It is a glorious thing when a thousand voices, like a trumpet blast, sound in unison. But when those voices break into the unified diversity of harmony, something more glorious comes into being.

And this is not just a musical phenomenon. It is true in relation to countless diversities God is assembling into his church — across all time and all geography. Ethnic diversities, age diversities, male and female diversities, personality diversities, taste and preference diversities, voice quality diversities. (Think of voices like Bob Dylan and Pavarotti.)

In the unified diversity of the worshiping bride of Christ something more beautiful is created, and Christ is more glorified as the Creator and Redeemer and Beloved of that bride. That’s why the corporate worship of the bride is ultimate.

3. Diverse affections display Christ’s worth.

And third, God designed for Christ to have a worshiping bride and not just worshiping individuals, because the greatness and beauty and worth of the Leader is revealed by the extent of the diversity he is able to inspire and unify in one following, one body, one bride.

This is why the song of heaven in Revelation 5 calls attention to the worthiness of Christ — precisely because he ransomed so many diverse peoples and united them into one kingdom and one singing priesthood.

They sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll     and to open its seals,for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God     from every tribe and language and people and nation,and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,     and they shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9–10)

“When you gather in worship next Sunday, remember: you are a rehearsal of the end for which God made the world.”

The glory of Christ shines more brightly because he is the kind of Leader-Redeemer who holds together the allegiance and the affections of so many peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations in our worshiping kingdom.

The universe was created to display the worth of the Lamb, and in him the glory of God. When you gather in congregational worship next Sunday, remember: small or large, you are not just individual worshipers; you are a manifestation, a foretaste, a rehearsal of the end for which God made the world: the combining of individual souls aflame for God into something more — the greater joy, the greater harmony, the greater diverse affections of the worshiping bride of Christ — the goal of all things.

Sometimes, as you watch the hand of God’s providence draw some picture in your life, the pencil suddenly turns, and what you thought would be a flower turns into a thorn. The unanswered prayer seemed finally heard, the hope deferred seemed at last fulfilled — but no. You reach for the daisy and get pricked, instead, by a thistle.

C.S. Lewis’s marriage to Joy Davidman strikes me in this regard. The couple married later in life, when Joy appeared to be dying of cancer. After a prayer for healing, however, Joy recovered unexpectedly and perhaps miraculously. The love they thought they were losing came back to them, a precious gift, it seemed, from the hand of a healing God.

But soon, the cancer returned with a fury, ending their brief marriage. In the rawness of his grief, Lewis wrote, “A noble hunger, long unsatisfied, met at last its proper food, and almost instantly the food was snatched away” (A Grief Observed, 17–18). Experiences like these can shake the soul. More than a few have lost faith over them. For many others, such moments become a doorway to a darker world, where God seems less good than we once thought. Perhaps, in our more desperate moments, we can even think him cruel.

Many who enter that world never find their way back. They walk under deepening shadows of disillusionment, far from the broad fields and bright sun of their former childlike faith. Some, however, do find their way back. We meet such a soul in Psalm 73.

Darkened Days

Much of Psalm 73 takes place in the dark world. Asaph, the psalmist, finds himself disillusioned with the spiritual life. He sees God-haters prancing over the earth — wealthy, comfortable, fat. No matter that they strut through Jerusalem like gods and defy the very heavens (Psalm 73:3–11). “Always at ease, they increase in riches” (Psalm 73:12).

Meanwhile, the godly Asaph suffers unseen and unrewarded. For his obedience, he gets affliction; for his devotion, rebuke (Psalm 73:14). Eventually, he looks round at his prayers, his songs, his years of faithfulness, and with a sweeping hand says, “All in vain” (Psalm 73:13). His hopes dead, he enters the shadow world.

When our own hopes are deferred (again), we can easily justify our bitterness and spiritual apathy. Without much effort, we can cast ourselves as innocent sufferers under the heavy hand of God’s providence, our frustration toward heaven understandable. Asaph, however, looking back at himself from the other side of the doorway, sees something different: “I was like a beast toward you” (Psalm 73:22).

For those who have returned from the dark world, Asaph’s words will not seem too blunt. I, for one, can still remember the soul gnawings and heart snarlings of my once-jaded soul. Our grief in painful providences can quickly turn jagged, and our laments become a growl, whether silent or spoken. Bitterness can make the soul turn beastly — and beastly it will remain until (to use some imagery from Lewis’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader) God undragons us.

Undragoned

By psalm’s end, Asaph has walked back to the bright world, where he once again sings like a hope-filled child:

Whom have I in heaven but you?     And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.My flesh and my heart may fail,     But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25–26)

Asaph reemerges in a world where God is good once again, where heaven and earth have nothing greater to give than him. Let affliction slay him, let rebukes strike him, let every hope remain deferred — God will be the strength of his heart and his abundant portion. The beast has become a man.

The undragoning happened, in part, as Asaph “went into the sanctuary of God” and “discerned [the] end” of “those who are far from you” (Psalm 73:17, 27). But he also discerned something better: “Nevertheless, I am continually with you” (Psalm 73:23). Here is the answer to his animal-like agitation, an answer so simple we may miss its power to tame. Consider, then, how Asaph unfolds the answer in three images, and how they might meet us in our own beastliness.

‘You hold my right hand.’

The real danger of a world gone dark is not the pain we feel there, nor even the perplexing dissonance those feelings bring, but the sense of God’s absence. The first half of Psalm 73 is a world without God — at least without a God who is near and good. But by verse 15, Asaph’s more or less godless ruminations give way to “you,” the God who “[holds] my right hand” (Psalm 73:23). In walking back through the doorway of disillusionment, he has entered his Father’s house.

Can you remember the sense of desolation when, as a child, you lost sight of your father in a sea of people? And can you recall the warm relief — almost worth crying over — when his familiar hand found yours? Something similar happens when, in the quiet of your own bedroom, or car, or backyard, your swirling thoughts calm, your embittered soul breathes, and you find grace to slowly say to God, “Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.”

Nothing has changed in your circumstances; your troubles may still pain and perplex you. But somehow, your stumbling feet find their footing. Your afflictions fall into a broader perspective. Your bitterness shakes off like so many scales. And under the hand of God, your heart becomes undragoned.

‘You guide me with your counsel.’

We are not left alone in this world, however perplexed we feel. Nor are we left directionless. We have not only a God, but a guide; not only a Presence, but a path. He grips our hand to assure us of his nearness, and also to lead us home through this bewildering wilderness. “You guide me with your counsel” (Psalm 73:24).

The “counsel” of God, his written Scriptures, do not tell us all we would like to know — not by far. We don’t know why a seemingly miraculous recovery should dissolve into death. We don’t know why a relationship on the brink of restoration should crumble. We don’t know why the heart of a loved one, so close to repentance, should suddenly harden. But reaching home does not depend on knowing the mysteries God has hidden but on receiving the counsel he has revealed.

And he does not guide us as one who has never walked the path himself. Gethsemane pressed and perplexed our Lord Jesus to the point of sweating blood and praying for an exit. No one was faced with a more bitter providence; no one had more reason to grow bitter and forsake God’s counsel. Yet no one’s life showed more brilliantly that following God’s counsel will never put us to shame. For the dark tomb is now empty.

We are children here, and the why of our Father’s will often eludes us. But his counsel does not. So while the beastly follow their own instincts, God’s children say, “I will follow your counsel as long as night lasts — and even if the dawn never breaks in this life.”

‘Afterward you will receive me to glory.’

The day is coming when the holding hand will become a beholding face, and the winding path a stable home. There is an afterward to the unanswered questions and open loops of this life. And in that afterward, “you will receive me to glory” (Psalm 73:24).

Knowing the afterward changed everything for Asaph. He no longer envied the prosperous wicked when he “discerned their end” (Psalm 73:17) — and he no longer pitied himself when he discerned his. Affliction may tarry for the night, but glory comes in the morning. So too with us. If we know that we are headed to the bright world, where no more questions gnaw and no more tears run down our cheeks (Revelation 21:4), then the sharpest edge of our suffering is blunted.

In the present, we often have need to say with Paul, “We are . . . perplexed” (2 Corinthians 4:8). But in the coming afterward, the spiritual dissonance of this age will resolve into a harmony beyond imagination, as the hand that held us and led us all life long receives us into the door of his home, beyond all doubt and danger.

End of Darkened Roads

At one point in Lewis’s grief, he asks whether he has been treating God as his goal or as his road. Has he walked along every good gift like a path leading to God, or has he tried to walk along God as a path leading to some other place? Lewis goes on to say, “He can’t be used as a road. If you are approaching him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching him at all” (A Grief Observed, 68).

Often, our own undragoning happens when we, like Asaph, freshly embrace God as goal, not road — or perhaps better, as both goal and road. Our great need is not to unravel the apparent knots in God’s providence, as if mere answers could tame the beast within. What we need, now and forever, is a hand upon the mane, a whispered presence to calm us. For God himself is both way and end, path and home, presence here and portion forever.