Today we commemorate the birthday of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, born 130 years ago on January 3, 1892. And today, as the works of so many of his contemporaries are being forgotten or relegated to reading lists for specialized literature courses, Tolkien’s two great masterpieces, The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), continue to live on — on the page and screen, and in the hearts of millions of readers all over the world.

So why have Tolkien’s works not just survived but actually increased in popularity in the decades since their release? We could point to their intricately woven plots, unforgettable characters, amazing settings, and wonderful descriptions, but none of these elements can adequately explain the passion that Tolkien readers typically display, or their desire to reread these long narratives again and again. For a better answer, we might look below the surface and ask, What makes Middle-earth the kind of world so many readers long for?

‘Fundamentally Religious’

On December 2, 1953, Tolkien typed out a fairly short, five-paragraph letter to his good friend Father Robert Murray, which would go on to become the most cited of all his collected letters. Father Murray had read and commented on parts of The Lord of the Rings and had reported that the work had left him with strong sense of a “positive compatibility with the order of Grace” (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 171–72).

Tolkien responded that he thought he understood exactly what Murray meant. Then he made his now-famous, often-quoted declaration: “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision” (172).

The Lord of the Rings is a fundamentally religious work? Despite having the author’s own word, at first glance this may seem a strange claim. The word God is never used in either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, nor do we find any of the elements we typically associate with religion. The key to understanding Tolkien’s statement to Father Murray hinges on the word fundamentally. Paraphrasing Tolkien, we could say that The Lord of the Rings is in its fundamentals or at its foundations a religious work.

So how should we approach The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to find the Christian elements? One further letter from Tolkien offers a clue.

Tolkien the Christian

In the fall of 1958, three years after The Return of the King was released, the final installment in The Lord of the Rings, an American scholar named Deborah Webster was asked to give a talk on Tolkien. Finding little about the author in print at the time, and there being no Internet, she took out pen and paper and wrote to ask Professor Tolkien if he would be willing to share some information about himself.

On October 25, Tolkien wrote back. He began by lamenting that insignificant details having nothing to do with an artist’s work are often the ones “particularly dear” to researchers, such as the fact that Beethoven swindled his publishers (Letters, 288). With regard to himself, Tolkien pointed out, some facts — such as his preference of Spanish to Italian — had an effect on The Lord of the Rings but did little to explain it.

Tolkien went on to say, however, that a few basic facts, “however drily expressed,” were “really significant.” For instance, the fact that he was born in 1892 and spent his boyhood in a pre-mechanical setting much like the Shire. “Or more important,” he continued, “I am a Christian,” and added, “which can be deduced from my stories.”

“The Christian element in Tolkien’s stories is present but not directly evident; it must be deduced.”

Here the word deduced is key. The Christian element in Tolkien’s stories is present but not directly evident; it must be deduced. In addition, the author tells us it can be determined from the stories themselves. While Tolkien’s letters and essays can shed additional light on the Christian aspect in his fiction, if we look below the surface, we can find it without needing external sources.

Founded on Faith

In an interview, Tolkien told Wheaton professor Clyde Kilby, “I am a Christian and of course what I write will be from that essential viewpoint” (Myth, Allegory, and Gospel, 141). Here, instead of the word fundamentally, Tolkien uses the word essential. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are in their essence Christian works, not on the surface. So while some Tolkien scholars label as Christian the fact (reported in the Appendices) that the Fellowship sets out from Rivendell on December 25 and the fall of Sauron is achieved on March 25 (a traditional date for the crucifixion), these details may seem more superficial than fundamental.

Instead, we might look for Tolkien’s Christian element in the profound sense of purpose that Bilbo, Frodo, and the other members of the Fellowship find in giving themselves to help others. We can also discern it in the objective right and wrong that Tolkien’s protagonists experience, even when facing their most difficult decisions. But perhaps the best illustration of the Christian foundations of Middle-earth can be seen in the divine providence we find there.

In his recent book Providence, John Piper notes that in reference to God, the word providence has come to mean “the act of purposefully providing for, or sustaining and governing, the world” (30). He suggests that another way to express what we mean by God’s providence is say that God “sees to it that things happen in a certain way.” Both ways of speaking about how divine providence works in our world also apply to Middle-earth.

Providence in Middle-Earth

In Gandalf’s final words on the last page of The Hobbit, Tolkien provides a hint of what has been behind all the so-called lucky events in the story. It is some years after Bilbo’s return to Bag End, and one evening Gandalf and Balin arrive for an unexpected visit. On learning that prosperity has come to Lake-town and people are making songs that say the rivers run with gold, Bilbo remarks how the old prophecies are turning out to be true.

“Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself?” asks Gandalf. Then he adds, “You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?” (272). In Gandalf’s question, we find the first of several direct suggestions provided by Tolkien that there is far more than just luck or coincidence at work behind the scenes in Middle-earth.

Power Beyond the Ring-Maker

In the second chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien returns to the topic of who or what has been behind Bilbo’s adventures, specifically his finding the Ring. As Gandalf recounts its long history, he comes to Bilbo’s arrival at just the right time and putting his hand on the Ring blindly in the dark. Then Tolkien makes explicit what has previously been implied as Gandalf tells Frodo that the Ring was picked up by Bilbo not by luck or blind chance but because “there was more than one power at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker” (56).

In Middle-earth, as in our world, the workings of providence are typically veiled, making them sometimes discernible only in hindsight. In words that briefly pull back this veil, Gandalf concludes, “Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it” (56). Here Gandalf uses the passive voice without specifying who or what it was that intended these events to take place, thus implying the work of divine providence in a way similar to the person who says, “God had a plan. We were meant to meet that day.”

More Than Mere Chance

Nine chapters later, at the Council at Rivendell, Elrond uses similar words to allude to the hand of providence. He begins by asking those in attendance, “What shall we do with the Ring, the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies?” (242). Then in a reference to the benevolent power at work in Middle-earth, he explains, “That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands” (242). Here again, Tolkien uses words that readers themselves might use when speaking about providence in their own lives. Sometimes we, too, may believe that we were called by God to do certain task or to be at a certain place.

“In Middle-earth, as in our world, the workings of providence are typically veiled.”

As in our own world, divine providence in Middle-earth typically chooses to work behind the scenes in ways that are not directly visible. Because of this, some characters see not providence but mere chance. Elrond tells the members of the Council, “You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world” (242). Tolkien’s point is that while the actions of providence have intention and purpose, to some they may appear as sheer coincidence.

Light from an Invisible Lamp

Do you need to be Christian to enjoy Tolkien’s works? Certainly not — as is evident from the millions of readers who have enjoyed Tolkien’s fiction without sharing his faith. In fact, one of the most remarkable aspects about The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is their unique ability to engage and inspire people from all sorts of backgrounds. At the same time, as scholar Joseph Pearce points out, to fully understand Tolkien’s fiction, serious readers “cannot afford to ignore Tolkien’s philosophical and theological beliefs, central as they are to his whole conception of Middle-earth and the struggles within it” (Tolkien, Man and Myth, 100).

Born on January 3, 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien died 81 years later in 1973. Two years before his death, Tolkien received a letter from a fan who wrote, “You create a world in which some sort of faith seems to be everywhere without a visible source, like light from an invisible lamp” (Letters, 413). Tolkien responded by pointing out that if sanctity inhabits an author’s work or as a pervading light illumines it, this sanctity “does not come from him but through him.” Today, all those who have experienced this light that permeates Tolkien’s fiction join in celebrating both his life and his remarkable achievement.

It was exactly three hundred years ago today.

On the frigid night of December 18th, 1722, the teenager dipped his quill in the ink jar and began to write. He probably cupped his hands toward the warm lantern for a moment first, just to make his fingers more agile in the chilly air. Then he began to compose. Jonathan Edwards was just 74 days past his nineteenth birthday when he wrote the first batch of his famous resolutions.1

His brain was swirling with holy ambition. Edwards had completed his graduate coursework at Yale in May and had desired to enter into the public ministry, just as his father, Timothy Edwards, and grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, had done before him. Just a few months earlier, in August of 1722, the younger Edwards had arrived in New York City, 150 years before any skyscrapers were built, to preach his first series of sermons. By all accounts, those sermons were excellent.2

Edwards had been called to New York to attempt to pastor a Presbyterian congregation that had recently experienced a church split. In the bustling port city, Edwards had found success in preaching his earliest sermonic orations as well as finding true friendship and spiritual companionship in the home of his host family. His heart was alive, and his spirit was on fire for Christ. He was ready to commit his whole life, as well as his eternal soul, to the service of God.

His quill carefully drew out the first few lines of ink on the page:

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence.3

That night, in a steady hand and in the same color of ink, Edwards wrote out the first 35 of his resolutions. He would add several more that week and then continue the practice of adding new resolutions for the better part of the winter. As the calendar flipped from 1722 to 1723, Edwards had written nearly forty such resolutions:

7. Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

18. Resolved, to live so at all times, as I think is best in my devout frames, and when I have clearest notions of things of the gospel, and another world.

42. Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this 12th day of January, 1722–23.4

Spiritual Ecstasy and Discouragement

Edwards would later look back on this period as the most beautiful experience of his personal sanctification.5 His faith was growing so quickly that he could practically chart the progress. In fact, that is exactly what he tried to do. Each time he wrote out new resolutions, he marked his progress along the same lines in his diary.6 The two documents — the diary and the “Resolutions” — would have a symbiotic relationship. As he yearned for holiness and found himself wanting, he would make new resolutions, and then monitor his actual progress in his personal journal, keeping track of his successes and failures along the way.

Over time, however, Edwards found that his failures were far more in number and of a more serious kind than he had feared.

Jan. 20, sabbath day. At night. The last week I was sunk so low, that I fear it will be a long time, ’ere I shall be recovered. I fell exceedingly low in the weekly account. I find my heart so deceitful, that I am almost discouraged from making any more resolutions. Wherein have I been negligent in the week past; and how could I have done better, to help the dreadful, low estate in which I am sunk?7

As the spring turned to summer, existential questions began to threaten his spiritual tranquility, and he began to experience trepidations and palpitations of heart related to the defense of his master’s thesis — his Quaestio — and the looming necessity of securing a full-time pastoral call. That in addition to coping with the heartache of falling in love with a younger, beautiful girl, Sarah.8

As it turned out, these first forty or so resolutions wouldn’t be enough to buoy his soul as he dealt with these somewhat typical coming-of-age strains on heart and mind. His soul ached, and his temptations raged against him. So he wrote more resolutions.

When the heat of the summer of 1723 was at its peak, and the honeybees began to feast upon the goldenrod and sedum plants, Edwards had written a full complement of seventy resolutions. And then suddenly — as abruptly as he had started — he stopped.

He never wrote another resolution again.

‘Resolutions’ as Inspiration

There is no doubt that the “Resolutions” are inspiring. This is why they have been printed over and over again, published in the genre of classical devotional materials.9 Men and women for generations now have felt they have met Edwards personally in this short, tract-length document, resonating with the emerging pastor’s soul-deep yearning for Christ. How can we not be inspired when we read such resolutions?

52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.

53. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer.10

But what so many readers (including the present writer) find so profound and awe-inspiring from the pen of the forthcoming prodigy, Edwards felt as a burden on his soul. The more he resolved, the more he failed himself and his God. He couldn’t live up to his own standards. He simply could not will himself to breathe the thin air of spiritual Zion all the time, dwelling long on the mountain of God’s holy presence. Since his resolutions pointed out his own sin as much as they pointed toward his own faithfulness, Edwards needed to find another way forward before his resolve fled away with the retreating summer sunlight.

Looking Outward

Some Edwards scholars believe that he quit writing his resolutions on August 17, 1723, because his “canon” was complete with the round biblical number of seventy. I think this conjecture is somewhat plausible. But I also think there is more to it. My own studies of Edwards’s personal writings have led me to conclude that he simply could not bear the pressures of his own heightened determinations.11

“To resolve was one thing, but to depend and rely upon Christ was another.”

When taken alone, the “Resolutions” are a powerful document indeed — even (and rightly) inspiring. But when reading his diary alongside the “Resolutions,” as synchronous and complementary documents, it seems that Edwards was building up spiritual pressures that his own soul was not able to withstand. The process of continually grading himself on paper may have become more than he could tolerate. Such periods of deep self-evaluation, when most honest, only proved that Edwards needed more and more grace. In other words, he could not live up to his own standards. To resolve was one thing, but to depend and rely upon Christ was another. And so, Edwards grew in his understanding of the daily necessity of dependence upon divine grace as superior to determination and resolution alone.

Along with this deepening understanding of his own sin and God’s grace, Edwards simply got busier and had less time to gaze in the spiritual mirror of his “Resolutions” and diary. His responsibilities in the church grew significantly when he was ordained to serve under Solomon Stoddard, and then again when he eventually became the solo pastor of the Northampton Church, one of the most significant congregations in the region. He did end up marrying the beautiful young woman he fell in love with as a teen. They had a large number of children, even by eighteenth-century standards (ten!). Edwards became preoccupied with preaching innumerable sermons, writing treatises, drafting letters, meeting with other ministers, and counseling his people’s distraught souls. He found that he was simultaneously growing as a believer, as a husband, as a father, and as a pastor.

And God was at work too in amazing ways that far transcended his own inward fascinations. A true revival began to occur — first in Northampton (1735) and then all across the Colonies (1740–42). Edwards had less occasion and opportunity to stew anxiously inwardly, even as it became more apparent that God was working outwardly all around him. This change in focus seems to me to be evidence of his spiritual maturity rather than any loss of devotion.

Relentless Reliance

At about age 40, a more mature Edwards could look back upon his 19-year-old self and write,

My longings after God and holiness, were much increased. Pure and humble, holy and heavenly Christianity, appeared exceeding amiable to me. I felt in me a burning desire to be in everything a complete Christian; and conformed to the blessed image of Christ: and that I might live in all things, according to the pure, sweet and blessed rules of the gospel. I had an eager thirsting after progress in these things. My longings after it, put me upon pursuing and pressing after them. It was my continual strife day and night, and constant inquiry, how I should be more holy, and live more holily, and more becoming a child of God, and disciple of Christ.12

True enough, the New York period had been a time of spiritual ecstasy for him. A veritable mountaintop. Edwards put these thoughts and other reflections together in a document that would become known as his “Personal Narrative.”13 This is one of the most important extant documents regarding Edwards’s own mature spiritual introspection. His own son-in-law, Aaron Burr Sr., had asked him to share more deeply about his soul’s growth over the years. In a key statement regarding his spiritual ecstasies during his period of time in New York City, Edwards makes a significant admission about the time in which the “Resolutions” were drafted. Listen carefully for the way Edwards acknowledges some imbalance in his spiritual life:

I sought an increase of grace and holiness, and that I might live an holy life, with vastly more earnestness, than ever I sought grace, before I had it. I used to be continually examining myself, and studying and contriving for likely ways and means, how I should live holily, with far greater diligence and earnestness, than ever I pursued anything in my life: but with too great a dependence on my own strength; which afterwards proved a great damage to me. My experience had not then taught me, as it has done since, my extreme feebleness and impotence, every manner of way; and the innumerable and bottomless depths of secret corruption and deceit, that there was in my heart. However, I went on with my eager pursuit after more holiness; and sweet conformity to Christ.14

In these crucial words, Edwards looks back fondly on the spiritual fervor that he had as a young man. He does not regret the resolutions, nor does he recant any of their lofty spiritual aims. As such, the “Resolutions” were well-founded.

“Growth, we might say, is better tracked over decades and years than weeks and days.”

At the same time, maturity as a husband, father, and pastor was just as necessary to his soul’s growth. He was enabled to see his own heart over a longer period of time than the “Resolutions” allowed him. He recognized that zealous resolve necessarily needs to be balanced by a relentless reliance on God’s ever-patient grace. That lesson would be learned over an extended trajectory of service, suffering, and daily reliance upon God’s goodness for us in Jesus Christ. Growth, we might say, is better tracked over decades and years than weeks and days.

He had learned experientially an incomparable lesson about sanctification: Jonathan Edwards needed more than his seventy resolutions for Christ. He needed Christ himself.

David cries out in Psalm 16:1, “Preserve me, O God.” Save me. Keep me. Hold on to me. Don’t let go of me. I wonder if you pray that way. If you don’t pray that way, you are not thinking clearly. We need God to keep us every day, all day. You cannot do this without him. You can’t remain a believer without God’s preserving grace. Keep me. Hold me. Preserve me. Now, what is he asking God to preserve him from? That’s going to come. We’ll see it in just a moment.

Psalm 16:2: “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” You are my Lord, and you are my good. That is, as my Lord you govern all the good that comes to me, and you are the good that comes to me. I have other lords, I have other authorities in my life that I have to come to terms with, but none of those lords, none of those authorities, comes close to your authority. You are my Lord. You are the authority over all other authorities. If there’s another authority, it gets its authority from you. You are my Lord.

And you are my good. I have other goods in my life. But if I taste none of God in any good that this world offers, it’s not good. It is not good if there’s none of you as the Good in it. “I have no good apart from you.” If I taste nothing of you in any good that this world offers, it is not good. You are my Lord, and you are my good.

Psalm 16:3: “As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” Lord, the reason I began with verse 2 by saying, “I have no good apart from you,” is so that when I say, “All my delight is in your holy people,” you would not think me an idolater. You alone are my greatest good, my greatest delight. And when I look around the world and see people who delight in you above all else, they are my delight because you are their delight. I’m not speaking double-talk between verses 2 and 3. I’m not contradicting myself. What delights me about your people is that you are their delight. You are my good, and I have no good apart from you. If there’s none of you in this people, I want nothing of this people.

Quest Over, Battle Begun

Psalm 16:4: “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.” What happens if we choose another god besides the true God — another ultimate good, another Lord, another delight, another treasure? What happens is multiplied sorrows. “The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply.” David has already found his good; he’s already found his delight; he’s already found his treasure. He’s not on a search anymore. Are you? David’s quest is over. Is yours? It’s over. I have found him. I have found my Good. I have found my Lord. I have found my delight. I have found my treasure. It’s over. I’m not running anymore after anything else. There’s nothing but trouble there. “I have no good apart from you.” The Lord is my good. I’m not shopping around. My quest is over.

So, he responds to temptation — and you will have it this afternoon and tomorrow; you will have the temptation, “Here’s another god; here’s another good; here’s another delight; here’s another treasure.” David’s response is, “I won’t even drink it. I won’t even take their name on my lips.” “Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out. I will not even take their names on my lips.” These alternative gods, these alternative delights, these alternative goods — I’m not going to touch them. I’m not even going to get close or talk about them. I have found the all-satisfying treasure. Why would I choose multiplied sorrows?

I think verse 4 is what David was asking to be preserved from in verse 1. When he said, “Preserve me, O God,” what’s he asking to be preserved from? And the answer is verse 4. “Preserve me, O God.” I take refuge in you. I’m flying to you as my good. I’m flying to you as my treasure. I’m flying to you as my delight. I am flying to you. Preserve me from being drawn away to these other gods. Preserve me from failing to be satisfied in you this morning.

“This is the battle of the Christian life: to have God as our good, to have God as our delight.”

I wonder if you pray like that. I wonder if you fight like that. That is just about all I do. This is the battle of the Christian life: to have God as our good, to have God as our delight, to have God as our treasure. And the world is saying, “No, I’m better!” So what else is there to do but fight? Verse 4 is what he’s pleading. “Preserve me, O God.” Don’t let me be drawn away to these other gods.

Psalm 90:14 is on my lips just about every morning. “Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love!” Is that your steady prayer? “Your steadfast love is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). Oh, don’t let me be more satisfied with anything else than with you. That’s the battle. Verse 1 cries out for preservation; verse 4 states the danger.

Our Lord and Lot

Psalm 16:5: “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.” I think verse 5 is virtually identical to verse 2, which says, “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’” I think “You hold my lot” (verse 5) corresponds to, “You are my Lord” (verse 2). And “The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup” (verse 5) corresponds to, “I have no good apart from you” (verse 2). Think about it for a moment and see if you agree that those are similar.

What does it mean that the Lord holds David’s lot? In the next verse, David refers to his “inheritance.” “I have a beautiful inheritance” (verse 6). Inheritances were often distributed by lot among family members and among tribes (Numbers 26:56; 33:54; 36:2; Joshua 14:2). It’s like drawing straws. And David says, “God holds my lot.” Jeremiah 13:25 says, “This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, declares the Lord.” We still have the phrase “my lot in life.” When you say that, you don’t mean, “I have an acre.” You mean your situation, your circumstance.

That’s what God holds. “You decide my fortune. You set my circumstances. You decide my place, my times, my inheritance. You govern my life.” Which is the same as saying in verse 2, “You are my Lord.” That’s what it means to be Lord of my life. You govern my life. You hold my lot. You allot my inheritance. I’m in your hands. And “[You are] my chosen portion and my cup”(verse 5) corresponds to “You are my good” (verse 2).

Then Psalm 16:6 simply spells out the nature of David’s “lot.” What is his lot? “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” The lines, the borders of my life that God has given me, are beautiful. My future with God, my inheritance, is a beautiful inheritance.

Now let’s step back from verses 1–6 and ask, What’s the main thing David is saying in these verses? I think the answer is, in the words of verse 2: you are my Lord, and you are my good. Or, in the words of verse 5: God holds my lot, and God is my lot. God decides my fortune, and God is my fortune. God allots my inheritance, and God is my inheritance. God governs my life. God is my life.

He says it in verses 2 and 3: he’s my Lord; he’s my good. Verses 5 and 6 state it another way: he is my lot; he holds my cup and my portion. And in the middle is this: Don’t go after another god! How could you choose another god? That’s the way these verses are structured. So, “preserve me, O God.” Please preserve me from that insane choice of going after other gods when he’s my Lord and my good. He’s my lot-holder and my lot itself. So preserve me, O God. You have shown so much of yourself to me, don’t let me become insane. Sin is insane, you know. That’s the point of verse 4. Multiplied sorrows — why would you go there? And people go there every day.

Counsel in the Night

When he turns now in Psalm 16:7 and says, “I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me,” I think he is saying, “God, by his counsel, is the one who has shown me all this about himself. I didn’t think this up. God has come to me by his counsel and made plain to me that he is my Lord, he is my good, he holds my lot, and he is my portion. God is the one who, night and day, has shown me these things.” I think that’s the point of verse 7. He’s the one who has shown me all this. And at night, as I am lying there, in my spirit, from deep inside of me, as if from my kidneys and my heart, there well up these truths: God holds my life. God is my life.

I wonder, Christian — child of God, son of God, daughter of God — what your heart says to you at night. And if you’re a child of God, one of the things that your heart says to you at three o’clock is, “God is my life. God holds my life.” I didn’t make my heart beat for the last three hours. You don’t make your heart beat. God does. He holds you in being. And if you have a mustard seed of faith at three o’clock in the morning, God gave it to you. God sustains you. God preserves you. That’s what the child of God says from his kidneys (kidneys is the Hebrew word behind heart) — meaning, it comes from deep inside of you. “God is my good. God is my life. God is my portion, God holds me in his hand while I’m sleeping.” That’s what the child of God says at night. And that’s from God. It is his counsel doing that. He does that for you.

And then he gives the positive counterpart to Psalm 16:1. In other words, verse 1 is the negative: “O God, don’t let anything take you away from me as my portion, my good, my lot, my beautiful inheritance. Don’t let anything replace you.” But the positive counterpart in Psalm 16:7 is, “Oh, I bless you that you are answering that prayer. Here I am at three o’clock, and I’m still a believer. I’m still loving you and trusting you and clinging to you with my fingernails. You have answered verse 1, and I’m blessing you that you’re still my God.” That’s what God makes known by his counsel.

Fullness of Joy, Forever

Now let’s jump out of order for a minute. While we’re on verse 7 (which is about God, by his counsel, informing David’s mind of these glorious things), let’s jump to the next verse about God “making known,” and that’s Psalm 16:11. Verse 11 continues the thought of what God makes known to David — that is, his “counsel.” And verse 11 is as good as it can get. “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

In verse 7, the Lord makes known by his counsel these things that we’ve been opening in verses 1–6. And in verse 11, that reaches its climax. This is as high as it gets, or as deep as it gets, or as wide as it gets. When you read Psalm 16:11, don’t you want to say, “Well, no wonder in Psalm 16:2 David says, ‘I have no good apart from you’? No wonder Psalm 16:3 says, ‘I delight in God’s people because they delight in you.’ No wonder in Psalm 16:5–6 he says, ‘God is my chosen portion and my cup.’” Where else could you find “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forevermore”?

“Nobody anywhere in the world can offer you anything better than Psalm 16:11.”

Is there anything fuller than full? No. Is anything longer than forever? No. This is no rocket science. This is just glory! Nobody anywhere in the world can offer you anything better than Psalm 16:11. Because nothing is even conceivably better than verse 11. Nothing is fuller than full or longer than forever. “Fullness” means completely satisfying. And “forevermore” means those pleasures never stop.

I remember when I was 9 years old. We had a spiral staircase that went up to our roof. And I would lie up there and look at the stars, and I would be scared of eternity because it seemed boring. It’s going to get old. It’s going to be boring. And then you grow up and you read verse 11, which says it’s not going to get boring. God is God!

When it says “pleasures forevermore,” it doesn’t mean they feel good for about a thousand years and then don’t feel good anymore. If you think that God is incapable of making you happy forever, you don’t know God. Infinite is infinite. He is infinitely full. That means there is no way to exhaust the kindness that he intends to show you. Verse 11 is as good as it gets. And that is part of the counsel that God has made known to David. “You make known to me the path of life.” God’s gift of life is the gift of himself. His presence, his right hand, his life — this is God. “At my right hand are pleasures forevermore” — joy that is full.

God Before and Beside

Now if that’s true, and it is, David does what any reasonable person would do. Psalm 16:8: “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken” — shaken from my delight in God, shaken from my faith, shaken from my cherishing God in all things.

“If you think that God is incapable of making you happy forever, you don’t know God.”

“Before” and “at [the] right hand.” What does that mean? God is non-spatial. He is spirit. He doesn’t have dimensions, so you can’t locate him in space. These are metaphors. So what are these metaphors trying to say? “Before” means he’s not behind, where I can’t see him. I keep him right out there as my good and my delight and my cup and my portion and my inheritance. That’s what he is all day long to me. Those other things aren’t my inheritance. You are. He is always visible, by his word, in your mind, preaching to you the reality of who God is. “At my right hand” means close. And it’s the right hand, not the left hand, which is the honored, close place. As you walk through the day, he’s before you. I see him. I’m keeping him conscious in my mind. And he’s honored and cherished and loved in the place of honor at my right hand.

That’s the way you go through your days. That’s the way you live the Christian life. You’re going to get up tomorrow morning, and you’re going to put him right there before you by his word. You’re going to reach out and take him and keep him right there in the treasured, cherished, honored position of your right hand, and you move through life. That’s the way you live if you know verse 11, if you know verses 1–6. And when you live like that, with God before you and at your right hand, it is the answer to the prayer, “Preserve me” (verse 1). If God starts to fade away and out there is a new car, or some relationship, or some treasure, something that is starting to be more precious to you than God, verse 1 is not being answered. The cry is, “Keep yourself ever before me, ever in view, ever cherished.”

Incorruptible Son

Now we come to Psalm 16:9. With this confidence that he’s never going to be shaken, he says, “Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” So in this life, there is gladness, and there is rejoicing that is very great at times, and that’s a foretaste of the everlasting pleasures of verse 11.

Right now in this life, your joy is seldom full. You need to learn how to live with this. You need to learn how to fight for this. We live in an embattled state. Your body is going to die if Jesus doesn’t come back first, and your faith is going to be embattled to the last day. Just before he died, Paul said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Right to the end, I don’t ever expect it to go away. I’m an old man, and I expect to fight on until I breathe no more. There will be no coasting. You coast, you die. So we will fight on. And yet, in this life, in verse 9, “My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure.” In other words, his confidence is building to the point where he says, “Not even death is going to interrupt my joy. My flesh will dwell secure.”

We want to say, “Come on, David, you’re not God. You will die. They will put you in a hole. You will rot. Your flesh will decay in the ground. What are you talking about?” Then David gives the jaw-dropping explanation in Psalm 16:10. Death is not going to have the last word here. “For you [O God] will not abandon my soul to Sheol [the place of the dead], or let your holy one see [not even see!] corruption.” But David, there’s a pit waiting for you. Every person who dies is thrown into this pit, and in that pit you decay. You see corruption.

And right at this point, the apostle Peter (in Acts 2) and the apostle Paul (in Acts 13) read verse 10, and they say, “This is the Messiah. This is Jesus Christ, whose flesh did not see corruption.” How did they see that? Listen to Peter in Acts 2:29–32. I’m going to take it in two stages. What Peter says is amazing. Because he doesn’t just say, “This is Jesus”; he says why he thinks this is Jesus. He has just quoted Psalm 16:8–10. Now he explains for the Jewish crowd whom he wants to persuade that Jesus is the Messiah:

Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne . . .

Stop there. What’s he saying? Why is he telling us this? What’s he referring to? How is this helping us grasp how he saw Jesus in verse 10? David knows something. What does he know? He knows God took an oath and swore something to him. He’s referring to 1 Chronicles 17:11–12, where God says to David, “When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, . . . and I will establish his throne forever.” David knows this. He knows he is not the Messiah. “I am David, and a son of David is coming. God told me this. And the difference between me and him is that he reigns forever. I don’t — I decay. He will not see corruption. He’s bigger, better, longer than I am.” So as David is writing Psalm 16:10, he’s conscious that all of his glorious experience of God is a prefiguration. He’s a forerunner who is pointing to the one who is going to be so much more. He’s aware of this, and as he writes he is being caught up into tremendous confidence.

It’s the Advent season. It’s Christmas. And you know the beautiful Christmas words of Gabriel to Mary: “[This child] will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32–33). David knew this about his son. He didn’t know when; he didn’t know who; he didn’t know how. He just knew, “He’s coming, and he’s going to be infinitely greater than I am. And if I am to be rescued from death” — which verse 11 certainly signifies (my pleasures at God’s right hand are forever; death will not end my relationship with God) — “what could be greater?” What could be greater is he never even sees corruption.

That’s the second half of Psalm 16:10. And that’s what Peter and Paul saw. They saw David on the wings of the Spirit of prophecy reach the apex of his own hope and go beyond it. And they said, “That’s the Messiah.” And so, Peter finishes his explanation of Psalm 16:10 (in Acts 2:31–32), “[David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.” David spoke about the Messiah when he said, “He won’t even see corruption.” Peter keeps going: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.”

So, Peter is not just saying, “It’s Jesus.” He’s explaining how he drew down that conviction from what he knows that David knows about the son of David from the promise God had made to him. David, like all true prophets, is being carried along by the Holy Spirit. His spirit is rising with the joyful confidence that God will preserve him. God is his Lord. God is his delight. God is his portion and his inheritance. God will give him pleasures forever. And death itself will not be the last word. God will not abandon him to Sheol. At this point, the Spirit of prophecy takes over and says, “And your son is going to be greater than all that. He will not even see corruption.”

Put Christ Before You

So dear South Cities Church, how are you going to embrace the reality of Psalm 16 in view of verse 10? This is my closing counsel to you and my prayer for you as an eleven-day-old church. Let me put it negatively. If David is wrong in verse 10, and he’s not a prefiguration, a forerunner, of a Son of David who would rise from the dead, then you can kiss Psalm 16 goodbye. You can close your Bibles and kiss everything I’ve said goodbye. Because every blessing — God my good, God my Lord, God my delight, God my portion, God my cup, God my inheritance, God my fullness of joy, God my pleasures forevermore — is promised to sinners. David was a sinner — an adulterer, a murderer. So how in the world can he claim these for himself? How can we?

And the answer is that this Son of David purchased them. He died for the sins of Old Testament saints and the sins of New Testaments saints (Romans 3:25–26). David’s sins are covered by the blood of Jesus. My sins and your sins are covered by the blood of Jesus if we trust in him. Therefore, there’s forgiveness in the blood, and there’s a future in the resurrection. And therefore, Psalm 16 is yours because of Christ. Verse 10 is true. He did die; he did rise; his flesh did not see corruption. And therefore, you can bank on these promises.

So what should you do? You should set him always before you. You should keep him at your right hand. And if you do, and if your good pastors do, and if your council of elders does — if they and you keep God in Christ clearly before them as their treasure and good and Lord and cup and inheritance and portion, and God cherished and loved and honored at their right hand, this church will not be moved away from Christ, away from salvation, away from the Bible. It will be strong until he comes.