Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will behold your face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness. I. THE STATE TO WHICH BY IMPLICATION DAVID INTIMATES THAT HE SHOULD BE REDUCED. "When I awake." From what? Sleep; but not nightly sleep, rather the sleep of death. In assimilating death to sleep David gives utterance to no fiction. In many respects they differ; yet sleep is an impressive picture of death. David does not mean to assert, that when the body sleeps in death the soul sleeps also. The soul is not inactive in ordinary bodily sleep. The death of the body is no more the death than it is the sleep of the soul, but simply a giving up the ghost, — a passing of the soul from a relationship that is seen to a relationship that is unseen. The analogy of death and sleep holds equally in the ease of good and of bad men. II. THE CHANGE WHICH DAVID AFFIRMS THAT HE SHOULD UNDERGO. He says that from the sleep of death he should awake. When, he did not know, but of the certainty of his awaking, of the nature of his appearance, and of the recognisableness of his personality when awakened he does speak. In the creed of David the awakening of his body from the sleep of death — its living reunion with his soul, was a fact — not a matter of doubt, but a matter of certainty. To this doctrine many cannot subscribe. But because it is beyond the reach of the power that is finite, does this prove that it is beyond the reach of that power that is infinite? Consider the nature of his appearance when awakened. "With Thy likeness." The likeness of Christ's resurrection body. III. THE FELICITY OF WHICH DAVID DECLARES THAT HE SHOULD PARTICIPATE. "I shall be satisfied." It was not with David a problematical thing, but a thing of which he was sure. The felicity of the glorified consists in their seeing and resembling Him in whose likeness they shall awake. (A. Jack, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. |
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