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But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.
For you bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover him with favor as with a shield. Psalm 5:11–12 ESV
Some would say that the Old Testament lacks instances of justification by faith, but I’m not so sure that’s the case. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and if His plan was to see the righteous live by faith, and to be justified by their trust in God, we should see the idea in writings before the time of the incarnation.
In fact, that is what we see. One such point is something I recently came across in my morning Bible reading. In Psalm 5, we see the above couplet where the psalmist prays that God wouldcause rejoicing to come to all people who take refuge in Him. For our purposes, the reasoning the psalmist uses is important. He says that it is because (for) God blesses, not just those who take refuge in God, but the righteous.
There are two implications here for the Christian life: 1) putting your trust in God is righteousness. It is the fact that we put our ultimate value and trust in God that centrally makes the believer righteous. While this will result in right action (as if we trust God, we will trust what he says, and see his commands as good), it is not primarily the action that makes one righteous, but the ground for the action, namely a trust in God. 2) by the implication that the Psalmist to give joy to those he has implicitly defined as righteous, we can learn that faith is not in itself joy. Indeed, it can and should ground joy, but the fact that you aren’t “feeling” something every moment of every day is not in itself a sign that you are lacking faith or that you are outside the will of God. Since we are sinful people, our feelings do not always function properly, and sometimes we need to face periods of feeling empty through our faith. The proper response to a lack of joy in our lives is not primarily to seek the joy itself, but instead to seek God for the joy that He gives. Even more to the point, our failure to feel joy all the time is not a point at which we should say “well, I guess this taking refuge in the Lord thing isn’t working”, but instead an opportunity to drive deeper into refuge in God, because that is where joy is to be found, even if you don’t actively find it every moment.
Keep seeking your refuge in the Lord, and I will pray with the psalmist that God would grant joy to you and all who are righteous because they take refuge in the Lord.