Psalm 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Goodness. What is the goodness of God? Strongs Concordance describes this word towb as simply “beautiful”. It is a characteristic that is marked by pleasantness, agreeableness, and good. Thomas Manton describes it in this way, “He is originally good, good of himself, when nothing else is; for all creatures are good only by participation and communication from God. He is essentially good; not only good, but goodness itself: the creature’s good is a superadded quality, in God it is His essence. He is infinitely good; the creature’s good is but a drop, but in God there is an infinite ocean or gathering together of good. He is eternally and immutably good, for He cannot be less good than He is; as there can be no addition made to Him, so no subtraction from Him.” (1)
God’s goodness is His perfection and this is expressed toward David. David recognizes and has experienced God’s sheer love and devotion to David despite all of David’s vices and weaknesses. God’s mercy was that He did not render to David what David actually deserved. God withheld from David the punishment due him because of David’s sin. Though David did experience consequences at times for his actions, such as losing his firstborn son. David remained the apple of God’s eye and was always preserved by God in love. The fact that God’s mercy shall follow David is an amazing truth that David understood through experience and faith. It is in Psalm 27:4 that David initially asked of the Lord this, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.” I would think Psalm 23 may have been written long after Psalm 27 chronologically speaking. In Psalm 27 we find what appears to be a conversation between David and God and David is asking God to dwell in His house forever. David has already experienced the love and provision of God in the past. He is remembering God’s grace in the past, is petitioning God’s grace in the present, and in Psalm 23 is looking back upon God’s former provision and faithfulness as a guide to stand firm in the future. David’s confidence in God in Psalm 23 is so strong that he can without waiver say, surely goodness and mercy shall without a doubt follow me all the days of my life. David longed for the presence of God. So much so that I think of the words of JD Greear when he said, “The splendor of His kingdom has made me bored with mine.” (2) David had experienced all the world had to offer and was simply bored of it. He wanted God! He wanted to be with God where God was and is. How about you? Do you want to be with God and where He is? Do you long to dwell in His presence and marvel at His beauty? Or are you still chasing after the shining objects of this fading world? Are you still so aimed at making disciples of all the nations that you have forgotten the pleasantness of being in His presence?
Back to this confidence factor and how it applies not just to believers living then but also to believers living now. The scripture is clear that believers are to have confidence in Him who loved them before the world began (1 John 5:5, 10-14) . It is Him, who loved them to the very end (John 13:1) . It is Him who loved them to the cross and gave Himself for them (Galatians 2:20; Romans 5:8) . What kind of love is this that the Father has given to believers through Jesus Christ (1 John 3:1) ?
Make it more personal now. When our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts (1 John 3:20) . Even better is this, “Beloved if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.”- 1 John 3:21 This is the confidence that David had before God. He could say, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”. But how do we know that this is also for us? We continue reading in 1 John, “And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”(3:24) God has given us His Spirit. His Spirit never leaves us nor forsakes us. His Spirit is with us, in us, and working for us. His goodness and mercy shall follow us, because He is with us, all the days of our life. David now says, “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” David does not say, “If I am lucky I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever”. David knows that this is fact not because it has already happened but because of Him who promised it. God is faithful and will carry this promise to completion.
Remember, this becomes even greater for us because our life consists not just in heaven someday in the future, but of new life now through His Spirit. Eternal life is to know Jesus now! “We have passed from death to life” (John 5:24,25) . We live now and will also live forever. Life does not end on the day our body is laid to rest in an earthly grave or cemetery . Our life continues on into fullness of the age to come. So when David says, “all the days of my life,” the truth is contained in this-that God’s goodness and mercy shall follow David and all who believe in Jesus forever. On this side of the grave as well as on the other side of the grave. Shall His goodness and mercy toward believers ever cease? No. Although Satan would try to trick us into thinking that His goodness and mercy shall cease. Satan is a deceiver and cannot be trusted. God’s unfailing promise can always be trusted as God is faithful.
All the days of His life and dwelling in the house of the Lord forever-in one sense, are synonymous. David is living forever and God is with David. One day David will be in God’s full presence and living with God forever. David is not speaking of a literal house per se, but more specifically to the immediate and continual presence of God.
Jesus came in the flesh (John 1:14) from heaven and dwelt in a body. Jesus tabernacled with His people in a human body. Scripture often speaks of the human body as a house. The apostle Paul referred to our earthly bodies as tents (2 Corinthians 5:1-6). Jesus has since ascended to glory and has promised to build believers a mansion (John 14) and to return to receive us unto Himself that where He is we shall be also. Jesus reiterates David’s confession that he shall “dwell in the house of the Lord forever”! But even more glorious is the fact that Jesus Himself is the builder of the actual house! (Hebrews 3)
The enemies of David also followed Him all the days of his life. But God’s goodness and mercy were more powerful and more sustaining than the empty and temporal threats of the world, the flesh, and the devil. All Satan could do was-at best-kill the body. But God would preserve the soul and at the final resurrection restore the body glorified and even better! Every believer should be comforted in this great hope. Hope does not disappoint! If God be for us who can be against us?
©️2020 Wisdom Walk
Tim Carroll
(1) Pink, AW, The Attributes of God (quoting Thomas Manton, pg. 73) ©️1975 Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, MI
(2) Greear, JD, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary, 2011, B&H Publishing Group, Nashville, TN
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