God’s Word for You

Psalm 53:4-5 The descent into hell

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, December 23, 2022

4 Don’t they know, those who do evil—
  those who consume my people as men eat bread
  and who do not call on God?

In these verses we do not have the complete sins of the whole world on display, but only the sins of the enemies of God; the enemies of his people. These are the ones who constantly do evil, since an unbeliever can do nothing at all that pleases God, and even his most righteous-seeming actions are sins before the Almighty. Jesus said: “I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. But apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Therefore it is the motive, the attitude of the heart, that determines the value of anything someone does. Those who believe in Christ are living and working out of faith, and except in those cases when they stumble into sin to please the flesh (Romans 7:14-23), they live according to God’s will and grace. So even though a Christian is a sinner, he trusts in the promise: “The one who trusts in him (in Christ) will never be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6).

But the wicked constantly oppose God in their hearts. If this is the case for those who know God, know his word and works, but reject Christ, how much more isn’t it true of those who reject his word and works and openly oppose God and his people! For if we imagine a group of pious-seeming people who even worship together, but turn their hearts away from Christ, then “they are concerned about living according to the law and the will of God, but as long as a person is not reborn, but lives according to the law, and does its works merely because they are commanded, either from fear of punishment or in hope of reward, he is still under the law. St. Paul calls the works of such a man ‘works of the law’ (Romans 2:15, 3:20; Galatians 2:16, 3:2,10) in the strict sense, because his good works are extorted by the law. Such people are ‘saints’ after the order of Cain, that is, hypocrites” (Formula of Concord).

So David asks: “Don’t they know God?” God’s enemies are not always ignorant of his word. Sometimes they have been deceived into thinking that because of some disappointment, some challenge or test that they failed on account of impatience, that God has failed them, and they become pathetic in their animosity. They are heretics, pulling verses here and there from their memory of Scripture but out of context, to prove useless points. They are snarling dogs gnawing upon old bones. They should know better; they could at any moment turn back in repentance, but meanwhile they bite and chew at the lives of God’s people “as men eat bread.” This either means that their regular attacks on God’s people draws some of the faithful away to become part of the heretical group (the way bread becomes part of the man who eats it), or else that this attack on the faithful is the one thing that they do every day with perfect regularity. For people, as Augustine says, eat other foods in turns (that is, not every day), but bread they eat every day. “All your enemies open their mouths against you,” says Jeremiah, “they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, ‘We have swallowed her up!’” (Lamentations 2:16). And again he says, “They have devoured Jacob” (Jeremiah 10:25), and “From our youth, shameful false gods have consumed the fruits of our fathers’ labor—their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters” (Jeremiah 3:23).

5 There they were, terrified
  where there was nothing to fear.
  God has scattered the bones of those who besieged you;
  you put them to shame, for God despised them.

With apologies, I must explain that the first sentence of this verse is a difficult poetic thought to express. Either the trembling, terrified wicked ones “used to fear nothing,” or else they are terrified now “where there was nothing to fear.” The second possibility seems more likely and is much easier to justify with the grammar of the verse. This would mean that they are frightened while still living; repentance and trust in Christ would save them. In Christ there is nothing at all to fear, but they are stubborn and, as the Psalm said to begin with, they are fools. The confession of their lips is, “There is no God,” but the terror in their hearts, the last desperate shriek of their conscience, is, “But what if there is!?”

Next David turns back to us, his believing readers and listeners, to comfort us all: “Don’t be afraid. God has destroyed them. They put you to shame, but God has put them to shame. They despised him, and he has despised them.”

Verse 5, then, belongs with our understanding of Christ’s descent into hell. He went there and “preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago” (1 Peter 3:19), and “having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15). What the Lord says to the enemy nations he says equally to the enemies condemned forever in hell:

“You backsliding daughter! You trusted in your treasures, saying, ‘Who will come against me?’ Now I will bring terror upon you, says the LORD God of Armies, terror from every side. All of you will be driven completely out, and there will be no one to gather together the fugitives” (Jeremiah 49:4-5).

And again: “Declare among the nations and proclaim, set up a standard; proclaim, and do not hide: say, “Babylon has been taken, Bel is disappointed, Marduk is dismayed! Her idols are disappointed. Her dung-ball deities are dismayed” (Jeremiah 50:2).

And yet again: “Let no one escape. Pay her back for her deeds, do to her what she has done, for she has defied the LORD, the Holy One of Israel” (Jeremiah 50:29).

For what Christ said about the strong man’s house, he said about gathering his own dear ones from Satan’s grasp: “How can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house” (Mathew 12:29). By chaining up Satan, Christ has limited Satan’s power, and faith has been able to work in men’s hearts. But there in hell, at the time of the descent of Christ early on Easter Sunday morning, it was the time for judgment on the prince of the world (John 12:31). The victory of the cross was proclaimed, to the shame and horror of all of those in the prison of hell.

This was the work of your victorious King, O Christian. Praise his holy name, and put your faith in him. His victory means your own resurrection and everlasting life.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive