Psalm 116:8, 9 For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living.
Psalm 116 is another psalm quoted in the New Testament as having a distinctively Messianic meaning. Peter refers it to the resurrection. The psalmist begins his psalm with an expression of devotion and commitment to the Lord because he has heard him. He explains how the cords of death had entangled him and he was overcome by trouble and sorrow. However, when he called on the Lord, he knew his grace and compassion. When I was in great need he says he saved me. That leads to verse 7 and his Be at rest, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. And why should his souls be at rest? He says it is because that the Lord has done three things for him. He has delivered his soul from death, his eyes from tears, his feet from stumbling. God has done this with the purpose of his walking before the LORD in the land of the living. The rest of the psalm considers the proper reaction to all this and expresses a determination to serve the Lord. Christ knew what it was to be entangled in the cords of death and to be delivered from death and so does every true believer. It is by the grace of God that our souls are delivered from death, our eyes dried and our lives transformed. Of course, there is a sense in which the work is not yet complete but already we know it in part. We are able to walk before the Lord - and that is how we must walk - in the land of the living. It is the resurrection life we must live.
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