With the gracious thou dost shew thyself gracious; With the upright man thou dost shew thyself upright;
David's closing song moves from God's rescue of him to a wider rule: people meet in God the character they bring to Him. Commentators ask how that fits with grace, and whether any man could ever claim such words honestly.
Verse 26 sets out how God rules the earth, not how a sinner is saved:
Verses 25 and 26 clearly set out the principles of God's earthly government. In the government of God we reap what we sow. We find mercy if we show mercy; and we will be righteously rewarded if we act righteously. This shows that the blessings of the psalm are not the answer to atonement, but the reward of piety.
The word translated "merciful" is hard to carry into English. The same word has to fit both God and man.
"Merciful" is not an adequate rendering for chasid, and we do not seem able to give the opposite in English. "Pious" cannot be applied to God, and "holy" is not the force of it when applied to Him. The term has to suit both God and man here. It should express the affectionate sense of relationship — man's towards God, and His towards man.
God Himself never changes. What changes is the state of the people He meets:
The power which guided the apostle was the Spirit of the unchanging God. So the way He showed Himself always matched the state of the people He came among. To the meek He would show meekness, but would wrestle with the perverse. Love is His nature, and mercy His delight; but He is the angry resister of the proud. He is the trier of His people's hearts and ways; and as they regard Him, so they will find Him.
A believer's standing does not rise and fall with his behaviour — but his experience of God's favour does:
It is very necessary to keep in mind this distinction between grace and government. It is blessedly true that God's attitude of grace towards His people never changes. What Christ is before Him settles that. Yet He never fails to discipline those of His people whose walk and conduct bring dishonour on His name. He marks them with His displeasure. So the condition for enjoying what He is in grace, for the showing of His favour, is a walk in His presence.
Read as David's own testimony, the surrounding verses do not fit the man who wrote them:
The reason for David's deliverance is that God takes pleasure in His anointed according to all the perfection of his character. Now, even before David's fall, David's character did not exactly match these verses. After that fall it matched them even less… David is celebrating the perfection of Someone other than himself: "The LORD has recompensed Me according to My righteousness, according to My cleanness in His sight." Christ alone could give His Father a reason for loving Him and for saving Him — but His salvation has become His people's salvation.
God's justice works in both directions, and it reaches those joined to Christ:
Verses 26 and 27 show the absolute justice of God's ways. He has justly rewarded the Lord Jesus, who Himself has been merciful and gracious, upright and pure. God has shown Himself the same towards His Son. But if someone shows himself perverse, God will show Himself "contrary," and repay him in just judgment. "You will save the humble people." Here the Lord Jesus speaks not only of Himself. He also speaks of others, who become identified with Him through His death and resurrection.
Solomon's later years show this side of the rule, along with its remedy:
"The LORD stirred up an adversary against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite." God also "stirred up another adversary, Rezon the son of Eliada." "With the pure You will show Yourself pure, but with the perverse You will wrestle." It is a solemn thing when God has to contend with any of us, but "if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged."
- Mirror. God meets each person with the character that person brings. He shows mercy to the merciful, and resists the proud.
- Warmth. The word behind "merciful" means an affectionate bond. It runs both ways: man towards God, and God towards man.
- Government, not salvation. These blessings are the reward of piety, not the answer to atonement. Standing rests on Christ. Enjoying God's favour follows a walk in His presence.
- Christ. David's words outrun David's life. Christ alone could give the Father a reason to love and save Him — and His salvation became His people's.
- Self-judgment. God wrestles with the perverse. If we judge ourselves now, we will not be judged.
With the pure thou dost shew thyself pure; And with the perverse thou dost shew thyself contrary.
David's song near the end of 2 Samuel looks back on a lifetime of rescue, then turns to how God meets each kind of person. The line sounds as if He changes to match the person in front of Him — so is His dealing random, and where does grace fit?
These lines state a principle of how God runs the world. One writer, commenting on them as they stand in Psalm 18, keeps that principle apart from the question of forgiveness:
The principles of God's earthly government are clearly set out in verses 25 and 26. In the government of God we reap what we sow. We find mercy if we show mercy, and we will be righteously rewarded if we act righteously. This shows that the blessings of the psalm are not the answer to atonement, but the reward of godliness.
God is not moody. He responds to what a person really is:
Now the character of God is put side by side with this. He deals with men according to what He sees them to be. The disposition they show toward Him, He shows in the same way toward them. The attitude they take up, He takes up. Of course, His grace still begs them to change what is estranged and hostile, and to be reconciled to Him.
In Hebrew the two halves of the line do not repeat the same word. The second word does not mean God turns devious. It points to a wrestler. (The quotation follows an older translation, which renders both words "froward.")
God must sanctify Himself in relation to us by showing Himself in opposition. And here we must mark a distinction, for the Hebrew words for "froward" are different. The first means perverse, crafty, false, and "is said only of the mind falling away from what is right." The second speaks of the wrestling of one opposed, who strives until he overcomes.
One writer ties this line to self-judgment:
"With the pure You will show Yourself pure, but with the crooked You will wrestle" (Psalm 18:26, margin). It is a solemn thing when God has to enter into a dispute with any of us. But "if we judged ourselves truly we would not be judged" (1 Corinthians 11:31).
One writer holds two things apart: what God is toward His people in grace, and how He governs their walk:
It is very necessary to keep in mind this distinction between grace and government. God's attitude of grace toward His people never changes, and that is a blessing. It is settled by what Christ is before Him. Yet He still never fails to chasten those among them whose walk and conduct bring dishonour on His name, and to mark them with His displeasure. The condition for enjoying what He is in grace, for the display of His favour, is a walk in His presence.
One writer hears the song as the voice of Christ, and this verse as God's just answer to Him:
Verses 26 and 27 show the absolute justice of God's ways. He has justly rewarded the Lord Jesus, who Himself has been merciful and gracious, upright and pure. God has shown Himself the same toward His Son. On the other hand, if someone shows himself perverse, then God will show Himself "contrary" (J.N.D. translation), repaying the perverter in just judgment.
If God answers each person in kind, none of us can ask for strict justice. The honest response is to ask for mercy, not to claim a clean record:
Look back over your own history, whether as a saint or as a sinner. Think of the governmental consequences of everything you have said and done. Now which of us can say, "I have no need of governmental mercy"?
- Government — The verse shows how God rules life on earth: we reap what we sow. The blessing here is the reward of godliness, not the fruit of atonement.
- Mirror — God is not changeable. He takes up the attitude a person takes up toward Him, while His grace still pleads with that person to change.
- Wrestle — Two different Hebrew words stand here. The man's word means perverse and crafty. God's word means an opponent who strives until He overcomes.
- Untouched — His grace toward His people never shifts, because it rests on what Christ is before Him. What shifts is His pleasure in our walk.
- Mercy — Only Christ could claim this reward on the ground of pure hands. The rest of us ask for mercy under the same government.