Psalms 139:15–16

In the third part of the psalm there is a change. A tender thankfulness comes in. He thinks of how, in his mother's womb, this same all-knowing God had been at work, building the marvellous structure of the future man in mysterious secrecy. God's thoughts toward him now become precious to him. And now it is only happiness that the unsleeping Eye is on him, sleeping or waking.

Knowing that God knows everything, and that He is everywhere, cannot make a believer feel at home with Him. Just the opposite. God's eye on him is no comfort. He cannot escape from under that eye, wherever he goes… In verse 13, however, he strikes a different note. The first thing that brings him relief is remembering that God thought of him when he was in his mother's womb.

Scripture uses this verb in a striking passage in this wonderful psalm, the 139th, which traces God's thought and care of man from his beginnings in the womb: "My substance was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought" — that is, embroidered — "in the lowest parts of the earth." And indeed, nothing pictures the fine interweaving of nerves, veins and arteries so well as a marvellous embroidery. This is true of all men. Can God then be lacking in consideration and tenderness for a being on whom He has bestowed such wonderful care?

He goes on to speak of these marvels: the bony framework that holds up the flesh, and the delicate embroidery of vessels and nerves branching through it. God worked all of this in secret, in "underparts of earth." Surely that does not mean the ground, which would hardly have been true of Adam. It means that human substance which is only animated dust.

Certainly one's frame was not hidden from God. His Creator had acted in secret with marvellous skill "in the lowest parts of the earth" (v. 15). This may be a reference to Adam's being formed from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7).

What mysteries are wrapped up in the development of the unborn child! Every part unfinished, but not flawed — mysteries of nature, body, mind, soul and spirit; mysteries known to God alone. God knew every part before it existed. He had written it in His book. Before it really existed, while it was being formed, God's eye rested upon it. How blessed for the Christian to realise that God was interested in him before he had any being.

But He has taken our inmost being as His own. He has made us for Himself. We are His, we belong to Him… Astronomers point their telescopes at the heavens to see the marvellous works of God, while the most marvellous works of all are there in the astronomer himself. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. But do our souls know this well?

How can a saint come to feel at home in God's presence? Knowing that God knows everything, and is everywhere, cannot do it. Rather the opposite. God's eye on him is no comfort. Wherever he goes, he cannot escape that eye. What then can bring relief? God's thoughts, as He has revealed them, can do it. The Psalmist's own thoughts about God have not done it… In verse 13 he strikes a different note, and the first thing that brings relief is the memory that God thought of him while he was in his mother's womb. That memory has completely changed his tone. "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well" (14). He has turned right away from thinking about himself, and is now taken up with God.

And the Lord knew perfectly the substance of every individual long before this formation took place. He did not have to experiment to find what might work. Instead, everything about that person stood written in His book — figuratively speaking, of course — long before he existed. How little indeed can we understand such wisdom!

We are the work of His hands. Here it is man as man, so that the earth out of which he was fashioned at first is as the womb out of which we were born. God has formed us, be it in the womb of dust or of our mother, the place where we were nothing before we were.

God knew every part of the body before it existed. He had written it in His book. And while that part was still forming, before it truly existed, His eye rested on it. What a blessing for a Christian to realise that God took an interest in him before he existed at all! And to realise, as Paul did, that God's eye was on him from his mother's womb (Galatians 1:15). There has never been a moment in our lives — and there never will be, for all eternity — when God was not interested in us. He watches over us and cares for us with an infinite and eternal love.

People have often put forward another passage in Psalm 139 as proof that it gives us a plain revelation about the Church of God… Leave out the words printed in italics, and read these verses together. You will see that the subject is the creation of the natural body. Yet with the knowledge we now have, we can easily see that it may also have a figurative application.

If the Psalmist (Psalm 139:13-16) was troubled that God's all-seeing eye was always on him, he had only to look back. That same eye watched over him before he was born, while his finely woven body was slowly forming. How could he do anything but welcome the eye of such a One to search him through and through?

Behind this lies the old error that my value depends on what others think of me… We do not become valuable by what we do — not even by marrying. We are valuable because God has created us, and we are precious in His eyes (see Psalm 139:12-16).