What does it mean that God is the Rock of salvation?

"He shall call unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation" (Ps 89:26)

Rock of salvation. A completely solid and unshakeable basis for salvation. Whatever aspect of salvation we think of, God is the rock of salvation. Of course, salvation in scripture doesn't just refer to being saved from sins and their penalty, but perhaps we would think primarily of this aspect. As we know, there are some who would teach that we can be saved today and lost tomorrow. The salvation they teach is not based on a rock. With God's salvation we have absolute certainty- He is the rock of salvation.

The rock was the only safe place for Moses, for otherwise he would have been consumed by the glory of God. There is some important teaching in Scripture about God as the Rock. In Deuteronomy 32 Moses repeatedly spoke about God as the Rock of His people: He was the Rock of their salvation, the Rock who begot them and who fathered them (vv. 4, 15, 18, 30, 31). This picture is also often used in the Psalms. God was the Rock in whom David trusted, and whom he blessed as the God of his salvation (Ps. 18:2, 31, 46). In Him he found a safe place in times of trouble: “In the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me: He shall set me up upon a rock” (Ps. 27:5). Psalms 31 (vv. 2-3), 40 (v. 2), and 61 (vv. 2-4) also speak about this place of shelter on the rock.

A rocky area providing shelter and security. The Lord is a rock, the Lord is security, the Lord provides protection. With storms and problems and difficulties around- not just in our relationship with the world, but also tragically in our relationship with other believers sometimes, the Lord can protect physically, emotionally and mentally if we hide in Him.

Here we have Him as the Unchanging One (Heb. 13:8), the perfectly Invincible Deliverer (Isa. 50:7-8; 1 Peter 1:5); and that Rock, in the cleft of which every believer has found, finds, and will find a safe and abiding shelter. "Rock of ages cleft for me, Grace hath hid me safe in Thee."

We are all familiar with the hymn, "Rock of ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee." Christ is the Rock of Ages, He is the only Rock of refuge for a sin-laden soul. But the rock is also often spoken of in the Bible as a place of refuge, shelter and protection from the attack of the enemy. "In Thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in Thy righteousness. Bow down Thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be Thou my strong rock for a house of defense to save me. For Thou art the rock of my fortress" (Ps. 31:1-3; see also Ps. 18:2; 27:5-6).

Appropriately David begins his song with a number of the wonderful aspects of God's nature and character. Jehovah is his rock, the symbol of unchanging stability. 1 Corinthians 10:4 tells us "That Rock was Christ, for He is God over all, blessed forever." "My fortress" speaks of the place of impregnable defense. David, in his time of exile, learned how valuable a fortress was. Added to this is "my deliverer." When endangered on more than one occasion, when it seemed the enemy was on the verge of capturing or killing him, God intervened to deliver him from harm. He was also "the God of my strength." At times when weakness became overpowering, it was God who renewed his strength. If we are to prove this in experience we must learn to "wait upon the Lord" (Isa.40:31), and the renewal of strength will appear to be virtually miraculous. "My shield" speaks of God's protection when face to face with the enemy, while "the horn of my salvation" speaks of the power of God in saving him from enemies and from adversity.

This is another remarkable Psalm. Though David wrote it not everything could be his experience. He was a prophet (Acts 2:30) and prophesied; much in this Psalm is prophecy describing the deliverance of Christ from the jaws of death and the glory God has given Him, and this deliverance and glory also concerns the remnant of His earthly people in "that day." The Psalm begins with an outburst of praise and it ends with His praise among the nations. Hebrew authorities tell us that the proper translation of "The LORD is my Rock" is "Jehovah, my cleft of the rock." It is Christ the rock, cleft for us, in whom the believer has found His refuge. And He Himself was saved from His enemies and in Him His people are saved and will be saved from their enemies (verse 3). It is His own death experience which is described in verses 4-6. "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of Belial (marginal reading) made me afraid." Then in His distress He called and cried unto God and was heard.

The God of true Christian worship is the God who has reconciled His people to Himself (2 Cor. 5:18; John 4:23-24). "The will of God," which made Saul of Tarsus an apostle of His Son, had first been fully wrought through the obedience of Jesus, for the perfecting of all who should believe on Him (Heb. 10). The Father's glory thus becomes the rock of sure salvation to all who look upon its brightness in the face of Jesus Christ. His love reveals itself in Him whom He gave up so freely for our sakes. And it is that they may know that love in the new and holy intimacy of filial communion, that the Spirit has been given to believers as the Spirit of adoption. Their worship, their service, their conversation in the present world, are all viewed in. Scripture as the fruit of that new life which has been given them in Christ, and by means of which they know that they are no longer of the world, but of the Father. It is in the recognition of this their new and holy standing, that the Comforter here greets the saints at Ephesus with peace and favour, in the joint names of the Father and the Son.

To the well-taught Christian, the doctrine of Divine election is as simple as it is necessary. For the moment sin is scripturally understood, the grace which meets it is perceived to be an active decision of the will of God. The love which is God's true nature, is free and sovereign in its operation; and to the believer all things are of God. He calls, He begets, He creates anew, He saves, He opens the blind eyes, and pours on them at will the light of life. It is He who causes that which once was loved to be abhorred, and the Name which once had no real value in our eyes to become the Rock of our salvation, the sole confidence and joy of our hearts. It is God who justifies the sinner by His grace, and who makes him know that he is passed from death to life. Instead, therefore, of finding difficulty in the scriptural assurance, that they were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, those who through grace are simple in the faith find nothing but an increase of their joy. They are well assured that the God with whom they have to do is the Eternal God. That His counsels, therefore, should precede His works, is no strange thought to them. A little reflection is sufficient to establish in the hearts of such the sweet conviction, that long before God suffered them to reach their natural birth of sorrow, He had known them, and provided for them in His purpose of redeeming love. For it is in Christ that God thinks upon His people; and Christ is God's eternal Son. His choice was there. Foreseeing the long drama of sublunary and sinful human life, He devised beforehand the sure means of setting His elect before His face for ever in holiness and peace, when a guilty and unbelieving world should find itself excluded from His presence by the righteous judgment of that truth which it despised.*

It is the perfect, natural fitness of Jesus to receive the consecration of eternal priesthood that is exemplified in the present aspect of His suffering obedience unto death. In the resurrection He stands clothed with majesty and honour as the alone Dispenser of the grace of God. To them that obey Him- He is the author of eternal salvation. No other name is given under heaven among men whereby men may be saved. The obedience demanded is the obedience of faith. He is a High Priest of salvation to all who now believe (verse 9). The doctrine of these verses is as precious as it is wonderful. For it connects every action of that priestly grace, which is the daily refuge of the tried believer, with the tears of the suffering Son of God. But those tears had never flowed but for their sakes for whom He came to die. He might have prayed for present rescue from the dread which threatened Him, and more than twelve legions of angels would have been the Father's answer to His cry. But the heart of Jesus was in the work He came to do. He knew the prize of His obedience unto death to be the eternal deliverance of His own. And if He loved thus strongly, while the value of His love was yet so little known that all forsook Him in His day of shame, His love is surely none the less for those who now by grace cleave to Him as the Rock of their salvation, and their Hope. The brightness of His glory, as the crowned High Priest, is the perpetual memorial to all who now obey Him, of the victorious energy of that enduring love which made the sinner's Friend a stranger to the face of God. Glory now shines, in majesty and perfect strength, from the once-marred visage of the Lamb. The glory of God shines there. The Father shines approvingly upon His children through the everlasting Priest of their profession. God has greeted (verse 10) Jesus in the heavenly places of His glory with the perfection both of royal and priestly honour. And because of His perfection His believing people joy in God by Him. They learn the manner of the God with whom they have to do through the lips of Jesus, who declares to them the Father's name (Rom. 5:11; 1 John 3:1-3).