When the psalmist wrote our psalm for this morning, He was speaking of Christ. He was describing the holy, perfect, and pure Son of God who would take on human flesh and fulfill the Law for us. And the fantastic thing about this psalm is the ironic way in which the psalmist describes all this.
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the Law of the Lord” the psalmist writes. And yes, Jesus did not participate in sin. He did not join the throng of the condemned. But, at the same time. Jesus did walk in the counsel of the wicked when He walked the path of His passion, when He was led to his trial, where wicked men lied about Him and conspired against Him to put Him to death and where scoffers mocked Him. Then Jesus was led to Calvary where He did, in a very different sense, stand in the way of sinners. He stood in between sinners and the wrath of God. He accomplished our salvation and fulfilled the law of the Lord, in which He delights.
The psalmist tells us that this righteous man yields His fruit and that His leaf does not wither. And this is true. And yet, Christ’s leaf does not wither because it withered. At the cross, that leaf shriveled and died as the final breath escaped His lungs. But then He rose again and the leaf unwithered, never to wither again. And through the power of that resurrection, Christ gives us the right to become part of His yield of glorious, imperishable fruit.
“In all that He does, He prospers,” the psalmist tells us. Look to the cross and again you’ll see the beautiful irony. When does Jesus prosper most greatly? When He was beaten and bloodied, when He closed His eyes in death. That’s when Jesus prospered because that was the moment He fertilized the soil of His vineyard with His forgiving blood and brought forth a bountiful harvest from every tribe and tongue and nation and generation.
And because of all this, we can rejoice to hear the final words of today’s Psalm. “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” Don’t be afraid. Christ has made you righteous. He gave you His own righteousness when He drowned your wickedness in His blood. Be at peace. You are walking the way of the righteous because you’ve been saved by the Son of God who walked not in the counsel of the wicked by walking in the counsel of the wicked.