“Let your priests be clothed with righteousness and let your saints shout for joy.”
– Psalm 132:9
This psalm is what’s classified as like a royal Psalm. It really revolves around God’s covenant with David the King, God’s promise to dwell among his people in glory and bless them in all kinds of ways. Protect them, lead them, guide them. But right here in the middle of the psalm, we hear this prayer right before Psalm 132:9, verse eight says, “Arise, oh Lord, go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.” The whole picture is God dwelling among his people like He’s done all throughout the Old Testament to this point and a tent, a tabernacle, and a temple to come that Solomon will build.
By God’s grace through the finished work of Jesus, we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
And then the psalmist prays, “Let your priest be clothed with righteousness.” So the picture is those who serve in the temple, those who serve in the tabernacle, may they be clothed with righteousness and holiness because they’re the ones that represent God before the people and the people before God. So righteousness is necessary in the presence of God. And let your saints shout for joy.
So you see this picture of holiness, righteousness, and joy, gladness. And this is one of those places we just can’t leave this in the Old Testament because we know that Jesus is our great high priest who’s righteousness is totally perfect. He has gone into the temple. What the Bible talks about at the end of the gospels, when Jesus died on a cross and the curtain of the temple was torn in two and the way was made for you and I to have access to God and to be clothed in the very righteousness of Jesus.
Psalm 132:9 Reminds Us That Jesus Has Clothed and Will Clothe His Followers with Righteousness
So we are now what the Bible says in the New Testament a priesthood clothed with righteousness. Just think about that in your life and my life, like amidst all of our sin, God, by His grace has forgiven our sin. He has forgiven your sin and He has closed you with the very righteousness of Jesus. Even such that what we’re about to do in prayer is possible that we’re able to come before the God of the universe. Because you, just think of it, you, a sinner, me, a sinner, we are clothed in righteousness with the very righteousness of Jesus.
So yes, let your saints shout for joy in your presence. The fact that we get to commune with God, clothed with the very righteousness of Jesus. Oh, live in this today. Like, walk in this today. Live according to this today. Know that you’re clothed with the righteousness of Jesus. So hate sin. Run for it. Shout for joy to God. Enjoy His grace in your life. Live in worship of His name, in His presence all day long.
Prayer And Praise
So God, we pray. All glory be to your name, Jesus, for dying on the cross for our sins, for forgiving us, oh God, by the blood of your son from all our sins that we might be clothed right now in the righteousness of Jesus. What an awesome thought that we possess his righteousness, that we are clothed in his holiness. So we want to live in that, God, today. We want to live in that in everything we do, everywhere we go, everything we say, we want to reflect your righteousness. So Jesus, help us, help us to resist sin and temptation. Help us to turn from it and to follow you with zeal, to live with righteousness and holiness and justice in our lives and as we do to live with joy, to shout for joy.
We praise you for the privilege of communion with you, clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. Of being in your presence, not just when we go to a building like we see in the Old Testament, people go into the temple to encounter you. Your presence dwells in us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Right now we have communion with you. We have communion with you all day long. So yes, if they were shouting for joy in Psalm 132:9, we are shouting for all the more joy today. All glory be to your name, oh God. We shout for joy as men and women clothed in the righteousness of Jesus himself. And it’s in his name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
