The Divine Mirror: God's Responsive Justice Text: 2 Samuel 22:26-28
Introduction: The Character of the Judge
We live in an age that wants a God who is endlessly malleable, a God who is more of a cosmic therapist than a righteous Judge. The modern mind wants a God who affirms everyone and everything, a God who would never dream of giving someone what they have coming. Our therapeutic culture wants a God who is kind, but not kind to the kind. They want a God who is pure, but not pure to the pure. They want a God who is blameless, but not blameless to the blameless. In short, they want a God who is nothing like the God of the Bible. They want a God who does not respond to human behavior, a God who is static, distant, and frankly, indifferent.
But the God who has revealed Himself in Scripture is a living God. He is not a block of marble, impassive and inert. He is a person, and He interacts with other persons. And His interactions are not arbitrary; they are covenantal. He responds to us in accordance with the terms He has set. This is the foundation of all justice, both human and divine. If a judge treated the law-abiding citizen and the violent criminal in exactly the same way, we would rightly call him a corrupt and wicked judge. Justice requires making distinctions. Justice requires a response that is fitting to the action.
This song of David, which we also have as Psalm 18, is a magnificent celebration of God's deliverance. But right in the middle of this celebration, David gives us a profound theological principle. He describes the responsive nature of God's character. God, in a very real sense, mirrors the character of the person standing before Him. He is not changed by us, for He is immutable. Rather, He reveals different facets of His perfect character in response to our own. To the man who deals straight, God is a straight dealer. To the man who is a twister, God will show Himself a master of the labyrinth. This is not a contradiction in God; it is the very essence of His perfect, covenantal justice.
This principle is deeply unsettling to the modern sinner because he wants to be crooked while demanding that God deal with him in a straightforward, gracious manner. He wants to sow wild oats all week and then pray for a crop failure on Sunday. But God is not mocked. What a man sows, that he will also reap. And the God who oversees the harvest will deal with the farmer according to the seed he planted.
The Text
With the kind You show Yourself kind,
With the blameless You show Yourself blameless;
With the pure You show Yourself pure,
And with the crooked You show Yourself astute.
And You save an afflicted people;
But Your eyes are on the haughty whom You bring down.
(2 Samuel 22:26-28 LSB)
The Principle of Reciprocity (v. 26)
David begins with a series of parallel statements that establish the core principle. God's dealings with us are reciprocal.
"With the kind You show Yourself kind, With the blameless You show Yourself blameless;" (2 Samuel 22:26)
The word for "kind" here is hasid, which comes from the great covenant word hesed. This is not just about being nice. This is about covenant loyalty, steadfast love, and faithfulness. To the man who is loyal to the covenant, God shows Himself unfailingly loyal. This is the basis of our assurance. Our God is a covenant-keeping God. When we walk in the terms of His covenant, trusting in His provision, He meets us with His steadfast love. He doesn't just act kindly; He shows Himself to be kind. His character is revealed in His actions.
The same principle applies to the "blameless." The Hebrew word here speaks of integrity, of being whole or complete. This is not a claim to sinless perfection. David, of all people, knew he was not sinless. Rather, it refers to a man whose heart is undivided, a man who is not trying to serve two masters. To the man of integrity, God shows Himself to be a God of integrity. His promises are sure, His character is consistent, and His judgments are true. You can rely on Him. He is not duplicitous. He is not a politician who says one thing and does another. With the blameless, He is Himself blameless.
This is a foundational law of the universe, what you might call the lex talionis, the law of retaliation, applied to the character of God's interaction. But it is not a cold, impersonal law. It is the relational outworking of a personal God. He is the great "I AM," and He relates to you as you are. If you approach Him in covenant faithfulness, you will find Him to be the most faithful friend. If you approach Him with a whole heart, you will find Him to be a rock of integrity.
Purity and Perversity (v. 27)
The pattern continues in verse 27, moving from external loyalty to internal purity, and then to its opposite.
"With the pure You show Yourself pure, And with the crooked You show Yourself astute." (2 Samuel 22:27 LSB)
To the pure, God shows Himself pure. The pure in heart are blessed, for they shall see God. When our hearts and motives are cleansed by the grace of God, we are given eyes to see the utter purity of God's character. We see His holiness not as a threat, but as a thing of radiant beauty. When we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. A desire for purity is met with a revelation of God's purity.
But then the stanza takes a turn. "And with the crooked You show Yourself astute." Other translations say "shrewd" or "tortuous" or that with the "froward" He will show Himself "froward." The principle is this: if you try to be clever with God, if you try to twist His words, to game the system, to play angles with the Almighty, you will find that He is infinitely more clever than you are. He can out-twist any schemer. If you deal with Him deviously, He will deal with you in ways that seem convoluted and baffling. You will find yourself caught in the very trap you set. Jacob was a schemer, a twister, and God sent him to the house of Laban, an even greater schemer, where he was twisted and tied in knots for twenty years until he learned to deal straight.
This is a terrifying thought for the hypocrite. The man who thinks he can manipulate God is like a man trying to wrestle with a lightning bolt. God's response to the crooked man is not to become crooked Himself; God cannot sin. Rather, He turns the man's own crookedness back upon his own head. He pays him back in his own currency. He lets the sinner's own schemes become his undoing. As it says in the Psalms, "The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands" (Psalm 9:16).
Humility and Humiliation (v. 28)
David concludes this section by summarizing the principle in terms of two kinds of people: the afflicted and the haughty.
"And You save an afflicted people; But Your eyes are on the haughty whom You bring down." (2 Samuel 22:28 LSB)
God's salvation is for the "afflicted." This refers to the humble, the lowly, those who know they are in need. It is not a promise that the righteous will never suffer. David certainly suffered. But it is a promise that God's ultimate deliverance is for those who do not trust in themselves. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." God gives grace to the humble. He saves those who cry out to Him from a place of helplessness. He responds to humility with salvation.
But the inverse is also true. "Your eyes are on the haughty whom You bring down." God's gaze is fixed upon the proud. He is watching them. He sees their self-importance, their arrogance, their refusal to bow the knee. And His gaze is not one of detached observation; it is the gaze of a hunter taking aim. To be proud is to walk around with a divine target painted on your back. God resists the proud. He sets Himself in battle array against them. And there is only one possible outcome to that contest. He brings them down.
This is the fundamental choice set before every human being. You can humble yourself, or you can be humbled. You can come to God as one of the afflicted, confessing your need for a savior, and He will show Himself a savior. Or you can stand before Him as one of the haughty, trusting in your own righteousness or your own cleverness, and He will show Himself as the one who brings down the proud. There is no third way.
The Gospel Reflection
Now, we must be careful here. It is easy to read these verses and slip into a works-righteousness mindset. "If I am kind enough, God will be kind to me. If I am pure enough, God will be pure to me." But that is to misread David and to misread the entire Bible. Who among us can claim to be perfectly kind, blameless, and pure? Who among us has not been crooked in heart? As Paul says, "None is righteous, no, not one."
The key is to understand that these verses describe the character of those who are in Christ. We are not kind in order to get God to be kind. We are in Christ, the truly Kind One, and therefore God is kind to us for His sake. We are not blameless in ourselves, but we are clothed in the blamelessness of Christ. We are not pure in our own performance, but we have been washed and made pure by the blood of the Lamb.
Jesus Christ is the perfect fulfillment of this principle. He was the truly Kind One, the faithful Son who showed perfect covenant loyalty. He was the Blameless One, the Lamb without spot or blemish. He was the Pure One, holy, harmless, and undefiled. And how did God the Father show Himself to Him? He showed Himself kind, blameless, and pure, ultimately raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand.
But on the cross, something astonishing happened. On the cross, Jesus took our crookedness upon Himself. He who knew no sin became sin for us. And God the Father, in perfect justice, showed Himself "astute" toward Him. The twisted consequences of our sin were visited upon Him. The curse that we deserved fell on Him. He became the afflicted one, crying out in dereliction, so that we, the truly haughty, might be saved. He was brought low, into the dust of death, so that we might be lifted up.
Therefore, our response is not to try harder to be good so that God will like us. Our response is to cling to Christ by faith. When we are united to Him, God deals with us as He deals with His Son. He shows Himself kind to us because we are in the Kind One. He shows Himself blameless to us because we are hidden in the Blameless One. And as we are sanctified by His Spirit, we begin to reflect that character. We become kind, we walk in integrity, we pursue purity. Not to earn God's favor, but because we have already received it as a free gift. And in this, God is glorified, the proud are brought low, and the humble are saved.