The Great Divorce and the Great Inheritance Text: Psalm 37:27
Introduction: The Two Paths
The book of Psalms, and indeed the entire Bible, is relentlessly antithetical. It is constantly setting before us two ways, and only two. There is the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked, the way of wisdom and the way of folly, the way of life and the way of death. There is no demilitarized zone, no comfortable middle ground where a man can sit and spectate. You are on one path or the other. You are either walking with God or you are walking away from Him.
Our text today from Psalm 37 is a distillation of this great antithesis. It is a command and a promise. It is a call to a fundamental reorientation of life, a complete turn-around, and it attaches to this reorientation a promise of glorious permanence. But we must be careful here. Our modern evangelical sensibilities are often allergic to this kind of language. We hear a command to "do good" and we immediately suspect that a trap door is about to open beneath us, dropping us into the murky waters of works-righteousness. We hear a promise of "dwelling forever" conditioned on our actions, and we get nervous about the security of our salvation.
But the psalmist, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has no such qualms. He is not teaching that we earn our salvation by our good behavior. Rather, he is describing what saved people do. He is outlining the nature of true faith, which is never a disembodied, abstract assent to a set of doctrines. True faith is a living, breathing, acting thing. It is a faith that departs and does. It is a faith that results in a certain kind of life, and that life has a certain kind of future. This verse is not a ladder for us to climb up to God; it is a description of the road God's people walk on, a road that leads to a permanent home.
So we are going to look at this simple, profound verse in its two parts. First, the great moral imperative, the fundamental ethical pivot of the Christian life. And second, the great covenantal promise, the glorious inheritance that awaits those who walk in this way.
The Text
"Depart from evil and do good, So you will dwell forever."
(Psalm 37:27 LSB)
The Great Divorce (v. 27a)
The first part of the command is negative. It is a call for a radical break.
"Depart from evil..." (Psalm 37:27a)
This is the language of repentance. The word "depart" means to turn aside, to swerve away from. It is not a suggestion to dabble less in wickedness or to moderate your sinning. It is a command to leave it entirely. It is a divorce. You are to pack your bags, walk out the door, and never look back. This is the first motion of the regenerated heart. Before you can run toward God, you must first turn away from that which you were running toward before.
What is this "evil"? In the context of Psalm 37, the evil is defined for us. It is fretting because of evildoers (v. 1), being envious of wrongdoers (v. 1), trusting in schemes (v. 7), and giving way to anger (v. 8). More broadly, evil is any thought, word, or deed that is out of conformity with the character and law of God. It is cosmic treason. It is setting yourself up as the standard, as your own god, which is the lie the serpent told our first parents in the garden.
To depart from evil, therefore, is to abdicate that throne. It is to recognize that your way is the way of death and to deliberately turn from it. This is not a one-time decision, though it begins with one. It is the constant, daily business of the Christian life. We are constantly identifying pockets of rebellion, lingering affections for our old master, and we are, by the grace of God, departing from them. This is what the New Testament calls mortification, the putting to death of the deeds of the flesh (Romans 8:13).
But notice that biblical ethics never stops with the negative. Christianity is not a religion of "Thou shalt not" only. Many a grim-faced moralist has managed to depart from certain kinds of overt evil, only to become a white-washed tomb, clean on the outside but full of pride, bitterness, and self-righteousness on the inside. That is why the command has a second, positive half.
The Great Pursuit (v. 27b)
Having departed from one country, you must become a citizen of another.
"...and do good..." (Psalm 37:27b)
This is the other side of the coin of repentance. It is not enough to stop doing bad things; you must start doing good things. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does the human heart. If you empty your life of one set of habits, you will fill it with another. The call of the gospel is to fill it with "good."
And what is "good"? God is the standard of the good. He alone is good (Mark 10:18). Therefore, to do good is to do that which is pleasing to God, that which reflects His character as revealed in His law. It is to love mercy, to do justice, to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). It is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39). It is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
This is not abstract. Doing good means you are faithful in your callings. You are an honest employee, a diligent student, a loving husband, a respectful wife, a patient father, a nurturing mother. You are generous with your money, hospitable with your home, and truthful with your words. You are building, cultivating, creating, and serving. You are actively seeking the welfare of the city where God has placed you. This is sanctification. It is the positive, constructive project of a life submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
So the command is a unit: depart and do. Repent and believe. Put off the old self and put on the new self (Ephesians 4:22-24). This is the rhythm of the Christian life. It is a continual turning from sin and a continual turning to righteousness. This is not the way we get saved; it is the way the saved live.
The Great Inheritance (v. 27c)
And what is the result of this life? What is the destination of this path? The psalmist gives us the glorious promise.
"...So you will dwell forever." (Psalm 37:27c)
Here is the covenant promise. The word "dwell" here means to settle down, to reside, to abide. And the promise is that this dwelling will be "forever." This is a promise of permanence, security, and stability in a world that is characterized by upheaval and decay.
Now, our anemic, platonic modern mindset immediately wants to shoot this promise up into the clouds. We think of "dwelling forever" as floating on a cloud playing a harp, a disembodied existence in a purely spiritual realm. But that is not the biblical vision. The promise throughout the Old Testament was to inherit the land. And this promise is not abrogated in the New Testament; it is expanded. It is globalized.
Jesus says, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matthew 5:5). Paul tells us that the promise to Abraham was that he would be the heir of the world (Romans 4:13). This is a postmillennial promise. It is the promise that the kingdom of God, through the patient, faithful, gospel-preaching work of the church, will grow like a mustard seed until it fills the whole earth. History is not a story of the church's defeat and retreat, culminating in a last-minute rescue by an emergency airlift. History is the story of Christ's victory, a victory He accomplishes through His people as they "depart from evil and do good."
This means that your faithfulness in your ordinary, daily life, your quiet turning from evil and your steady pursuit of good, is part of a world-conquering project. You are staking a claim. You are building for the long haul. The wicked, the psalmist says, will be cut off. They will fade like grass. They have no future. Their path leads to oblivion. But the righteous, those who have been made righteous in Christ and who therefore walk in His ways, have a future. They will dwell. They will inherit. They will abide. Forever.
This promise is not just for the eschatological future. It has implications for us now. It means we can live without the frantic anxiety of the wicked. We don't have to grasp and scheme and fret, because we know our inheritance is secure. We can do good, even when it is costly, because we know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain. We are on the winning side of history, because we are on the Lord's side.
Conclusion: The Foundation of Forever
So how can we do this? Who is sufficient for these things? If we are honest, we know that we do not depart from all evil, and we do not do all good. Our repentance is shot through with hypocrisy, and our good works are tainted with pride. If this promise depends on the perfection of our performance, then we are all lost.
But the foundation of this command and this promise is not our ability, but Christ's accomplishment. Jesus Christ is the only one who has ever perfectly departed from evil and done good. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. He perfectly fulfilled the law of God. He was the ultimate righteous man.
And on the cross, He took upon Himself the curse that was due to us for our failure to depart from evil and do good. He was "cut off from the land of the living" so that we might "dwell forever." He became the ultimate evildoer in our place, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Therefore, we do not depart from evil in order to be saved. We depart from evil because we are saved. We do not do good to earn God's favor. We do good because, in Christ, we already have His favor. Our obedience is not the anxious scrambling of a slave trying to appease a tyrant, but the grateful response of a son to a loving Father. Grace is the engine of our effort.
So the call today is simple. Turn from your sin. Turn from your self-righteous attempts to fix yourself. Look to Christ, the one who did it all. And when you have looked to Him, and trusted in Him, then get up and begin to walk. Depart from evil, and do good. For this is the path of life, and it leads to a permanent home, an inheritance of the whole world, a dwelling place with your God, forever.