The Upright Scepter: The King Who Loves Justice Text: Psalm 99:4-5
Introduction: The Throne We Can Trust
We live in an age that is deeply suspicious of authority, and for good reason. We have seen authority abused, power corrupted, and strength used for oppression. Men naturally crave justice, but they look for it in all the wrong places. They look to the halls of government, to the courts of men, or to the rage of the mob. They demand equity, but their definition of equity is a funhouse mirror distortion of the real thing, usually amounting to little more than institutionalized envy. They want righteousness, but they want a righteousness that they have defined, one that makes excuses for their own sin and casts blame on others.
The result of this is that the world is full of thrones, and all of them are crooked. The scepters of earthly kings are bent. Their laws are arbitrary, their judgments are compromised, and their strength is a menace. Because of this, modern man thinks that the problem is strength itself. He thinks that power is the problem. But the Bible diagnoses the problem very differently. The problem is not that kings have strength; the problem is what they love. The problem is not power, but the character of the one who wields it.
Into this chaos of corrupt thrones and failing justice, Psalm 99 speaks a revolutionary word. It tells us of a King who reigns. It tells us that He is enthroned between the cherubim, a place of ultimate holiness and power. And it tells us what this King is like. This is a King whose very strength is intertwined with His love for what is right. His power does not corrupt; His power establishes righteousness. This is the foundation of all true stability in the cosmos. If this King were not on the throne, the universe would fly apart into a trillion pieces of meaningless chaos. Because He is on the throne, we have a basis for law, for order, for morality, and for hope.
This psalm is one of a series of psalms that declare, "Yahweh reigns!" This is not a suggestion, or a hope, or a pious wish. It is a declaration of fact, a statement about the central reality of the universe. And in these two verses, we are given the character of His reign and the required response to it. If we understand the character of His reign, our response will be spontaneous and joyful. If we do not, our worship will be hollow, and our lives will be unmoored.
The Text
The strength of the King loves justice;
You have established equity;
You have done justice and righteousness in Jacob.
Exalt Yahweh our God
And worship at the footstool of His feet;
Holy is He.
(Psalm 99:4-5)
The Character of the King (v. 4)
We begin with the description of God's royal character in verse 4.
"The strength of the King loves justice; You have established equity; You have done justice and righteousness in Jacob." (Psalm 99:4)
The first clause is staggering. "The strength of the King loves justice." Notice the verb. It does not say that the King's strength enforces justice, or that it is used for justice. It says that His strength loves justice. The two are inseparable. In God, power and morality are one. His omnipotence is a holy omnipotence. His might is a righteous might. This is utterly unlike any human ruler. For a fallen man, strength is a temptation to injustice. Give a man a little bit of power, and his first instinct is to use it for his own benefit, to bend the rules, to make exceptions for himself and his friends. But with God, His infinite power is the very engine of His infinite justice. He is too strong to be unjust. He cannot be bribed, He cannot be threatened, and He cannot be deceived.
His love for justice is not a sentimental preference. It is an active, world-shaping love. The psalmist immediately turns from description to direct address: "You have established equity." The Hebrew word for equity, meshar, has the sense of straightness, of levelness. God is the one who makes crooked things straight. He is the one who sets the plumb line against which all human actions are measured. Our world is a mess of moral confusion because it has rejected God's standard of equity. We are trying to build a civilization with crooked rulers and warped yardsticks. God establishes equity by His Word. The law of God is the very definition of equity. It is not oppressive; it is the blueprint for human flourishing. When a society abandons His law, it does not find freedom; it finds the tyranny of chaos and the oppression of sin.
And this is not an abstract principle. It is historical. "You have done justice and righteousness in Jacob." God's character has been demonstrated in His actions with His covenant people. From the deliverance from Egypt, to the giving of the law at Sinai, to the judgments and mercies throughout their history, God has been teaching them what true justice and righteousness look like. Of course, Jacob, that is, Israel, was often a rebellious and stiff-necked student. But God's actions were always true to His character. He judged their sin, and He mercifully restored them. He showed them that true justice is not just about punishing the wicked; it is also about vindicating the righteous and delivering the oppressed. All of this finds its ultimate expression in the cross of Christ, where God's justice and righteousness were perfectly satisfied. At the cross, God demonstrated His righteous hatred of sin by punishing it in His own Son, and He demonstrated His righteous love by providing a way of salvation for sinners.
The Response of the People (v. 5)
Given the character of such a King, what is the only sane and appropriate response? Verse 5 tells us plainly.
"Exalt Yahweh our God And worship at the footstool of His feet; Holy is He." (Psalm 99:5)
The response is twofold: exaltation and worship. "Exalt Yahweh our God." This means to lift Him up, to magnify Him, to make Him preeminent in our hearts, our minds, and our voices. We are to declare His greatness. In a world that constantly exalts sinful men, fleeting celebrities, and corrupt politicians, the church has the high calling to be a society of God-exalters. We are to be the ones who constantly point away from the crooked thrones of men to the righteous throne of God.
And this exaltation is expressed in worship. "And worship at the footstool of His feet." What is His footstool? In the context of the Old Testament, this refers to the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies (1 Chronicles 28:2). God was said to be enthroned above the cherubim on the mercy seat, and the ark itself was His footstool. This was the place where heaven and earth met, the place of atonement, the center of Israel's worship. To worship at His footstool was to approach Him on His terms, in the way He had prescribed, recognizing His awesome holiness and our desperate need for His mercy. For us, the footstool of God is the whole earth, which has become His footstool through the ascension of Christ (Isaiah 66:1; Acts 7:49). But more specifically, we come to the throne of grace through the finished work of Jesus Christ. He is our mercy seat. We worship by drawing near to God through Him.
This worship is not casual. It is a bowing down, a prostration of the soul before infinite majesty. It is the response of a creature before the Creator, a sinner before the Judge, and a redeemed child before the loving Father. It is a worship that is informed by His character. We are not worshiping an arbitrary tyrant. We are worshiping the King whose strength loves justice. Our worship is therefore an act of profound trust and security. We are bowing before the one Being in the universe who can and will make all things right.
The verse concludes with the reason for this worship, the refrain of the entire psalm: "Holy is He." This is the foundation of everything. God's holiness is His otherness, His transcendent perfection, His absolute moral purity. It is the sum of all His attributes. His justice is a holy justice. His love is a holy love. His strength is a holy strength. Because He is holy, He cannot tolerate sin. And because He is holy, His plan of salvation is a holy plan. He does not just sweep sin under the rug. He deals with it righteously and justly at the cross. The holiness of God is therefore both terrifying and comforting. It is terrifying to the unrepentant sinner, for a holy God must judge sin. But it is the ultimate comfort for the believer, because it means that our salvation is grounded in the unchanging, righteous character of God Himself. He is a holy Savior.
Conclusion: The Straight Scepter in a Crooked World
We are called to live as the subjects of this King. And this has massive implications for how we live in this crooked world. Because our King loves justice, we must also love justice. Because He has established equity, we must live lives that are straight and true, conforming to His Word. Because He is holy, we must pursue holiness in all our dealings.
This means we cannot be a people who are indifferent to injustice. We cannot shrug our shoulders at corruption in government, at the oppression of the poor, or at the slaughter of the unborn. We must speak against these things, because our King's strength loves justice. But we must do so in a way that reflects His character. We do not fight with the crooked weapons of the world, with rage, envy, and bitterness. We fight with the straight weapons of truth, righteousness, and prayer.
And above all, our central task is to do what this psalm commands. We are to exalt Him and worship Him. The most powerful political statement the church can make is to gather on the Lord's Day to worship the holy King. When we sing His praises, when we hear His Word, when we come to His Table, we are declaring to the principalities and powers that there is another King, one Jesus. We are declaring that His throne is the true throne, that His law is the true law, and that His strength is the only strength that can be trusted.
So let us exalt Him. Let us bow down before Him. Let us trust in His justice and take refuge in His mercy. For the Lord, our God, the King whose strength loves justice, is holy. And because He reigns, the world has a future, and it is a future of perfect equity, justice, and righteousness.