Anonymous Asks (253)

“What does it mean that God will rejoice over us with singing?”

The question comes from a verse in Zephaniah, which reads: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

It provides a great illustration of the way many people tend to read the Bible.

The Medicine Cabinet Approach

Far too many Christians come to their Bibles as if they are medicine cabinets, picking out verses at random and trying to apply them to their own lives. This may “work” from time to time, in the sense that the person doing it may feel comfort or peace from the words of scripture, but it ignores one of the most important aspects of Bible interpretation: context.

In Zephaniah, God is speaking to the people of a specific 7th century BC nation, promising them judgment for their sins, and ultimately blessing and restoration far in the future. So the verse referenced above is not addressed to modern Christians, but to the “daughter of Zion”, the “daughter of Jerusalem” and “Israel”. It is a promise for the earthly people of God and will be realized or fulfilled in the land of Israel during the millennial reign of Christ.

In short, it has next to nothing to do with you or me.

Every Promise in the Book?

That’s not a bad thing either. It’s just something we have to come to grips with about scripture. In Sunday School we used to sing, “Every promise in the book is mine. Every chapter, every verse, every line.” That is actually quite untrue, but it sounds nice. If every positive promise in the Bible is ours, then so is every negative one. The blessings and curses of scripture are equally relevant to the lives of those to whom they apply. Personally, I am content to enjoy the promises of scripture that are actually addressed to me, rather than trying to appropriate those that are not.

Now, can we learn anything from a verse like Zephaniah 3:17? Sure we can. God loves to bless his people. It makes him joyful to be able to give good things to those he loves. He longs to bring the sinner to a place of repentance and faith in order that he can pour out blessing on those who once were estranged from him.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem …

This is especially true of the city of Jerusalem and all that it represents. God has invested literally thousands of years in the thankless task of bringing its people to a saving knowledge of his Son. As the Lord Jesus himself said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” It’s a sad comment on the hardness of the human heart.

Jerusalem, its people, and the nation it represents have grieved the heart of God by rejecting his Son, first crucifying him, then denying his resurrection and identity as God’s Messiah. When they humble themselves and finally “look on him whom they have pierced” and mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, that moment will be as delightful to God as the return of the prodigal son was to the father in the parable: he will kill the fatted calf and rejoice.

The Jewish people have good things to look forward to once they begin to put their trust in Christ as a nation, and not just individually, as sometimes happens today.

Joy Before the Angels

How about when Gentile sinners repent; does that cause God to rejoice too? It surely does. When the Lord Jesus said, “There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents”, he didn’t condition his statement on the ethnic background of the sinner. It doesn’t say that God will sing over us in Luke 15, but the idea is certainly similar.

So then, we can certainly learn lessons about the character and work of God from verses like this one in Zephaniah. Sometimes those lessons can even be applied to us too. We may just have to scratch around in the New Testament a bit to confirm it.