For David the mere mortals were his outlandish Philistine enemies who worshipped false gods. They were the people who poked out Samson’s eyes and tied him to the temple of Dagon in Gaza (Judges 16:23-30). David had historical reasons to fear the Philistines, even so only the creator of David’s statehood promised him judicial life or death, not the people of the other nations. Only the one true God could ultimately grant life or death to David. God’s laws contained promises for both life and death, for both the individual and the state. Covenant death was earned by law breakers, as promised for both the person and the nation. Covenant life under law was earned by the keeping of the law, not only for an individual’s whole accountable lifetime but to the age of national accountability as well.

Even if David’s enemies didn’t kill him, the laws of his own land would. Animal sacrifices and sabbaticals were the gracious interludes for temporary forgivenesses and repeated reconstitutions under law. Statehood was kept or lost bodily in compliance or noncompliance with the laws of humanity. The immortality of humanity was earned through the only individual who bodily fulfilled it, in His personal life and to the fulfillment of the corporate age of accountability.

Even in the old covenant, David realized he was already being delivered from death by God’s grace. If his mortal enemies didn’t kill him, his own human failures would have. The human state of David under law promised to either deliver his soul to death or to life. It all depended on David’s behavior. Or did it? God graciously delivered David’s fallen human soul from the curses that his own law promised to those in Adam, who broke the law as he did. Freedom from the curses that the human laws promised to those who broke them was ultimately found through the sacrificial death of the eschatos Adam. Only Jesus completely fulfilled the law in the old covenant human creation. Jesus graciously transferred His accomplishment under law to the His new covenant creation, in order to save even David. David’s present condition when Jesus was born was still on hold in Hades. He may have been one of God’s chosen Jews (a man after God’s own heart), but he wasn’t saved yet.

All humans are created equal in the Son. That means all humans have eternal life because they were born again into the human family of Christ. That doesn’t mean every human has the same individual body or corporate function. It means everyone born from above belongs to the same corporate body of Christ. It means equal humanization through the new creation’s constitutionality. All new-creation humans are individually granted eternal life when born into the corporate body of Christ. Eternal life is given to people who are still in their mortal flesh and blood bodies. The individual body of Christ made it happen for the good of the human state. All Americans are typically meant to have equal access to the good life under her human laws. America’s laws represent a typical improvement or a re-constitution of the state of humanity as transferred out of England. It was a type of death and rebirth into a new and improved constitution.

Psalms 56:11-13

LITV ¹¹ In God I have trusted; I will not fear; what will man [humanity] do to me? ¹² On me, O God, are Your vows [promises]; I will render to You thank offerings. ¹³ For You have delivered my soul from death. Do You not keep my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

In 1962, “IN GOD WE TRUST” was hung in the House of Representatives as a rebuke to the false promises of communism. “All men are created equal”, as penned by Thomas Jefferson (adopted into our constitution in 1776), did not mean individually guaranteed equality of outcome as promised by communists (Marxist, Leninist, Maoist, Soviet, Trotskyist, Trotskyite, Bolshevik, Bolshevist). That false promise is the undeliverable and catastrophic lure of socialism. Equality under U.S. laws refers to everyone’s equal right to statehood. America can stand apart from Britain and each state in America can stand apart from each other. In God we trust means all human encampments are equally viable in the image of the One true humanity. The location of a human government does not make it more or less human. God fulfilled true humanity in His Son in Jerusalem. It thrives today wherever it is used by local governments to tame or rule or humanize people of any land. True humans don’t need to fear human governments.

It is God who rescues faltering souls from death and causes them to thrive in the light of the living. Every human and every human government fails to live up to it’s own laws and is therefore condemned by the same humanity that potentially blesses it. In God’s face alone is true humanity found. In the true humanity of His Son is both never-ending life and blessed living while still in this mortal coil. All true humanity is created equal, regardless of location. All God’s people have equal access to Him through His Son, who endows eternal life and good self-government. All human souls are being created by God.

God’s humanity was created in Jesus as He grew up under the national laws of humanity. The eternal Son of God wasn’t created. He was given a flesh and blood human body by way of the one and only divine conception. He Himself always existed. His human body of flesh and blood was mastered in real time by the national humanity that was fleshed out in Jesus as He grew up under law. The Word became flesh. The Word was not always flesh. The Word was in the beginning not yet fleshed out on land. David found immortality in God’s promises, not in his ability to be the perfect son of God in the flesh.

What’s equal is access to God’s fully fleshed out humanity through the old covenant accomplishment of His Son. David ultimately waited for the promises of humanity as fulfilled in the Son and made available to God’s new covenant creation of humanity. Meanwhile, David recognized God’s grace when he saw it in the old covenant.

Many of the individual blessings of humanity are shared by proximity to human governments, faltering as they are. Even punishment for criminals is a blessing to humanity as a whole. The truly human creations are all in the body of Christ proper. Most are not enjoying Christian based nations. Your best life is in Christ because He is humanity proper. He fulfilled the law as the only human creation to fully stand up under law. Nobody will ever fully stand under law again. Everyone can fully stand in Christ, because they are the new covenant creation of humanity.

Psalms 56:1-2

Thomson ¹ For the conclusion. For people far removed from the Holies [or sanctuary]. By David for a monumental inscription, when the Philistines had him in their power at Geth. Pity me, God, for a [mere mortal] man hath trodden me down. Fighting all the day long he hath afflicted me. ² Mine enemies have trodden me down the whole day, with the day in their favor. Because they who fight against me are many,

David begins his song by asking for deliverance from the mere mortal outlaws. This Hebrew word for a mortal man became the Greek word for a human-faced man, in the more soteriologically advanced Septuagint rendition of this ancient encounter. All nations were becoming humanized in the Greek world by way of the Hebrew diaspora in preparation for the international new covenant humanity to prosper. David ends his psalm grateful for God’s grace-filled promises that ultimately arrived in Jesus’ fulfillment of the old covenant under law.

Psalms 56:13

LITV ¹³ For You have delivered my soul from death. Do You not keep my feet from falling, so that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

Psalms 56:13

Thomson ¹³ because thou hast delivered my soul from death; and my feet from falling: that I may worship acceptably before God; in the light of the living.

Psalms 56:13

CAB ¹³ For You have delivered my soul from death, and my feet from sliding, that I should be well-pleasing before God in the land of the living.

Psalm 88 is sometimes called the darkest of Psalms because during a severe trial all hope is placed in this flesh and blood existence.

Psalms 88

CAB ¹ A song of a Psalm for the sons of Korah for the end, upon Mahaleth for responsive strains, of instruction for Heman the Israelite. O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried by day and in the night before You. ² Let my prayer come in before You; incline Your ear to my supplication, O Lord. ³ For my soul is filled with troubles, and my life has drawn near to Hades. ⁴ I have been reckoned with them that go down to the pit; I became as a man without help; ⁵ free among the dead, as the slain ones cast out, who sleep in the tomb; whom You remember no more; and they are rejected from Your hand. ⁶ They laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, and in the shadow of death. ⁷ Your wrath has pressed heavily upon me, and You have brought upon me all Your billows. Pause. ⁸ You have removed my acquaintance far from me; they have made me an abomination to themselves; I have been delivered up, and have not gone forth. ⁹ My eyes are dimmed from poverty; but I cried out to You, O Lord, all the day; I spread forth my hands to You. ¹⁰ Will You work wonders for the dead? Or shall physicians raise them up, that they shall praise You? ¹¹ Shall anyone declare Your mercy in the tomb? And Your truth in destruction? ¹² Shall Your wonders be known in darkness? And Your righteousness in a forgotten land? ¹³ But I cried out to You, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer come before You. ¹⁴ Why, O Lord, do You reject my prayer, and turn Your face away from me? ¹⁵ I am poor and in troubles from my youth; and having been exalted, I was brought low and into despair. ¹⁶ Your wrath has passed over me; and Your terrors have greatly disquieted me. ¹⁷ They compassed me like water; all the day they beset me together. ¹⁸ You have put far from me every friend, and my acquaintances because of my wretchedness.