“Into Thine hand I commit my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.” (Psalms 31:5)
In Psalms 31 David’s prayer begins with pleas for help from the Lord in Whom he has placed his trust. Then in verse 5, he gives what appears to be his final plea before again making accusations against his enemy and pleading again for God’s help.
Verse 5 seems to be a final plea because he deposits his spirit into the Lord’s hand. The human spirit is that part of us that cannot be touched by any enemy here on earth. Not even the devil can touch that part of us. While we don’t have Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our spirits are dead in sin, still the devil has no control over our spirit. He may influence our mind, will and emotions which is our soul to act sinfully or say things that are sinful. But our spirit is in no way able to influence our soul toward good. It may try. And we may be able to make useless efforts, but only a spirit which is reborn of God is able to have victory over sin.
It’s only when we commit our spirit to the Lord that it’s nailed to the cross and reborn of God. And we can say along with Paul: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) That old sinful spirit man has to die in order to be reborn, or as we Christians say, “born again.” This was what Jesus was explaining to Nicodemus. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3) Nicodemus who was a Pharisee, ruler of the Jews, comes to Jesus at night and gets saved but keeps it secret until after Jesus dies when he helps Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus in Joseph’s tomb.
There’s a question that is lingering in many minds. Was David saved even though he lived and died before the resurrection of Jesus and the redemption of man? In Psalms 31:5 he states “Thou hast redeemed me.” This is another study altogether, but Scripture supports that those who were faithful in following all the laws laid out in the Old Testament were as Jesus put it “sleeping” until the redemption of man. Keeping in mind that to God the past, present and future are all before Him we can see that David was saved. His sins were nailed to the cross. “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.” (1Peter 4:6) And who was it that preached to the dead? Peter brings this picture to light. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” (1Peter 3:18-20) By this Scripture it seems that Jesus preached the Gospel to all that were dead, even the disobedient during Noah’s time. The study is long with many arguments. But the Scripture is clear that Jesus preached the Gospel to the dead so they could be judged according to the Gospel as we all will be.
And here is where we come to the crux of the matter. People are not condemned for sin. Jesus already took all the punishment and death for sin, past, present and future. They are condemned for not believing the Gospel and rejecting Jesus, rejecting God’s marvelous and merciful gift of salvation. Jesus said, “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:17-18) All who believe in Jesus, Who He is, what He did and what He said are saved.
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