From Glory To Glory: The Story Of Christ In Psalms 15–24 (Part 6)—Psalm 17 And Christ’s Anticipation Of Resurrection

by on August 30, 2025 | Comment

Psalm 17 is about focusing on satisfaction in God even amid our greatest troubles. We find the psalmist here in great distress, calling to God to vindicate him against the wicked. Psalm 17 records his prayer declaring that he was in the right against his enemies.

This article addresses how Psalm 17 fits into Psalm 15–24, the story of the incarnate Christ. This collection of psalms tells Christ’s story two times. The first time, it recounts it backwards, starting with his ascension and moving forward through resurrection, death, and his righteous life. It then picks up and tells the story again in forward order, culminating in his resurrection and ascension in Psalm 24.

Psalm 17 is about Christ’s experience of the grave. Psalm 16 told of his resurrection. Psalm 18 will tell of his death. Psalm 17 is then about how God the Son spent three days under the power of death. The point we will see is that God defended Christ even while the power of death held him.

Resurrection in View

We know from Psalms 1 and 2 that the whole Psalter focuses on the blessed man who is also God’s righteous king. The scope of the Psalms is then Jesus Christ as Savior of God’s people. How is Psalm 17 about Christ the king and his work?

Keep in mind that Psalms 15–24 are telling one story backwards and forwards. As Christopher Ash says, “The man of Psalms 15, 16, and 17 is one and the same.”1 So, the ultimate speaker of Psalm 17 is the man of Psalm 15 who gets to enter God’s own presence because he has kept the law required to be accepted before God.

In Psalm 17, we read the words of the Righteous One whom God hears because he has done God’s will.2 But we hear that righteous man as he speaks in a period of distress. The words show that this prayer comes from someone who knows that he is in the right and should be heard. Consider verse 1: “Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!” Again in verse 3: “You have tried my heart, you have visited me by night, you have tested me, and you will find nothing.” Now, we might be able to claim that we were blameless (or nearly so) in some particular event. But Christ can say outright that no wrong will be found in him. He is the sinless and truly righteous man who deserves to come before God’s throne to receive blessing.

When then would Christ have prayed this prayer of distress? He would have prayed this during some season when he needed God to hear him and vindicate him. As we have seen, Psalms 15–24 tell the story of Christ’s incarnate ministry first in reverse order in Psalms 15–19, then forwards in Psalms 20–24. Psalm 15 opened with his ascension as his entry into the heavenly court because his is the righteous and risen king. Psalm 16 recounted his resurrection as Christ was not abandoned to Sheol, the realm of the dead, nor allowed even to see corruption. Rather, he was raised to exalted life to know his Father’s presence again in fullest joy.

As that story of Christ’s life continues to swing backward toward its beginning, we find him in distress in Psalm 17 because he needs the resurrection. We have not yet reached the event of his death on the cross. In Psalm 17, we find that his prayer fits those three days of his time in the grave.

We see this pointedly in verses 8–9: “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings, from the wicked who do me violence, my deadly enemies who surround me.” Christ needs the Father’s vindication as the true apple of the divine eye, the cherished only begotten Son.

Moreover, the contrast of the wicked with this psalmist in verses 13–15 brings Christ’s identity as the true singer of this psalm plainly home:

Arise, O Lord! Confront him, subdue him!

Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword,

from men by your hand, O Lord,

from men of the world whose portion is in this life.

You fill their womb with treasure;

they are satisfied with children,

and they leave their abundance to their infants.

As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;

when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. (emphasis added)

A contrast forms here.3 On one side, there are those who seem to have victory at the earthly level, who are satisfied with treasure and successful families. They have their portion in this life. On the other side, the psalmist says, “as for me.” In distinction from them, he will have his portion in seeing God’s face in righteousness when he wakes and has the satisfaction of God’s likeness.

The key is in that phrase, “when I awake.” The standard Hebrew dictionary explains four senses of this waking, that it can mean waking from sleep, waking from drunkenness, waking from illness, and waking from death.4 As with all of Scripture, here we must take account of how God inspired this psalm, yes, to help us in life, but even more to bring Christ and his benefits to bear upon his people. When we do that, we see that this prayer is incredibly poignant.

From one perspective, David himself was speaking of seeing God’s face in direct access to his presence after the resurrection.5 David believed in the future resurrection. He knew that God would grant glorified life in resurrection existence to his people at the last day.

From another, higher perspective, this prayer is Jesus Christ speaking to God the Father as his body lays in the grave. Even in that situation of distress, he had full confidence that his Father was going to bring him back to life. We know this truth from the Apostles’ Creed which affirms that “he descended into hell.” This essential truth often confuses us, but we have explored it at length in my series through the Apostles’ Creed.6 For our purposes now, Westminster Larger Catechism 50 explains, “Christ’s humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day; which has been otherwise expressed in these words [citing the Apostles’ Creed], He descended into hell.” Psalm 17 is about God the Son’s prayer during his three days in the grave as he trusts the Father to vindicate him as the truly righteous one and to overturn his distress. It is about his sure trust that his resurrection is coming.7

From the grave, Christ looked forward to his resurrection and prayed that the Father would vindicate him against the wicked. Because Christ is the ultimate and true reason that God inspired this psalm through David, the prayer emphasizes that God would consider the righteousness of the one praying as he weighed up his actions toward the distressed psalmist.

Even though Christ addressed this prayer to the Father from the grave, he still prayed it in the Father’s blessed presence. His time in the grave in the place of the dead was not a descent that took him into the place of torment or even to an adjacent place where the Old Testament saints waited to go to paradise after Christ’s death and resurrection (which does not exist, as we talked about in my series through the Apostles’ Creed).8 Even though Christ’s human soul went to heaven upon his crucifixion, his earthly death was still part of bearing sin’s curse for his people. His time in the grave, despite being directly with the Father, was part of the curse, as his human soul was separated from his body. He needed vindication and to see God face-to-face when he awoke (Ps 17:15) in his resurrection. He needed to be satisfied with God’s likeness as he attained the fully glorified state according to his human nature. So, Christ prayed that the Father would recognize the perfect righteousness he performed during his earthly ministry and would vindicate him because of it by raising him from the grave.

Resilience in Heart

Augustine commented on Psalm 17, “This psalm is to be assigned to the Lord in person, together with the Church, which is his body.”9 In other words, what is true of Christ becomes true in some way or other for those who are united to him by faith.

We should recognize that each petition in Psalm 17 increases in confidence.[10] That progress is because David, and ultimately Christ, recognizes the truth of the reasons for God to hear these prayers. Certainly, even as his body lies in the tomb, God the Son still beholds his Father and knows that he has been tested and proven faithful. He knows even then, having been obedient unto death, that he is absolutely the apple of the Father’s eye. The wicked have done him violence, but God will arise and deliver him by raising him into exalted life.

What is true of Christ becomes true of us in him. Because God has every reason to answer Christ’s prayers, he will see and protect us amid our distress. Because Christ’s prayer is for us, we find our resilience as we rest ourselves in Christ, knowing that he has paved the way to life for us.

Because Christ is risen, we have reason to know that God will protect those who are his. Because Christ is risen, he will never leave or abandon us. Even death itself does not place us beyond God’s rescue. So, we are always in his hands, always safe as he defends us.

Notes

  1. Christopher Ash, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary, 4 vol. (Crossway, 2024), 2:177.
  2. Ash, Psalms, 2:177.
  3. Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, 3 vol. (Kregel Academic Press, 2011–16), 1:428; Carissa Quinn, The Arrival of the King: The Shape and Story of Psalms 15–24, Studies in Scripture and Biblical Theology (Lexham Academic, 2023), 92.
  4. Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, trans. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols. (Koninklijke Brill, 2000), 3:1098.
  5. James M. Hamilton Jr., Psalms, 2 vol., Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Lexham Academic, 2021), 1:227.
  6. Harrison Perkins, “The Cradle Of Christian Truth: Apostles’ Creed (Part 10)—He Descended into Hell,” Heidelblog, April 8, 2025.
  7. Ross, Psalms, 1:432–32.
  8. Perkins, “He Descended into Hell.”
  9. Saint Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms Volume 1, trans. Maria Boulding OSB (New City Press, 2000), 185; emphasis added.
  10. Quinn, Arrival of the King, 91–92.

© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

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