Forever Settled in Heaven On earth everything changes. The world continues to decay with every passing year. It is said that the ozone layer has increased in size and the temperature is rising. The second law of thermal dynamics teaches that all matters decay and break down. Multi-billion-dollar companies that used to be the life line of thousands of employees are now bankrupt. All human beings grow old and die. Nations that used to be superpowers are now minions. For example Babylon used to rule a vast empire in the Middle East but now has become a weak nation. Greece was a superpower in the days of Alexander the Great where he thought he had conquered the whole world and there was nothing left for young Alexander to conquer. Today Greece is a small insignificant nation not ranked among the superpowers. Superpowers come and superpowers get replaced! Everything on planet earth is never settled. But the Word of God is settled in heaven. It means that the Word of God will not be like the ever changing earth, which changes all the time. The Word of God is settled in heaven. It is constant and not afflicted or affected by the variableness of the earth. The constancy and veracity of the Word of God is emphasized here. Christian must find his comfort in the immutable and perfect Word of God. It is settled forever in heaven untouched by the whims and fancies of evil men. No matter how man may attack God’s holy and perfect Word, it will never dent it or affect it. It is permanently secured by God Himself, settled forever in heaven. Be comforted and continue to trust the immutable God by trusting His inerrant, infallible and inspired and preserved perfect Word. John Calvin observed correctly when he wrote, “Many explain this verse as if David adduced the stability of the heavens as a proof of God's truth. According to them the meaning is that God is proved to be true because the heavens continually remain in the same state. Others offer a still more forced interpretation, ‘That God's truth is more sure than the state of the heavens.’ But it appears to me that the prophet intended to convey a very different idea. As we see nothing constant or of long continuance upon earth, he elevates our minds to heaven, that they may fix their anchor there. David, no doubt, might have said, as he has done in many other places, that the whole order of the world bears testimony to the steadfastness of God's Word -- that Word which is most true. But as there is reason to fear that the minds of the godly would hang in uncertainty if they rested the proof of God's truth upon the state of the world, in which such manifold disorders prevail; by placing God's truth in the heavens, he allots to it a habitation subject to no changes. That no person then may estimate God's word from the various vicissitudes which meet his eye in this world, heaven is tacitly set in opposition to the earth. Our salvation, as if it had been said, being shut up in God's Word, is not subject to change, as all earthly things are, but is anchored in a safe and peaceful haven. The same truth the Prophet Isaiah teaches in somewhat different words: "All flesh is grass, and all the godliness thereof is as the flower of the field," (Isaiah 40:6). “He means, according to the Apostle Peter's exposition, (1 Peter 1:24) that the certainty of salvation is to be sought in the Word, and, therefore that they do wrong who settle their minds upon the world; for the steadfastness of God's Word far transcends the stability of the world.” 1 Peter 1:24-25, “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” The Psalmist did not stop at verse 89 but restates the same theme of verse 89 in the next two verses. Psalm 119:90-91 reads, “Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue this day according to thine ordinances: for all are thy servants.” In the event that some might think that the Word of God is only constant in heaven and of no earthly good, verses 90 and 91 argue and answer this question. The earth may change but it changes within her own constancy. This constancy of the earth is in God’s sovereign power and control. God revealed to us that this constancy of the earth’s overall disposition has its foundation in the unchanging Word of God. It is according to the forever settled Word of God in heaven that the earth finds her constancy! John Calvin is right when he commented that, “. . . the Psalmist repeats and confirms the same sentiment. He expressly teaches that although the faithful live for a short time as strangers upon earth, and soon pass away, yet their life is not perishable, since they are begotten again of an incorruptible seed. He, however, proceeds still farther. He had before enjoined us to peer by faith into heaven, because we will find nothing in the world on which we can assuredly rest; and now he again teaches us, by experience, that though the world is subject to revolutions, yet in it bright and signal testimonies to the truth of God shine forth, so that the steadfastness of His Word is not exclusively confined to heaven, but comes down even to us who dwell upon the earth. For this reason, it is added, that the earth continues steadfast, even as it was established by God at the beginning. Lord, as if it had been said, even in the earth we see Thy truth reflected as it were in a mirror; for though it is suspended in the midst of the sea, yet it continues to remain in the same state. These two things, then, are quite consistent; first, that the steadfastness of God's Word is not to be judged of according to the condition of the world, which is always fluctuating, and fades away as a shadow; and, secondly, that yet men are ungrateful if they do not acknowledge the constancy which in many respects marks the framework of the world; for the earth, which otherwise could not occupy the position it does for a single moment, abides notwithstanding steadfast, because God's Word is the foundation on which it rests. Farther, no person has any ground for objecting, that it is a hard thing to go beyond this world in quest of the evidences of God's truth, since, in that case, it would be too remote from the apprehension of men. The prophet meets the objection by affirming, that although it dwells in heaven, yet we may see at our very feet conspicuous proofs of it, which may gradually advance us to as perfect knowledge of it as our limited capacity will permit. Thus the prophet, on the one hand, exhorts us to rise above the whole world by faith, so that the Word of God may be found by experience to be adequate, as it really is adequate, to sustain our faith; and, on the other hand, he warns us that we have no excuse, if, by the very sight of the earth, we do not discover the truth of God, since legible traces of it are to be found at our feet. In the first clause, men are called back from the vanity of their own understanding; and, in the other; their weakness is relieved, that they may have a foretaste upon earth of what is to be found more fully in heaven. [Taken from http://www.ccel.org/c/calvin/comment3/comm_vol11/htm/xxviii.xii.htm] | 
