How then does Psalm 16 prophecy the resurrection of Christ? It does so like this: It says, with a glorious shining assurance, that when a man walks this earth who truly loves God alone with a pure and undivided devotion all the days of his life, that man will not—cannot!—die and his body rot. It simply cannot be. God would never let this happen. 

Logical Truths

How Jesus fulfilled prophecy in the Psalms is a case study in the resurrection.

“For David says concerning him”—that is, concerning Jesus Christ—the words of Psalm 16:8–11, which prophecy Christ’s bodily resurrection (Acts 2:25–28). But what does it mean—what can it possibly mean—for David, a millennium before Jesus, to speak words about Jesus Christ?

Or, to ask the question more generally, what do we mean when we say that Jesus Christ fulfilled prophecies given many years before his incarnate life on earth? In the Psalms, there are quite a few examples where the New Testament writers claim that events in Jesus’s life fulfill prophecies given many centuries before. Examples include (a) what happens to Jesus’s garments at the crucifixion (see Ps. 22:18, explicitly said to be fulfilled by John 10:24); (b) that he would be betrayed by a close friend (see Ps. 41:9 quoted in John 13:18) and that this friend’s position would be taken by another (see Ps. 109:8 quoted in Acts 1:20); (c) that he would ascend (see Ps. 68:18 quoted in Eph. 4:8); (d) that he would be given sour wine to drink at his death (see Ps. 69:21 quoted in John 19:28–29); (e) that he would be like the stone rejected by the builders which turns out to be the key to the whole building (see Ps. 118:22–23 quoted or echoed in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, and 1 Peter).

But I want to focus on perhaps the most significant of all such prophecies in the Psalms: his bodily resurrection. In Psalm 16, David prays to be preserved (Ps. 16:1) and then expresses his wholehearted devotion to the Lord. He has no good thing in life apart from the Lord; he delights only in God’s holy people; he will never worship other gods; the Lord is his only chosen portion in life; he sets the Lord always before him (Ps. 16:2–8). In Psalm 16:2–8, David voices a pledge of single-hearted loyalty (Ps. 16:2–4), followed by a strong profession of unbridled delight (Ps. 16:5–8). It is a remarkable and inspiring profession of love for God. Augustine writes of Jesus here that, “Confronted by the things which pass away, I did not take my eye off him who abides always, for I looked forward to speeding back to him when my passage through temporal things should be over.”1

And then, in Psalm 16:8, David pivots: “because he is at my right hand”—because, and only because, I love the Lord alone with a wholehearted and passionate devotion, therefore I can be confident that “I shall not be shaken.”

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