In verse 2 of Psalm 4, David asks his enemies two questions. He wants to know how long they will reject God’s will and how long they will put their faith in vain things and ideas. The first concerns their rejection and dismissal of God’s will embodied in the King of God’s choice. They are rejecting God when they reject David. Instead, they have put their confidence in “vain things.” They believe lies and are deceived as to who rules the universe. David wants his enemies to know that he has put all his hope and confidence in God alone in contrast to them. In verse 3, he says, “But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him.” The Psalms seem to divide the entire population of humanity into two categories: the godly and the ungodly. David identifies with the godly, as is seen in the fact that he ends this verse with the assertion that God listens to him when he prays. The difference between the godly and the ungodly is a matter of faith. Faith then produces characteristics that separate the godly from the ungodly.
The first and clearest of the differences is that the Godly fear God. It surely doesn’t imply that the godly are sinless at all. That’s not possible with David. But the fear of God amid sin marks the godly. This has been a subject in many of the wisdom Psalms and the book of Proverbs written by the Son of the writer of most of the Psalms. It appears he has learned well from his father. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When David was convicted of his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, he repented and confessed. He was shamed in his sin and, as seen in Psalm 51, had deep remorse. The ungodly will sin without shame or guilt. The godly humble themselves before God for their past offenses.
God “sets apart” the godly from the ungodly. “They were not set apart for their holiness, they have invariably been made holy; moreover, when they were holy, God delighted in them as holy.”[1] In the New Testament, believers in Jesus Christ are often called “saints.” The word refers to those who have been “set apart” by God. “Thus, a saint is a sinner who in answer to his faith in the Lord Jesus has been set apart by the Holy Spirit for God.”[2] At the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, God set apart those who applied the sacrificial lamb’s blood to the lintels of their houses. The destiny of those with the blood on their doors would be different than the destiny of those without it. Those under the blood were “set apart.” In Hebrews 10:10, the author tells us that believers in Jesus have been “sanctified (set apart-made saints) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.” Jesus then, “By the offering of His own body has forever put a difference between the believer in Himself and the world and has forever set every believer apart for God. The Cross of Christ stands between the believer and the world. The shed blood of Christ separates the believer from the world, purchases him to God and thus makes him to belong to God.”[3]
[1] Simeon, Charles. 1836. Horae Homileticae: Psalms, I–LXXII. Vol. 5. London: Samuel Holdsworth.
[2] Wuest, Kenneth S. 1997. Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: For the English Reader. Vol. 2. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
[3] Torrey, Reuben Archer. 1918. The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Faith. New York George H.: Doran company.