Psalms 146:3

NEGATIVE COUNSEL

"Put not your trust in princes,

Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth;

In that very day his thoughts perish."

"Put not your trust in princes" (Psalms 146:3). "`Princes' is from a word that means conspicuous or influential ones."[8] The idea is that men, even though they are princes, cannot be trusted for "help." This does not mean that men cannot be trusted for ordinary assistance. Rhodes assures us that the word "help" here is "literally salvation."[9] In this light, the negative counsel of this verse becomes one of the most important imperatives in the whole Bible. It simply means, "Do not trust human beings, no matter how powerful or well-known, to instruct you in matters of salvation." Let God be true, and every man a liar.

What a shame it is that so many of earth's fine religious souls are trusting "the words of men" instead of the Word of God regarding matters of faith.

"Nor in the son of man" (Psalms 146:3). This is not a reference to the Son of Man, who is Christ. "The Prayer-book paraphrase, `nor in any child of man,' brings out the sense."[10] McCaw cautioned us that, "These verses should not be understood as a cynical command never to trust anyone."[11] The prohibition is against trusting any human being as an authority in matters of faith and salvation. McCaw gave three reasons why men should not be trusted in such matters: (1) their lack of ability; (2) their ephemeral nature; "here today, and gone tomorrow"; and (3) their unreliability.[12]

A current fad in religious matters is the Lutheran doctrine of "salvation by faith alone," a contradiction of James 2:24, and an invention of "a man" more than a millennium after the Christian religion began. Concerning such man-originated doctrines, Baigent has this: "Any man, or group of men, are transitory, and so are their philosophies and panaceas."[13]

"He returneth to his earth" (Psalms 146:4). This is a grim reminder of the words so often heard among the dying members of the race of Adam, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." The pitiful mortality of our dying race thunders in our ears; and we should never allow the attractiveness, popularity, power, wealth, position, or any other earthly endowment of any man to silence that thunder, enabling us to trust his theories of salvation. He and his doctrine alike are certain to perish.

Barnes has this comment on the phrase, "his earth":

The earth is man's: (a) It is his in that he was made from the earth and to the earth shall return (Genesis 3:19). (b) the earth (grave) is his. There he shall abide. (c) It is "his" in the sense that it is the only property that he shall ever possess. All that a man - prince, noble, pauper, billionaire, monarch or slave - will soon have is his grave, his few feet of earth. That will be "his" by right of possession; by the fact that for the time being, he shall occupy it, and not another man.[14]