"I will establish his [i. e., David's] offspring forever, and his throne as the days of the heavens. If his children forsake My law, and do not walk according to My rules, if they violate My statutes, and do not keep My commandments, then I will punish their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes, but I will not remove from him My steadfast love or be false to My faithfulness. I will not violate My covenant or alter the word that went forth from My lips" (Psalm 89:29-34).
These are the words of God in His covenantal promises to King David. Paul echoes them in II Timothy 2:13: "If we are faithless, He remains faithful - because He cannot deny Himself." In both passages, God's faithfulness to His people is never founded on our faithfulness to Him. Rather, even when we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, because to do otherwise would be to deny Himself. To violate His covenant promises would be a betrayal of His own nature, and is, therefore, unthinkable.
We know the history of Israel, though it was still future to the time of the writing of the Psalm. She was, indeed, unfaithful, and God did, indeed, bring down on her fearsome judgments, especially the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Babylonians, and the carrying away by them of the bulk of the population into captivity. This was a judgment only succeeded by the later judgment under the Romans in 70 AD, when Jerusalem was again looted and the temple destroyed, and an estimated 1.1 million Jews were massacred. From that judgment, the Jews have not yet recovered. Rather, Israel lies under a judicial hardening for her rejection and murder of her Messiah.
Yet even that judgment points to Psalm 89.
"It is true [that] the body of that nation, for their unbelief, is now broken off; there is a suspension of the outward part of the covenant. Not that God intends an utter rejection of them. For such as have part in the special election are always saved, Romans 11:7, and the time will come when all Israel shall be saved. For, as touching the election, they are beloved still, though yet unborn. For their sakes it was that 'those days of tribulation were shortened,' Matthew 24:22, which answers to Isaiah 65:8, 'Destroy it not, there is a blessing in it.' The Lord will not so much regard what they have done or deserved as what His covenant is concerning Abraham's seed, which, minding of His covenant, is from the unchangeableness of His purpose. And, therefore, though broken off at present, 'they shall be grafted in again,' verse 24, though driven into all lands, scattered into corners, mingled with the heathen, and become so like them as not to be known asunder. Yet, being His chosen, and within His covenant, He will bring them out of their holes and gather them one by one, Isaiah 27:12. He will do it so accurately, exactly, punctually, that none shall be wanting, 'though sifted among all nations, not one grain shall fall to the earth,' Amos 9:9. The reservation mentioned in Romans 11 was God's omnipotent safeguarding of His elect, when the rest of the nation fell to idolatry. They had gone all, as well as some, had not election held them back. It is, therefore, said to be according to the election of grace. Election was the pattern, and reservation the copy of it" ( Puritan Elisha Coles, "A Practical Discourse of God's Sovereignty").
Coles cites the faithfulness of God to His promises to Abraham as the grounds for the sustaining of a faithful remnant among the Jews, and for their eventual national repentance and salvation. And that same faithfulness is why the Christian can be assured that God will enable him to persevere in this life unto eternal life in the age to come.
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