Psalm 34:8, “Oh, taste and see that YHWH is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”
See how the Spirit—through David—urges the people of God to press in further not merely know of YHWH but to feast, as it were, on Him, to taste and see for one’s self that He is good. What a wonder the command of verse 8 is! The human soul—my created soul—is able (indeed, is commanded) to taste, to savor, to relish the goodness of the eternal and uncreated God. Awesome….the goodness of which the universe sings, the goodness for which all of reality is a canvas, the goodness toward which all desires point, this goodness—this GOD—can be tasted and recognized by the human being. But how?
Well I think we get the answer in the second half of the verse. To taste and see that YHWH is paralleled with the concept of taking refuge in Him. It would seem that His goodness is savored when we throw ourselves wholly on His grace and know Him to be the invincible refuge of our souls. And this seems to be Peter’s interpretation as well in 1 Peter 2:2-3.
“…long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation—if indeed you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.”
Peter has just reminded people that they have been born again through the “good news that was preached to you” (1:25), that is, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then, in 2:2, he calls his readers to long for the pure spiritual milk of this gospel, if indeed they have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. The “Lord” here is Christ, the rejected cornerstone (2:4), and tasting and seeing that He is good seems to be equated with having received the gospel. And to receive the gospel is to have recognized and received God in Christ as the only refuge and satisfaction and hope for the soul.
Thus, it would seem that Peter understands David to be saying that one tastes the goodness of YHWH by seeking refuge in Him. He then takes this interpretation and applies it to Christ, the one to whom we run if we take refuge in YHWH. Ultimately, a person tastes the goodness of YHWH by receiving the good news of the crucified and risen Jesus and fleeing to Him alone as the refuge of the soul.
We taste the goodness of our God, we feast upon the abundance of His house, when we come to Him for refuge. Of course, YHWH is only a refuge to His people because of the cross. Thus, even David’s flight to YHWH as his refuge in Psalm 34 was—ultimately—a flight to Christ. But why is it here that we uniquely taste His goodness? Is it not because, to become our refuge, He had to show us the depths of His own heart? To become our refuge, He had to pour Himself out to us in love, bearing our sin in Himself and encompassing in Himself the hell of infinite wrath. To become our refuge He had to love us as He loves Himself, giving Himself without reserve so that we might know and love Him…and Goodness itself is God known and loved in this way. Thus, to truly receive YHWH as our refuge is to know Him as He knows Himself and to be loved by Him as He loves Himself…that is simply to say, it is to receive Him in the Son who loves us and gives Himself for us. He cannot be our refuge unless we know Him as such, and to know Him as such is to taste of the very depths of His goodness because it is to know Him as He is—as Love.
