ONE of the shallowest criticisms ever passed on the Psalms is that which asserts that Christ is not to be found in them. That such criticisms sometimes come from the lips of the learned does not in any degree lessen the shallowness of the criticism. No one who has read the book of Psalms with the prayer, “Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law,” and carefully studied them, receiving instruction from heaven, can fail to be deeply moved at the marvellous light they throw on the work, sufferings, and glory of David’s Son and David’s Lord. And apart altogether from the specific Messianic references in these Psalms, it is not to be forgotten that the deep interest of the Old Testament lies in the fact that it was preparing the Church of God for the great event of the Incarnation and the Expiation of Sin on Calvary’s Cross. “It was in this way,” says Dr. Robertson of Glasgow, in his Croal Lectures, “that the Old Testament was the schoolmaster to lead to Christ by quickening in man the sense of sin and the desire for renewal; in other words, it is not merely nor even principally a record of revelation, but a record of the process of redemption. From this aspect, the points of contact between the Old and the New Testaments are seen not only to increase in number but to gain in significance. And so we can understand how the New Testament writers, to whom this view was paramount, refer so frequently to the Psalms, although there are fewer direct Messianic references in the Psalms than in the prophetic Scriptures. It is said that there are, in all, two hundred and eighty-three quotations from the Old Testament in the New, and that of these a hundred and sixteen are from the Psalms.” And that great saint and eminent divine, Jonathan Edwards, has borne impressive testimony to the doctrinal completeness of the Psalter from a Christian standpoint. “In these Psalms,” he says, “David speaks of the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension into heaven, satisfaction and intercession of Christ; His glorious benefits in this life and that which is to come; His union with the Church; the blessedness of the Church in Him; the calling of the Gentiles; the future glory of the Church, near the end of the world; and the coming of Christ to final judgment.” Failure to see Christ in the Psalms does not arise from any indefiniteness in the expressions in which they refer to the Messiah, but is to be traced to the natural blindness that fails to see Him alike in Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Fortunately, we have quite a voluminous literature on the testimony of the Psalms to Christ. There is the able and eloquent Bampton Lectures of Archbishop Alexander, entitled, The Witness of the Psalms to Christ and Christianity—a book which, if it contains some matters which to us are objectionable, yet at the same time presents an exceptionally able argument in defence of its theme. Then there is Rev. Dr. A. A. Bonar’s Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms. Dr. Bonar in this work makes a short comment on each Psalm, and, like Bishop Horne in his Commentary on the Psalms, evidently does not find it a difficult matter to find abundant references in the Psalms to the Messiah. And without extending the list we have the two very instructive and useful papers in the Psalms in Worship, entitled, “Christ in the Psalms.” The first of these papers is written by President Robert M’Watty Russell, D.D., LL.D, New Wilmington, Pa., United States; and the other by the Rev. E. S. M’Kittrick, D.D., Pasadena, Ca., United States. Both these papers are well written and afford not only pleasant, but instructive reading. Dr. M’Kittrick quotes with fine appropriateness a saying of Jonathan Edwards on the Psalms:—”The main subjects of these songs were the glorious things of the Gospel, as is evident by the interpretation that is often put upon them, and the use that is made of them, in the New Testament. For there is no one Book of the Old Testament that is so often quoted in the New as the book of Psalms. Here Christ is spoken of in multitudes of songs.”
When the Lord Jesus arose from the grave we find Him in the fulfilment of His prophetic functions as the great Prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, instructing His disciples in those things which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning Him. And in order that this instruction might be beneficial to them He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scripture. This is the essential qualification for all those who would understand the Scriptures aright, that this great Prophet should open the eyes of their understanding; and with such a teacher, and eyes so opened, we too will have to say, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us by the way and while He opened to us the Scriptures” (Luke xxiv. 32). From these words it is evident that failure to see Christ in the Old Testament Scriptures was owing to blindness, and it is not an uncharitable conclusion to come to in ascribing to the same cause the failure in modern times to find Him in the Psalms. It is deeply significant that when the apostle, in writing to the Hebrews, wishes to show from the Scriptures the transcendent dignity of the Person of Christ, that he quotes six of seven passages of Scripture from the book of Psalms. It is to be borne in mind that this is done in an Epistle which to a pre-eminent degree deals with matters that have passed away and given place to a rule and order of things that cannot be moved.
Dr. Russell sums up the argument as drawn from the use of the Psalms in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the following words:—”To prove the relation of Christ to the Father, he quotes Psalm ii. 7, ‘Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee;’ and again, Psalm lxxxix. 26, ‘I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son.’ To prove Christ’s superiority to all the angels, he quotes Psalm xcvii. 7, ‘And let all the angels of God worship him;’ and again, the declaration of Psalm civ. 4, connected with Psalm xlv. 6, 7, where it is said that while God maketh ‘his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,’ He saith of His Son, ‘Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, and the sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.’ He shows from the one hundred and second Psalm that Christ is before all creation, in the words, ‘And thou, Lord, in the beginning, didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands.’ That He is to be eternally exalted is proven from the one hundred and tenth Psalm, where God says in reference to His exaltation, ‘Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool.’ Again he quotes the eighth Psalm, describing Christ’s union with humanity in that He made Him a little lower than the angels; while again, in the twenty-second Psalm, he proves that Christ is not ashamed to call us brethren, ‘I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee.'”—(Psalms in Worship, p. 218.)
The subject is of such importance that we hope to return to it in a future issue, and to give proofs of how often the Psalms are quoted in the New Testament, and how many are the references in them to Christ and His work.
D. B.