* The Psalms in Worship.—The United Presbyterian Board of Publication, Pittsburgh, 1907. See Articles, vol. xii., pp. 249, 337, 381; vol. xiii., p. 12.
REFERENCE has already been made in a previous issue of the frequency with which the Psalms are quoted in the New Testament. There is scarcely any aspect of the work of Christ but is foreshadowed in these wonderful songs of Sion; and it is deeply significant that the Son of God, when He appeared among His astonished disciples on the evening of the Resurrection Day, said to them, “These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me. Then opened he their understandings that they might understand the scriptures and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke xxiv. 44-47). After such an authoritative declaration it is nothing short of daring presumption to assert that Christ is not to be found in the Psalms. These words of the Lord evidently sank deep into the hearts of the disciples, and in the sermon preached on the day of Pentecost by Peter, and so abundantly blessed and owned by the Holy Spirit, there are most explicit references to the Psalter. But for the more orderly treatment of our subject it may be necessary in dealing with the Messianic Psalms to follow Dr. M’Kettrick’s method in The Psalms in Worship (who evidently has followed Dr. Binnie), and group them into two divisions—the first group dealing with those which may be described as directly Messianic, and the second dealing with those which are typically so.
To begin with those Psalms which are directly Messianic, there stands out the twenty-second, which is permanently so. There are experiences in this Psalm which belong, in a peculiar manner, to Christ, and anyone who has read this Psalm, in the light of the agony of Gethsemane and the sufferings of Calvary, must have had an overwhelming sense that this Psalm is indeed the Psalm of the Cross. And in connection with its solemn and sacred subject it would be to our advantage to read such an instructive and edifying commentary as that which the reader will find in Stevenson’s Christ on the Cross. The cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” with which the Psalm opens, and so expressive of unutterable loneliness, was actually uttered by the Son of God when, as the Substitute for His people, He endured the curse. Then the expressions, “they pierced my hands and feet,” and “they part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture,” are so real a fulfilment of what actually took place on and at the Cross that the Psalm at once brings us to New Testament times and introduces us to the most solemn transactions in connection with the treatment given by His enemies to the Son of God. And he who has the hardihood to deny the right of this Psalm to a place in the Psalmody of the Christian Church must have a strange conception of New Testament praise. The whole Psalm is redolent of Gethsemane and Calvary, but it tells of a triumph realised and complete when “all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.” This Psalm may be said to occupy in the Psalter the place occupied by the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah among the Messianic prophecies—there is such a vivid and life-like description of events that were to happen hundreds of years afterwards that stamps the narrative with the seal of its divine origin. It is scarcely necessary to say that the Psalm is frequently quoted in connection with what took place at the Cross by the evangelists.
When we turn to the one hundred and tenth Psalm, we have again presented to us an aspect of the work of the Redeemer which is fitted to impress us with high and exalted views of His kingly and priestly offices. It is to this Psalm that the Apostle appeals when he asserts the super-angelic dignity of the Messias when he says, “To which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool?” When the Apostle Peter preached with the power of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost, he refers to this Psalm in the words: “For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool,” adding this explanation, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” And it is to be further noticed, as Dr. Binnie has pointed out when he says, “Still higher honour has been put upon the oracle in the fourth verse—’Jehovah hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.’ Not only is it quoted as unquestionably an utterance of the Holy Spirit with reference to Christ, but it is a text from which the New Testament preaches more than from any other in all the ancient Scriptures. The central chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews—chapters more precious than fine gold for the elucidation they give of the priesthood and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ—what are they but an extended commentary on this one verse?”—(The Psalms: Their History, Teaching, and Use, p. 170.)
Who can read the second Psalm without feeling that in the mighty Prince, whose right to the throne is assured by the decree of Jehovah, we are brought face to face with transactions that concern Him whose prerogative it is to reign until all His enemies shall be made His footstool? When Peter and John were commanded by the rulers and elders and scribes that they should not speak nor teach in the name of Jesus, they answered their enemies by saying—”Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” After their release they went to their own company, and related all that had been done unto them. “And when they had heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: Who, by the mouth of thy servant David, hast said, Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child, Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.” From which interpretation, given by the Holy Spirit, it is evident that the tumultuous movements passing into fierce, ungovernable rage, recorded in the second Psalm, found their fulfilment in the incidents that gather round the trial, condemnation, and crucifixion of the Son of God. The Psalm is again quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews when the Apostle, in confirmation of his statement that the Son “hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they,” adds, “for unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Heb. i. 5).
In the forty-fifth Psalm, “the glories of the King,” to quote Dr. Binnie’s words, “are first described, His superhuman beauty and gracious words, the everlasting stability of His throne, His martial achievements and the mild equity of His administration. Then follows a description of the marriage: the Queen-Consort is at the King’s right hand in gold of Ophir; she is conducted—she and her maidens—into the King’s palace; and the daughter of opulent Tyre, who has come to grace the day with her presence, brings in her hand a wedding gift. It is a song resplendent with the richest ornaments of oriental poetry. Respecting its ultimate and proper intention, there has been from the first an unfaltering consent among all devout readers.”
It will also be remembered that this Psalm is quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews in proof of the Deity of the Son of God and the everlasting dominion of His Kingdom. Taking the Psalm all in all, it is a precious portion of the word of God, and in leaving it we cannot refrain from again quoting Dr. Binnie when he says: “The Psalter which sets forth so much truth respecting the person and work of Christ—truth more precious than gold, and sweeter than the honeycomb—is not silent respecting the bond subsisting between Him and His people, the mystical union between Christ and the Church. When a prince sets his affections on a woman of lowly rank, and takes her home to be his wife, the two are so united that her debts become his, his wealth and honours become hers. Now, that there is formed between Christ and the Church, between Christ and every soul that will consent to receive Him, a connection of which the most intimate of all natural relations is the analogue and type, we have already found to be not only taught in the Psalms, but to be implied in the very structure of many of them. He takes His people’s sins upon Him, and they receive the right to become the sons of God; the one Spirit of God wherewith He was baptised without measure, dwells in them according to the measure of the grace that is given them. I will only add, further, that this union, besides being implied in so many places, is expressly set forth in one most glorious Psalm—the nuptial song of Christ and the Church—which has for its peculiar theme the home-bringing of Christ’s elect, that they may be joined to Him in a union that shall survive the everlasting hills.”
As to the typically Messianic Psalms, unfortunately our space forbids us doing more than make a mere passing reference, but those interested in the subject would do well to read Dr. Binnie’s The Psalms: Their History, Teachings, and Use. It is an invaluable work; its fine scholarship, deep spiritual insight, and the sober judgment of the author, give a tone to the book that raises it above the ordinary level of theological works. In regard to the typically Messianic Psalms, David, as the type of Christ, is set before us. For in David and his kingdom we have the most distinguished of the types of Christ. Among these Psalms are to be reckoned the sixteenth, eighteenth, fortieth, fifty-ninth, sixty-ninth, seventy-second, eighty-ninth, one hundred and ninth, and others. In leaving this subject we cannot help giving expression to a feeling of deep regret of how far short our treatment of it comes of what might be expected of us and what it really deserves; yet may we not fondly cherish the hope to which David gave expression in the eighteenth Psalm, that he was writing Psalms in which all nations of the earth would one day join, when he said—”Therefore will I give thanks unto thee, O Jehovah, among the nations, and to thy name will I sing praises.” When that day comes may not the Church of Christ sing as she never sang before—
“His name for ever shall endure,
Last like the sun it shall;
Men shall be bless’d in him, and bless’d
All nations shall him call.
Now blessed be the Lord our God,
The God of Israel;
For he alone doth wondrous works,
In glory that excel.
And blessed be his glorious name
To all eternity.
The whole earth let his glory fill;
Amen, so let it be.”
D. B.