Psalm 8 www.christconversation.com
Scott Downing Sunday, August 28, 2016
Christ Conversation Psalm 8 When you pray, to whom are you praying? When you praise, does the ‘object’ of your praise form the depth of your praise? Would the preparations of your words be different if you were to speak to your co-worker around the water cooler or to the CEO of the corporation? While both your co-worker and your CEO deserve respect and honor, would it not change the very nature of the conversation and the way in which you spoke? Is it possible that our prayers and praises often lack because we do not reflect deeply on the One to Whom we presenting ourselves? Our prayers and praises are too small too often. Why? Because, as J.B. Phillips observed in the title of his book: Your God Is Too Small. I quote: It is obviously impossible for an adult to worship the conception of God that exists in the mind of a child of Sunday-school age, unless he is prepared to deny his own experience of life. If, by a great effort of will, he does do this he will always be secretly afraid lest some new truth may expose the juvenility of his faith. And it will always be by such an effort that he either worships or serves a God who is really too small to command his adult loyalty and cooperation. It often appears to those outside the Churches that this is precisely the attitude of Christian people. If they are not strenuously defending an outgrown conception of God, then they are cherishing a hothouse God who could only exist between the pages of the Bible or inside the four walls of a Church. Therefore, to join in with the worship of a Church would be to become a party to a piece of mass-hypocrisy and to buy a sense of security at the price of the sense of truth, and many men of goodwill will not consent to such a transaction. Do you feel the sting of such words? I do. I fear too many ‘worship services’ are driven by the awesomeness of the worship team/band than by the awesomeness of God. The experience of worship replaces the Reality of worship. The result of this transaction is on display in the Western church where
people leave their ‘worship service’ with no discernable change in their behaviors and the faith that shapes them. Virtually every study shows little or no difference between the secular culture and the evangelical church in key areas of morality, commitments, and the belief in a defining truth. Psalm 8 is a song. Psalm 8 is a worship service. Psalm 8 was written for the choir. Psalm 8 is not to be read – it is to be sung! C. S. Lewis called this Psalm. a “short, exquisite lyric.” And Psalm 8 will contemplate and sing out the deep, the powerful, the profound nature of God, humanity, creation and redemption. You cannot sing Psalm 8 and remain unchanged. Psalm 8:1 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. (ESV) Look at the difference between the use of ‘Lord’ in this verse. One is capital ‘L’ with small caps following while the second is capital ‘L’ with lower case following. LORD LORD in your Bible indicates the name God gave to Moses in Exodus 3:13-15: Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” (ESV) LORD is YHWH. Pronounced, Yahweh,” it is connected to the verb ‘hayah’ in verse 14: “I am who I am.” The “I AM” of God reveals to us several things about God: 1. God is. God is without beginning. God is without end. God is. God is not emerging; God is not
‘becoming.’ (Genesis 1; John 1; Revelation 4:8; Psalms 90:2) 2. God is ultimate Reality. Before God – no thing. No space. No time. What is presently was brought into being by God’s will and word. As such, all that is depends on God and owes its existence to God. (Acts 17:24-26, 28; Colossians 1:16-17) 3. God defined truth, beauty and goodness. God is truth. God is the standard of truth, beauty and goodness. (Ecclesiastes 3:11; Psalm 19:9; Proverbs 30:5; John 7:18; 1 John 1:5-7; 5:20) 4. God is uniquely God. The “I AM” expressed in the life of the Trinity, is the only “I AM.” (Isaiah 44:6-8; John 1:1-2, 14; 8:58)
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. (Isaiah 49:14-16)
The Sovereign One, our Lord, our Adonai, has welcomed us—indeed, invited us—to be with Him, to follow Him, to walk alongside Him.
This is the LORD being addressed by David in Psalm 8. Yahweh.
The One who created all that is is the One who engages us in grace and mercy and love.
Pause and reflect on that as the beginning of your prayer, your praise, your song. Your pause will allow space for the Spirit to give voice to your thoughts.
Let that settle into your soul. Might this change our all too often lackadaisical approach to worship and prayer?
and “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” (John 14:18-19)
Note the second part of Psalm 8:1: But it is not only Yahweh David addresses. Lord The word here is not YHWH; it is ädōn. We usually read this name in the form of adonai. This is the master, the ultimate authority of our life. He is the Lord before Whom we bow down. He is the Sovereign ruler of our life. David moves from the ultimate God (LORD) over-all-thatis to the Lord that is “our Lord.” You are not praying or praising a God who watches us from a distance nor a God that wound up the universes’ clock and walked away. Yahweh is our Adonai. In his Journals, Søren Kierkegaard wrote: “It is so impossible for the world to exist without God that if God could forget it it would instantly cease to be.” God does not forget us: But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Do you see how David uses these two realms to speak to both LORD and Lord? LORD Lord
How majestic is your name in all the earth You have set your glory above the heavens.
The LORD has set His glory above the heavens while the Lord’s majesty and name fills all the earth. Note that God has set His glory above the heavens. While the heavens can declare His glory, God is not to be confused with the heavens or thought of as the heavens: “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20) The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1) Once again, Yahweh is our Adonai. This aspect of the heavens and the earth come to play huge in this Psalm. David will go beyond himself—
beyond his own understanding—in the development of these two spheres to speak of things into which angels long to look.
We talk about how insignificant we are—just specks in the universe—and how small and destructive humans are to nature.
This is what authentic worship does to us: it moves us past ourselves. Authentic worship peels away the earthly foundations of our life and allows us to see another foundation of another country, another city (Hebrews 11:13-16). Authentic worship allows the present to be invaded by eternity; it invites that which is to come to fill this space now (Luke 11:20). In so doing, we are reminded that we dwell in two spheres: one in which His majestic name fills and one in which He has set His glory (Hebrews 11:13; Philippians 3:20-21).
Certainly humanity has been cruel to nature. That charge is warranted. But the accusation that we are small and meaningless in the scope of the vastness of the universes?
Psalm 8:2 – I will comment at the end of verse 8.
David continues his song. He continues to spherically speak. But something happens in authentic worship: David is moved past himself, past his comprehension and into the realm of the Spirit’s speaking through him.
Psalm 8:3-4 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Again, we see David using the two spheres of the heavens and the earth. As a shepherd, David must have spent many nights gazing up into the night sky and tracking the stars and moon. Grounded on terra firma, looking upward at the beauty of God’s creation is a flight of wonderment and awe. For David, this heavenly view speaks of greater issues: the Creator whose glory is declared in the expanses of stars. David does not stop at the beauty of creation – much as our society does—he sees the beauty of God. Such is the meaning of the word, “glory” in verse 1: You have set your glory above the heavens. Glory is from the Hebrew hōde. It means splendor, honor – even majestic. This is a different word, although it’s root is the same, than the ‘glory’ in verse 5. Here David cannot help but see God’s glory in the stars. In contrast, however, he cannot help but wonder why God would care about humanity. The word David uses for ‘mindful’ is to call to remembrance. There’s that remembrance word again! Does this sound contemporary? The importance of humanity is consistently denigrated in our world today.
Well, even David wonders why God remembers us at all. Why should God bother with David or the sons of men? Psalm 8:5-8
Humanity is NOT insignificant. Humanity is NOT a small speck in a vast space. Humanity stands in a transitional place. God has placed things over us and under us. David sings out the stunning lyric: God has crowned humanity with glory and honor! Can you imagine it? This is daring, audacious music. When David says God crowned humanity with glory and honor means:
Crowned: surrounded, encompassed Glory: weight, splendor Honor: magnificence, ornamented with beauty
In his sermon, “The Weight of Glory,” C. S. Lewis speaks to this. Referring to the line “You have crowned them with glory,” Lewis played out the implications that God has entrusted humans with significance. What does it mean when we discover that our fellow human beings are created as little less than the angels? He explores what happens when we realize that we humans are not mere mortals, but nearly gods? Lewis said, “It’s a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses.” He reflects that if we saw each other as God sees us, we would be strongly tempted to bow down and worship even “the dullest, most uninteresting person you talk to….” He concludes, “There are no ordinary people; you have never talked to a mere mortal.”
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands . . . You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
Humanity stands between the “heavenly beings” (ESV1) and the things subdued under feet.
Rather than looking upward, he stalled on himself. As a result, Nebuchadnezzar was reduced to the beasts of the field: While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws. (Daniel 4:31-33)
When the writer of Hebrews picks up this passage, he uses the Greek for “angels” (Hebrews 2:9). What is the significance of this? Angels have spirits but no bodies. Traditionally speaking, animals have bodies but no spirit.2 Humanity mediates between these two spheres.
When did this end? When Nebuchadnezzar lifted up his eyes: At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” At the same time my reason returned to me Daniel 4:34-36a
We were created to look up even as we were commissioned to care for—to rule over—the creatures below. Because we are ‘lower than the angels’ we understand we live under the rule of God, who is above the angels. By looking upward, we aspire to become more fully developed into that which God has created us to be. The apostle Paul warns us about turning our gaze away from the upward look: For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:21-23) Such was the case of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 4:30 records the boast of that Babylonian king: “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”
1
The ESV translates the plural ‘elohiym as “heavenly beings.” Elohiym is used in the Old Testament to refer to God (Genesis 1-2) as the supreme God. But it is also used of judges and angels.
In his song of praise, David has taken us back to Genesis and to the very essence of who we are as human beings. But he is also pointing us forward to redemption in Christ. In authentic worship, the Spirit of God takes David where he could not imagine going on his own
2
When God created Adam in Genesis, He ‘breathed’ into Adam. Moreover, Adam was created in the image of God. The animals were not created in this manner or with such intimacy.
JESUS CHRIST IN PSALM 8 While humanity is crowned with glory and honor we cannot deny that is has been soiled and diminished through sin. But there is a man, Jesus, that brings us restoration and redemption. When Jesus entered Jerusalem with palm fronds and tree branches laid on the ground before Him, the crowds began to shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest.” Hosanna is a cry “Save, I pray.” Jesus cleanses the Temple and begins healing people. Again, the people cry out to be saved – with emphasis on the children crying out to be saved. The chief priests and the scribes were indignant. In response to their offense, Jesus quotes Psalm 8: “Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise?” (see Matthew 21:116)
David sings a song to the Redeemer of humanity. In his worship he is like the babes and infants of Psalm 8:2: his praise acknowledges that God is God over all – even over the might of all creation – even over the angels – even over humanity. Psalm 8:9 David ends as he began: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Indeed. Amen. _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________ _____________________________________________
Jesus applies David’s song to Himself. The song David used to speak of God, Jesus uses to speak of Himself.
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He is the One to whom the infants, the children, sing praises.
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When the author of Hebrews quotes Psalm 8, he brings forward the necessary incarnation of Jesus and the salvation He brings. To get this, the whole of Hebrews 2 needs to be read. Read Hebrews 2 and note the key issues: Hebrews 2:5-8. The quote from Psalm 8 Hebrews 2: 9. Jesus is made a little lower than the angels (the incarnation). And crowned with glory and honor. Hebrews 2: 10. Jesus is the founder of our salvation Hebrews 2:11. Jesus sanctifies us and makes us his own brothers and sisters. Hebrews 2:14-18. Jesus completely identifies with us because He was made in flesh and blood like us. He suffers like us. He was tempted like us. He has broken the power of death – completely unlike us EXCEPT in Christ.
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