Tuesday, 7th October 2014,
was a beautiful sunny day. We parked our
car on the beach at Portstewart, and walked toward the town harbour to take
photographs of a boat we had seen there the previous day. On it, the words ‘PSALM VIII’ and ‘EXPEDITION 8:
4,’ were written! See photograph above.
Admiring the scenery from an elevated section
of the path, we saw a small orange-coloured fishing boat out at sea: it was
returning to the harbour. You can see it
at the end of this short presentation: The fisherman in his boat about to begin
work on his catch.
He began by cutting the tendons in the
legs of sea crabs to make their powerful pincher-claws ineffective. After preparing them this way for safe handling,
he placed them back into his cage, and dropped them into the water to keep them
alive – down to very bottom of the harbour.
Some important
spiritual lessons came to mind as I observed what was being done, and what I
heard from those standing nearby that day: lessons which were beneficial for
those given ears to hear, eyes to see, faith to believe and minds
to fully understand.
Oh, that the Holy
Spirit will give to each of us a deeper understanding of what our
Lord Jesus Christ has written, by those whom He chose: that we might make it
our aim in life to take His teachings to heart; to find in
Him the strength to obey His precepts; to be encouraged by His grace and
longsuffering with us in our ignorance; and to enable us to believe and understand
more fully all that He has said, which will surely happen and must surely soon
come to pass!
See Jer. 33:
14-16; Isa. 6: 9, 10; 61: 11; Rom. 8: 19-22. Cf. 2 Pet. 2: 4; Rev. 3: 15-18; Luke 12: 45, 46, 47; Matt. 8: 11, 12; Matt 25: 30; and finally, John 7:
16, 17, R.V.
“And he
[Christ/Messiah]
said to them, These are my words
which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you,
how that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are
written in the law of Moses, and the prophets,
and THE PSALMS,
concerning ME.
Then opened he
their mind, that they might understand the scriptures…” (Luke 24: 44, 45, R.V.).
o – o – o – o – o – o - o
TRANSLATIONS AND EXPOSITIONS
OF
PSALM EIGHT
1
The Numerical Bible
THE PSALMS
To the chief musician, upon
the Gittith; a psalm of David
1 JEHOVAH our Lord,*
* Here,
and in verse 9, “plural of majesty.”
how excellent is thy name in
all the earth,
who hast set thy glory above
the heavens!
2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings
hast thou established praise
because of thine adversaries,
that thou mightest still the
enemy and the revenger.
3 When I behold the heavens, the work of
thy fingers,
moon and stars which thou hast
established,
4 What is man, that thou rememberest him?
and the son of man, that thou
visitest him?
5 And thou makest him a
little lower than the angels,
and with glory and honour thou
crownest him.
6 Thou makest him rule over
the works of thy hands;
thou hast put everything under
his feet:
7 Sheep and oxen, all of them,
and also the beasts of the
field;
8 Bird of the heavens, and fish of
the sea,
whatsoever passeth through the paths
of the seas.
9 Jehovah our Lord:
how excellent is thy name in
all the earth!
EXPOSITION
It is a psalm of David, “upon the Gittith.” Two
interpretations of this are given, which practically are not far apart,
however. “Some
Hebrew scholars,” says an anonymous writer whom we may often quote, “would regard it as the name of a musical instrument peculiar
to Gath, where David once sought shelter from the unrelenting persecution of
Saul. Just as there was among the Greeks
a Dorian lyre, which had a wide celebrity on account of its excellent sweetness,
so, it is suggested, this psaltery, Gittith, was
borrowed by David from the citizens of Gath, and thence introduced by him on
account of the superior sweetness of its tone and the beauty and elegance of
its form. If this be the true
interpretation, it suggests also a deeply spiritual reflection: for how often
from the saddest occasions of temptation and distress in the devout life arise
the gladdest songs of praise! The wild
storm often makes the sweetest music on the Aeolian harp.
“But a more likely derivation may be
found for this title, Gittith,
in a Hebrew root, signifying ‘wine-press.’ And now it is an autumn song chanted by the vine-dressers
at the joyful vintage-season, when the blood of the grape is poured into the
wine-vat. Still the same idea is
prominent: sorrow and anguish, like the trodden clusters, are fruitful in the
wine of a holy joy.”
Whether it be
1. So brief yet so comprehensive as it is, the psalm has
comparatively many divisions. It begins and ends with the glory of God, Jehovah’s name being now
excellent in all the earth. But there is
more than this: He has set His glory
also above the heavens.
It should be evident when we consider what is
the great subject before us, that all this has a deeper meaning than at first sight we might give it. The
Lord as ‘Son of man,’ taking POSSESSION of the EARTH as His INHERRITANCE, makes everywhere Jehovah’s name
excellent in it. When, as Zechariah prophesies, “the Lord my
God shall come, and all His saints with Thee,” His feet standing upon the mount of
Olives, from which He went up, then “Jehovah shall be King over all the earth; in
that day there shall be one Jehovah,
and His Name one.” (Zech. 14: 3, 5, 10.)
The application in this way is simple, and it throws light
upon the rest of the verse: for then surely we can see that the glory that is set above the heavens is
connected with the work of this same blessed Person. It is not the glory of moon and stars spread over the heavens, such as the psalmist
speaks of in the third verse, but a glory above all created things, however wondrous. Jehovah it is who is manifest in this Son of
man, in whose lowly position just the wonder of His condescending love
appears. Supreme in power, He is as
supreme in moral glory, and in Christ how does this shine out! Thus the praise of earth ascends to Him, owning His rightful rule: “Jehovah our
Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth!”
2. Its deliverance has come, therefore, from the oppressor: it is
not merely that the voice of calumny has been stopped, as interpreters have taken
this verse to mean, but the enemy has passed away. In a fuller sense than could be said of
Solomon’s peaceful reign, “there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent. So then it is by more than the praise of babes and sucklings that the enemy is silenced, and the Lord’s
quotation of the passage with reference to the hosannas of
the children does not at all entail such a consequence as this. It is He Himself who will “smite the
earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the
breath of His lips destroy the wicked.” But yet for
this He will establish praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings;
that is, I doubt not, of new-converted souls, humbled and brought down to such
conscious littleness and weakness as this implies. We have again from His lips such a comparison
in the well-known words, “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall
in no wise enter into the kingdom of
heaven.” Thus we see clearly why He must produce such
praise in order that the kingdom may come: the
heirs of it must be made ready.
The little children in the temple foreshadowed such praise as
this, and in this way the language could be suitably used with reference to
them. The actual fulfilment will be in those future days to which, as we have
seen, these psalms look on.
3. The third section brings us to the central
subject of the psalm, a spiritual enigma, no doubt, scarcely read in its true
meaning until the New Testament light was thrown upon it. At first sight it is just man - the race - of
which the psalmist speaks; and the question asked is really of this nature: but
the answer is a secret for the ear of faith, like much more that we shall find
as we go on with him. Man (the race) is,
in fact, but what the fall has made him; and what can be really said for
him? What can justify God’s regard for
this ruined creature? Go back to his
creation, - put him in the seat from which he fell, - think of the earth as
subjected to him, - alas, he seems but to mock the approving words with which
his Maker greeted him. Restore him, if
it were possible, even to that original excellency,
how shall the sceptre be again intrusted to hands that have failed so signally
to wield it? How, then, could God go on
with such an one?
Really you have no answer till you have a Second Man, - until you
can find one un-ruined, and with better pledges for the future: no use in mere
restoration, in mending such a broken vessel as the first; set him aside, and
let another take his office; if, indeed, that other can be found.
Here Christ then comes in, really a Second
Thus He is “made a little lower than the angels,” as the apostle explains, “on account of
the suffering of death.” It is not merely that
man’s condition is by creation a little lower, but Christ as become Son of man
is made that. It is a true descent that
we are to think of here, and the word used for “angels” - really “gods,” and the ordinary word for “God” (Elohim) - has
thus in its very ambiguity peculiar significance. God He indeed was [and is], who had come down to be a little
lower than God, - lower even than those habitually representing Him to men,* and so identified with Him, as the angels are: the apostle
accepts the Septuagint translation,
therefore, “angels.”
* See John 10: 34, 35: where,
though the principle is the same, the application is to the judges in
“On account of the suffering of death” He had to come down there. Man was under death as penalty, and therefore
One had to come in who by voluntary submission to the
penalty could glorify God as righteous in it, manifest the holiness of His
nature as against sin, but thus also manifest His love in providing
escape. And for this, humanity had to be
taken; immeasurably exalted indeed, by that which was His humiliation, but now
how wondrously in His exaltation! For He
laid down only to take up again that “body prepared,” and as a Man forever is risen and
gone up to God. What meaning is in this
way given to the words, “with glory and honour Thou crownest Him.”!
4. Now we have his dominion, the first man’s rule being repeated and
emphasized in the Second
The psalm naturally, however, clings to earth, though the things mentioned are not
forbidden a deeper meaning: “sheep and oxen” give us, of course, the domestic
animals; the “beasts of the field,” what we speak of as untamed. The spiritual meaning may without difficulty
be found by those that will. The heavens
and the deep speak of spheres above and
below the earth, as the spiritual ranks of the higher heavens serve with
delight the Son of man on the one hand, while He has also on the other “the keys of death and of hell [Hades].”
5. In all this we are dull scholars, but
the general thought is plain. It is no
wonder that the psalm ends with that with which it begins; the whole clasped,
as it were, together with the uniting bond that has joined God with man, and
thus made His name excellent in all the earth, - with a glory, too, which is
set above the heavens!
2
‘STUDIES
IN
THE
PSALMS’
By J. B. ROTHERHAM
--------
Psalm 8
DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
‘Jehovah’s Majesty Exalted by means
of Man’s Dominion.’
ANALYSIS
An Original Solo, vers. 3-8: Adapted to
Psalm - By David
1 Jehovah,
our Sovereign
Lord!
how wonderful is thy name
in all the earth!
Because thy majesty hath been uplifted abovea the heavens
2 Out of the mouth of children and sucklings
hast thou founded a stronghold,
on account of thine
adversaries, -
to silenceb foe and avenger.c
3 When I view thy heavens, the workd of thy fingers,
moon and stars which thou hast
established
4 What was weak man, that thou shouldst
think of him,
or the son of the earth-born, that thou
shouldst set him in charge;e
5 And shouldst makef him but little less than messengers divine,g
yea with glory
and state shouldst crown him;
6 Shouldst give him dominion over the works of thy hands,
-
all things shouldst have
put under his feet: -
7 cattle, small and large, - all of them, -
yea even the beasts of the
field, -h
8 the bird of the heavens, and
the fishes of the sea, -
whatsoever passeth through the paths
of the seas.
9 Jehovah, our Sovereign Lord!
how wonderful is thy name
in all the earth!
To the Chief Musician.
‘L M T H L B N = prob. “Maidens to a youth”:
pos. “concerning the death of the champion”:
pos. “concerning the white death = leprosy.”
a. So Septuagint (early Greek version)..
b. Or: “destroy.”
c. Compare. 44: 16.
d. So the
Ginsburg’s
notes in his Massoretico-Critical Hebrew Bible.
e. Compare. Num. 3: 10; 27: 16; Jer. 49: 19; 50: 44.
f. For tense see
Hebrew of Job 7: 18
and Ps. 144: 3.
g. Hebrew ‘elohim: as in 32: 1; 97: 7.
h. Or: “plain.”
EXPOSITION
The reason for resolving the chief part
of this psalm (vers. 3-8) into a Solo,
is written upon its face, by the appearance of the personal pronoun I.
From that point onward, the strain runs on breathlessly, as a single
magnificent sentence, to the end, where the voice of the soloist is hushed in
the renewed acclaim of the united congregation, in which, for a second time,
the whole people adoringly address Jehovah as
our Sovereign Lord. The
introductory strophe (vers. 1c, 2), interposed between the prelude and
the solo, is in any case special, and indeed remarkably unique: probably
imparting to the whole psalm its deepest prophetic import.
In attributing the solo to David’s early shepherd days, there
is no need to overlook the analogical argument so beautifully put by Delitzsch,
in favour of not dating the finished production of the psalm earlier than that
momentous day on which the Spirit of Prophecy came upon the youthful
harpist. “Just as the Gospels contain
no discourses delivered by our Lord previous to his baptism in the Jordan, and
the Canon of the New Testament contains no writings of the Apostles dating from
the time before Pentecost, so the Canon of the Old Testament contains no Psalms
of David that were composed by him prior to his anointing. Not till after he is the anointed of the God
of Jacob does he become the sweet singer of
The Solo gives a night-view of the heavens,
in their vastness stability and splendour; which would have made weak man, by
contrast, seem small and evanescent, but for the recollection of his creation
and destiny as revealed in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, with the
great words of which the poet’s mind was manifestly filled. Creation, seen in one of her most lovely
moods, and the Creation Story, recalled in one of its most suggestive features,
are, so to speak, the alphabet employed by the
Illuminating [Holy] Spirit to quicken the psalmist’s
mind. That the scene is a night-scene,
naturally follows from the absence of the sun; and is confirmed by the fact
that the blaze of the sun by day renders the heavens as a whole practically
invisible; whereas, here, not only are the heavens scanned with lingering
delight, but their minute and variegated beauties call forth admiration of the
skill of the Divine Artist’s fingers. Nevertheless, vastness is here, as the poet’s
eye sweeps the whole heavens; and permanence, as he recalls how many times he
has gazed at the same spectacle, and his ancestors before him have been
similarly delighted: and so his mind is carried back to the Creation Story, to
realise how abiding are moon and stars which Jehovah has established in the heavens.
The first effect of this midnight survey of the heavens is to make man
appear weak and short-lived. Because I see this, or when I see it
afresh, I am moved to exclaim - What is weak man - what the son of the
earth-born that thou shouldst remember him, visit him, set him in charge over this lower world? And so, by
the aid of the Creation Story, a reaction is induced in the poet’s mind; and
there come into view Man’s capacity, charge, dignity, destiny. After all, such a responsible being cannot be
wholly weak and short-lived.
Besides: to “weak man” succeeds a son of man, for Adam is not only an
individual, but a race; and it is to the race, as such, that the charge to
wield dominion is given:
“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue
it,- and have dominion.” The earth is to be filled and
subdued in order to the exercise of dominion.
Therefore the commission is to the race; and this alone justifies the
conclusion that the allusion to the first chapter of Genesis
begins with verse 4 of our
psalm, and not merely with verse 5
as some critics have thought.
With such a charge laid upon him, to rule inferior creatures,
Man appears to be little less than the messengers
divine, here termed in Hebrew ’elohim, a word of wider applicability than our English word “God” when spelled with a capital initial;
as will appear from an examination of Exo. 21: 6; 22: 8, 9, 28, and Ps. 82: 1, 2, 6, 7. If, as
appears from these passages, human judges, as representing the Divine Judge,
could be called ’elohim; much more may
heavenly messengers have been so named in this place; and, to them,
accordingly, we conclude that reference is here made.
Whether the crowning of Man with glory and state, when he was visited and installed
into office, imports the bestowment on him of any visible splendour calculated
to strike his animal subjects with reverence and challenge at once their
submission, we are not plainly told; and yet the discovery of the “nakedness”
which made man “ashamed”
after his transgression
may, not unnaturally, be deciphered as suggesting something more akin to an
actual disrobing than the inner consciousness of disobedience alone.
It is probably of greater importance to connect with Man’s
commission to govern this lower world his possession of the Divine Image: “Let us make man in our image ... and (qualified
by that endowment) let him have dominion.”
It is the Image bestowed which qualifies for the Dominion assigned.
This consideration ought probably to go a long way towards settling the
question: Wherein consisted that Image?
If we could only be content to derive our answer from the First of
Genesis, that answer might stand thus: The Image of God in which man was
created was his capacity to rule - his capacity to rule over and care for
beings beneath himself. It cannot be
denied that God possessed that capacity: that it was His glory and honour to
know his subjects, to appraise their powers, to foresee their needs, and to
provide with an unspeakably gracious goodwill (145: 16) for the due and orderly satisfaction of every
propensity with which he himself had endowed them. If so, it cannot be denied that the
bestowment of the same capacity on man would render him God-like just to the
degree to which he came to possess it.
It is surely to some extent confirmatory of this, to note the seeming
pride with which the psalmist lingers on the extent of Man’s realm, in the
several orders of which it is composed, and the several areas in which his
subjects dwell. Indeed, the apparent
inclusion of wild animals under the terms beasts of the field or plain, and the
comprehension of birds and fishes, to say nothing of the monsters of the deep, as all placed under Man’s dominion, go to show that so vast
a kingdom needs a God-like king; and to raise the question, whether Man ought
not to be able to wield a wider and more potent control over his subjects than
he is now seen to possess. In any case,
Man was originally majestically crowned; and if to any extent he has lost his dominion,
it can scarcely be that he has lost it for ever. To assume that he has, would afford a poor
prospect of silencing for ever the foe and the avenger.
This reference reminds us that Strophe I (vers. 1c, 2) now demands our patient attention. The attachment of the third line of the psalm
to this strophe, as its introduction, is presumably correct; inasmuch as we can
scarcely think that the prelude of the psalm and its final refrain were not
meant to be identical. If so, the
precise form which this third line should assume and the meaning it should
bear, become all the more important when it is seen to be the very base on
which the charming “child and suckling” strophe is made to rest. Critics are nearly agreed that some
word or letter has gone wrong in this line; and we should be content implicitly
to follow Dr. Ginsburg’s lead in emending it by reference to Num. 27: 20, save for the difficulty of seeing
any comparison whatever between the putting by Moses of some of his majesty on
Joshua and the putting by Jehovah of his majesty on the heavens. Under these circumstances, while gladly
accepting the suggestion of Ginsburg and others by restoring the word nathatta out of the seemingly broken fragment tenah of the M.T.,
we would prefer to follow the Septuagint, which reads, as we think, with
profound significance: Because thy majesty hath been uplifted
above the heavens. The
preciousness of the result, by heightening the prophetic significance of the
whole psalm, must be our excuse for detaining the reader on a point so
critical.
Advancing at once to the broad meaning
of the introductory strophe when thus emended, we remark: That we are thus
warranted in concluding, that it is in some way this very uplifting of
Jehovah’s majesty into the heavens, which makes way for the ministry of
children; and that at least the ministry of children is to assist in silencing the foe and avenger whose existence is so singularly
introduced into this psalm at its very head and front. It cannot be denied that he is here brought
forward with a circumstantiality which is positively startling. For first there
is a general reference to Jehovah’s adversaries, as furnishing a reason for the
Divine procedure of preparing the mighty ministry of children’s praise, which praise
is made the foundation of a bulwark which Jehovah rears in the midst of his
foes. That is the general statement;
which is then particularised by the more specific assertion of the result
expected to follow from the testimony of infant voices. So that, in fact, we are here confronted with a company of adversaries; headed, as it would seem, by one foe in
particular, who is not only a foe but an avenger, with vengeance in his heart;
as though he had a wrong to redress, an injury real or supposed to resent by
retaliation. Such is the natural and
proper force and setting of the words.
It is a conceivable state of things: a band of adversaries, with a
champion foe and avenger at their head.
Even as, in the early days
of David - probably not far from the time when this psalm was written - the
Philistines were “the adversaries” of Israel, and of Israel’s God, Jehovah; and then there stood
forth, at the head of those adversaries, and in their name, a foe and avenger,
by name Goliath: who, indeed, by a well-aimed blow from David’s sling was for
ever silenced in death. This is not to say, that such an incident
could by any means fill out the words before us; but only that we may do well
to seize the words in their proper force and full significance. Jehovah has adversaries: at their head is a
chieftain, who is determined, resentful and relentless. He is to be
silenced. Children are to be employed to
close his mouth. Their weapons will be
their words. Jehovah founds a tower of strength in their words; which,
presumably - as the Septuagint interprets - will be words of “praise.”
Children praise Jehovah for his majesty.
His majesty is seen in creation, on which and through which glimpses of
it are seen. His name - that is the
revelation of his power, wisdom, and goodness in creation - fills the whole
earth. This revelation is already an
objective reality: the moon-and star-lit heavens are stretched forth over all
the earth. Wherever the sons of the
earth-born tread, they find above them the same eloquent heavens. The Maker of the stars above is the Creator
of the flowers beneath. The tokens of
God fill all the earth. But this
objective revelation has not yet become subjective. The wonderful fact of Jehovah’s creatorship has not yet been
translated into the worshipful feeling of adoration and gratitude in all the
earth. Until this is realised,
the very refrain of this psalm is unfulfilled prophecy. Jehovah does not receive back “the fulness of all the earth” as “his glory” (Isa. 6: 3) so
long as “man
is vile.”
Adversaries to
Jehovah abound; his foe is at large; and his friends are much in the position
of a beleaguered fortress.
But the process of fulfilment has received an auspicious
beginning. In one sense, Jehovah’s glory
was uplifted into the heavens when Man fell into disobedience. In another, and a
redemptive sense, it is receiving a new and more wonderful elevation in Jesus
as the Son of Man. This elevation was
inaugurated by the resurrection, ascension and enthronisation in heaven of the
Man Christ Jesus. And, on earth,
children have begun to sing their hosannahs with new point and with adoring
ecstasy. They not only know how to
wonder at the stars, but they are learning from generation to generation to
love the Man who died for them and rose again.
By-and-by, when the Lord of Life has glorified his
Suffering Assembly and presented it before the heavenly throne, the process of
uplifting Jehovah’s majesty above the heavens will be complete, and the whole
earth will be filled with a bright reflection of his glory. The adversaries of Jehovah are doomed to
defeat. Their Champion - the Adversary -
the Foe and Avenger of this psalm - has met with his equal. But the process of silencing the Enemy is
moral before it is physical. Hence the more than symbolic employment of infants’ tongues to
silence the Devil. The victory will be earned by Self-sacrificing Love before it is confirmed
and consummated by expelling and destroying power. The Foe hates
children; and has had good reason, ever since the
promise came that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpent’s head. The child-spirit of humble and trustful love
will yet finally and for ever silence the Foe and Avenger.
David may well have felt himself to have been a mere child
when he went forth to meet Goliath; and his son Hezekiah must have been
possessed of much of the childlike spirit, when he quietly rested in Jerusalem,
waiting for the overthrow of Sennacherib.
Whether the introductory strophe of this psalm was written by the one or
the other of these psalmists, the Spirit of God has by its means turned this
Shepherd’s lay into a psalm as far-reaching as it is beautiful, dramatic and
above all instructive as to the ways of Jehovah with men.
The possible concurrence of meanings decipherable in the
musical instruction now moved to the foot of this psalm are so astounding as
almost to pass belief; and we are quite content with the first named as
abundantly sufficient. Those who are
prepared for further cryptic meanings can discreetly ponder how much further
they may wisely go.
3
‘THE BOOK
OF
PSALMS’
A devotional and prophetic Commentary
By
-------
THE EIGHTH PSALM
To the Chief Musician.
Upon the Gittith. A Psalm of David.
Jehovah our Lord,
How excellent is Thy name in
all the earth!
Who hast
set Thy Glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes
and sucklings
Hast Thou established Praise
because of thine adversaries,
That thou mightest silence
the enemy and the avenger.
When I look upon Thy heavens, the Work of
Thy fingers,
The moon and stars, which Thou
hast established;
What is man that Thou art
mindful of him?
And the
son of man that Thou visitest him?
Thou hast made him a little
lower than the angels
And with Glory and Honour
Thou hast crowned him.
Thou makest him rule over
the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put everything
under his feet.
Sheep and oxen, all of them,
And also the beasts of the
field;
Fowl of the heavens, and the
fish of the sea,
Whatever
passeth through the paths of the seas.
Jehovah our Lord;
How excellent is Thy name in
all the earth!
EXPOSITION
This second great Messianic Psalm begins with
the statement that Jehovah’s name is excellent in all the earth and it closes
with the same blessed announcement. It
therefore is a prophecy relating
to that blessed time, which has not
yet come, when the whole earth, the entire creation of God, is in subjection
under Jehovah, when His Glory will be seen and His Name is worshipped.
In the New Testament this Psalm is quoted three times. The Lord Himself mentioned the Psalm when the
children in the temple cried out, saying: “Hosanna to the Son of David.” The chief priests and scribes said then to Him: “Hearest thou
what these say?” “And Jesus saith unto them, Yea,
have ye never read, out
of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast
perfected praise?” (Matt. 21: 16).
In 1
Corinthians 15: 27 the Psalm is likewise mentioned, “For He hath put all things under His feet.” But the fullest quotation is in Hebrews 2: 5-9.*
[* NOTE. See ‘A
Divine Commentary on the Psalm’ in Footnote 1.]
This passage is a divine
commentary on the Psalm. It shows that the Psalm refers to
our Lord. He was made a little lower
than the angels and is now crowned with glory and honour. Not yet seen, however, by human eyes, but we
(believers) see Him thus by faith in God’s own presence. These words of the Holy Spirit in Hebrews
also show that this present age is not the time when
everything is to be put under the feet of the Second Man, the head of the new
creation. “But now we see not yet all things put under Him.”
We behold then in the eighth Psalm a precious picture of
what will be when the Second Man is revealed from heaven, when the first
begotten, will come back to this earth to take possession of His inheritance (Heb.
1: 6).
The state of the earth under Him, the blessed Person of the Son of Man,
who was made a little lower than the angels, and who appears crowned with glory
and honour, as well as His dominion, are the glorious contents of this brief
yet rich Psalm.
The superscription tells us that it is a Psalm of David. But what does “upon
the Gittith” mean? The same word Gittith
we find in Psalms 81: 1 and 84: 1.
Gittith is generally interpreted as a musical
instrument, a kind of lyre. Thus
scholars like Gesenius,
Delitzsch and others explain
it. The great Jewish scholar Rashi derives
the word from
Jehovah our Lord,
How excellent is Thy Name in all the earth!
Who has set Thy Glory above the heavens - Verse 1.
This outburst of praise must be put into the
mouth of the people of
Most precious is the declaration that His Glory is set above
the heavens. “Who hast set Thy Glory above the heavens.”
So rich and full is this little sentence that one is at a loss how to
bring it out. The heavens declare the
Glory of God. The heavens, the work of
His fingers, the moon and stars are mentioned in verse 3. But here it is another glory. It is a glory, which
is above the heavens.
The Son of Man, who is Jehovah, ascended up on high. God raised Him [out] from the dead and set Him at His own
right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality and power, and might
and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age,
but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under His feet and gave Him to
be the head over all, to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him
that filleth all in all (Ephes.
1: 20-23). This
blessed glory of the Lord will then be fully made known, and while His Name is excellent
in all the earth and He reigns over the earth, His Glory is seen above the
heavens. And in that Glory, the Church,
His Body and His Bride, will be seen.
Then His great high priestly prayer will be answered, “I in them,
and Thou in Me, that
they may be made perfect in [‘perfected into’ R.V.] one and that the world may know that Thou
hast sent me, and hast loved them, as Thou
hast loved Me” (John 17: 23).*
* Notice the words “believe” and “know” in
connection with the world in John 17: 21 and 23. Now is the time when the world is to
believe. But when His own come into the possession of the Glory of which our Lord
speaks in verse 22, then by the visible
Glory resting upon the Church, the world will know.
It is a verse of marvellous beauty and depth which follows the general announcement of
the ‘age to come’ and its ‘glory’.
The babes and sucklings stand for new born souls. “Except ye be converted and become as little children,*
ye shall in
nowise enter into the
[* See ‘Little Children’ in Footnote 2]
In these praising children the blessed Lord saw the future
travail of His soul; it was for Him an earnest, so to speak, of what was yet to
come. The proud leaders of the nations
had rejected Him, the children had owned Him.
And when He comes the second time, then Praise truly waits for Him in
“There is an hour coming when the
praise, which now waits in silent expectation for Jehovah in the deserted but
not forgotten city of His choice, shall break forth in pure and grateful melody
from lips whose un-cleanliness shall have then been purged away, and from
hearts wherein the finger of God shall have written indelibly the everlasting
law of His own righteousness. The new
born nation shall then be, though in a somewhat different acceptation, an ‘epistle of Christ,’ like the church in the
present dispensation, which, though torn alas! and mutilated
and defiled, yet, blessed be God, bears still the inseparable seal of His Holy
Spirit of promise. Violence and
destruction shall thenceforth be heard no more within the city of the Lord. For the promised bulwarks are salvation, and
the gates shall be called praise.”*
* Pridham on the Psalms.
This verse corresponds
with the third verse of the royal Psalm. “Thy people
shall be willing in the day of Thy power; in the
holy splendour from the womb of the morning Thou hast the dew of Thy youth”
(Psa. 110: 3).
The praise of the children in the temple foreshadowed all this
which is yet to come. But even now He has the Praise of
such who are new born babes, His own people who compose His Body.
And the enemy and avenger is to be
silenced, while the Praise is established on account of the adversaries. Satan
and those who opposed God’s [prophetic
and millennial] purposes and sided with the enemy of God are meant by
these terms. When Jehovah’s Glory is
seen, when His Name is excellent in all the earth, and the Praise of the new
born nation as well as the perfect praise of the Saints in the Glory above the
heavens is heard, then Satan is completely silenced. The lawless, God defying and man deifying
rulers and adversaries, political and religious, the lords of “Man’s day”
will come to their awful
end. The high ones on high and the kings
of the earth and all who oppose God will be silenced. And the Praise for all this is heard from the
lips of the new born ones, His own earthly people. The Praise of the Saints above began
before. The heavens will rejoice first,
for Satan, the old serpent, called the Devil, will be cast out of heaven as
soon as the Saints are caught up into heaven (Rev. 19: 9-12).
When I look upon thy heavens, the work of
Thy fingers,
The moon and stars, which Thou
hast established;
What is man that Thou art
mindful of him?
And the
Son of Man that Thou visitest him? (Verses 3-4)
And now the physical heavens are mentioned. What a vast universe it is as we look up and
realize that those mighty creations are the work of His fingers. The child of God can muse on this. The unsaved [and many of the saved] in this
present evil age seem to become more and
more blinded by the god of this age, so that they lose even the sight of that
which speaks of the glory and omnipotence, as well as the existence and
intelligence of the Creator. How few
of the poor dupes of Satan ever look up and consider the heavens! Satan makes them look down like the beasts of
the field, to grovel in the mire and in the dust. Wonderful are the heavens, the moon and the
stars. And what is man? Man inhabiting one of the smallest of the
uncountable bodies of the universe. Why
should God be mindful of this little
planet and consider man upon it, the creature of the dust? But this is Godlike that He takes up that
which is small and insignificant to manifest His Love towards it. And what is Man? Vanity, a sinner, God’s
enemy by wicked works, a child of wrath.
And man has been visited by God.
This is implied in this question.
God has visited man not in judgment and wrath but in the gift of His
only begotten Son. In Him He has visited
man and has been mindful of him. And He
is the “image and glory of God,” and through Him fallen man by faith is brought from
the old into the new creation and becomes through Grace one with Him, who is “the image of
the invisible God, the first born of all
creation.”
And before we leave this interesting part of our Psalm we may
make still another application of these words. Only the moon and the stars are
mentioned. The Sun so prominent in the
nineteenth Psalm is not spoken of in this Psalm. The Sun, called the Bridegroom (Psa. 19:
5), is the type of the Lord.
The moon with her changes is the Church as a body. The stars of different glories in light are
typical of individual believers. The
heavens thus speak of God’s Grace in taking sinners out of sin and eternal ruin
and forming them in a body, and setting them as individuals in the heavenlies. And these heavens indeed are the work of His
fingers. It is His own work, which has
put fallen man there.
Thou hast made him
a little lower than the angels
And with Glory and
Honour thou hast crowned him. (Verse 5.)
The passage in Hebrews makes it clear that our Lord Jesus
Christ and not the first man, is meant (Hebrews 2.). All the precious truths of His humiliation and exaltation,
the suffering and the glory, the deep place He took, the high place He has
reached, are here flashed upon us. We
see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of
death, crowned with Glory and Honour. This is the vision of faith. But when this Psalm shall be fulfilled, He
will appear crowned with many crowns. The
angels will then worship Him. Oh! what blessed thoughts rush in upon the heart and mind as one
meditates on all this; Angels He created, they are His ministers and the
ministering spirits for the heirs of salvation.
He took a place below the angels in coming into the world, and it was
for the suffering of death. The great
work accomplished, He entered heaven as the glorified Man and obtained by
inheritance a more excellent Name than they.
And when He comes the angels will accompany Him, for He will he revealed
from heaven with His mighty angels (2 Thess. L7), and
all the angels will worship Him (Heb. 1: 6). And let us not forget, with Him are His
Saints, and the Church [of the
firstborn] will share in His Glory. Then His loving heart will find its rest,
when His Glory rests upon those for
whom He died.
Thou makest Him rule over
the Works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put everything
under His feet,
Sheep and oxen, all of them,
And also the beasts of the
field;
Fowl of the heavens and fish
of the sea,
Whatever passeth through the
paths of the sea.
Jehovah our Lord,
How excellent is Thy name in
all the earth.
But little needs to be said on this, though like everything
else in this Psalm it is inexhaustible.
The words tell us of the [millennial] rule of the second Man over the
earth. All creation will be under His
feet. Satan will be shut up in the
bottomless pit. The demons can no longer
delude and seduce. The whole earth will
be at rest. Paul’s glorious vision on
the summit of Romans 8 will be gloriously
fulfilled (Rom. 8:
20-23). Groaning creation will be delivered.* Domestic animals and the untamed
beasts of the field, the unconquered fowls of the air and the creatures of the
deep, all will be put under Him, the Lord of creation, who gave up all to buy
back what sin had ruined. Oh, what a
happy lot is in store for this poor earth, groaning now under the curse. Full and rich are God’s oracles of
descriptions of that age of blessing and
glory when He comes back to this earth. And if we were to quote them all and write out
the most glowing descriptions of what it will be, still it would be true that “not half has
been told.”
[* See ‘Groaning
Creation Will Be Delivered’ in Footnote 3.]
And now the heart is cheered to read it again, “Jehovah our
Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth.”
They may read this verse in ritualistic churches,
they chant them in beautiful music. It is not true now; it cannot be true
now during this [evil] age; but, blessed be God, it will be true
some day, when He is manifested.
Let us praise God and thank our Father in anticipation of the
coming fulfilment of this precious Psalm.
Child of God, as the days grow darker, as Christ is rejected and Satan’s
power becomes more pronounced, turn to the bright side, the prophetic Word, which assures us that
His Glory will cover the heavens and the
earth will be full of His Praise. Even so; Come,
Lord Jesus.
FOOTNOTES
1
An
EXPOSITION of: ‘A Divine Commentary on the Psalm’
(Heb.
2: 5-9, A.V.)
5 For not to angels hath He put in subjection the habitable
earth to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But one in a certain place
testified, saying, ‘What is man, that Thou art
mindful of him? or the
son of man, that Thou visitest him? 7 Thou madest him a little lower than angels; Thou
crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst
set him over the works of Thy hands: 8 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.’ For in His
putting all things in subjection under him, He
left nothing that is not put in
subjection under him. 9 But now we see not yet all things
put in subjection to him.
With what is the “for”
connected? (1) Either with the general strain of verses
1-4: ‘We
ought to take heed - for Christ will, as the Lord, dispense reward in the day
to come;’ (2) or with the closing words of the preceding paragraph – “According to His own
will.” Then follows a passage, discovering to us what is the will of God in reference to the day in question. And indeed, from the beginning of the
Epistle, God is set forth as the Great Disposer of all things.
To angels the government of earth seems to have been for a
while committed. But in the day to come,
they are quite set aside from ruling.
The twenty-four elders, or chiefs of the angels, in Rev. 5.,
confess the superiority of our Lord, both by posture and by word. They fall down before the Lamb of the tribe
of
* The ‘us’ is not genuine,
and has produced a system of confusion.
Critics are agreed, that we should read “them”
and “they.”
That settles the rejection of the “us.”
It is omitted by the Revised Version.
God has not subjected to angels? “the habitable earth of
the future.” What are
we to understand by that phrase?
1. Many say: ‘It means the
Gospel dispensation and the
blessings it brings.’ But the
verses before us bear witness against any such idea. The Scripture declares that, during this
dispensation, all is not put under man’s power; and much less, all is not put in
subjection to Christ. And we see it is
so. The Gospel is God’s call to the
earth generally to repent, selecting in the meanwhile His chosen from the mass
of unbelievers. But He is not meddling
with the course of it, to alter it. The
world goes on much as it would without the Gospel; and men are trying to repair
the evils they find in it, but in vain.
The Gospel is only the day of God’s mercy and patience, in which he is
gathering out of the world [and the Church] co-heirs with Christ, and preparing Him companions
in the glory of the thousand years.
‘The world [habitable earth] of the future’ stands in opposition to ‘the world of the
present.’ The
earth now is the globe as it was cursed under Adam and Noah, as it remains
after the sentence of toil and death in
‘The world of the future’ is the
earth considered as the abode of men, such as it will be in millennial
days. And those millennial days turn on
the coming of Christ in power and judgment.
The Apostle had alluded to this before.
“When He [God] a second
time introduces the
First-born into the habitable earth,
He saith, ‘Let all the
angels of God worship Him.’”
As the Lord Jesus said to Nathaniel, then would be the fulfilment of Jacob’s
ladder: “Heaven opened, and
the
angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man” (John 1: 51). Jesus has been snatched away from earth after
His birth from the tomb, but He shall be restored again to it. “I will see you again,
and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you” (John 16: 22). This was “the joy set
before Him,” in consideration of which He despised the shame, and it is
to partake of this joy with Him that He is now calling us.
Jesus came the first time into the world of men, and gave
signs of the coming day in healing diseases, casting out the angels of Satan,
stilling the winds and sea, and raising the dead. But He Himself suffered under Satan and the
power of death. He left tokens of the
better coming day with disciples; but they have long vanished. They were “powers of
the coming age.”
Jesus is coming again, to complete that of which He gave the
promise and the intimations then. He
must come, to give Abraham the inheritance
[in ‘the land’] long promised. He must renew the leprous
house, taking away the leprous stones, scraping away the evil mortar, and
putting other stones, and plastering the house (Lev.
14: 33-47).
These are some of “the good things to
come” attached to the Saviour’s Priesthood and Royalty;- belonging to
Him as the Son of man, possessed of all merits, and accordingly endued with all
authority from God. Then shall
“The habitable
earth about which we are sbeaking.” These words are important, as showing that one peculiar
period, quite different from the present, has been before the writer’s mind all
along. Hence these two first chapters,
and other passages of the Epistle, are unintelligible to the anti-millenarian. It is of
this [future] “salvation”
that the Apostle is speaking; to this the quotations from the Old Testament refer, as we have
observed. The Gospel lasts while Christ
keeps His present place in heaven. It
ceases, - and another day, opposite in principle and in results for all, comes
in, when He descends to take possession of earth.
Here is then the Personal Reign - so
resisted by most. It would seem to
have early fallen out of the faith of Christians, as soon as they lost the hope of
Christ’s immediate return. Thus the
wisdom of Paul is seen, in bidding Christians pray, that God would enlighten
the eyes of their heart, to make them know “what is the
hope of God’s calling” (Eph. 1: 17, 18).
Of this “coming age” and its
glory the eighth psalm speaks. Many, indeed, reading it carelessly with the
eye of nature alone, find in it only a description of the earth as it was first
created. But those who are taught of God
will take the Apostle’s clue, and see very much more than creation could have
taught to Adam. God’s Name is to be
excellent in all the earth; but His
glory is to be above the natural heavens.
This Epistle tells us then, that heaven and its glory is
the portion of believers in Christ.
They, on God’s testimony, believe in a Son of man Who
has passed into the heaven of heavens on their behalf; and they desire a better
country, that is, an heavenly; and the New Jerusalem built by the Most High, in
which His glory shall dwell; and they dwell in glory with Him.
The second verse of the
psalm was quoted by our Lord as His defence, when accused, because of His
permitting hosannas to be sung to Him by the children in the temple. There were “enemies”
then, strong and bitter of speech and deed.
It is clear therefore that we are dealing with an earth into which sin
has entered; and not earth as at first created and very good.
Moreover, “the Enemy and the Avenger”
are Death and the Devil, whose power must be taken away.
The Psalmist then considers the immensity of God’s heaven, and
bursts into the words cited: “What is man that Thou art
mindful of him?” The Holy Ghost’s
eye is upon the coming day, when man, so long seemingly neglected of God, and
left to himself and to Satan, is brought before the eye of the universe. The days of patient waiting for the seed sown
are over; and now the Master commands, and the angelic labourers of heaven
enter the field with sharp sickle, and all is busy where before all seemed idle
(Mark 4: 26-29). God
“visits” earth in judgment,* and destroys the
wicked, while He gives the long-promised reward to His servants (Rev. 11.).
* There is a beautiful reference to God’s ancient
deliverance of
But with the word of visitation is coupled another key-word. “What is THE SON OF MAN
that Thou visitest him?” Jesus is
that “Son of man.” When first He came as the
Christ,
“Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels.”
(1) This may be taken primarily of Adam as created. He was moulded out of the dust, and only made
the chief of animals. (2) But its chief
force is derived from beholding the fulfilment in Christ. He Who was on the
throne of glory, descended to partake of the manhood, and the Master became the
servant, possessed of flesh and blood.
“Thou crownedst Him
with glory and honour.”
It is hard to say how that was fulfilled in Adam, as at first
created. He was indeed set over the
animal and vegetable creation in general.
But can we fully carry out the words of the psalm? “All sheep and oxen; yea,
and the [wild] beasts of the field, the
fowl of the air, and the fish of the
sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the
seas.”
These words then must have their accomplishment in another
day, and in “the Son
of man.” Adam was “man,” but he was no “son of
man.” As fallen, he lay under sin
and death, the lion and the serpent, death and corruption. Nor could he, or any of his sons, deliver the
race from their subjection. But God’s
counsel was to “set man over the works of His hands,
and to put all things in subjection under his feet.” If the Most High made known this His counsel
to the angels, it accounts for the fall of Satan and his angels. ‘Shall this inferior
creature, whom we have seen moulded out of the dust,
bear rule indeed over us?’ Pride
revolted. The devil brought the creature
into collision with his God, and all Jehovah’s plan seemed to be overthrown. But the Son, the Heir of all things, has
stooped to deliver His encumbered heritage, and to rescue His ruined
tenant. Thus comes
destruction to Satan and his angels. Here then is a deeper sense given to the
psalm. Here is the Second Adam - the Christ. That title, “Son of
man” - the Saviour continually took.
The kingdom belongs to the Son of man at His appearing. The self-humbled shall be exalted
indeed. That was God’s way to the
fulfilment of His recorded plans concerning man.
One day all shall be subjected to man. But it can come to pass only through
Christ. All man’s enemies shall be cut
off. But many of them are too strong for
the stoutest man of valour. The wild
animals, the seasons, storms, wars, sicknesses, death, shall all be tamed or
removed: the earth shall be filled with plenty and joy. The world of the future, under redemption by the Great Son
of man, shall possess all these glories and joys. Man shall be seen superior to angels, when
all of them worship the Son of man; and when “we shall
judge angels.”
9. “But we see One made a little lower
than angels - (even) Jesus - because of the
suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, in order that by the grace of God He might taste of death for
every one.”
The words of this verse are simple; and yet the difficulties
connected with it are great. How are the
parts of it to be construed?
1. The Established Version reads: “Made
a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death.” But the Greek preposition will not bear the
sense, ‘with a view to.’
2. We must read it: “Because of the suffering of
death crowned with glory.” We should understand then, that the crowning
came after the death, and as the reward of
it. It is quite natural so to take
it. In general, crowning comes as the
reward of suffering. But then the
following clause gives us a shock: “In order that He
might taste death.” The death then came after the crowning! In
order to get quit of this difficulty, some have forced the sense of the Greek
word (…), and make it signify ‘when.’ But
that is not an allowable sense. Some
therefore, as Mr. Craik, transpose the clauses. Some would interpose a parenthesis. “But we see one made a little lower than angels, (even) Jesus (because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and
honour), in order that by the grace of God He
might taste of death for every one.”
Now that is lawful; but
not to be adopted, unless there be no way of taking the words as they stand. As the words stand, it seems as if the
crowning went before the death, and in order to it. And that I am persuaded is the true sense,
though not denying the glory after it.
Let us look at the facts in this connection. The verse refers, I doubt not, to our Lord’s glorification
on the Mount of Transfiguration; and is parallel with Peter’s words: “For we have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made known to you the power and presence* of our Lord Jesus Christ but were
eye-witnesses of His Majesty. For we received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came
such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.’ And this voice
borne from heaven we heard,
when we were with Him on the holy mount. And we hold more
confirmed thereby the prophetic word” (see Greek) (2 Pet. 1: 16-18). Peter is exhorting believers to seek an
entrance into the millennial kingdom,
by making advances in grace and good works.
The coming glory was proved to his senses by the brightness wherewith
Christ, as the Coming King, was clothed; and by the praise of God His Father,
confessing Him as His well-beloved Son. Thus the eighth psalm,
and the prophecies in general of the
glorious day, were confirmed.
* The “power” of Christ refers
specially to the raising of the dead; the first instance of which was seen by
Peter, James, and John, alone.
Let us look at the matter also from Matthew
16. & 17.
In the sixteenth chapter our Lord draws out Peter’s confession of Him as
Messiah, and Son of the Living God. But
He learns that
The same crowning attended also the Saviour’s baptism. That was “the baptism
of repentance
unto the remission of sins.”
Now the Lord Jesus needed
neither forgiveness nor repentance. But
He is crowned with honour, because of His “grace”
in stooping to take His place with sinners.
At that immersion the figure of death and resurrection passes upon Him,
the heavens open upon this great sight, the Holy Ghost descends on Him, and the
Father’s voice pronounces Him His “well-beloved Son.” At this point begins Jesus’ manifest entry on
His work of redemption; and the new name of God - as Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit - is manifested. That scene is
our Lord’s visible commission; as the Burning Bush was that of Moses. This wonderful Humbler of Himself it is God’s
counsel to exalt.
Thus God in His wisdom puts seemingly opposite principles in
their true place. (1) Jesus must die. It
was His Father’s counsel; His own choice. (2) Now His death was not for His own
sins, as is the case with
men; but all undeserved, He passes through it in grace to men. It was fitting then, that the Father, while
giving up His Son to suffering, should yet mark distinctly His good pleasure in
Him, and the difference between this death, and the death undergone by sinners
deserving of His wrath. He gives Him
therefore a glory supreme above all others, and that when His death is the very
subject upon His lips and the lips of His companions on the mount. The rejected by men, even to crucifying, is
God’s exalted One.
The very words, “crowned with glory
and honour,” have reference to Jesus’ consecration as the High
Priest. The first step in the
consecration of the high priest was his bathing in water (Ex. 29: 4; Lev. 8: 6). Hence
the visible sanction given to Christ at His baptism. After that, the high priest was to be clothed
with robes “of glory and beauty,” or as the LXX give it, “glory and honour” (Ex. 28:
2, 40). The
high priest was also “crowned,” as his consecration to his office. “Thou shalt put the
mitre upon his head, and the holy crown upon the mitre” (Ex. 29: 6). On the
mitre was a golden plate, engraven with the words: “Holiness
to the Lord” (Ex. 28: 36; 39: 30; Lev. 8: 9). Thus
the wearer was designated as God’s Holy Priest.
“It shall be upon Aaron’s forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things”
(Ex. 28: 38). “God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord” (Lev. 10: 17).
Thus our Lord was crowned as the High Priest and
Sacrifice. He was honoured beforehand,
and encouraged to pass through the bitter scenes of death. “Therefore doth My
Father love Me, because
I lay down My life [soul] that I might take it again” (John
10: 17). And thus God showed His love. So also, when Jesus made the appeal to His
Father - in view of His death near at hand - to glorify His Name, the Father’s
voice from heaven at once responded. He
would glorify that Name: He had glorified it already.
‘But if the words – “crowned with glory and honour”
- relate to the glory bestowed before His death, how do you get their
application to His present glory?’
The perfect participle “crowned” denotes
the glory as still existing; and the third verse of the first chapter notes
Christ’s session as the High Priest at the Father’s right hand, after the
putting away of our sins.
Thus “we see” Jesus “crowned.” It is set forth in visible and striking facts,
in the accounts of the Saviour’s baptism and transfiguration in the three first
Gospels.
He was to “taste death.”
Some
have interpreted the words to mean a slight taste. But no! the Lord Jesus bore death in its most bitter form; as no
believer now bears it, that is as the wrath of God, and the curse of the Law. The words would seem also
to include all the sufferings which led down to, and prepared the way for,
death. And in all the Gospels which
treat of the Transfiguration, the expression is applied to the three favoured
apostles who suffered martyrdom for Christ* (Matt. 16: 28). It was
“death for every one.”
*
John died a natural death; but the witness concerning his being put into a cauldron
of boiling oil with the view to slay him, seems true.
It was intended to benefit the whole race. It comes after the witness of the psalm, that ‘man’ and the ‘Son of man’ are to be exalted over all God’s
works. Man’s original dominion was to
take place in this life. But sin brought
in death and defeat. Now One has come Who has passed through death, and brought in life and the
kingdom to man.
From writings by Robert Govett.
-------
2
‘Little Children’
Childlikeness, not
childishness, is our Lord’s model for us.
The Apostle Paul safeguards us on the point: “When
I was a child, I talked like a child”
- ignorantly; “I thought like a child”
- erratically; “I reasoned like a child”
- with small mental grasp: “When I became a man, I put childish things behind me”, (1 Cor. 13: 11): “Brothers, stop thinking like children. In
regard to evil” - impurity - “be
infants, but in your thinking be adults,” (1 Cor. 14: 20).
Our Lord always
moved on a background of the infinite.
He takes a lily, and unfolds the petals of the providence of God; He
sees the massive stones of the Temple, and He depicts the last earthquakes; and
He meets a little child - a lovely little human dew-drop - and at once His
thoughts are on those who will “walk with Him in white”;
and He
revolutionizes the thinking of the Apostles by a revelation which is for all of us, - all of us who
are His disciples - grave, [i.e., ‘serious, requiring careful consideration’], urgent,
vital. “I tell you
the truth, unless you change [repent] and become like
little children, you will NEVER ENTER the kingdom of
heaven,” (Matt. 18: 3).
For
our Lord bodily presents our model.
“He called a
little child” - old enough to be called, but young enough to be
lifted (Mark 10:
16). Not infants, and not
children, but ‘little’
children; perhaps between the ages
of three and seven, are those whom our Saviour gives us as a photograph of
kingdom saints. - “and had him stand among them” (Matt.
18: 2): there - if our Lord had never spoken another
word - is the greatest: for
ever, amongst us for all time, is a
mute, living symbol of the enthroned in the
So we ponder a
little child. A little child is perfectly simple, without being a simpleton: it is wide
awake, and constantly learning through sense: it is extraordinary open to the
truth, and extraordinary sincere: it responds wonderfully to affection: its
purity is crystalline: it is exceedingly quick to forgive: it has not the
faintest trace of worldly ambition: the thought never enters its head to doubt
its father’s word: it has an awe of God, and its conscience is singularly
tender. Our Lord does not set a
sinless seraph in our midst, or a blazing angel: winsome as childhood is, and
tenderly beautiful, it has its waywardness, its tempers, its
foolishness: nevertheless such are the
Kingdom saints. God wants
the manlike intellect, the childlike heart and the godlike character and
conduct.
The Lord closes
with the practical. The Apostles had
been grasping for glory on the wrong
side of the grave; so He says:- “Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child (the same) is the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18: 4). Satan
lost the highest of all created thrones through pride: we can win the highest thrones through
humility. A child is humble; we must become humble; and this attainment, as superior to a child’s
as holiness is superior to innocence, is
within our grasp. “Whoever HUMBLES HIMSELF” - self-emptied because
God-filled: it is possible not only to become great in the
- From writings by
D. M. PANTON.
-------
3
An
EXPOSITION of: ‘Groaning Creation Will Be Delivered’
(Romans
8: 19-23.)
The passage above
given, is confessedly a difficult one; but it is so principally, because it
contains a truth which Christians are
slow to believe, and which many strive to evade, or openly deny. In order fully to comprehend it, let us
notice first the sense of that which precedes.
In a former verse,
Paul had declared that believers are sons of God; and since they were sons,
they were also heirs of the Most High.
But do not sufferings and the trials of this mortal life, prove that
this cannot be their high dignity? No:
for Christ the Son of God suffered; and as he mounted the throne of all things
and eternal glory, through suffering, so must we pass through it. He consoles believers also in their endurance
of trial, because the suffering bears no proportion to the immensity and
eternity of the glory. And he teaches
further, that if the un-sinning
creation endures patiently its suffering in hope of future glory, much more may
believers, whose trespasses call for correction.
Such is the
general drift of the passage that precedes. Let us now enter on the text itself: first
expounding it; and then showing the argumentative bearing of the Apostle’s
statements on the opinions entertained by Christians.
Now it is evident
at a glance, that the most important word of the passage,
is that which is translated “creature,” and “creation,” and which occurs four times in this
place. What then are we to understand by
it?
There are three
different opinions which I purpose to notice, before proceeding to prove the
true meaning.
1. Some suppose,
that by the creature, is meant the whole human race.*
* This is fortified
by two passages of the New Testament, “Preach the
gospel to every creature:” Mark 16: 15. And
the “gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under
heaven: Col.
1: 23.” But both of these are mis-translations;
as is manifest on consulting the original.
The presence of the article in
both cases shows that it is to be taken not distributively, but collectively. “In all the creation.”)
2. Others, that
the Gentiles, or unconverted nations, are meant.
3. Others, that
the body is intended.
Some have also
said, that it means good angels; but this cannot be: for they are not under the
bondage of corruption. Nor can it intend
evil angels; for they will not be delivered.
1. Those who maintain, that “the
creature” signifies ‘the whole human race,’
support their proposition by declaring, that all man are desiring,
and in some sort expecting, a better state of things than the present.
But that does not
come up to the statement of the Apostle, nor will it square either with
Scripture, or with fact. Paul affirms,
that the creature is expecting, not vaguely, ‘a better
state of things,’ but “the
manifestation of the sons of God.” This, unconverted men neither expect nor
desire; for they have no faith. Even those to whom it is preached, receive not the testimony, and
much less is it expected by those who have never heard the gospel [of
the kingdom]. Far from desiring the time when the sons of
God and their great Captain, Jesus Christ, are manifested, they are seen in
utter dismay and terror, when they learn by the signs in heaven,
that the hour draws on: Rev. 6: 15-17.
2nd. Nor is it true, that they are “subject to vanity, not
willingly.” Whether by “vanity” we understand sin, or the evil consequences of
sin, it is not true. For in voluntarily
choosing sin, they choose also its evil consequences, which are before made
known unto them by God. And if it be
said, that by their subjection to vanity, is meant Adam’s choice of sin, by
which they become liable to its penalty, this offends against what is added,
that he who subjected them to vanity, did so “under
hope.” For Adam
did not sin in the hope that his descendants would be delivered.
3rd.
Moreover Paul assures us, that “the creature” not only desires deliverance, but “will be delivered into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” Is this true of ‘the whole human race?’ None but an
Universalist could affirm it. On the
contrary, so far from being rescued from the bondage of corruption, into the
glorious liberty of the saved, they will be forever captives to death in its
gloomiest eternal form: the second death, the worm that never dies, the fire that never is quenched. And the day of the Saviour’s coming, is the
time when he will appear “in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God;” “the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly men.”
4th. The opinion also contains an evident logical flaw; for
Paul throughout distinguishes two classes, “the
creation” forming the one, “the sons of God,”
the other. But this view destroys the
distinction, and confounds the classes, the second having been already
comprehended in the first. How absurd it
would be to say – ‘All Britons are expecting an invasion of
2. Nor can the “creature”
signify unconverted nations, or wicked men in
general. For while these would indeed be
distinguished from “the sons of God,” yet they,
(as was argued above) neither expect the glory of Christ, nor will attain it.
3. Nor can it mean the body: (1) for the body is not “the whole creation,” and (2)
the Apostle distinguishes between “our body”
and “the creature.” ‘We,’ he
says, ‘who are the sons of God, shall have our bodies
redeemed from corruption, and so will the creature.’
But if none of these
senses are the true, it remains that we
take “the creation” in its usual sense, as
signifying things animate and inanimate; brute beasts, vegetables, the
elements, the earth. Such is the sense
in which it is employed by Paul in this very epistle. “The invisible things
of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” But men “changed the
glory of the incorruptible God, into an image
made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things ... Who worshipped and
served the creature more than the creator:” Rom. 1: 20, 23, 25. Thus he
explains what he means by the creature, describing it by the three usual
classes into which animals are divided in Scripture.*
(* It is observable that
Paul does not use the expression which in this view,
would have been natural to us, or to a classical writer. He
would have spoken of ‘nature.’ But that is an expression used by those who
would thrust God out of sight. The
Apostle used the word “creation,” for that
necessarily implies a “Creator.”)
With this meaning
in our hand, it will be found as we proceed, that the whole drift of the
passage falls in naturally. Great is the
glory, says the Apostle of the Gentiles, which is laid up for the [obedient] believer.
But it is not for himself alone:
all creation is waiting for that day, when the sons of God shall be
revealed. Believers are the children of God now: but they
are not manifested as such. They suffer hunger, thirst
and cold; their bodies are afflicted with aches, disease, and death, equally
with the wicked; nor do they give any token that they will one day, “shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” And therefore the world knows them not, even
as it knows not Jesus: 1 John 3: 1. But they
are waiting, in confidence that their sonship will soon be manifested, and
their glory appear.
What then is the
time of their manifestation, for which creation is waiting? (1) The
coming of Christ Jesus: as it is written, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and
it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we
know that when he shall appear, we
shall be like him:” 1John 3: 2. “When Christ who is our life shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory:”
Col. 3: 4. (2) The day of the resurrection of the just:
as it is written, “They who are accounted worthy to
attain that age, and the resurrection [out] from the dead, neither
marry nor are given in marriage, neither can
they die any more; for they are equal unto the
angels; and are the children of God being the children of the resurrection:” Luke 20: 35, 36. And the resurrection of the righteous dead is at the coming of
Christ. “Every
man in his own order: Christ the first fruits,
afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming:”
1Cor. 15: 20, 23. And thus also Paul states in the present
passage, that the expectation of the saints, is “their adoption, the redemption of their body.”
“For the creature was made subject
to vanity, not willingly, but by reason
of him who hath subjected the same in hope.”
God at the
creation made everything beautiful and perfect in its kind. He looked over the expanse of the world he
had framed, and pronounced it “very good.” But his enemy entered it, to defile and
destroy. Satan became incarnate in the
body of a serpent, and by that means tempted our first parents to sin. He gained over their will, and they sinned of
set choice. Then came the Most High, and
calling the three culprits before him, sentenced them each in turn. First the curse upon the serpent was uttered,
and in him upon all the beasts. “The Lord God said
unto the serpent, Because
thou hast done this thou art cursed above
all cattle, and above every beast of
the field:” Gen. 3: 14. In the serpent then all the cattle and the
beasts were cursed, the heaviest portion of the curse falling upon that
creature by which sin entered.* Yet
the serpent had no choice in the matter.
Satan chose that form, and the reptile could not resist. It was sentenced, but not because of sin in
itself. And herein it stands
distinguished from the human agents,
concerned. They sinned willingly and wilfully, and in just
indignation came the sentence on them.
(*And when all the others rejoice,
the stigma of God will still rest on that by which sin entered. “The wolf and the
lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat
straw like the bullock, and dust shall be the serpent’s meat:” Isa. 65: 25.)
In consequence of
the curse in the garden then, and the Tempter’s wile, sin’s dismal effects fell
upon all creation. The tree of knowledge of good and evil, cast
a blight over the vegetable world, and calamity hung over the whole of the
animated races of earth, from the incarnation of Satan, and the outbreak of sin
from the serpent. The ground itself was cursed for Adam’s sake: 3: 17. It was to yield to him ever the thorn and the
thistle, until at death its mould closed over his corpse. From that day the creature became subject to
vanity: Eccles.
1: 2-8. It became like a sail rent away from its
ropes by the tornado’s sweep, that flaps and flutters
idly up and down, and is torn into shreds by each gust of the storm.
All is unsettled,
unstable, unsatisfactory. By the fall it became liable (1) to disease, infirmities, and pains
terminating in death. (2) Fierce and deadly instincts of war
and bloodshed broke out, and one tribe warred upon another, making the tame and
innocent ones its prey. (3) Over all settled the discomforts of
winter, the inclemency of the seasons, barrenness, famine, and abortion. (4)
The animals became subservient to man; to be taken and destroyed by him; to be
killed and eaten as food. (5) As
sacrifices, they were commanded to be slain.
(6) They became subject to
the cruel and unmerciful, who take away life without reason, or inflict
torture; who over-task and underfeed them.
(7) They were exposed to the
judgements of God. When he sent his
wrath on sinners, they also felt its edge.
At the flood, all but the favoured ones in the ark were swept away to
death. “All in
whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all
that was in the dry land, died.” When
Yet is this
subjection not hopeless. And thus it is
proved, that he who subjected creation was neither the devil nor man, as some
have supposed; for neither of these brought the creation under woe, with the hope that they might one day
escape it; but, God did.
At the very time he sentenced the creation, he uttered the words of
hope, in the tidings of the woman’s Seed, who should conquer back what had been lost.
Nay, and in the deliverance of a favoured few of animals in the ark, and
the covenant that followed, that hope is confirmed.
Thus Paul plunges
into the consideration of that great difficulty which besieges alike the
Christian, the philosopher, and the deist, and which the gospel partially
develops, and sets at rest. How is it -
all nature cries to the deist - (to teach him, if possible, his ignorance, and
to lead him to revelation); how is it, in the world of that Infinite Power,
whose existence you admit, that woe so broad, and constant in its tide, ever
rolls on? - that there is no form of life that is not
dimmed by pain, and finally extinguished by death? - that
restlessness, dissatisfaction, and suffering, heavily canopy this wide earth? -
that not the voice of joy nor calmness of repose, but the cries of infirmity,
disease, and woe, in a thousand shapes, mount up to heaven? Grant, even, that man may suffer as a sinner, and deserves
it. Yet, why are innocent animals joined with him in the calamity? Why are they torn, baited, over-driven,
maimed, underfed, tortured, slain at the caprice of man, and for his uses and
service? The present passage gives
the answer in part. It renders the only
reply that can be given aright.
The answer that
will be given, in the last days, to this mysterious question, will be blasphemy. They will say, ‘The
Creator is not a good and holy being.
The weakness, imperfection, and misery we discern, springs, not from
sin, as you fanatics affirm, (for how could animals sin? and we deny that there
is such a thing as sin at all,) but from the weakness and imperfection of the Creator,
He either could not or would not
hinder this mass of misery. He is either limited in power, or he is pleased with suffering.’
Now, Paul answers
not the difficulty as the philosopher does now.
Science would assure us, that this state of
things has ever been: that, however we may whine or moan, it is best that it
should be so, and that a world without pain or death is not to be thought
of. It would teach us, that thus it must
continue as long as the world shall last, and the planets shall track their
courses. In direct contradiction thereto, Paul declares, that it was not so
once. Once the whole was only
blooming, only joyous; its music without a wail, its leaves without a blight, its fields unstained by blood, its dust undefiled
by the dead. He consoles us with the assurance that it shall not be always
so. No! it
was not so from the first. Sin
has blighted it! It shall not always be thus forever. The
Redeemer has come!
“Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God.”
If I rightly
perceive the drift of the present passage, the Apostle gives two views of the
degeneration of creation; and answerably thereto, two glimpses of
deliverance. For the effects of sin
appeared, first in pain during life;
then in corruption after death. And it is the latter of these he treats of in
the verse before us. Both these effects
of sin are to be removed by two corresponding stages of deliverance. There will be the joy of the creatures living
on earth during the Saviour’s reign: there will be the immortality of the
creation finally ransomed from death, on the new earth, in which is no sea: Rev. 20: 1. We have presented to us, both the joy of the
mother after the birth of the child, answering to the millennial joy of the creation: and also the casting off the yoke
of corruption, which supposes the possession of immortal life.
This is the most
startling feature of the two. What! shall animals
attain immorality, no less than ourselves?
I reply - what is
the import of the present words? What is
“corruption?”
Is it not that force, whereby the body of the animal,
that in life was held together by a mighty but secret chemistry, is
dissolved, and scattered to the winds?
Paul employs it in this sense, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it
is raised in glory:” 1Cor. 15: 42, 43. And
what is “the bondage
(or slavery) of corruption,” but the
perpetual imprisonment which the body suffers [in
the grave], when once it has begun to
moulder? Spring comes, the summer glows;
but they exert no power to collect the scattered atoms. The iron hand of death holds it with
unrelaxing gripe. But the Apostle
affirms, that as the saints of God, whose bodies lie now beneath this
slavery of corruption, shall one day be delivered from it, even so shall the
creature also. For us this mortal
shall put on immortality; and death be swallowed up in victory. But it will be with ourselves;
so, (says Paul,) will it be with them.
The sons of God will exchange slavery for freedom, and a corrupting
corpse for the glorious body of the resurrection. This will be “the
liberty of the glory of the sons of God.” But as the creature now lies beneath this bondage, so will it enter into the same liberty!
Many difficulties may encompass the thought, but does not inspiration say so?
Observe in the
force of the expression used, a further proof of the correctness of the
interpretation. “Because even the creature itself, (or “the
very creature”) shall be delivered.”
The term employed, shows, that it is something so far
inferior to man, that one might have supposed its interests overlooked or
forgotten. Since man is the direct
object of redemption, it might have been thought that all other questions were
neglected in regard of the superlative importance of his deliverance
from sin and the curse. The force of the
expression will be seen, by putting a parallel case. Suppose we read in an account of the
coronation of Queen Victoria - ‘Her Majesty on the occasion of her coronation made a royal
feast to her nobility, archbishops, bishops, and the peers of the realm: Nay,
so princely was her bounty, that the very servants themselves of the
palace were sumptuously entertained.’
By such a mode of expression, we should understand the writer to intend,
that whereas it might have been expected, that the pleasures of inferiors would have been neglected in
the vastly greater importance of the principal banquet, yet they were not forgotten.
And this is really
the state of things in the present instance.
Scarcely one in a thousand has seen, that
the interests of the inferior creation have been consulted and provided for in
the great scheme of redemption by Jesus. But not so with God.
His plans are perfect; nothing can be added to them, nothing taken
away. He discerns the end from the beginning, and with infinite wisdom gives to each part of
the scheme, its proper place.
Let us then turn
to some of the passages which speak of the blessings of the inferior creation,
at the period of the return of the Saviour.
And in order to render the contrast more striking, take a view of the
world under the day of Great Tribulation, whose stormy winds and waters burst
in all their gloom and fury, just before the Lord Jesus as the Sun of
righteousness appears. “The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the
corn is wasted; the new wine is dried up,
the oil languisheth. Be ye ashamed,
O ye husbandmen; howl O ye wine-dressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also,
and the apple tree, even
all the trees of the field are withered; because
joy is withered away from the sons of men:” Joel
1: 10, 12. “Alas
for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come:” “How do the beasts
groan! the herds of
cattle are perplexed, because they have no
pasture; yea, the
flocks of sheep are made desolate. O Lord, to
thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the
pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned the trees of the field. The beasts of the
field cry also to thee; for the rivers of waters
are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the
pastures of the wilderness:” 15, 18, 20.
Now let us see the contrast
- “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of
Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots;
and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and
of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of
quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, and
he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes,
neither reprove after the hearing of his ears; but
with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and
reprove with equity for the meek of the earth:
and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of
his lips shall he slay the wicked. And
righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of
his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid; and the calf
and the young lion, and the fatling
together; and a little child shall lead
them. And
the cow and the bear shall feed; their
young ones shall lie down together; and
the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling child shall play on the hole
of the asp, and the weaned child shall
put his hand on the cockatrice’s den: they
shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the EARTH shall be full of the knowledge of the
Lord, as the
waters cover the sea:” Isaiah 11: 1-9.
“For
we know that the whole creation groaneth together, and travaileth
together in pain until now.”
The word “together” belongs both to “groaneth”
and “travaileth,” though in the English
translation it is given but once. This
is intended to lead us to remark, that while the creation is made up of many
different parts, yet none is free from the burden, but all suffer from it, and
groan under its pressure. For as the
creation is one great whole or body, if one of the members suffer,
all the members suffer with it. And so,
when one of the members of the sons of God are
honoured, all the members will rejoice with it.
The great fact of creation’s suffering we all know; common experience
makes it manifest. The bleating of its
tired sheep, the lowing of its driven herds, the cries of slaughtered animals,
all proclaim the pain of creation. The
blighted, torn, mildewed, withered leaves, proclaim to
us the curse that rests as a weary burthen upon creation. It not only “groans
together,” but it “travails together until now.” The figure made use of,
is that of pregnancy. What then does it import? (1)
That there is a certain and definitely fixed period for the woe of creation. (2) That its
suffering will continually increase in bitterness, (like
But what is the birth with which creation is in travail? The text itself supplies the answer. As the mother looks forward to the birth of
the child, so is creation looking forward for “the manifestation of the sons of God.” The child then, on whose birth so much
depends, is the souls of the just in Hades - the unseen womb of the earth. This burthen, (answerably to the figure,) is
daily increasing, and has been so ever since the curse was laid on the
world. Death holds them in bondage as
yet, “the gates of Hades, (not ‘hell’) prevail” against
them for the present. But when these
come forth and receive “the adoption, the redemption” of the resurrection “body,” then
will joy arise on this saddened earth.
But the cries of birth is terrible; the Saviour
describes it in part, in Matthew 24. War, famine, pestilence are the “beginning of sorrows,” (Greek –“birth-pangs.”) then comes the
Great Tribulation, such as never was and never will be again. And at that time the earth, riven by a fierce “earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth,”
opens, and the just arise. “He bowed the heavens, and came
down, and it was darkness under his feet.”
“And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered at the rebuking
of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils. He sent from above, he took me, he drew me
out of many waters:” 2 Samuel 22:
10, 16, 17. The
burden of slavery, (to which the woe of creation is compared in the twenty-first verse,) is a hateful
burden. The burden of pregnancy, (verse
22,) is a cherished burden, and answers to the souls of the righteous, who, in the day of
the [first]
resurrection, issuing forth from the dark bowels and womb of the earth, will be
manifest to all as the then visible, but now unseen and
waiting sons of God.
“Like as a woman with
child, that draweth near the time of her
delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs, so have we been in thy sight,
O Lord.”
(Then comes the
birth) – “Thy dead men shall live; my dead body shall
they arise.” (Then joy) – “Awake and sing,
ye that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall
cast out the dead.” And this at
the time when Jesus appears, and the Lord “cometh
out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity:”
Isaiah 26: 18, 19, 21. For the sons of God are in two states, the
living and the dead; and in neither are they manifested
as the children of God, nor will they be, till the day of resurrection.
“And not only it (the creation) but ourselves
also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit,
even we ourselves, groan
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption -
the redemption of our body.”
The realms of nature
and of grace are in the same attitude; both under bondage, and groaning under
the pressure, and both expecting and waiting for a deliverance promised by God.
In which words
notice the remarkable expression, “who have the first-fruits
of the Spirit.” This refers
to the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, which we have not now. These endowments, by the very
title given them, foretold the glory that is to appear. They were “powers of the age to come:” Hebrews 6: 4, 5. “The earnest of
the inheritance:” Ephesians 1: 14. They
gave token and proof of the day of deliverance from the present bondage of
creation. He who was gifted with these, showed that he belonged to that better order
of things, which is one day to draw upon the earth. To one was given the power of casting out
demons; and this was the token and the earnest, that one day Satan and all his
angels shall be cast into the bottomless pit, and shut up during the thousand
years. Another possessed the gift of
healing, and he, by repelling the attacks of disease, and the advances of death
and corruption, give a joyful signal of that glorious day, when, to those in
the flesh, disease shall be checked, and the life of man shall be as the days
of a tree.
“We” (says Paul) “have the
first-fruits,” they were the possessions of all believers then: they ought to be now. The first-fruits betokened that the harvest
was coming; so the gifts of the Holy Ghost to [regenerate
and Spirit filled] believers in Jesus are the pledge of that coming day,
when, as Joel
says, the Lord “will pour out his Spirit on all flesh.” And, as Jeremiah
declares, “they shall no more teach every man his
neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord,
for all shall
know me, from the least to the greatest.” And, to use the Saviour’s own quotation, “They shall all be taught of God.” Now, the first-fruits belonged to the priests
- “And this shall be the priest’s due from the people,
from them that offer a sacrifice, whether it be ox or sheep; and they shall give unto the priest the shoulder, and the two cheeks, and the
maw. The
first-fruits also of thy corn, of thy wine,
and of thine oil, and
the first of the fleece of thy sheep, thou shalt
give him:” Deut. 18: 3, 4.
We, then, as made
unto our God kings and priests, by the blood of Jesus, ought to possess
the first-fruits. The harvest is to be
for all flesh, when the day of glory and of Christ’s appearing is come. The first-fruits are our consolation -
the harvest is the promised joy of
The Apostle then adds, that we are looking out for “the
adoption.” But how is this? Are we not, if we are believers, already
adopted? We have “the spirit of adoption,”
(Romans 8: 15)
as this very chapter affirms, but not adoption itself; though God hath
predestined us thereto: Eph. 1: 5.
The time of our
adoption, and its great and manifesting act, is the redemption of our body. For even in us who are alive, “the body is dead because of sin:” (verse 10.)
And in the case of the sleeping saints, the body is manifestly under “the bondage of corruption.” The soul
is in custody in Hades, the body in the prison of the grave. These
bonds must be loosed, ere we are manifestly God’s; ere our bondage is
exchanged for liberty, and our corruption for glory.
2. Having
thus expounded the meaning of the passage, I would just gather up its general
sentiment, to show its argumentative force against the general teaching of the
present day.
It appears then,
that Paul in these verses, takes a general view of Creation, as it exists now,
and gives three statements of its condition, as being (1) subject to vanity through the sin of man: (2) under the bondage of corruption; (3) and groaning and travailing throughout in pain. And correspondently therewith he presents
three views of the future condition of the saints and sons of God, (1) their manifestation, (2) their glorious liberty, (3) their adoption, that is, the
redemption of their body. Now scripture
informs us, that at the beginning, creation was very good; and that the woe
which now burdens it, came on it from the sin of man. To the
opponents then of the Millennium, I would say, - Why do you believe that the only change and restoration will take
effect on man? You
acknowledge that the sin of the first Adam brought in ruin upon the whole
creation. Why then should you refuse
to admit that the obedience of the second Adam will redeem the inferior
creation likewise? You acknowledge
that the incarnation of Satan in
the serpent produced the fall of man, and that man’s fall drew after it the
wreck of creation animate and inanimate.
Why then doubt that Christ’s incarnation in the manhood shall lift up
from corruption’s bondage, not the redeemed of the human race alone, but the
animated races of creation? This certainly is Paul’s doctrine here. As creation fell with the fall of man, and
continues subject to its evils still, under the disposing will of God: so
with man’s rising it will recover itself, and rejoice at Satan’s discomfiture, and
the victory of Messiah.
But this doctrine,
though more acknowledged than formerly, is
yet much resisted. Hear Doddridge, who speaks the thought of many:- ‘To explain it (this passage) as
chiefly referring to the brutal or inanimate creation is insufferable; since
the day of the redemption of our bodies will be attended with the
conflagration, which will put an end to them.’ But is this true? No: such a statement results from the
denial of the first resurrection of the saints, and the belief that all men rise together. For it has been shown already,
that the redemption of the bodies of the saints, takes place at the Saviour’s
coming, and the Saviour’s coming is
celebrated as the term of the rejoicing of creation, not of its destruction; as it is
written - “Let the
heavens rejoice, and let the earth be
glad; let the sea roar and the fullness thereof! then
shall all the trees of the field rejoice before the Lord: for he cometh to judge the earth; he shall judge the world with righteousness,
and the people with his truth:” Psalm 96:
11-13; Psalm 98.
We must choose
therefore whose statements we will believe. If we reject the Millennium,
Paul’s language and the Psalmist’s will be unaccounted for. If we make the Millennium a spiritual reign
only [without the personal and
bodily Presence of Jesus our Messiah-King], in which good men will be very abundant, and the
gospel preached and received everywhere, Paul must be mistaken; for to the
gospel no such effects as the renovation of creation can be ascribed. It does not touch, except indirectly, the
sufferings even of man. It offers
consolation to the soul, but it does not decrease the sufferings of the
body. It does not stave off pestilence,
disease, death. It does not rise the dead from their sepulchre, or undo the sentence of
corruption. Much less does it take
off from the creature its sufferings. It still permits the slaughter of animals for
food, the abuse of them by the cruel; it still permits, as it needs must, the
inclemency of the wintry sky, and the sultry droughts of summer. It
does not manifest the sons of God, or crown them with the promised glory, or give them the deliverance of the body
from its slavery to death and putrefaction.
And even if it did remove the creature’s woe, it would not fulfil the
figure presented in the passage before us; for if the burthen of creation were
removed by the effects of the gospel, it would be like a load taken from off a
weary porter’s shoulder, ounce by ounce, gradually diminishing till all was
gone. But the figure of child-birth
represents it as gradually becoming heavier and heavier, and at the height and
crisis of the struggle, suddenly removed.
Nor would it account for the character of the burthen borne by creation. The burthen of pregnancy is a beloved burthen;
but that which the gospel would remove is only hateful.
Even were the
gospel to prevail everywhere, as many are fond to assert, these conclusions
would be true. But it will not. The Scriptures of the New Testament
everywhere teach, that though its offers were to be
widely extended, and its aspect is universal, it will not be universally
received. What is the brief sentence that sums up the whole history of
our dispensation [of this
evil age], more than once on the Saviour’s
lips? “Many are called but few chosen!”
Nay, and there is now at
hand, (what but few are ready for) a general apostasy from Christianity,
instead of a general conversion to it! 2
Thess. 2; 1Thess. 4.
But (that I may not
go too far astray from the tract of my present subject,) mark the very words of
the text. What saith Paul? “The whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” The
gospel had then been abroad thirty years in the fullness of its blessing, and “from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum (Paul) had fully preached
the gospel of Christ,” and yet he utters no word of any check given
then, or afterwards to be given by the gospel, to the groan and travail of
nature without that wide space, and up to that very time. Much more then may we say of nature,
that it “groaneth and
travaileth in pain together EVEN UNTIL NOW.”
But the Apostle
saw a hope for it signal and blessed, in an event - not of nature - not of the
course of events now following their career - but in the miraculous return of Jesus, and his manifestation of himself
with all his [‘accounted
worthy’] saints in their full glory, as
risen from the dead. This is the hope for which creation tarries; this
the birth for which it looks; this the travail
wherewith it travails. In
that word I see a decisive proof of millennial glory, a decisive denial
to modern belief. This groaning
of nature, which is heard in the sighing of its tempests, the howling of its
stormy, wrecking breakers, in the lowing of its slaughtered herds, and the
moans of its dying tribes, what is its character to the ear of faith? Is it the roar of the wind, and the rush of
the wave grappling the groaning vessel, to bury it in the sea depths? Is it the feverish tossing and moaning of the
dying man upon his bed, as he waxes fainter and fainter, and halts down the
valley of corruption? No: it is the
pain, struggling and suffering, but, pain
with hope. It is the pangs of the mother, who
suffers sorely indeed, but not unto death; whose pains indeed accumulate and
sharpen hour by hour, but only for awhile; and whose eye is about to glisten
above her new-born infant. The world is suffering the pangs of birth,
not the pangs of death! A new order of things - of joy and
not of grief; of preservation and of glory, not of destruction
and desolation - is about to arise.
Here then choose
ye! If received opinion is to be our
guide, then there remains no hope for this fallen creation. It is looking onward sorrowfully and groaning
to that dismal period, more awful than the doom of Sodom - more terrible than
the wild howling of the flood, and its career of destruction - when fierce in
anger, the Saviour-Judge will come, in cloud and storm, and burn up the
recreant earth; and all its animated tribes, except man, will be consumed in
one general blaze! But can the creature
desire to be burnt up? Does it any more
expect and long for future destruction
than for present pain? Or were it any exhibition of the mercy of
God? Destruction comes from his wrath,
and is the testimony of his sore displeasure.
To reduce creation to nothing by his fervent heat,
were to fasten the yoke of corruption about the neck of its animated tribes
forever. And how were the redemption of
the saints any specimen or picture of the redemption in store for the
creature? Are the sons of God to be
burnt up or annihilated? Then neither
are its now suffering tribes! The
Lord loves the creatures of his hand as truly as man. At the flood he spared a remnant in the ark;
and with the living creatures of the world he entered into covenant, when he
accepted the burnt-sacrifice of Noah. How
much more then shall the better sacrifice of the Lamb of God draw down, on the
whole creation, the blessings of that new covenant, with whose glories the
prophets are teeming! Yes!
if you will believe Paul the inspired - before
the hour of the world’s burning, there
is a period when all creation shall
rejoice.
If you will trust
the [Holy] Spirit speaking by him, as surely as we shall overcome the grave,
and enter on our immortal course in the full freedom of bodies ransomed from
the slavery of corruption, even so shall the creature that has suffered with
us, with us partake in the glory of immortality.
Suddenly, suddenly
as the Saviour’s appearing, will the glory of the redeemed come. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the last trump will the dead saints rise incorruptible, and we, the living
saints, shall be caught up and changed.
And with our sudden glory, a new
day will dawn in the renewed world.
Before its brightness the earth is to break forth into joy, and the
heavens to burst out with song. The
forests are to clap their hands in loud rejoicing; the waves of the sea to roar
in glad acclaim. The sun is to shine
with seven-fold lustre, the moon with the light of the sun; as before that day,
blackness covered the one, and blood mantled the other. In the parched desert are streams to leap
forth; in the burning sand, groves of stately trees are to spring and spread
their shade. And the animals, tamed anew
by the creator’s hand, will put on the innocence of
Who will enter
into that day of glory? Who will see
that glory of Christ’s [millennial] kingdom
long expected, long foretold? He only who is born again;
for “except a man be born again, he cannot see the
-
From writings by Robert Govett.
-------
DISCIPLINE
AND CHARACTER
1
They come and go, the seasons fair,
And bring their spoil to vale and hills;
But oh! there is waiting in
the air,
And a passionate hope the spirit fills.
Why doth He tarry, the absent Lord?
When shall the kingdom be
restored,
And earth and heaven with on accord,
Ring out the cry that the King comes?
The floods have lifted up their voice -
The King hath come to His own, His own!
The little hills and vales rejoice,
His right it is to take the crown.
Sleepers, awake, and meet Him first;
Now let the marriage hymn outburst,
And powers of darkness flee, disperst:
What will it be when the King comes!
A ransomed earth breaks forth in song,
Her sin-stained ages overpast;
Angels carry the royal commands;
Peace beams forth throughout all the lands;
The trees and the fields shall clap their hands:
What will it be when the King comes!
Now
Uplifts her head with joy once more;
And
Extends her rule from shore to shore.
Sing, for the land her Lord regains!
And living streams o’erflow her plains:
What will it be when the King comes!
Oh, brothers, stand as men that wait -
The dawn is purpling in the east,
And banners wave from heaven’s high gate
The conflict now - but soon the feast!
Mercy and truth shall meet again;
Worthy the Lamb that once was slain!
We can suffer now - He will know us then:
What will it be when the King comes!
- E. S. Elliott.
-------
2
O happy band of pilgrims,
If onward ye will tread
With Jesus as your fellow,
To Jesus as your head!
O happy, if ye labour
As Jesus did for men:
O happy if ye hunger
As Jesus hungered then!
The Cross that Jesus carried,
He carried as your due;
The Crown that Jesus weareth,
He weareth it for you.
The faith by which ye see him,
The hope in which ye yearn,
The love that through all troubles
To him alone will turn,
What are they but his heralds
To lead you to his sight?
What are they but foregleams
Of uncreated light?
What are they but his Jewels
Of right celestial worth?
What are they but the ladder
Set up to heaven on earth?
O happy band of pilgrims,
Look upward to the skies,
Where such a light affliction
Shall win you such a PRIZE.
- John
M. Neale,
1818-66
3
Come, O Christ, and reign among us,
King of love, and Prince of peace,
Hush the storm of strife and passion,
Bid its cruel discords cease;
Thou who prayedst, thou who willest
That thy people should be one,
Grant, O grant our hope’s fruition:
Here on earth thy will be done. Amen.
- Somerset C. Lowry, 1855-1932
