PSALM 8
God's name is excellent in all His works, but especially
in Christ. O God! reveal Your name to us. The Spirit, who gave these words,
gives their interpretation by the lips of Jesus and an Apostle.
1. "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all
the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens."
How precious is the right of faith to claim an interest
in God! It would be vain to say that the Lord is Lord unless we could annex,
"O Lord our Lord." But in His own Son God gives Himself to us. Each
true believer may exult, "This God is our God forever and ever."
What thought can grasp God's glory! Its dazzling
brightness defies the sight of mortal eye. Its breadth and length, its depth
and height, exceed all space. It more than fills the universe and soars
above the heaven of heavens. None less than God can grasp this knowledge.
But earth is chosen as the favored spot of wondrous revelation. His name is
here made manifest in the face of Jesus Christ. Throughout earth's wide
expanse His name is gloriously sounded. All other knowledge fades in
comparison. We stand amazed at the surpassing excellence!
2. "From the lips of children and infants You have
ordained praise because of Your enemies, to silence the foe and the
avenger."
We do not know what circumstance in David's life prompted
these words, but our minds revert to a most interesting scene. In Jerusalem
young children throng our blessed Lord. Tender voices raise the shout,
"Hosanna to the Son of David." Jesus reminds the angry priests that the cry
was prefigured in their Scriptures. "Have you never read, Out of the mouths
of babes and nursing infants You have ordained praise?"
We see, also, this word inscribed on the Gospel's mighty
course. How poor, how weak, how feeble in themselves are the messengers of
grace! They go forth as infants against hosts of giants, as David against
Goliath. Against them the wit, the learning of the world combine in strong
array. The Gospel's voice seems tiny to compete, but it prevails. The idols
of the world succumb. The most clever arguments of vain philosophy, the
mightiest efforts of conceited reason, the Dagons of skill and learning lick
the dust. The enemy is stilled. Opposing lips are mute. There is a power in
God's own truth, proclaimed by feeblest lips, before which Satan and his
legion and all the disputants of earth must ever quail. Let no true minister
of Christ complain that he is weak. He is strong in speech whom God
instructs. He will prevail by whose mouth the Spirit deigns to utter truth.
3, 4. "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your
fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man, that
You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that You visit him?"
When we uplift our eyes to the sparkling canopy of a
clear night, what wonders excite admiration! The moon revolves in brilliant
majesty. Countless orbs, each perhaps the center of its own system, stud the
expanse with luster. What must their great Creator be! How far that
power must surpass conception which willed them into being!
But, marvel of marvels! that great power looks with
tender care on man! Low as he is, and vile and base, and stained with all
iniquity, yet God loves him, ever tends him with most watchful eye, and
visits him with all the blessings of salvation!
But Jesus is seen here. He is pre-eminently the Son of
man. He is born one of our family, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. As
such, He condescends to our low level. He is made in all points like us, sin
only excepted. As such, He needed heavenly aid. As such, He was upheld and
supported during His earthly course, and borne victorious through all His
trials.
5, 6, 7, 8. "For You have made him a little lower than
the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honor. You made him to have
dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his
feet; all sheep and oxen, yes, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the
air and the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the
seas."
The decree names Jesus as the heir of all things. When He
arose from deepest depths of degradation, He proclaimed, "All power is given
to Me in heaven and in earth." And in a little while, His glorious kingdom
will be established here, and earth, with all who breathe life's breath, the
total universe, with all that it contains, shall own His sway. In the name
of Jesus every knee shall bow; every tongue shall confess that He is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
In this our present tabernacle we groan, being burdened,
looking for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior. May we by
faith and prayer and every holy grace hasten His coming! Then will the
chorus swell with rapturous praise through all the redeemed earth—
9. "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in
all the earth."
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!