Awesome Wonder in the Majestic God-Man
Psalm 8
Main Idea: Psalm 8 invites us to renew our wonder and joy in the majesty of Christ seen in His condescension for us through the old and new creation.
“Through the dark valleys of lament and pleas for deliverance of Psalm 3-7, we arrive at the crest of Psalm 8 to a welcome prospect of breathtaking beauty and awesome delight. Psalm 8 introduces us to the first experience of joyful praise and adoration in the Psalter. Here in Psalm 8 if just for a moment, darkness and suffering are driven away by the commanding vision of the sovereign God of the created universe and His unfathomable care for humanity.”
- Gerald H. Wilson, Psalms, Application Commentary
I. The Majesty of God Displayed in the Universe (8:1)
David uses the art of contrasting 4 times in Psalm 8. This is the first contrast. David contrasts God’s glory in the earth and His glory above the heavens (1 Kgs 8:27)
II. God’s Majesty Displayed in Using Weakness to Defeat Strength (8:2)
David contrasts the seeming power of His big enemies with the small, helpless and weakest humans on earth.
This verse has both a literal and a figurative meaning (Mt. 21:14-16; 1 Cor. 1:28-29)
Matthew 21:14-16: And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”
III. God’s Majesty Displayed in Using Weakness to Defeat Strength (8:2)
David contrasts the creation of the space with the creation of mankind and it causes him to feel with fresh forcefulness his smallness compared to the bigness of God.
IV. God’s Majesty Displayed in the Rule of the Second Adam (8:5-9)
The final contrast is seen in how God uses lowly men to rule his world instead of mighty angels.
The big picture here is God becoming man to fulfill Genesis 1:26-31 to bring all things under the subjection of man through Jesus. The apostles of the New Testament applied these verses to Jesus (Heb. 2:5-9; 1 Cor. 15:25-28).
Hebrews 2:5-9: For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
“It costs God nothing to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost Him crucifixion”
- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
