Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 2; Psalm 110 | Date: February 11, 2024 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Introduction

All right, let’s look to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we thank you for our time together again this evening. We thank you for this wonderful subject that we have, looking at this favorite portion of your word, the Psalms, and in that, our favorite subject: how they tell us about Jesus. We pray that you’ll open our understanding of it so that we will read the Psalms better, as Jesus himself has instructed us to read them, with an eye to him and to see how they speak of him. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I think this is our last study for the evening series on the Psalms. From here we will go to other Old Testament prophecies of Christ, like we’ve done before for those predating the Psalms. So let me back up just a moment and make a couple of observations, some things we’ve said along the way.

I think it’s not being overly judgmental to say—it’s just what I’ve observed—that most Christians, when they read the Psalms, tend to read it searching for that gem that pops up. And the Psalms become a favorite because there are so many of those gems that pop up in the reading, and that’s a valuable way to read the Psalms. What we’ve been trying to do in this series is to read a little bit better than that, to see what is the message of each individual psalm. How do we determine that message? How do we see how the psalmist himself shapes that message and gets that message to us? So we’ve looked at poetry, we’ve looked at the main subject of the Psalter, which is the King. We’ve looked at a temple setting, the liturgical setting of the Psalter. We’ve looked at the various forms of the Psalms, we’ve looked at the various categories, Wisdom Psalms and so on, and that’s been our overall goal: to see how to read the Psalms better.

Reading With An Eye To Christ

Our last subject here is we should read them with an eye to Christ. Someone back in the Reformation era, or just after the Reformation era, made the remark that we should read the Psalms with one eye to the historic Davidic king, and the other eye to the great king who is to come. And that’s good counsel, and that’s what we’ve been trying to do here: to read the Psalms with this overall purpose of the Bible in mind. What about the promised deliverer?

Now, we’ve seen… By the way, one more thing on reading the Psalms. I’ve said this before, but I want to emphasize it again. The Psalms are poetry. Period. They’re not narrative. Oh, you have a couple of narrative psalms, but the psalms are poetry. They are not meant to be read like narrative. When we read narratives, you read quickly through, get to the point at the end, and the point is easily grasped. With poetry, it’s not that simple. You’ve got figures of speech. You’ve got symbolic language that is used. You’ve got to stop and think about that. What is this symbolizing? What’s the point here?

In poetry, remember one of the marks of poetry is all the white space on the page? You’ve got lots of white space on the page in the Psalms. It’s because it’s crunched. You don’t have it all explained at length. Everything is said in a terse, a very concise and compact way. And so it’s not explained at length. You’ve got to stop and think on it and read it carefully and then dwell on it. So don’t read the Psalms in a hurried way. Read them reflectively, thinking of those figures and those symbols that are used and the compact way that the psalmist will say something—what’s going on here and what’s reflected in it. It just takes more work in that way, but it’s work that richly pays off.

Now we’re looking at the Messianic Psalms, and our overall point here is that the Psalms speak of Jesus; that’s what Jesus told us. The Psalms speak of Jesus, but they speak of Jesus in various ways. We have direct prophecies. We’ll look at some of those a little bit more this evening. I’ve mentioned them mainly. But for instance, we’ve already spent some time on Sunday mornings with Psalm 2, where we have a prophecy of the anointed king to come. Psalm 110 is another. We have these direct predictive prophecies of the Messiah who will come.

But we have the Psalms presenting Jesus or the Messiah in other ways. We saw how the Psalms portray the king, the Davidic king, but they portray him in his ideal. He’s not a sinful king. He’s not a king who runs roughshod over his people. He cares for the poor. He protects them. He protects them from everybody, and there are no enemies that happen. And you get this language that it’s an ideal king, and you look back and say, “Who in the world is he talking about?” And you have to think, “Well, okay, he’s looking ahead.” This is prospective of the great king to come because the Davidic kings, each of them inheriting the Davidic promise, represent and prefigure and anticipate the coming king who is to come. So throughout the Psalms, watch that where the king is presented in such an ideal way that you see this looks beyond him to the Messiah, the greater king to come.

We also saw that some of the language in the Psalms exceeds anything that’s appropriate to a merely human king, like Psalm 45: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” And Hebrews chapter one picks that up. And then last time we saw that David himself is treated in the New Testament as a type—that’s the term that’s used—a type or a pattern of David’s greater son who will come. And so David’s words, David’s actions, his experiences, the events of David’s life set a pattern, a type, a mold that is fulfilled in Jesus. And we find the New Testament writers and even Jesus himself picking up on that over and again, pointing back to David, and that prefigured him.

I’ve given you this illustration many times before. When we want to commemorate a great event, typically what we do is we make a movie about it after the fact. It looks back and commemorates this great event. God did the exact opposite. He ran the movie for centuries ahead of time, establishing the structures and the patterns and the molds in which we could understand Jesus when he came. And so you have the priest and you have the sacrifice and you have Jonah and you have Adam, you have David, you have the king and the kingdom. And all of this through the Old Testament is setting patterns in place that help us to understand Jesus when we come to the New Testament. It gives us the categories.

The Big Picture

All right, well, there’s one more way, and I’ve kept talking about the prophecies or the direct, predictive prophecies in the Psalms, so let’s look at Psalm 2: direct prophecies of Christ. Now, some don’t see this as a direct prophecy, first of all, but somehow it gets to it. I won’t get into that. Certainly, by the time we get to verses 5 and following, particularly verse 7, we have a direct prophetic utterance here.

Now what I’m going after here is one way that the Psalms present Jesus, or the Messiah who will come, is that they see him within what I’ll call the big picture. And what I mean by that is God’s saving purpose that he has announced all the way back since Genesis chapter three, verse 15. God has announced that he will come back in, reestablish his reign. He has announced that he will do it through his appointed king. That becomes the anointed one. That’s the word Messiah. He’s the anointed king who will come.

And we read over and again in the Old Testament of God’s purpose in world history that he will establish his kingdom. He is coming. God himself is coming to rule. God is coming to establish his kingdom in the earth, and everyone’s going to know it when he does. Now, in one sense, of course, God still rules over everything. He’s sovereign, and he’s never lost control of that. But his rule is contested in this world. There are still rebels in this world, and he intends to reestablish his reign in the earth with willing subjects. And that’s God’s purpose in history.

Now, what we find in the Psalms, then, is that the kings and the kingdom that they represent, they are prospective of the king and the kingdom who will come, and often the Davidic kings, David himself, the kingdom that they represent, are representative samples of this great purpose of God in the earth to bring about his kingdom universally. And so we find that in the Psalms, particularly in these direct prophecies, Psalm 2: “Why do the nations rage, the peoples plot in vain, the kings of the earth set themselves, the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.'”

So here’s the earth in rebellion against God. Verse 4, God responds: “He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. He’ll speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, ‘As for me, I’ve set my king on Zion, my holy hill.'” So they are in rebellion against him. All the kings of the earth are gathered together, and God chuckles and says, “Yeah, well, I’ve set my king on Zion. Nothing will change that.” Here’s God’s resolve to establish his kingdom.

When we get to verse seven now, we have the king himself speaking. And here is one of the fascinating things, almost unique—we find it a few times in the Old Testament—we’re let in on a conversation between God and his anointed king. And so the king now, speaking in verse 7, says, “I will tell of the decree.” So God has decreed something. What is it? Well, he tells us: “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son. Today I have begotten you.'” That’s enthronement language. I’ve made you king. And then God says to his king, “Ask of me and I’ll make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You’ll break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

So God says, “I’ve established my king on Zion.” The king now says, “I’ll tell you what he told me. He told me that when I ask, I can have the nations.” So we have this enthronement scene which, of course, as we’ve seen before, is fulfilled initially in Christ’s ascension where he takes the throne of the universe and now God the Father, in terms of Psalm 110, says, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” So what we have here is this grand picture of God’s purpose in world history.

This was probably a coronation liturgy sung at the installation of each new Davidic king that came by, but it is a direct prophecy, particularly verses 7 and following, where we’re let in on that conversation. It’s a fitting part of a coronation ceremony because each Davidic king inherited the promise of David’s son and he represents that king who will come. Each one is prospective of that. So, big picture. Genesis chapter 1: God creates the world, establishes man as king over the earth. Man rebels and falls. He’s surrendered his rule of king over creation. Satan now is the prince and power of the air, and God is determined to reestablish his kingdom in the earth. And he says, “I’ll have my own appointed, my own anointed king who will rule everywhere, and I’ve told him he’ll have the nations.” That’s the big picture of the Bible. Genesis to Revelation.

Now if you want to glance quickly at Psalm 110, we have the same thing, another direct prophecy. It’s often referred to as an oracular prophecy, that’s an oracle from God. Psalm 110, verse 1: “The Lord says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.'” Here we’re let in again on a conversation between God and his king. And he says, “You stay here now until I finish this up.” And the prospect is, by the time we get to say verse six, he will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He’ll shatter chiefs over the wide earth. This king is going to rule universally over everyone.

That takes us back to Genesis chapter 3. This takes us back to the prophecy of Jacob concerning Judah in Genesis 49, Balaam’s prophecy in Numbers chapter 24. This is Hannah’s prophecy in 1 Samuel 2. Remember that this king will rule to the ends of the earth. All of that is here, and it certainly is the prophecy of 2 Samuel chapter 7 where God promises that David’s son will rule and he’ll rule universally. The prophets then picked that up, as we will see in coming weeks, that he will rule in righteousness the world over.

Now my point now, in rehearsing all of that for you, is to just point out that that is the frame of reference when you come to the book of Psalms. This king and kingdom focus in the Psalms focuses on something very narrow—David’s kingship, David’s sons and their kingship—but that is reflective of this bigger picture that God is going to establish his rule through David’s greater son in the earth. And so we saw, if you’d like to look at it quickly again, Psalm 72 verse 9: “May desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute. May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him. All nations serve him.”

Now, if you read that, having read even one time the New Testament, you already have in mind, “Okay, that’s got to be pointing to Jesus. What other king could be in view?” And so as I’ve said several times now along the way, Isaac Watts was certainly justified in taking Psalm 72 about the king who will reign and writing the hymn, “Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun.” So with this big picture in mind, God coming to establish his kingdom, this explains for us how so easily the New Testament writers see Jesus in the Psalms. The king points ahead to the king. So the point tonight then is just that: that reading the Psalms in light of that big picture and God’s purpose in world history centering on his king—that he will establish his rule in the earth through his appointed king, a human king, but yet it is God coming to rule, kind of a riddle in the Old Testament that’s resolved finally when we come to the incarnation—all of that points ahead to David’s greater son, God the Son incarnate, Jesus. So we’re not searching in the Psalms for vague parallels and analogies. What we’re looking for is things that fit into these trajectories that we see in the Psalms and in the rest of the Bible and patterns as they unfold.

God’s Majesty Displayed In Empowering Man To Rule

All right, let’s look at Psalm 8 then. Again, we’ve looked at this in the morning exposition, so this is just review. This is a very familiar psalm: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” That is verse one, and that is also verse nine. So that frames the psalm—I mean this psalm—that God is praised because of his majesty in all of the earth. But the rest of the psalm then explains how he goes about establishing that majesty in the earth. Verse two: he’ll do it through babies. “Out of the mouth of babies and infants you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger.” Symbolic, figurative language. The infants, the babies are helpless little people who—how in the world could they accomplish so much?

And that’s what David picks up on in verse 3: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, the stars which you’ve set in place. What is man? That you are mindful of him, the son of man, that you care for him. Yet you have made him”—that is just man, mere mortals—”you’ve made him a little lower than the heavenly beings,” that’s the angels. “You’ve crowned him with glory and honor and you’ve given him dominion over the works of your hands. You’ve put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, birds, fish. Everything else, you’ve put this under his feet.”

So what we have in Psalm 8 is a poetic reflection on Genesis chapter 1. God created all of these creatures, the whole universe, and he created man as king over it all. And David is marveling at all of that. You see the wonders of the heavens and the heavenly bodies, and here’s mere mortal man, and God has made him king over it all. That’s a startling thing. So this is a praise hymn, a praise to God for his greatness and majesty, but with a unique focus: God’s majesty displayed in empowering man to rule. So Psalm 8 is a praise to God for giving rulership on earth to man. It already sounds like Genesis 1: “Let him have dominion over all the earth.” He’s created to rule.

Now, with this in mind, Psalm 8, look over at Hebrews chapter 2. You’ll see here that the writer picks that up. Now what’s going on here in Hebrews chapter 2 is that he’s thinking on Psalm 8, and he’s reflecting not just on Psalm 8, but you’ll see here how he’s reflecting also on Genesis 3. Wait a minute, man failed. God made man king, that’s Genesis 1. But then there’s Genesis 3, and it’s a failure. So watch how he develops that. I’ll just pick it up with verse 5. He’s dealing here with the reason for the incarnation. Chapter one, you remember, is the wonderful extolling of Christ’s deity. Now chapter two, his humanity in the incarnation.

Verse five: “It was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.” Notice that. It was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. “It has been testified somewhere”—don’t you love the way the New Testament writers cite the Old Testament? “Somewhere it says,” they don’t have the chapter verse divisions like we have—”somewhere it says,” and here’s Psalm 8: “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’ve 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. So he has universal rule. “At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.”

So here Hebrews is looking back at Psalm 8 where David is glorying in the honor that God has given to man to rule over the earth, and he’s thinking, “Wait a minute, that hasn’t happened yet. There was Genesis 3, and whatever David is saying here in Psalm 8, it really hasn’t happened, at least in its fullness yet.” So, “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.” I love the phrase here: “But we see Jesus who for a little while was made a little lower than the angels.”

Remember in Psalm 8, David is glorying in the dignity of humanity: “You’ve made us just a little lower than the angels.” Hebrews says Jesus, the Son of God, stooped to that which is our highest dignity. In his incarnation, he was made a little lower than the angels. For him, that’s the other direction. But he became one of us, and he explains that for us: “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Since, therefore, the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, and that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

So God has made man to rule over the earth. David glories in that in Psalm 8. The writer of the Hebrews looks at that and says, “Wait, it hasn’t happened yet. We failed in that. It must be talking about Jesus.” And if you like more confirmation, you can look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 20 and following, where it speaks of the return of Jesus and he comes. And there Paul takes up the language of Psalm 8 as well in verse 25: “He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”

So now you look at Psalm 8; you won’t see that maybe at first blush as a prophecy of Jesus, but it sets a mold. It picks up a mold that was established at creation, Genesis chapter one, that was lost in Genesis chapter three. David is still glorying in the dignity that was given to man. Hebrews looks back at it and says, “Wait, that hasn’t been fully realized yet. There’s another man who will bring that to realization.” And that’s the necessity of the incarnation. He had to become one of us so that as one of us, he could fulfill God’s purpose in the earth and bring about his rule over the earth through his human appointed king. Big picture in view, they read the Psalms—huh, it’s gotta be talking about Jesus.

The Enthronement Psalms

Now there are other ways we should look at it just quickly if you want to look back at Psalm, look at Psalm 93 and following. 93 to 100, these are referred to often as—93 to 99 in particular—these are referred to as the Enthronement Psalms. Some months ago I dealt with that in an evening message. These so-called enthronement psalms, or better, “Yahweh as King” or “Kingship of Yahweh” psalms, speak of God as king, coming as king to judge, to rule over the world, to subdue all of his enemies. He’s coming to save his people, set all things right, to bring peace and prosperity, and all of that in these psalms. And they tend to be praise psalms because they’re praising this great event when God will come, intervene, exert his rule in the world, and everyone’s going to know it. And he’ll judge his enemies.

Now the place of these Psalms, Psalm 93 and following, is interesting. This is the beginning of Book 4 of the Psalter. Book 3 of the Psalter ends with Psalm 89, which is a long lament of the collapse of the Davidic promise. The Davidic covenant seems to have been lost. David is not king. There’s no Davidic king on the throne. What is all this about? It seems that God’s promise has come to the ground. That’s Psalm 89 lamenting the loss of the Davidic promise.

Book 4 then opens with Psalm 90, which is the Mosaic psalm, a psalm of Moses: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” So immediately now there’s this note of hope at the beginning of Book 4, written by Moses, the deliverer, the leader in the Exodus. So there’s notes of hope coming through that, and we get into these kingship Psalms in Psalm 93, particularly 93, 95 through 99. Let’s look at 96 verse 10: “Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns.'” There’s our key phrase for these psalms, the kingship of Yahweh psalms: “The Lord reigns.” Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. “Yes, the world is established. It shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.”

So he’s calling the people here in Psalm 96 to a joyful worship of God that anticipates a future reign of God that will be exerted over all the earth when he brings all of his enemies into judgment. And these Psalms, Psalm 93 to 99, explicitly proclaim God’s kingly rule over the world. And a characteristic exclamation in all of these is, “The Lord reigns.” So watch that here. Psalm 93 and verse 1: “The Lord reigns. He’s robed in majesty. The Lord is robed. He’s put on strength as his belt.” Psalm 96 and verse 10 that we just read: “Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns.'” Psalm 97 in verse 1: “The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice, let the many coastlands be glad.” Psalm 99 in verse 1: “The Lord reigns, let the people tremble, he sits enthroned upon the cherubim, let the earth quake.” Psalm 95 doesn’t have that exact expression, “the Lord reigns,” but if you look at Psalm 95 verse 3, you’ll see something very similar: “The Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods.” So we’re calling here in these psalms, calling the nations to confess the universal lordship of Israel’s God, Yahweh.

Well, in all of that, it anticipates the day when God’s kingship will be exerted in all of the earth. Because of that, it obviously has an eschatological ring to it. This is talking about something that hasn’t happened yet because, frankly, people today don’t know that God reigns. And these Psalms say one day they will. And that day is coming, so Psalm 96 again, verses 11 and following: for he comes to judge the earth, he will judge the world in righteousness and the people in faithfulness. So it pictures here the world itself, the whole created order, clapping their hands and cheering because God has come to rule and finally that promise is being fulfilled.

Psalm 98: this is the psalm that Isaac Watts picked up to write what we sing at Christmastime. “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her King.” It’s appropriate to sing it at Christmastime, of course, because here we have the King coming. But the psalm itself has to do with the coming exertion of that kingdom in its fullness when God comes to reign. So Psalm 98 verse 9: “For he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.”

So this is a big theme, not just in the Psalms, but in the whole Old Testament—this “coming of God” theme, that God’s going to move in and do it himself. This is related to the “day of the Lord” theme in the prophets. You’ve heard so much about that as you read through the prophets, the day of the Lord. It’s no longer your day. This is going to be His day. He’s going to move in and the whole world’s going to know it. And it’s going to be a happy day for the children of God. For the enemies of God, it’s going to be a bad day. But for God’s people, it’s going to be a day of gladness and rejoicing.

Well, you read all of that. I’ve just sampled it here in the Enthronement Psalms. You read all of that and you think in terms of the big picture: “When’s that going to happen?” And again, if you’ve read the New Testament even once, you think, “Oh, that’s talking about the coming of Jesus.” He’s the one that brings God’s kingdom to its fullness. It’ll be realized in the coming of Christ. Psalm 97 verse 1: “The Lord our God the Almighty reigns.” John picks up that language in Revelation chapter 19. There’s reference to the coming of Christ and his return in victory. This is the victory shout that is given: “The Lord God Almighty reigns.” Jesus comes. He’s bringing the kingdom to its fullness.

So the Lord Jesus then comes as the Redeemer, as the judge, to bring the kingdom of God to its final consummation. And again, that’s that great riddle in the Old Testament. You’ve got these two tracks: David’s son is going to rule; he’ll shepherd the nations. God’s going to come and he’s going to move in and he’s going to judge. You get these two tracks and you come to the incarnation and they merge and we find it is God who has come, it is David’s son who has come, the incarnate son. David’s son and David’s Lord comes to reign.

And then Psalm 100, after these enthronement psalms or “Yahweh is King” psalms, often referred to as the doxology of the enthronement psalms—it shares much in common with these previous psalms, but it adds a call of worship. Psalm 100, verse one: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us and we are his people.” And so enter his gates with thanksgiving. And what’s unique here, or not unique, what’s fascinating here is that we find it in several of the psalms: he’s calling all the earth to come into Jerusalem, into the gates of the temple, and worship. Israel’s God will be the God who rules over all the earth. So it’s a fitting doxology, Psalm 100, to these psalms.

But more than that, just like the previous psalms, Psalm 100 anticipates a day when the whole earth praises God together, all of the nations joining and praising the God that Israel worships in the Psalms. And so as I said in Psalm 72: “May he have dominion from sea to sea.” Speaking of the king, the Davidic king, “May he have dominion from sea to sea. From the river to the ends of the earth, may desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust.” You gotta love that expression. That just rings of Genesis 3:15, doesn’t it? Let them lick the dust; may the kings of Tarshish and everywhere else come fall down before him and all the nations serve him.

So read the Psalms then with this big picture in mind. And you may not have all of the connections that you can make explicitly, like I’ve done for you this evening, but you read the Psalms with that big picture in mind and you’re going to see: that sounds like it’s come to fruition in Jesus. It’s looking ahead to when Jesus brings the kingdom of God to consummation.

Eye To God’s Saving Purpose

Now there’s another way—it’s closely related to this, I won’t take time to expand on this, but I’ll just mention it briefly. And that is: read the Psalms with an eye to God’s saving purpose, not just in terms of his rule over the nations, but in terms of his saving purpose. So for example, when you read the Psalms, you read of David’s repentance and his pleas for forgiveness. Those Psalms are not usually properly messianic. But if you read those Psalms with their pleas for forgiveness—”Lord wash me, forgive me”—you read that and if you’ve read the New Testament even once, you can’t miss that they’re talking about Jesus because the forgiveness that comes, comes through the saving work that he accomplished.

So for example, Psalm 32, a very familiar Psalm—can’t wait to bring that to you on a Sunday morning soon. Psalm 32 verses one and two: “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not count iniquity.” David is rejoicing that his transgressions have been taken away. His sins covered over, hidden from view. And his iniquity isn’t counted against him. Now it’s left a little bit unanswered here: how in the world can a righteous God just take away sin and cover it up and not count it against them? But again, if you’ve read the New Testament even once, you know the answer to that. He counted it against Jesus, and here we have the double imputation. Our sins are imputed to him, his righteousness imputed to us, and David is rejoicing. You read through that. It’s not properly a messianic psalm as such, but you can’t miss—this is talking about Jesus. The forgiveness that David is rejoicing in, in Psalm 32, is just unavoidably pointing us to Jesus.

Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities.” How can God do that? Well, you’re Christians, and especially in church, you know that’s Jesus. Of course it’s talking about Jesus. It’s pointing us to him in that way.

Psalm 130, verse 3: “If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand?” And you think immediately, “I know the answer to that. It’s found in the saving work of Christ.” And so you look at all of the expressions in the Psalms of God’s steadfast love—trust in God because of his steadfast love. Those entrance liturgies: “Who shall ascend to the hill of the most high? Who has access to God?” Answer: “He that has clean hands and a pure heart.” I got news for you, it’s not you. And you have to say that it’s pointing us to Jesus.

The references to the temple, the references to the altar. Even David’s pleas for innocence. The king at the temple leading the congregation of Israel in praise to God. Think of that. You see that a lot in the Psalms. Let me say it again. The king at the temple with a congregation of the people leading the congregation in praise to God. The king leading the people in praise to God, and Hebrews chapter two picks that up and says: that’s Jesus. He’s preaching to the congregation and he’s leading the congregation in their singing of praise. So the idea then is you see these trajectories in the Bible and you go back to the Psalms and over and again, you see, “Oh, okay, I see how it fits.”

Conclusion

So the point, again, is that the Psalms speak of Messiah, but they do it in varying ways. Some are directly predictive. Some are presenting the king in an ideal way, an ideal that’s realized only in David’s greater son. Sometimes the language goes in an extravagant way; it begins to speak of the king in divine terms. Sometimes you have types, foreshadowings, but they set a trajectory, which if you haven’t noticed reading through the Old Testament, by the time you read the New Testament, you look back and you say, “Okay, I see where that was going.” All those categories are prophetic. They’re not all directly predictive prophetic, but they’re all prophetic in a sense that they anticipate and set an expectation that is realized finally only in Jesus.

Given the—and I mentioned this before, this is a loose quotation from one of the commentators—given the preponderance of evidence and the use of the Psalms in the New Testament by the New Testament writers and by Jesus, it seems like wherever we see David and wherever we see the Davidic King in the Psalter, he foreshadows Christ in some way. And I think I said this last time, for review, 2 Samuel 7. You can read it from Genesis 1 and 2: God establishing his rule with his human king to rule over the world. By the time we come to 2 Samuel 7, we have the direct promise: David’s son will rule.

Psalm 2 informs us right at the front door of the Psalter that the subject of the Psalter is this king, this anointed one whom God will send. That royal orientation of the Psalter that I emphasized at the beginning of these studies—that the Psalms drive us to attention to the king. It’s not talking about you; it’s talking about the king. Pervasively, it doesn’t mean we’re not there, but the point usually is the king. He’s the point of reference.

I’m just thinking of other examples. Psalm 22, and many of the Psalms: the king is in battle and His victory has international repercussions. When’s that going to happen? Or the king is suffering and opposed, like Psalm 22. All of his enemies are against him and they’ve gotten the best of him. They put him down and it turns the corner. It says all the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will come and worship. So there are international repercussions to the vindication of this king. When’s that gonna happen? You have this pervasively in the Psalter, and then you have to see it’s pointing ahead to Jesus. The specific language that is used often is so excessive that it has to refer to the divine king, divine-human king.

Jesus specifically instructed us to read the Psalms as they speak of him. He and the New Testament writers set the pace, and I think I gave you this illustration that Bruce Waltke gives. I just love it. He says that all of the Davidic sons inherited the promise. It’s like a robe was given to them, and increasingly that robe seemed too big to fit. Or to say it another way, their shoulders became increasingly narrow and the robe just slipped off of them until finally there were no kings left at all, there’s just the robe empty. Just an empty promise. Until Jesus comes and picks it up and it fits him perfectly. And that’s how the Psalter points us ahead to see Jesus in all of these various kinds of ways.