Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Luke 24; Psalm 72 | Date: December 3, 2023 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

At long last, we come to look at the subject of the Messianic Psalms. I’ve been leading up to this for a long time, and I hope in this survey that we have done—beginning with Genesis 1 and 2, Genesis 3, Genesis 12, Genesis 49, Numbers 24, Deuteronomy 18, last time, a couple of times ago was 1 Samuel 2, and then last time, 2 Samuel 7—I hope you can see by now that this theme of the Messiah, the coming Messiah, is not just something we can track along the storyline of the Bible. It is the story of the Bible. And it is all about him. And I think you, by now, I think you can see that if you hadn’t before.

So we are going to come to the Messianic Psalms proper now. There is a sense, and I’m going to try to show this, in which the Psalms as a whole is about Jesus, but some of the Psalms in a particular way, some about Jesus in some more subtle ways, and we’ll spend a couple of weeks at least looking at some of that. But I want to begin at Luke chapter 24, where Jesus speaks to the issue. Luke chapter 24, you remember the setting here? Post-crucifixion, post-resurrection. This is just before his ascension. He is with his disciples in the upper room.

And we’ll pick up with verse 44: “Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, ‘Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things, and behold, I am sending the promise of my father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.’ And he led them out as far as Bethany. Lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, was carried up into heaven, and they worshiped him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God.”

Now, several things of significance that we’ll point out here in the time that we have.

The Setting Is Important

First of all, as I mentioned, the setting is important. Keep in mind, this is just after the resurrection, just before the ascension. Jesus is instructing his disciples. And notice, first of all, that he says here: all that has happened, all that has transpired in these recent days was according to the scriptures. All this was foretold.

So now that my work has been accomplished, I have suffered and raised from the dead, now I’m sending you to the world to proclaim forgiveness of sins in my name. On the ground of what Christ has done in his death and his resurrection, now go and proclaim to the world his kingship and bring them to repentance before him so that they may be saved. And then, of course, he ascends to heaven. He promises the Holy Spirit, who is about to come and to be poured out on the church at this point at Pentecost. And so they are, of course, with joy then.

Now look at verses 44 to 46 again: “Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, ‘Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.'”

A few things here in verse 44. Notice the expression, “the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms.” That’s simply shorthand or longhand, I guess you would say, for the canon. This is the Old Testament scriptures. It consists of the law and the prophets. Sometimes the whole Old Testament is referred to as the law. Sometimes it’s the law and the prophets. Here it’s referred to as the law, the prophets, and the Psalms. Typically this is understood to being the Psalms as the head of the third category of the Old Testament, according to the Jews: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Psalms stands at the head of that and is representative of it. Others have argued, no, he’s just specifying here the Psalter—the Law and the Prophets, the Old Testament, and the Psalter in particular. At any rate, he’s saying the whole Old Testament canon is about me. That’s quite a claim. The Law, the Prophets, Psalms, Moses, the prophets—they all wrote, and they wrote about me.

Now verse 46, he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” So what has happened to Jesus in Jerusalem is what the Old Testament scriptures said would happen to the Messiah. Now, from our standpoint, we look back at the Old Testament and we say, yeah, that just lies right on the face of it. Read Isaiah 53. Who else is that about? It’s about Jesus. Of course it is. It wasn’t that obvious to anyone prior to the fact. And so the New Testament writers later can talk about the mystery that has now been revealed and the gospel being hidden in the Old Testament. But it was hidden in plain sight. There it was, but not until after the fact are they able to see it. But Jesus is emphasizing that now—what has happened to him in his death and resurrection is what the Old Testament scriptures said would happen to the Christ, the Messiah.

And then verse 45, very important: “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” So all of this about Jesus as the crucified, risen Messiah, the ascended King—this is not an afterthought. This is not something the church came up with after the fact. Jesus is telling us here, we have it on his authority, that this is how the Old Testament scriptures ought to be read. If you read the Old Testament and don’t see Jesus, you’re not reading it correctly. That we have on Jesus’ own authority.

The Christological Interpretation Of The Psalms

Well, we’ve seen then the messianic hope—we’ve tried to survey that, the idea of Messiah, the anointed one who will come. We’ve seen some major passages that talked about that. We come to the New Testament, and I highlighted that a little bit last Sunday morning, just quickly and brief, that all of this now comes crashing on Jesus, and he is the one who is promised. And Jesus now himself tells us—it’s not only the New Testament writers generally, but Jesus himself now tells us—all of that was written about me, including the Psalms.

So we have it on Jesus’ authority that the Psalms were written about him. Some general observations in this regard—not that you care about all of this data, but in case you do—the New Testament has, by the count that I have, 283 citations of the Old Testament. 283. Now that can be a little bit debated because what’s the difference between a citation, some kind of reference, or a more vague allusion? Biblical scholars try to classify these things this way, but at least 283 direct citations from the Old Testament. 116 of those are from the Psalter. And overwhelmingly in the New Testament, they are referred to Jesus. So we have the New Testament writers picking up on what Jesus says here to say the Psalter was written about Jesus.

Jesus himself cited the Psalter more than 50 times, and again, overwhelmingly with reference to himself. It’s not just to raise some theological point, although he does that on some occasions. He’ll cite a verse from the Psalms to establish some theological point. But overwhelmingly, his point is to say: it talks about me. And so I’ve given you a chart on the handout there to give you some samples of how the Psalter speaks of Jesus. Now, we’ve got those classified. This is, for those of you who have our book, it’s in there. Christ’s passion, Christ’s fervor—all of these references from the Psalms and how they are referred to Jesus in the New Testament, primarily in the Gospels, but also in the Epistles as well.

So according to Jesus, and according to the apostles of Jesus, we ought to read the Psalms with an eye to Jesus. He is the proper subject of the Psalter. Remember, early on in this series, I talked about the royal orientation of the Psalter, that it’s generally not about Mr. Everyman in Israel. The “I” and the “me” in the Psalms typically is the king, not just anyone. And it’s the king who’s in view, and that king, in turn, foreshadows the king who will come. So it is the Davidic kings in view, and by them, a foreshadowing of David’s greater son who will come.

Just a brief note here, in case you’re interested in this kind of thing. This, on the Christological interpretation of the Psalms, as it’s called—early Christian interpreters and then for more than a millennium understood the Psalms to be referring to Jesus. And overwhelmingly, there’s constantly referring when they read the Psalms, the writings that we have from the early church and from the Middle Ages. Overwhelmingly, they read the Psalms and they see Jesus in it, and they’ll explain how.

Now, sometimes, in the way that they did that, it seems to be squeezed out of corners where it’s really tough to see—is Jesus really there? Are we imagining that? And there’s plenty of room for discussion on that because it’s not always clear. But that was the overwhelming approach to the Psalter by Christian interpreters for well over a thousand years. With John Calvin, that pretty much came to an end, surprisingly. And the reason was there were some excesses in that—the finding some allegorical interpretations and things like that. And Calvin and his followers in that tradition afterwards were determined to understand the Psalms in their own historical context. And so, let’s just study it on its own terms and focus on that.

And so now, if there had been excesses in allegorical interpretation of the Psalms, seeing Jesus where he wasn’t really even there, now the pendulum has swung back the other way, and we don’t see Jesus maybe as often as we should. In fact, one of the commentators on the Psalms that I have—in fact, he’s really a very… I’m not going to give his name because I’m going to criticize what he’s saying, but he really is a great guy, and I’ve benefited from him in many ways—but he writes this in one of his books on the Psalms. He says, “I don’t take, I don’t take a Christological approach to the Psalms as speaking of Jesus (parenthesis) except where it does.” And then he cites Psalm 2 and Psalm 8 and Psalm 110. And well, there it is. It’s direct prophecy; the New Testament confirms that. So we have to say that’s about Jesus.

But what has happened in the recent centuries has been sort of a minimalist approach to the Psalms. We don’t see Jesus there unless we have to, is basically the way it has come. And what I want to point out again is that I think it has to be more than that. And we have that on Jesus’ own word. Luke 24, verse 44: “This was written about me.” And it’s the Psalms specifically; they are about me. And this is—he opens their mind to understand the scriptures to be so. And what I hope then to, if not demonstrate, at least illustrate in this brief series now and the lessons that remain on this, is that the Psalms rightly understood in their historical context, on their own terms, speak of Jesus. This is not something we read back into them, but this is something that is there to begin with. And the authors of the Psalms very often give evidence of that.

But now having said that—and this is very important—the Psalms speak of Jesus. But the Psalms don’t always speak of Jesus in the same way, and that’s where the rub comes. Sometimes you have a Psalm 110. Psalm 110, which is a direct prophecy of Jesus: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies my footstool.” This is clearly speaking of David’s greater son, the Messiah, a clear prophecy of the Messiah who would come. I think Psalm 2 fits that as well: “You’re my son, this day I’ve begotten you.” You have some psalms that are direct prophecies, predictions of the Messiah and some aspect of his work.

But the psalms don’t always present the Messiah in that kind of unobscured way. Sometimes the foreshadowings of them are more subtle, sometimes a little vague, sometimes it’s just the king himself, which when you read the rest of the Psalter and then read the rest of the Bible, you have to say, “Okay, yeah, that has to be what he’s talking about. He’s talking about Jesus,” but it’s not real clear until you see it later. Sometimes it’s David himself, who in his life and his experience and in his own words, ends up being a foreshadowing of Jesus in his experience as well. So what I’ll show, I think—I’ll try to show anyway—is that the Psalter speaks of Jesus, but it does it in various kinds of ways, and you should not expect it always to be as direct, predictive prophecy that jumps off the page at you. And that’s where the difficulty comes. When do we see him, and when do we see him there when he is maybe not there? And when do we go so far? But I think the New Testament writers give us some clues as to how to see that.

Moses Amyraut, who’s an early French Protestant theologian, I think said it right when he said—this is about 1625—he said when we read the Psalter, he says, “We must keep our left eye on the historical king and our right eye on the eternal Christ.” And I think he’s got it right. That the king represents the King. When we see the king in the Psalter, we always ought to be looking, say, “In what ways might this be foreshadowing the great King who will come?”

The Psalms’ Depiction Of The King In His Ideal

Not sure how much time I have to do this. I think I was going to go—you have it on your outline—I was going to go with direct prophecy first and look at Psalm 110. But I want to take a little time with Psalm 72. So I think I’ll put off the direct prophecy until another time. But you’ll notice that next section there on your outline: the Psalms’ depiction of the king in his ideal.

Now here’s what I mean by that. Often the Psalms offer praise or offer prayers to or about the king in ways that show the king to be the ideal king in every way. And they do it in a way the language of which is excessive if referring to any of the historical kings. He is such a great king. He is such a wonderful king. He is such a victorious king. He’s such a beautiful king. He’s such a conquering king. And you get this idea—he’s such a compassionate king. Who’s he talking about? You pretty soon get the clue. He’s looking ahead to the great king who will come. And I think that’s what we find if you look now at Psalm 72.

Psalm 72. It’s clearly a messianic psalm. Speaks of the ideal son of David who is coming. The psalm, as we’ll read through it in a moment, depicts the king as a world ruler. So he’s not just a ruler in Israel. He’s a world ruler, his universal rule. He’s a powerful king. Yet he’s a compassionate king, he’s a righteous king, and yet he’s a merciful king. So I want you to keep an eye open for those kinds of depictions of the king in Psalm 72. It tells us it’s a psalm of Solomon, probably means written by Solomon, although it could mean written for Solomon.

We’ll begin at verse one. He describes here the nature of the king’s rule. We have the initial petition in verse 1: “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son.” All right, so here he’s praying for the king, that’s on the face of it, and he asks God to give him justice and righteousness. Now verses 2 to 4 present the king as one who will rule in righteousness and in prosperity and in compassion.

Verse 2: “May he judge your people with righteousness and your poor with justice. Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people and the hills in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor.” So verse two then, we have the king who reigns in righteousness. May he judge your people with righteousness and judge the poor with justice. He’s a king who looks out after the weak.

Verse three: “Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people and the hills in righteousness.” The mountains, that’s of course the mountains around Jerusalem, the place of the temple, Mount Zion, the royal court there. It’s a place where the king administers justice at Mount Zion. And he’s saying, give him justice as he administers it there. Well, has that happened? Or is this something he’s still longing for? He’s praying for it to happen. In its ideal, at least, was not realized even in Solomon in his reign.

Verse four: “May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor.” So he’s a powerful king, and yet he’s a compassionate king with a heart for the poor and the downtrodden, the disadvantaged. So who is this that he’s praying for? Which king is it? Prayer for the establishment, obviously, of God’s kingdom on earth. God’s rule—that was verse one, his justice—God’s rule on earth administered by his king. And so he longs for this king to come, who will bring justice and prosperity and peace to the world. This is really nothing less than what we pray when we say, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done in earth as it is in heaven.” So you can see then he’s praying about, he’s praying for Israel’s king, but it looks ahead in its ideal to something that hasn’t yet happened.

Verses five and following, we have here he presents the kings as reigning eternally and reigning universally in peace and in righteousness. So he’s—get that again—he’s a king who’s reigning eternally, he’s reigning universally, in peace and in righteousness. “May they fear you while the sun endures and as long as the moon throughout all generations. May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days may the righteous flourish and peace abound till the moon be no more.” So he’s speaking of a perpetual reign of this king. He reigns without end and under his reign the righteous are not oppressed. It’s not like today. The righteous are not oppressed, but in fact the righteous flourish. So this remains unrealized; it remains a hope. He’s looking ahead. He presents here the king and his ideal.

Verses eight and following describe the kingdom as universal. Again, a hope that is not yet realized. Verse 8: “May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river (that is the Euphrates) to the ends of the earth. May desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and 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.” By the way, notice in verse 9, “may his enemies lick the dust.” That’s an echo of Genesis 3:15, where the champion promised will crush the tempter and make him eat dirt.

Verses 12 to 14, the king is presented as a kind king, a compassionate king. He’s one who cares for and protects his subject. Verse 12: “For he delivers the needy when he calls.” So here’s a king that when the poor call, he comes running to their aid, “the poor and him who has no helper.” Verse 13: “He has pity on the weak and the needy and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence, he redeems their life and precious is their blood in his sight.” So again, as you read through this, you ask, who is he talking about? Well, this is not even Solomon who mistreated his people toward the end of his reign.

Verses 15 and 16, he prays for the exaltation and the happiness of his kingdom. “Long may he live. May gold of Sheba be given to him. May prayer be made for him continually and blessings invoked for him all the day. May there be abundance of grain in the land. On the tops of the mountains may it wave. May its fruit be like Lebanon. And may people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field.” The prosperity, the exaltation of the kingdom and its joy.

Verse 17, again now, he prays for universal, endless honor to be given to this king. “May his name endure forever. His fame continues as long as the sun. May people be blessed in him. All nations call him blessed.” So all over the world, may all nations call this king blessed because of the rule that he administers.

And then the psalm ends with a doxology: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen.”

Well, when you read through the psalm thoughtfully at all, you see some of these allusions to the messianic promise like Genesis 3:15. Mentions of the universality of his reign, the perpetual nature of his reign—it’ll be uninterrupted—that all nations will praise him, that the weak and the poor and the needy will look to him and he will give help. And it begins to ring with other passages that you find in the Old Testament, like Isaiah chapter nine, Christmas prophecy; Isaiah chapter 11, prophecy of Christ; and so it depicts the king, then, in terms that transcend all of the historic kings. And looking at it in the broad sweep of scripture, you have to say, this is looking to an ideal king who hasn’t come yet—faithful, a righteous, compassionate king who reigns universally and without end. Who else could that be but Messiah? Here’s a royal son, a Davidic son. He’s marked by justice. He’s marked by righteousness. He’s marked by compassion and mercy, an eye to the poor and the disadvantaged. And all the world praises him. All the nations bow down before him. Everywhere that he reigns—and that is everywhere, all over the earth—there’s peace, there’s righteousness, there’s prosperity, and there’s joy. Verse 8, all nations bring him tribute. Verse 9, as I mentioned, fulfills Genesis 3:15. You have to see that the psalm then looks beyond, although there is no mention of Messiah, it looks beyond to an ideal king. And you have to say, if you’ve read the rest of the book, you have to say this psalm is all about Jesus, even though he’s not mentioned there.

Jesus Shall Reign Where’er The Sun

I’ve mentioned before to you the debt that we owe to Isaac Watts who transformed hymn singing in the church back in the 18th century. At first what he did was render the Psalter in meter so they could be sung better in that way with something of a paraphrase. But he argued at length, and he had this all worked out from the beginning of his ministry, he had it worked out at length: Christians ought to be singing the Psalter, yes. But the Christians ought to be singing the Psalter in light of the fuller revelation that we have received in the gospel, in the New Testament. And so what he did as many times is reworked many of these Psalms with gospel language built into it. So reading backwards now from the New Testament into what was already there, but making it more clear. And so we’re going to look at Psalm 72 as it comes to us from Isaac Watts. Take your Trinity hymnal and turn to 374. 374 in your Trinity hymnal. “Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun.”

Now, what I’d like to do, the time we have left, is go back through the psalm and see how Isaac Watts has rendered it in this hymn that we sing. As we have it with Isaac Watts, it’s a celebration of the redeeming conquest of Christ in the nations. It’s a wonderful missionary hymn in that sense.

Look at verses 5 to 8 of Psalm 72: “May they fear you while the sun endures as long as the moon throughout all generations. May he be like rain that falls on the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days may the righteous flourish and peace abound till the moon be no more. May he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.” Now look at your hymnal and look at stanza one: “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun does his successive journeys run. His kingdom stretch from shore to shore till moon shall wax and wane no more.” That’s a paraphrased poetic rendering of those verses in Psalm 72.

Now look at Psalm 72, verse 15: “Long may he live. May gold of Sheba be given to him. May prayer be made for him continually and blessings invoked for him all the day.” Now look back at your hymnal, stanza two of “Jesus Shall Reign”: “For him shall endless prayer be made, and praises throng to crown his head. His name, like sweet perfume, shall rise with every morning sacrifice.” Again, a poetic rendering of verse 15.

Now look at verse 9 of Psalm 72: “May desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and the coastlands render him tribute. May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him and all nations serve him.” And now verse 17: “May his name endure forever. His fame continue as long as the sun. May people be blessed in him. All nations call him blessed.” And now look back at your hymnals, the third stanza of the hymn: “People and realms of every tongue dwell on his love with sweetest song, and infant voices shall proclaim their early blessings on his name.” Again, a poetic rendering of these verses. He’s captured what the sense of these is, and he’s brought it to us singing now about Jesus.

Psalm 72, go back to verse three: “Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people and the hills in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor.” I’ll jump down to verse 12: “For he delivers the needy when he calls, the poor and him who has no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence, he redeems their life. And precious is their blood in his sight.” And now back at the stanza four: “Blessings abound where he reigns. The prisoners leap to loose their chains. The weary find eternal rest and all who suffer want are blessed.”

The whole psalm then speaks of the universal prosperity that brings universal praise to him. And so we end with stanza five: “Let every creature rise and bring the highest honors to our king. Angels descend with songs again, and earth repeat the loud Amen.”

So here, Watts has given us this psalm with the verse divisions stripped away, the Hebrew parallelism is not there, the Israel atmosphere is gone. In fact, scarcely a word of the original psalm is in the hymn. And yet, what he—and this is Isaac Watts’ term—he imitated the psalms, the imitation of the Psalms in their gospel light. And so now he sings the Psalm with respect to Jesus and the glorious global success that he will have through the gospel and ultimately in his return. In fact, Psalm 72, Isaac Watts’ version of it, “Jesus Shall Reign,” is one of the most widely used missionary hymns ever written.

By the way, he did this with several of the Psalms. We sang one earlier tonight. Although it’s not quite as obvious, but “Joy to the World.” That’s from one of the enthronement Psalms, Psalm 98, where he speaks ultimately of the return of Christ in the future, yet to come, and yet we sing it at Christmas time to celebrate his first coming, because ultimately it will end in his return and his triumph.

So anyway, you see then these Psalms that speak about the king, and if they speak of the king in such an ideal way that it cannot refer simply to any of the historical kings, and you’re clued in already, they’re looking ahead to David’s greater son who will come. Before we go to the Lord’s table, how about we sing this hymn together? Jimmy, will you come to the piano? 374. Give Jim a moment to find it. And then let’s stand together and sing.

♪ Jesus shall reign wherever the sun ♪
♪ Does his successive journeys run ♪
♪ His kingdom stretches from shore to shore ♪
♪ Till moon shall wax and wane no more ♪
♪ For him shall endless prayer be made ♪
♪ and praises throng to crown his head ♪
♪ His name like sweet perfume shall rise ♪
♪ With every morning sacrifice ♪
♪ People and realms of every tongue ♪
♪ dwell on his love with sweetest song ♪
♪ And infant voices shall proclaim ♪
♪ their early blessings on His name ♪
♪ Blessings abound where He reigns ♪
♪ The prisoner leaps to lose his chains ♪
♪ The weary find eternal rest ♪
♪ And all the sons of want are blest ♪
♪ Let every creature rise and bring ♪
♪ peculiar honors to our King ♪
♪ Angels descend with songs again ♪
♪ and earth repeat the loud Amen ♪

Our Father, we are grateful that Jesus Christ is King. We’re grateful that His reign is now spread throughout the world. We look forward to the day when universally men and women all over the earth will bow before him and say,