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The Glory of God
The Stature of Man
The
Union of Both C. S. Lewis, in his Reflections
on the Psalms, refers to the 19th Psalm as "the greatest poem in the
Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world."
Indeed, as we shall see, it contains in it a device that a modern poet
would clearly understand -- which may obscure meaning for us.
In this lesson, we will examine the 19th Psalm along with a parallel
Psalm, the 8th. They begin in
thunder: the glory of God.
Glory in Nature "Glory is to God what
style is to an artist." I'm
one of those poor souls whose education was completed in a time and place when
music was still considered essential to the upbringing.
When I turn on the car radio, it's often to classical music.
Quite often - at least for the familiar composers - I can tell you the
composer without hearing the announcement.
No one could mistake Berlioz for Bach!
There is a sense of that style in this: I remember seeing a forest of giant redwoods for
the first time. There were some
small children nearby, giggling and chattering and pushing each other around.
Nobody had to tell them to quiet down as we entered.
They quieted down all by themselves.
Everybody did. You couldn't
hear a sound of any kind, It was
like coming into a vast, empty room.
Two or three hundred feet high the redwoods stood.
You had to crane your neck back as far as it would go to see the leaves
at the top. They made their own
twilight out of the bright California day.
There was a stillness and stateliness about them that seemed to become
part of you as you stood there stunned by the sight of them.
They had been growing there for going on two thousand years.
With infinite care they were growing even now.
You could feel them doing it. They
made you realize that all your life you had been mistaken.
Oaks and ashes, maples and chestnuts and elms you had seen for as long as
you could remember, but never until this moment had you so much as dreamed what
a Tree really was. Have you been there?
A starry night? A howling wind over the desert?
Whatever it is, the heart wells up with the feeling that God is surely
here. "Glory is what God looks
like when for the time being all you have to look at him with is a pair of
eyes." [All quotes this
section from Frederick Buechner] Glory in Paradox "The power of paradox
opens our eyes, and blinds those who say they can see."
(Michael Card). In Psalm 8, David brings to our mind a common concept - that
God prefers to use the simple, the weak, the powerless so that His glory may be
shown. The argument is easy:
if an eloquent man preaches a great sermon, it's no surprise.
But if the simpleton does it? {18} For the message of the
cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. {19} For it is
written: "I will destroy the
wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I
will frustrate." {20} Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar?
Where is the philosopher of this
age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
{21} For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not
know him, God was pleased through
the foolishness of what was preached to save
those who believe. ‑‑
1 Corinthians 1:18‑21 (NIV) In
the 19th Psalm. David says the the Law makes "wise the simple."
David understands the principle quite well.
When Samuel came to anoint the new king of Israel (I Samuel 16), David's
father Jesse thought so little of him that he left David in the field with the
sheep while the other brothers were paraded before Samuel.
God sees the inside, and found in the Psalmist "a man after his own
heart." THE STATURE OF MAN "You
have made him" Note
the phrasing in the eighth Psalm. We
are not self made; we are God made.
We are not good of our own accord, but rather through God.
Thomas a Kempis put it this way: 'Lord, what is man that You
are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you visit him.'
What has man done to deserve your grace?
Lord, I have no cause to complain if you abandon me; and if Your will is
contrary to my desires, i have no right to plead against it.
But this I may rightly think and say, 'Lord, I am nothing and I can do
nothing. I have no good of myself,
but am imperfect in every respect, and always tend to nothing.
Unless You guide my soul and grant me strength, I become weak and
completely helpless.' Yet
see how God treats us! David puts
it in these ways:
David draws us two
pictures of Man. Man as Created The original intention of
our creator was that we should be in His image. David expresses in three ways: "a
little lower than the heavenly beings (angels, KJV)" - as one speaker once
put it, if we met a Christian after the return of the Lord - and saw him in the
resurrected state - we would be flat on our faces in worship.
"You are gods" says Asaph in Psalm 82:6. "crowned...
with glory and honor" - the very image of God. "ruler
over the works of your hands" - this last passage is explicitly quoted and
applied to Christ in the New Testament (Hebrews 2:5-9, I Corinthians 15:27).
As joint heirs of the kingdom, it applies to us now as it did to David
then. Man in the Lord As Psalm 19 makes clear,
such blessing is reserved for the righteous.
The man living in the Law - in the New Covenant, in grace - receives
these four blessings: "reviving
the soul" - do you know what "soul weary" is?
If you do, then you know the refreshment that the Word of God alone can
bring. "making
wise the simple" - wisdom is not for the high IQ alone - it is for
everyone, by the grace of God. John
Bunyan was
'A Tinker out of Bedford,
A vagrant oft in quod
A private under Fairfax
A minister of God
Two hundred years and thirty
Ere Armegeddon came
His single hand portrayed it
And Bunyan was his name!' (Rudyard Kipling) ["quod"
= jail] John Bunyan was a vagrant
tinker, often in jail - and wrote Paradise Lost.
His education? The Scriptures alone. "joy
to the heart" - the original quote is lost to my memory, (but bet on Max
Leucado) but "A Christian is never afraid, always joyful - and constantly
in trouble." "light
to the eyes" - is there anything like the Bible to make sense of our
senseless world? Compare this to the
existentialism and nihiliism (its child) of our time. Would you base your life on "a foundation of unyielding
despair"? (Bergson) - or the light of the Lord? TRANSITION TO PURITY I mentioned that there is
a modern literary device in Psalm 19. It's
in verses 6-7: {6} It rises at one end of
the heavens and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is hidden from its heat. {7} The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul. The statutes of
the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
‑‑ Psalms 19:6‑7 (NIV) Do
you see the sudden transition? The
modern poet uses this too. It's as
if David said, "I left out the connection between these two verses -
because it's so obvious." The
connection is obvious; as the heat
of the day (in Palestine - where it gets really hot) sears every bit of the
desert, heating everything, nothing hiding from it - so the Law of the Lord
searches out every corner of the soul. (See
Psalm 7:9, for example). And what
should the servant of the Lord do about it? {12} Who can discern his
errors? Forgive my hidden faults. {13} Keep your
servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be
blameless, innocent of great transgression. ‑‑
Psalms 19:12‑13 (NIV)
The
danger of the Law comes with the Pharisees.
"Willful sins" - the sins of the spirit, the many forms of
pride - are the great danger of the righteous man. If you are immune to the temptation of the world and the
flesh, Satan will bring up the greatest of temptations: pride. Verse 13
should be engraved on a Bible teacher's heart. The
last verses of each Psalm provide us with the fitting comparison of God and Man:
May our words and thoughts
be pleasing to the majestic Lord of creation. |
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