Thursday, May 2, 2013

Psalm Of The King (part 5 of 5)


As it is related to the first part of verse five, the deliverance that would bring the king honor can be readily understood as the deliverance from exile that the Creator God would work through His people’s messiah-king, as that which would bring that king great honor.  Indeed, in making it so all nations would submit to Israel’s king, whether it would be in the subservient way envisioned and expected by many in Israel, in which all nations would be subjected to the authority of national Israel, or in the Creator God’s kingdom plans in which Israel’s king would be a king for all peoples with the barriers between Jew and Gentile (as well as all other social barriers) torn down, His God would “give him majestic splendor” (Psalm 21:5b).   

Verse six pulls the reader back into the framework of covenant and blessings, as it reads, “For You grant him lasting blessings; You give him great joy by allowing him into your presence” (21:6).  Once again, the use of “blessings” should put the reader in mind of the Abrahamic and Deuteronomic covenants and blessings.  By being the embodiment of the covenant God’s purposes for Israel---being a light for the world for the purpose of the Creator God’s glory (which is what the New Testament insists that Jesus is through believers when they are in union with Him)---Jesus looks to the promise of being brought into His God’s presence.  This points towards the Resurrection, as when He was brought forth from the grave, Jesus inaugurates the kingdom of heaven that the Creator God had long intended to establish on earth, doing so by means of that very Resurrection, which also serves as the evidence of the overlapping of heaven and earth that now takes place whenever the Gospel (Jesus is Lord) is spoken and believed. 

Because it will then be through acknowledgment of Jesus as King and Lord of all peoples (the Gospel), and of all creation as well, that the Creator God creates a renewed Israel (covenant people), the covenant blessing is extended to all people, through the Lordship of Jesus, as He comes to be recognized as the incarnation and embodiment of the Creator.  Jesus becomes the person and place in which the covenant God brings about one of His promised blessings, having told His covenant people “I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you will be My people” (Leviticus 26:12).  All that are in union with Jesus are said to be kings and priests to God, and in this promise of being with His people, so they are made to be in their God’s presence. 

Finally, it can be seen that the faithfulness of Jesus, which has its rooting in what He understood to be the faithfulness of His God, is the key to His hope.  As Jesus has possibly taken this Psalm to heart, He would have read, “For the king trusts in the Lord, and because of the Sovereign One’s faithfulness he is not upended” (21:7).  As He journeyed through His ministry, towards the encounters and confrontations that would ultimately lead to the death that He knew He must undergo on behalf of His people, Jesus would trust in the faithful covenant God to perform a resurrection.  Relying on His knowledge of Israel’s history, Jesus could trust that He would not be upended, and that He would not be permanently laid down, but that in His Resurrection, and in the proclamation of His Gospel, that the world itself would be upended---turned upside down as can be read in Acts, and that because of His faithfulness, a new age would dawn.  Truly, this is a Psalm of the King.     

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