Latest / Reformed Thinking / What Is Man That You Are Mindful of Him? (Psalm 8) | Matthew Henry

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What Is Man That You Are Mindful of Him? (Psalm 8) | Matthew Henry · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. We are glad you're here with us.
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It's good to be here. The plan today is, well, it's
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pretty simple. We are going to open our Bibles,
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open a very heavy book written by a dead Puritan, and see if we
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can't make some sense of the world.
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I appreciate that introduction. And yeah, we are indeed stepping
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into a space for, you know, some real theological reflection.
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We're not just skimming the surface today.
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No, we want to do some real work.
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And the heavy booking question is Matthew Henry's commentary on
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the whole Bible. If you grew up in a certain kind
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of church, probably one with a lot of wood paneling and a
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hymnal rack, you know this name. It was that set of books on your
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grandfather's shelf, the one you were afraid to touch.
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Right, because the binding would crack if you just looked at it
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wrong. Exactly.
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That's a fair description, but Matthew Henry is a giant for a
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reason. I mean, he was writing in the
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early 1700s, and he really represents a high point of
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English nonconformist thought. So what makes him so special?
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Why are we using him today? Well, what makes Henry so
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distinct is that he isn't just a grammarian.
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You know there are commentators who will parse a Hebrew verb for
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three pages and never tell you what the verse means for your
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soul, right? Henry is different.
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He's pastoral. He wants to get the text into
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your bloodstream. Which is exactly what we need
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for the text we're tackling today, Psalm 8.
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It's a famous one. Oh yeah.
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O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name?
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Most of us can probably hum A chorus to that.
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But Henry, he calls this Psalm A solemn meditation.
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And that word solemn, It just stuck out to me.
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It suggests this isn't just some happy little nature poem.
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No, it is not. And the mission of this deep
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dive really is to understand how a song written 3000 years ago
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connects the absolute, almost terrifying glory of God with the
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fragile dignity of humanity. And because we are reading thing
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as Christians, we have to see how the New Testament completely
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reconfigures the Psalm around the person of Jesus Christ.
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OK so before we even get to the excellent name in verse one, I
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want to stop at the part everyone skips the title.
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The superscription, yeah. My Bible says to the chief
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musician upon Giddeth a Psalm of David.
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Now usually my eyes just glaze over that part.
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It's like the terms and conditions on a website.
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You just Scroll down just. Scroll down to get to the
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content. But Henry stops there.
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He camps out there. So what does it get if?
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It is a strange word, isn't it? And honestly, nobody is 100%
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sure. But Henry being the thorough
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scholar he is, he gives us the options, and the options they
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actually change how you read the whole Psalm.
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OK, the most, let's say boring answer, and probably the
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historically accurate 1 is that it refers to a musical
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instrument. A Geteth instrument like a
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guitar or a zitter. Something like that, or maybe a
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specific tune that was popular at the time.
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Sing this to the tune of Geteth. Henry notes that the word likely
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comes from Gath, which was a philistine city.
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Oh OK. So it might be a style of music
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they borrowed from their neighbors.
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So Psalm 8 sung to a Philistine folk tune.
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That's theory A. Yeah, but Henry has a theory B.
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And this is where my ears perked up, right?
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He suggests the Gittite might refer to a specific person.
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Exactly. Gittite is the demonym for
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someone from Gath. And who is the most famous or
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maybe infamous Gittite in the Old Testament?
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Eliath. Goliath of Gath.
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So Henry entertains this fascinating possibility.
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What if David wrote this Psalm immediately after killing
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Goliath in First Samuel 17? That is a wild thought you have,
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David, this shepherd boy standing over the headless body
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of a giant, wiping off his sling.
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And then he writes, Oh Lord, how excellent is thy name?
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It creates a very specific theological context.
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If that theory holds, and even if it doesn't, Henry says it's a
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useful meditation, then this isn't just a nature poem
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anymore. It becomes a song about the
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paradox of power. How so?
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Well, you have Goliath, the pinnacle of human strength,
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right? Six cubits and a span, bronze
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armor, a spear like a weavers beam.
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And he's brought down by what? A kid, a babe, essentially.
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Precisely. A babe with a rock.
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It sets the stage perfectly for verse 2.
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Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, it frames the whole
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Psalm as a contrast between the massive, intimidating power of
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the world, whether that's a giant or the stars themselves,
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and the strange, ordained strength of the week.
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But I have to play devil's advocate here for a second,
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please. If it's a song about killing
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Goliath, why is it titled Upon Getteth?
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That sounds like he's dedicating the song to the guy he just
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killed. You know, to the chief musician
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regarding the guy I decapitated. Or maybe it's on the Getite, as
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in here is a song about the Getite incident.
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But you are right to be skeptical.
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Henry admits that this title, upon Get It also shows up in
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Psalm 81 and 84. And those have nothing to do
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with giants. Nothing at all.
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They're not about battles, really.
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So the instrument theory is, you know, it's safer.
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But Henry doesn't just throw away the Goliath idea, he keeps
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it there. Why does he do that?
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Because Henry leaves in the unity of Scripture, he knows
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that David's life informs David's writing.
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Even if the specific song wasn't written 5 minutes after the
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battle, the experience of that battle informs David's theology.
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I see. David knows better than anyone
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that God uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
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So whether geteth means a harp or a giant, the theme is the
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same. God's strength is made perfect
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in weakness. OK, let's move to the text
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itself, Verse one. O Lord our Lord, how excellent
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is thy name in all the earth? Yeah, Henry points out a
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structural thing here that I thought was pretty clever.
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He treats the Psalm like a geometry problem.
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Yes, the QED structure quote era demonstrandum.
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OK, for those of us who haven't done a math proof since 10th
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grade, could you break that down?
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Sure. It just means that which was to
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be demonstrated. You state a proposition at the
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beginning, then you do your work, your proofs, and at the
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end you restate the proposition as a proven conclusion.
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Yeah, Henry sees that in Psalm 8.
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He does. He notices that verse one and
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verse 9 are identical. Yeah, the bookends.
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Exactly. So verse one is the proposition.
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God's name is excellent. That's the claim David makes.
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Then verses 2 through 8 are the proofs.
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He calls the witnesses to the stand, the babies, the moon, the
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stars, the sheep, the fish. They all testify.
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They all testify and then verse 9 is the conclusion.
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It's David looking at the jury and saying, see, I told you, O
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Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name?
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I want to drill down on that opening phrase though, O Lord
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our Lord. It feels a little repetitive in
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English, but Henry knows that in the Hebrew those are two
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different words. They are, and the distinction is
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just vital for a Reformed understanding of who God is.
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The first Lord is Jehovah or Yahweh.
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God's personal name. Right.
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His personal covenant name, the I am.
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It represents his self existence, his being.
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And the second Lord. The second is Adonius or Adonai.
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That means ruler, master, sovereign.
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So the phrase is actually O Jehovah, our Ruler.
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Henry focuses heavily on that word our he says we have to
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avouch him as ours. That's a great old Puritan word
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to avouch. It means to publicly acknowledge
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and claim something. Henry's making a deeply
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covenantal point here. It is not enough to believe that
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there is a God, some generic Lord, out there in the ether.
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The devil's believe that, and they tremble.
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The duty of the creature is to acknowledge a relationship of
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subjection. So it's personal.
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It's binding. Henry argues that because God is
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our creator, he is by default our owner.
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We are not independent agents floating through the universe.
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We are property. We are subjects.
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So to say, oh Lord, our Lord, is to pledge allegiance.
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It is to say, you made me. You protect me, therefore you
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own me. And if we don't say that, if we
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just say, oh Lord, what are we doing, according to Henry?
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We are stealing. If you live in God's world and
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you breathe God's air and you eat God's food, but you refuse
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to acknowledge him as your lawyer, you are essentially
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squatting on his property. You're enjoying the benefits of
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the King without submitting to his laws.
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That stings a little. It does, but let's.
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Look at the scope of this excellence in all the Earth.
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Henry sees a missionary prophecy here, doesn't he?
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He does. And this is where you have to
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remember the context of the Old Testament.
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In David's day, was God's name really excellent in all the
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earth? Not.
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Really, it was excellent in Jerusalem, maybe in some parts
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of Judah, but if you went to Babylon or Egypt or Gath.
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Nobody was praising Jehovah. Now they're praising Marduk or
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Dagan or someone else. Exactly.
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The knowledge of the true God was confined to this tiny strip
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of land in the Middle East in Judah.
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Is God known? The Psalm say elsewhere, but
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here David sees something bigger.
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How excellent is thy name in all the earth?
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Henry argues This is a prophetic site of the Gospel age.
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He connects it to Romans 1.20. Right, he does, but he goes
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beyond just general revelation. I mean, yes, the sun shines on
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everyone and that proves God exists.
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That's Romans one. But Henry sees this as the
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promise that the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile will be
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broken down. The name of Jehovah, which was a
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secret treasure of Israel, was going to be published to the
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nations. So when we sing this song today,
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we're actually singing the fulfillment of that.
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We are the very fact that you and I, two people speaking
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English, a language that didn't even exist in David's time, in a
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land thousands of miles from Israel, are discussing the name
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of Jehovah. Well, that proves the prophecy.
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His name is now excellent in all the earth in a way David could
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only dream of. But the text goes higher.
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It says, Who has sent thy glory above the heavens?
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This is the vertical dimension. We have the horizontal out the
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earth. Now we have the vertical above
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the heavens. And Henry draws a really helpful
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distinction here between the lower world and the upper world.
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The lower world is us. Earth, right?
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And here God's name is excellent, meaning it is written
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on His works. You can see the evidence of it.
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But in the upper world, the heaven of heavens, his glory is
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set, it is fixed, it is visible. The angels don't just see the
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evidence of God, they behold His face.
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But Henry says even the heavens can't contain him.
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That is the crucial point. God is not in heaven the way a
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king is in a castle. He is above the heavens.
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The container is smaller than the content.
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This is the immensity of God. He just spills over the edges of
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the universe. And Henry connects this to the
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ascension of Jesus, doesn't. He he does, and this is standard
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operating procedure for Henry, find Jesus in the Psalms.
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When Christ ascends, where does he go?
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Ephesians tells us he ascended far above all heavens.
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So when David sings about God's glory being set above the
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heavens, Henry sees the God man, Jesus Christ, taking his seat at
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the right hand of the Father, exalted above every name.
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OK, let's move to Section 2, verse 2.
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Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, hast thou ordained
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strength because of thine enemies?
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This is verse. It gets quoted a lot, but
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usually in a very sentimental way.
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Like, oh, look how cute the kids are singing in the Christmas
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pageant. Right.
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It gets put on greeting cards, but Henry sees this as a warfare
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text. This is about combat.
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He breaks this down into 3 kingdoms, the Kingdom of nature,
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Providence, and grace. Let's walk through those because
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they really help structure the argument.
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So first, the Kingdom of nature. Talking about literal babies
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here. Literal ruling Helpless infants.
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Henry argues that an infant is one of the greatest proofs of
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God's existence. Think about it, biologically a
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human infant is pathetic compared to other animals.
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Yeah, a fool can walk in an hour.
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A baby takes a year. Exactly.
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We are born utterly dependent, and yet we survive, Henry says.
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Who provides knees to prevent them?
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Who provides breasts to feed them?
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The fact that there is a system in place, both biological and
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social, to keep these helpless things alive is a powerful
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testimony to a sustainer. And he says it stills the enemy.
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Who's the enemy in this context? The atheist, the skeptic, Henry
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says the mere existence of a supported ophant silence is the
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fool who says there is no God. If we were just random accidents
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of nature, the sheer brutality of it should have wiped out such
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a helpless species long, long ago.
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That he shifts to the Kingdom of Providence.
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Here, Babes isn't literal anymore, it's metaphorical.
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Right now he's talking about the weak people of the world, the
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little guys in God's Providence. He loves to use instruments that
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seem completely inadequate for the job.
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Like David against Goliath. Exactly.
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Or Moses who had a stutter against Pharaoh.
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Or Gideon with his clay pots. God constantly uses babes,
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people with no political or military strength, to topple
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empires. And why?
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To show that the power belongs to him.
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To show that the power belongs to him, not the instrument.
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Which leads us to the big one, the Kingdom of Grace.
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This is where Henry brings in the apostles.
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This is the most important application for us.
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Who did Jesus choose to launch the greatest movement in human
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history? Did he go to Rome and get the
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senators? Did he go to Athens and get the
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philosopher? No, he go to Galilee and get
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some fishermen. Uneducated, blue collar,
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backwater nobodies babes. Henry points out that in the
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eyes of the world, Peter and John were just children.
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They knew nothing of rhetoric or logic or politics.
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And yet these babes were given strength to silence the enemy
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and the avenger. Don't pause on a textual issue
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here. In Psalm 8, the text says
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ordained strength. But when Jesus quotes this in
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Matthew 21.1's team, he says perfected praise.
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What's going on there? Did Jesus misquote the Bible?
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That is a classic question. The difference comes from the
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translation. Jesus was likely using or
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referencing the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation
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of the Old Testament. The Hebrew word in Psalm 8 is
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oz, which means strength or power.
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The Septuagint translated that as inos or praise.
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So which is it? Is it strength or is it praise?
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Well, Henry argues, it's both. Or rather, that the praise is
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the strength. How does the babe defeat the
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enemy? Not by punching him, but by
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praising God. The proclamation of the gospel,
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which is the praise of God's grace, is the strength that
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topples Satan's Kingdom. That connects to the Jericho
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story Henry mentions. Yes.
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How did the walls of Jericho fall?
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Not by battering Rams, by ram's horns, by shouting, by a kind of
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liturgy of noise. It was the praise of the people
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that acted as the strength of God.
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It's the foolishness of preaching that Paul talks about
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in First Corinthians. And the Avenger mentioned the
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verse. Henry is pretty clear on who
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that is. Oh yeah.
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It's the devil. Satan is the accuser.
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The Hebrew word implies someone seeking vengeance or
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retribution, and the Gospel silences him.
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This is a beautiful legal image. Satan is in the courtroom
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accusing us of our sins. He's the avenger of blood,
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demanding justice. And who silences him?
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Not a high-powered defense attorney, but babes simple
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believers confessing Christ When a child of God says Jesus died
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for me, that simple praise has the strength to shut the mouth
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of the accuser. The strength of the godable is
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perfect in the weakness of the believer.
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I love that it really takes the pressure off us to be the
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smartest person in the room. We just have to be faithful
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babes. Right, we don't need to out
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argue the devil with logic, we out praise him with truth.
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OK, let's transition to Section 3.
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We're leaving the nursery and we're going outside.
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Verses 3 and 4 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy
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fingers, the moon, and the stars, which thou hast ordained.
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Henry points out a detail here that just sets the scene so
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beautifully. David mentions the moon and
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stars, but not the sun. So it's night time.
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It's a night meditation, Henry suggests.
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David was taking a night walk. Maybe he was on the roof of the
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palace, or maybe he was back in his shepherding days.
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And Henry makes this poetic observation.
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The sun, in all its brightness, actually hides the universe from
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us. That's so true.
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When the sun is out, you see the Earth very well, but you can't
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see the Galaxy. Right.
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The light of the world obscures the light of the cosmos.
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It's only in the darkness that the true vastness of God's
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creation becomes visible. And there's a spiritual lesson
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there, you know, about suffering and darkness, revealing things
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about God that comfort cannot. The text says when I consider
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that implies effort. It does.
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The Hebrew word implies a mental weighing, a construction.
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It's not just glancing up. A dog can look at the sky.
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A human must contemplate the sky, Henry says.
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It is our duty to make use of our reason.
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We should look at the stars and do the theology.
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Who made this? How big is he?
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What does this say about me? I want to ask about the fingers
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versus arm distinction. The text says the heavens of the
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work of God's fingers. This is one of my favorite
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Puritan distinctions in Scripture.
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When God delivers his people from Egypt, or when He redeems
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sinners, the Bible uses the language of His right hand or
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His outstretched arm. The arm of the Lord.
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Right. It implies exertion, strength,
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force, but here creating the entire cosmos, billions of
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galaxies, stars, massive beyond comprehension.
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David calls that finger work. Like knitting?
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Or playing a harp. Or doing fine embroidery.
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The implication is twofold. First, it shows the delicate
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skill of God. The universe is fine-tuned.
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But second, and more importantly, it shows the ease
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of God. Flinging a Galaxy into existence
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didn't make God break a sweat. It was just a flick of the
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finger. But saving a soul?
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Now that took the arm. It suggests that redemption is a
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more strenuous work of God than creation.
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To make a star, God simply speaks.
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To save a Sinner, God must suffer.
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He must bear his holy arm. He must enter into the conflict.
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It cost God nothing to make the moon.
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It cost him his son to save the Church.
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Wow, so David looks at this massive easy to make universe
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and he has a crisis verse 4. What is man that the our mindful
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of him? It's the crisis of significance.
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We've all felt this. You stand by the ocean or you
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look at the Milky Way and you feel microscopic.
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You feel like dust. And the word for man here is
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specific, isn't it? Yes, there are several words for
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man in Hebrew. Adam means man from the earth,
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Ish means man as a male or husband.
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But here David uses Enosh. Which means.
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Frail man, mortal man, sickly man.
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It carries this connotation of weakness and misery.
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David isn't saying, wow, look at us, we are so cool.
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He's saying look at that massive star, Now look at me.
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I am a sickly, dying piece of dust.
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Why do you even know my name? There thou art mindful of him.
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To be mindful means to keep someone in your thoughts.
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David is just stunned that the Architect of the Universe has
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space in his mind for Enosh. But then he adds, and the Son of
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man, that thou visitest him. That word visit is key.
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It's not just watching us like some cosmic experiment.
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God doesn't just observe us from a distance.
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To visit implies relationship interaction.
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Henry compares it to how we treat animals versus people.
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Exactly. You feed your cattle, you take
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care of your dog, but you don't visit them.
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You don't pull up a chair and ask the cow how it's day was.
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Visiting is an act of friendship.
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It implies a level of peerage or at least a condescension to
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interact. David is asking why does the God
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of the stars want to have a conversation with the worm of
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the earth? And yet, despite being worms,
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there is a dignity. Henry mentions the physical
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posture of man. Yes, he quotes Ovid, the Roman
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poet OS Hominy sublime dead it he gave man a sublime
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countenance. Meaning we stand up straight.
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It's a classic argument from natural theology.
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Animals look down. Their heads are oriented toward
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the ground because that's where their food is.
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They are earthbound. But humans are vertical.
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Our heads are on top of our bodies.
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Our eyes look forward and up. We are physically designed to
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gaze at the heavens. So even our spine is a
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theological statement. It is.
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We are built to commune with the upper world, not just the lower
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world. To live only for food and sex
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and earthly things is to deny our own anatomy.
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This leads. Us into the paradox of our
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position. Section 4.
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For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.
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This is the hierarchy of being. God is at the top.
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Angels are next, then humans, then beasts.
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Henry explains that we are lower than angels because we have
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bodies. We get tired, we get hungry, we
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die. We are allied to the dust.
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But we are only a little lower. Because like the angels, we have
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rational immortal souls. We can know God.
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A dog cannot know God in a rational sense.
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An Angel can. We share that spiritual
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capacity. So we're kind of the bridge
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species. We are the link between the dirt
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and the divine. And Henry adds A hopeful note
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about the little while. He does.
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He references the New Testament hope that in the resurrection we
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become Isangeloi equal to the angels.
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The lower status is temporary. One day we will look Gabriel in
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the eye as a peer. Verse 5 says we are crowned with
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glory and honor and re identifies this crown
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specifically. He calls reason our crown, the
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ability to think, to plan, to understand cause and effect, to
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worship. That is the crown God put on
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Adam's head. And he has a warning about
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losing the crown. It's a stern warning.
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If reason is your crown, then when you act irrationally, when
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you are driven by just your appetites, your lust, your
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anger, you are taking the crown off your head and throwing it in
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the mud. You are debasing yourself to the
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level of a beast. A drunkard, Henry would say, has
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abdicated his throne. Speaking of Thrones, verse 6
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gives us the charter of dominion.
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Thou made his Tim to have dominion over the works of thy
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hands. This goes right back to Genesis
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1, the cultural mandate. God created the world, but he
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put man in charge of it as his vice Regent.
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The list of subjects is so detailed Sheep, oxen, beasts of
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the field, fowl of the air, fish of the sea.
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Henry loves the details here. He notes that this covers 3
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spheres. The domestic sphere, you know,
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sheep and oxen, animals we use for labor and food, The wild
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sphere, beasts of the field, animals we hunt or tame.
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And then the elusive sphere, the birds and fish.
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I really liked his point about the paths of the Seas.
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It's a great observation about human technology.
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I mean, think about it. Humans are not aquatic.
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We drown and water, we can't fly, and yet verse 8 says we
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have dominion over the fish and the birds.
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We build boats, we make Nets. Exactly.
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We use our crown, which is reason to extend our dominion
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into elements where we don't naturally belong.
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Henry sees the art of navigation, of fishing, of
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shipbuilding as a theological act.
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When a sailor charts a course across the path of the Seas, he
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is fulfilling Psalm 8. So technology is a fulfillment
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of scripture. In the Reformed worldview,
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absolutely. Science, agriculture,
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engineering, This Is Us exercising the dominion God gave
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us. We're taking the raw materials
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of God's world and ordering them.
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Henry also makes this very practical at the dinner table.
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I love this point, he says. Every time you eat a piece of
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meat, whether it's a burger or a roasted chicken, you are
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exercising this ancient charter. You are holding a document from
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the king that says you have authority over this creature.
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It should add a weight of gratitude to our grace before
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meals we're eating by royal decree.
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OK, stop right there because if we end the discussion now, we
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have a very nice human centric message.
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Humans are great. We rule the world past the steak
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sauce, but we are reformed thinking we know there is a
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problem with this picture. The problem is obvious if you
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just look out the window. Do we see all things under our
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feet? No, not at all.
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We see viruses killing us. We see lions eating people.
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We we see the ground producing thorns.
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We see hurricanes destroying our ships on the paths of the Seas.
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Exactly. The crown is crooked.
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Adam fell, the covenant of works was broken.
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We were given to dominion, but we join the rebellion.
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So now the creation groans. The beasts fear us or fight us.
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The earth fights back. If Psalm 8 is just about Adam,
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it's a depressing song about what we lost.
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And this brings us to Section 5, the Christological fulfillment.
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This is the pivot point we have to bring in the New Testament.
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Specifically Hebrews chapter 2. The author of Hebrews quotes
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this Psalm at length and his argument is fascinating.
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He basically says, look, the Psalm says man has dominion over
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everything. We look around and we don't see
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everything subject to him yet. So there's a gap between the
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promise and the reality. Right.
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But then he says, But we see Jesus.
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That's the key. But we see Jesus.
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The argument is that Jesus is the true human.
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He is the second Adam. Where the first Adam failed and
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lost the crown, the second Adam succeeded and regained it.
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OK. Let's trace the parallel the
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Psalm says made a little lower than the angels.
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For us, that's just our nature. But for Jesus that was a choice.
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That was his humiliation. The eternal Son of God, who is
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infinitely above angels, voluntarily stooped down.
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He took on flesh, and Hebrews says he did this for the
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suffering of death. And the Psalm says, crowned with
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glory and honor. For Jesus, that is his
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exaltation. Because he obeyed perfectly,
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because he suffered death, God raised him up.
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The resurrection and ascension are the moment Jesus puts the
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crown of dominion back on the head of humanity.
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I want to circle back to that word visit again when you talked
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about it as a friendly chat earlier.
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But Henry brings out a darker, deeper a theological meaning
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when we apply it to Christ. This is deep waters in the
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Bible. When God visits, it can mean two
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things. He can visit to bless, like
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visiting Sarah with a child, or he can visit to punish.
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I will visit their iniquities upon them.
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The visit of Wrath. Right, Henry suggests a powerful
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exchange here. The question What is man that
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thou visitest him? Takes on a terrifying meaning at
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the cross. Why did God visit Jesus?
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He visited him with judgement. He visited him with the rod,
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with the stripes, with the full cup of wrath.
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God the Father visited God the Son with the punishment due to
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the first Adam so that he could visit us with grace.
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Jesus took the visit of wrath so we could get the visit of mercy.
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That completely changes the tone of the Psalm.
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It's not just wow I'm special, it's wow he was crushed.
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So I could be special. Exactly.
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The dignity we have now isn't inherent.
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It's purchased. So does Jesus have this dominion
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now, or are we still waiting? It's the classic already, not
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yet of theology. He is crowned, he is seated.
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All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him.
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And Henry gives examples of this from Jesus life.
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He does think about the miracles.
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When Jesus calms the storm, what is he doing?
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He is exercising dominion over the works of God's hands, the
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wind and the waves, when he rides the unbroken colt dominion
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over the beasts. My favorite is the fish with the
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coin. Mine too.
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It's so specific to Psalm 8. The Psalm mentions dominion over
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the fish of the sea. Jesus needs to pay a tax.
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He tells Peter to cast a hook. Not a net, a hook.
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And the first fish he catches has a stator coin in its mouth.
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That is absolute micromanagement of the universe.
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It is sovereign control over the paths of the Seas.
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Jesus was showing us. Look, I am the man of Psalm 8.
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The creation obeys me. So what does that mean for us
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now? If Jesus has the dominion, do we
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get it back? We do in Him.
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This is the beauty of federal headship.
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Because we are in Christ, we reign with Him.
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The Church is now the vice region of the world.
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Again. We don't reign with swords and
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Chariots. We reign through service,
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through the gospel, through stewardship of the earth.
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We are kings in training. As we wrap up this deep dive,
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let's try to summarize the flow because we've covered a lot of
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ground. We started with the giddeth, the
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idea of strength coming from weakness, like David versus
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Goliath. We looked at the structure, the
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QED of God's glory. We saw the babes, how God uses
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the weak things and the praise of His people to silence the
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enemy. Then we went to the observatory.
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We saw the glory of the stars and the finger work of creation.
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We felt the smallness of Enosh. Frail.
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Man, Then we saw the crown. The dignity of reason.
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The charter of dominion over the animals.
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The technology of ships and farming.
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And finally, the true King. The second Adam, Jesus, who
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stooped lower than angels to die and rose higher than heavens to
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rule, and who now invites us to share his rule.
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The excellent name of verse 9 is ultimately the name of Jesus.
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It is the name above every name. Before we go, I want to leave
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you with one final thought. Henry has this little
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provocation near the end of his commentary.
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It's a question that has been bugging me all week.
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It's a haunting question that has to do with the animals.
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Right. We established that the animals
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submit to us. The ox knows his owner, the dog
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obeys the master. You can train a horse to run
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into battle. They keep the law of their
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nature. They submit to the dominion God
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placed over them. So here's the question.
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If the beast which has no reason, no soul, and no Bible,
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submits to its master, what does it say about us?
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We who have the crown of reason, we who have the Bible, we who
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have the gospel, if we refuse to submit to our Master.
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If the dog obeys the man, but the man rebels against God.
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Then the man is more irrational than the beast.
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The Sinner is a monster. We have become less than the
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animals. The ox is fulfilling its
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purpose. The rebellious Sinner is
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violating his. That is a heavy thought.
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The faithfulness of your dog is a judgment on your prayer life.
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It is indeed We are called to be our Lords.
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We must own the relationship, just as the ox owns his master.
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Well, on that cheerful but challenging note, we are going
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to close the book for today. We hope this deep dive into
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Psalm 8 has helped you see the stars and the Savior a little
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differently. Keep looking up, consider the
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heavens, and remember the Son of Man.
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This has been reformed thinking. Until next time.