Ps. ex. 1 — 7. The Lord said imto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send, the rod of thy strength out of Zion : rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be u'illing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the u'oml of the morning : thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sivorn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Alelchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen ; he shall Jill
the
the places with the dead bodies ; lie shall tvound the heads over Tnany countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way : therefore shall he lift up the head.
IN some of the Psalms, David speaks of himself only ; in others, of himself and of the Messiah too ; but in this, of the Messiah exclusively : not a w^ord is applicable to any one else. The Jews have taken great pains to explain it away : but their attempts are, and ever must be, in vain.
In the first verse, David relates the Father's address to his Son, when '* the council of peace was held between them :" and the whole of the re- mainder is addressed by the Psalmist to the Messiah himself. It altogether elucidates in a very striking manner the character of Christ.
In it are set forth,
I. His person —
It is of great importance that we have just views of the Divinity of Christ —
[On that depends the sufficiency of the atonement which he has offered for the sins of men. If he be only a creature, how can we be assured that the shedding of his blood has any more virtue and efficacy than the blood of bulls and goats ? What proportion is there between the transitory sufferings of one crea- ture, and the accumulated sins of all the children of men ? How can we conceive that there should be such a value in the blood of any created Being, as to purchase for a ruined world a deliverance from everlasting misery, and a possession of ever- lasting happiness and glory ? But if our Redeemer be God as well as man, then we see at once, that, inasmuch as he is an infinitely glorious Being, there is an infinite merit in his obedience unto death, sufficient to satisfy the demands of law and justice for the sins of all mankind. On any other supposition than that Christ is God, there would be no force at all in that question of the Apostle, " He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things^?" What argument w'ould it be to say, " He that gave us a creature, how shall he not also give us himself, and all the glory of heaven ?" But if Christ be God, equal with the Father, then is the argument clear, obvious, and unanswerable.]
In the psalm before us the divinity of Christ is plainly asserted —
[Our
* Rom. viii. 32.
362 PSALMS, ex. 1—7. [411.
[Our blessed Lord himself appeals to it, in order to con- found and silence his malignant adversaries. Both Pharisees and Sadducees had endeavoured to ensnare him by difficult and per- plexing questions : and, when he had answered, he put this question to them ; " What think ye of Christ ? Whose son is he ? and when they said *' The son of David," he asked them, *' How then doth David in Spirit call him Lord," saying, " The Lord said unto my Lord, &;c. ? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son ?" And then we are told, " No man was able to answer him a word''." Had they been willing to acknowledge Christ as their Messiah, they needed not to have been at any loss for an answer : for they knew him to be a son of David ; and he had repeatedly declared himself to be God, insomuch that they had again and again taken up stones to stone him for blasphemy. But this passage proved beyond all doubt that the Messiah was to be " the Root, as well as the offspring, of David;" the Lord of David, as well as David's son.