Third Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Psalm 8

[To see the first two passes, go here and here.]

(Verse-by-Verse Comments, continued)
5Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
(1) A consideration of the vast universe and the smallness of humans who live on a small planet in one corner of a largely unknown universe makes God's regard for us truly amazing. We have infinitely more reason to marvel at this than the Psalmist did. I mention two reasons:

• We live on the Easter side of history.

By that, I mean, we live after God became one of us, died for us, and rose for us. These are events which, the preacher in the New Testament book of Hebrews reminds us, both angels and ancient believers longed to see, but could only apprehend them by faith. But, we're privileged to look back on the accomplished facts of what God has done through Jesus Christ.

It's no wonder then, that Paul writes, possibly echoing an early confession used by the first-century church as they worshiped:

He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. [Colossians 1:15-20]

• We know more about the enormity of the universe than the pslamist did.

Our exploration of space has only scratched the surface of all that God has created. Yet God cares about us. And He cares not just about the collective us, He cares for each of us individually. Christ is the sign of this. Weiser seems to throw up His hands at this vast and beautiful mystery and coins a descriptive phrase: "Incomprehensible grace." Wow!

6You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, 7all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
(1) Weiser notes that like First Corinthians 15:10, these verses combine:

reverence [for God] and joyful pride [in humanity's place in God's cosmos]. It is only in this way that [the psalm] is able to avoid the risk of taking the wrong course by declining into human arrogance.

This is not, he points out, the celebration of humanity found in Sophocles' Antigone ("Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man.") Rather:

human dignity has no value of its own, but has value only as a gift from God.

This reminds me of words from another psalm:

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. (Psalm 139:13-16)

Our dignity as human beings comes from being made in the image of a creative God, Who not incidentally, has cared enough about all of us to become one of us, die for us, rise for us, and give life to all who turn from sin and believe in Him!

(2) Another note from Weiser:

It has not come about by chance that the...Greek interpretation [as evidenced in Antigone]..., which made man [sic] entirely depend on his own strength, ended in tragedy, whereas the biblical interpretation still represents even today the religious foundation on which all truly creative culture can be built.

When you know that you can depend on the God revealed in the Bible, can try and be unafraid of failure, you live with that assurance that Paul writes about in the New Testament book of Philippians:

I can do all things through [Christ] Who strengthens me!

9O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
(1) We're back to God, the foundation of our hope, again.

“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (First Corinthians 1:31)