Man-nature-God.
"Thou hast put … feet." This brief but majestic psalm is remarkable for world-wide breadth; it shines with light transcending human genius. The name by which the Almighty Maker is addressed is his covenant name with Israel—the name which speaks not of power, but of personal being, "Jehovah." But here is no reference to Israel; nothing national, limited, ceremonial, local, temporary. This psalm is a sufficient refutation of the mean, narrow views of the Old Testament Scriptures, which lower the religion of Israel to the rank of one among the many national religions. Here we are concerned only with these three supreme ideas: man; nature; God. Jehovah is invoked as the Author of nature and God of all mankind. Consider this sublime declaration—first, as it stands here in the Old Testament Scriptures; secondly, as interpreted in the New Testament Scriptures.
I. Read these words, first, BY THEIR OWN LIGHT, AS THEY STAND PART OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
1. They are far from describing man's present actual position on this globe. He does not at present reign over nature, but wrestles with it; slowly grasps its secrets and masters its forces; has to keep watch and ward lest it destroy him. A few tribes of lower animals attach themselves serviceably to him, but most fly from him or defy him. Wolves ravage his flocks; worms corrode his ships. The sight of a locust or a beetle makes him tremble: he can crush it in an instant, but when countless millions of these minute rebels invade his fields and vineyards and orchards, they turn his wealth to poverty. Truly, "we see not yet all things put under him."
2. Yet these words are no poetic exaggeration. The context shows that the psalmist is looking back to the record of man's original dignity and heirship of the world (Psalms 8:6-8 compared with Genesis 1:27, Genesis 1:29). This original grant conveys the idea not of easy, effortless lordship over a passive creation, but of progressive conquest by toil, skill, reason. Such is and has been man's dominion over the earth. This biblical account of the primitive dignity and moral standing of man is widely rejected in these days, on the assumption that it conflicts with science. Conflict between religious truth and scientific truth is impossible, because all truth is one. All truth is God's truth. The conflict is between testimony and hypothesis—the testimony of the most venerable and ancient of all histories, and the newest hypotheses of scientific men—hypotheses very confidently affirmed; but yet only hypotheses. It may turn out that the testimony is more scientific than the hypotheses. At all events, it is no trifle to reject it. Man knows not, apart from the Bible, whence he cometh or whither he goeth. Reject it as a revelation of fact, and the human race is an apparition upon earth—a stupendous exception to the laws which govern all other animals—of which the wildest conjectures of what. passes for science can give no rational account. Reject its revelation of law, and man is seen wandering out of the unknown past towards an unknown future, without guidance or government. Reject its revelation of promise, and that unknown future is without hope or intelligible meaning. Accept the Bible as God's message, and we know whence we come and whither we go. Human life, sorrowful and confused as it is, shows like a stormy day which had a splendid dawn and shall yet have a serene evening and glorious rising again. We need not, then, be frightened by the most confident assertions, from the glorious belief that man began his history on earth as the child of the Father of spirits; not crawling out of sentient slime through a series of inconceivable transformations, compared with which all the miracles of the Bible are commonplace incidents; but able to converse with God, and to render intelligent, loving obedience to him: "a little lower than God himself;" "crowned with glory and honour."
II. AS INTERPRETED IS THE NEW TESTAMENT. Faith prizes the past, not for its own sake, but for the sake of the present and the future. When we look at these words in the light of New Testament interpretation, new glory breaks from them. They are not simply history or poetry, but prophecy (Hebrews 2:8, Hebrews 2:9). We need not ask, and cannot say, whether this meaning was known to the psalmist. The prophets uttered more than they knew. God interprets by fulfilling; and the fulfilment far outruns all our expectations.
1. In the Person, life, character, of our Lord Jesus, even "in the days of his flesh," our nature was raised to a pitch of glory and perfectness before inconceivable. God's image was restored (John 14:9; 1 Corinthians 15:47).
2. In the exaltation of Jesus, human nature is invested with Divine glory. The "days of his flesh" are past; but he wears our nature still (1 Timothy 2:5; Philippians 2:7-11; Matthew 28:18).
3. All who believe in him are already, by faith, partakers in some degree of his glory (Ephesians 1:19-23; Ephesians 2:6). And they shall hereafter, in perfect union with him and likeness to him, partake fully and eternally (1 John 3:1-3; John 17:22-24).
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE