Psalm 8
Psalm 8 is a prophecy which foretold that Christ would bless the children and that He would be proclaimed King by children. The psalm begins, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, You who set Your glory above the heavens! Out of the mouth of babes and infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that You may silence the enemy and the avenger.”
This passage was connected with the cleansing of the temple by Jesus as recorded in Matthew 12:12-16. The temple courts had been made into a center for trading commodities. The people were terrified when Jesus came into the temple complex and rattled the moneychangers. They fled, but the children remained. The children were not afraid of Jesus. Business as usual was interrupted and the exchangers fled in fear, but the children sang praises to the Lord.
The people who fled chagrined and angry returned to the temple courts and heard the children singing. They tried to get Jesus to silence them. Christ quoted the psalm under consideration, “Out of the mouths of babes You have perfected praise” to show the people that this was a fulfillment of prophecy (see Matthew 21:16). Christ asserted His rightful place as the second Adam as the psalm reveals.
The psalm continues. “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under His feet …” (verses 4-6). This was quoted by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:27 when he referred to the second coming of Christ. All things will be turned over to Him at the second Advent, at the resurrection of the body of believers.
Verses 4 and 5 are quoted in Hebrews 2:6-8 to apply to Christ. In the beginning this applied to Adam, but because Christ is the second and last Adam, it applies to Him also. Hebrews 2:9: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God might taste death for everyone.” Paul quotes Psalm 8, then applies it to Christ. The first Adam was made a little lower than the angels, and the second Adam likewise was made a little lower than the angels.
But it was “for the suffering of death” that Christ was made to be mortal. As God He could not die. Even if He had come like Adam was in his pre-fall nature, Christ could not have died. But He was made to die, He was born to die. He was made to taste death for everyone, by the grace of God. That He was made mortal was imperative.
While man is described in this psalm as powerless and frail, he is not forgotten by God. God looks after and cares for him.
Psalm 8 ends as it begins with identical words, praising the Lord. This is called an envelope construction. Contained within these praises we learn of God’s purpose in man’s creation. This psalm is a lyric echo of Moses’ account of creation. God’s glory is observed in the realm of nature and in the realm of Providence, and through these to its contemplation in the kingdom of grace.
The chapter outlined as an envelope chiasm appears like this:
A. God’s sovereignty—vs . 1
B. God’s dominion—vss. 2, 3
C. Man’s insignificance––vs. 4
C. Man’s exaltation—vs. 5
B. Man’s dominion—vss. 6–8
A. God’s sovereignty—vs. 9.
To Adam, who was made “a little lower than the angels” was given dominion over God’s creation (verses 5 and 6). The first Adam surrendered himself and his dominion to the enemy of God. Because of that, this psalm can be fulfilled only in Christ, and by Him as the second Adam.
As mentioned above, Jesus quoted verse two of this psalm when His dominion over the temple was questioned. Five days before He died, Christ cleansed the temple again and restored it to its proper use for a short period of time. Rather than being used as a market place for the world’s trade and rather than a den for the religious establishment to hide their thievery, it was to be “a house of prayer for all people” (Isaiah 56:7). Christ transformed it into a place of ministry for the physically disabled and for sin-sick souls (Matthew 21:12-14).
After being driven from the temple courts, “the chief priests and scribes” sneaked back in. They saw the blind and the lame going to Jesus to be healed. They heard praises to Christ from the children, and they were enraged because of the children’s hosannas. Their consciences seared from resistance to the Holy Spirit, these pretenders could not recognize the fulfillment in Christ as the second Adam of Psalm 8. And so they demanded of Him, “Do You hear what these are saying?” “Yes,” Jesus replied, then directed the attention of those charlatans to Psalm 8:2, “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise’?” (Matthew 21:16).
God chooses the weak and foolish things to confound the mighty men of earth. God works most effectively through the things and the persons despised by the wise of the earth. The mysteries of God are revealed to children, but hidden from the wise and intelligent of the world (1 Corinthians 1:27-29; Acts 4:13; 6:8, 10).
Those doubters could not see that God was mindful of them, and that He cared for and visited man in fulfillment of Psalm 8. What was hidden from those earthly wise men because of their unbelief was revealed to believing children. But the experience of the children could not penetrate the heart of those religious leaders. And so as Christ left the temple that Sunday evening, their day of grace ended.
In the light of the New Testament, Psalm 8 is a prophecy of Christ the second Adam and of the new humanity as redeemed by Him. The central thought of the psalm is restated, then continued. It reveals the loss of dominion by Adam, then its restoration through Christ. Hebrews 2:6-8 reveals the sovereign dominion of Christ by showing that He is the Man God has crowned with glory and honor and made to have dominion over all the works of creation.
In typical Hebrew fashion, David used synonymous parallelism to describe the last Adam and God’s care for Him:
“What is man [enosh’] that You mindful of him,
“And the son of man [ben adam] that You care for him?” (Psalm 8:4, margin).
Both Hebrew words enosh’ and adam are terms describing a representative man who is the head of the race. Both words are used rarely in the sense of a single individual. They are usually used in a collective or corporate sense such as the entire human race. In this psalm they are used to describe especially Christ in His representative function for the race. The word enosh’ is never used of man before the fall. It is used to describe man’s fallen and thus mortal condition according to his nature which is inherited. It is “used of the Messiah, Psalm 8:4.” “This … passage applies to Christ solely; see Heb. 2:6” (Gesenius’s Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, p. 63, emphasis original. See also Wilson’s Old Testament Word Studies, p. 266).
The Aramaic cognate enash’ is used of Christ in Daniel 7:13. Here we view Christ as the Elder Brother of the race representing us before the throne of God in scenes of the judgment. He receives the dominion and the kingdom in behalf of His people. Judgment is given in behalf of those He represents (see verses 14, 18, 22).
The use of the term enosh’ indicates Christ’s real affinity with the fallen human race. He became one of us in order to be “touched with the feelings of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15). This is not the modern idea of the cosmological and pantheistic “christ” worshipped by spiritual Babylon under the New Age scheme of things.
The true Christ felt a real identity with man. The Son of Man became the Savior of the world (John 4:42; 1 Timothy 4:10). In order to become man it was essential that He become part of the race in the deepest and fullest sense. He took upon Himself our fallen nature in order to redeem the human race. At conception He took our nature and entered into man’s alienation from God, even though He was never guilty of actual sin. He never allowed His inherited nature to rebel against the will of God. He came not to do His will, but the will of the Father (John 5:30).
The greatest honor bestowed upon the human race is in the fact that the Son of God took upon Himself our nature in the incarnation, and then lived by faith according to God’s will in our behalf. And being a man, God visited and cared for Him, and thus visits and cares for you.
Hebrews 2 takes up Psalm 8 and, applying it to Christ, lays the foundation for the presentation of the humanity of Christ in the book of Hebrews. After quoting Psalm 8:4-6, Paul writes: “For in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him. But now we do not yet see all things put under Him” (Hebrews 2:6-8). Something happened to Adam’s dominion. He sinned, and now because he lost control of himself, he could not control his dominion. But “we see” Someone else!
“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor …” (verse 9). He met Adam at his lowest point—death. This was a lower state than where Adam was when he was first created. It was impossible for Adam to die before he sinned. And so, we can see that Christ came not to the place where Adam was before he fell, “but we see Jesus for the suffering of death.” This was much lower than where Adam began. In order for Christ to die He had to become mortal. Mortality came into existence because of sin. As soon as one is conceived, he inherits the propensity to die. The seeds of death are in fallen human nature. In order for Christ to enter the “suffering of death” He had to be “made of a woman” with a mortal nature.
As God, Christ was immortal.
But He laid aside this attribute and took upon Himself mortality in order to be “numbered with the transgressors” and to die in our stead. He was “made … for the suffering of death … that He by the grace of God might taste death for everyone.” Unfallen angels know nothing of grace personally. They are not under grace, having never sinned. Adam before he fell did not need grace. Grace came in because of sin. Christ was made to be sin for us. Christ needed grace. And it was by the grace of God that He tasted eternal death for the fallen race. It was by grace, God’s enabling grace, that Christ tasted death for every human. This grace is the same as that given to every human since the fall of Adam. This grace is given only to those born into this world, born in sinful fallen human nature. Christ was not exempt from grace. He needed it from Bethlehem to Calvary. He lived and grew in grace. And by grace He tasted death for us all (John 1:14; Luke 2:40; Hebrews 2:9).
Christ could not have died if He had taken the unfallen nature of angels or the sinless nature of pre-fall Adam. Can you imagine how the angels of heaven became grief-stricken when they learned that Christ would assume man’s mortal nature? He, who as God, was superior to them, would become inferior to them when He should assume human nature. He who created them would be in need of their wisdom and strength and comfort.
When Adam sinned against known light, the entire race that was to come from him was doomed to condemnation and everlasting destruction. But God had a plan. He was not caught off-guard. He made Himself responsible for man’s failure. He became Surety for man. This is why “we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death. …” He became “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). In the beginning, the altar of sacrifice and the promise of redemption were placed side by side, each casting light on the other (Genesis 4:3, 4; 3:15).
The first promise of redemption for man is addressed to “that serpent of old, the Devil and Satan”: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed,” God declared. “He will bruise your head, and you will bruise His heel” (Revelation 12:9; Genesis 3:15). Satan was made to realize that he was not to have free reign over his usurped dominion taken from mankind. God promised to enter more directly into the battle for man. He promised nothing but enmity between the Seed of the woman and the followers of Satan.
When the full force of the promise dawned upon the devil’s mind, he found cause for rejoicing. In order for him to bruise the heel of the promised Seed of the woman, her Seed would have to be made vulnerable. He had to be made touchable and bruisable. The devil could not do this unless Christ should be “made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death.” He rejoiced that he could pull down the Son of God from the throne of the universe to the level of fallen man. With Christ in human nature the devil was confident that He could cause Christ to sin. From the time of the promise of Genesis 3:15 forward, the enemy planned and experimented on fallen human nature. He wanted both to weaken human nature, in order to place Christ at a great disadvantage when He became human, and to experiment to find the easiest access to the fallen nature of man.
Christ was not only bruised by Satan.
He was bruised also by mankind’s sins. “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” “And by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:6, 5). Christ was “made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death” (Hebrews 2:9).
He was made for death! This death was not the first death that everyone dies. The first death is a consequence of Adam’s sin, not the punishment for it. Jesus died the equivalent of the second death. He tasted “death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9). Christ is the only one who has tasted the second death. No human being was intended, by God to die the second death. That death is a prepared death, only “prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25: 41). Humans who spurn and reject “the grace of God that brings salvation” that “has appeared to all men” will go with the devil into the lake of fire (Titus 2:11; Matthew 25:41).
Christ by the grace of God tasted that death for all mankind.
The fire of envy and hatred consumed Him. He tasted that death, beginning in Gethsemane. Had not heaven intervened, Christ would have perished there. There would have been no public execution on Calvary. Because it was a public death, a crucified Christ has been proclaimed in the world, to the world, and for all the world.
In bruising Christ by temptation and finally in death, the devil himself received a wound that cannot heal. By partaking of our same flesh and blood Christ was made to die, “that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).
In another letter Paul in dealing with a misunderstanding and denial of the resurrection in the church of Corinth, quoted Psalm 8:6 in the context of the two Adams. What the first Adam did to us, Christ undid. “He has put all things under His feet.” “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:27, 21, 22).
In his second letter to the Corinthian church Paul again took up the theme of the second Adam. “For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died” (2 Corinthians 5:14). In Christ, the Representative Man, the Head of mankind, the whole fallen human race died. Christ died not for Himself, but for you. He exhausted the penalty which was yours, that you might become the righteousness of God in Him (verse 21).
Although Adam carved his initials deep in our flesh, Christ carved His much deeper. What Adam did against us, Christ reversed. Christ’s work for us is far greater than what Adam did to us.
The greatest honor bestowed upon the human race is in the fact that Christ took upon Himself our nature in the incarnation. And being a man, God visited Him, cared for Him and thus visits and cares for us. And the fact that Christ in glorified human nature sits at the side of the Father, God blesses us in Him (Ephesians 1:3,6). And so it is that Psalm 8, prophetic of Christ, was fulfilled in and by Christ.
This psalm will meet its complete fulfillment in the new earth. Verse 6: “You have put all things under His feet” will then be accomplished as it is written:
“For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For ‘He has put all things under His feet’” (1 Corinthians 15:21-27).
Psalm 8 ends as it began—singing praises to God: “O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth.”