00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
are referred to in the New Testament
in reference to Christ, in the laments of the individual, and
in reference to the work of God among his remnant people in the
use of the We Psalms. The Psalms of confidence, of
trust in trouble, are referred to Christ. The hymns of praise
and of thanksgiving are also referred to Christ. The declarative
praise, I've already this morning called your attention to the
quotation of Psalm 18, 49, and following in Romans 15, 9. And
Hebrews 10 picks up Psalm 40, where in the volume of the book
it is written, And may I come to do your will, O Lord. That is taken in application
to Christ. Declarative praise of the people. You have Jesus himself singing
the Psalms in the upper room before he went out. And you find
the declarative praise of the Psalms reflected in the Songs
of Revelation, where the same kind of language and structure
is used in praising God and praising the Lamb. Descriptive praise. Psalm 8 being quoted in Hebrews
2 and Psalm 102 in Hebrews 1 and so on. The Royal Psalms being
reflected in Christ's ascension as he goes up as the Lord of
Glory. Psalm 45, 6 quoted in Hebrews
1, 8. The Pilgrim Psalms, the Psalms
of Ascent, the procession up the Holy Hill. the fact that
God is coming to judge the earth. Quotation of 97.7 in Hebrews
1.6. God's marching before the saints
to where there is the great assembly, the gathering of the people of
God. The thought of Psalm 68 being
picked up in the Psalms in reference to the ascension more generally.
And Christ as the archegos in Hebrews 12.2 is picking up the
thought of Christ as the leader, the one who goes before us. Psalms
which refer to Jesus Christ as the messianic king being quoted
in the New Testament. There's a whole string of those.
Now, you know, without pressing the the argument too far. I don't think there's any quotation
in the New Testament that's a direct allusion to the Psalms of Refuge. I mean, not a direct quotation
of the Psalms of Refuge in the New Testament. But you get the
picture though, don't you? I mean, there may not be a quotation
from the Psalms of refuge, but you've got Jesus telling about
the church being built on a rock and how it will stand, and the
image of the refuge is certainly used, the safety that we have
with the Lord. So I think it's helpful to see
that as you look in the Scriptures, they all do, in the Psalms, they
all do, in one way or other, get alluded to and quoted in
the New Testament. So that the New Testament assumes
that as we read the Psalms, we'll be aware that Jesus Christ is
the fulfillment of all that the Psalms tell us. So, this A little visual review rather
quickly here. Since I like to draw pictures.
Can you see that? Maybe not. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. We preach Christ in covenantal
praise. The singing Christ, the Lord
sings in the midst of the congregation, as we've seen. The suffering
servant, the triumphant servant, the anointed King. And then His
song among the Gentiles, we sing to the glory of Jesus Christ,
as, well, we sing with Jesus Christ, the song of the Gentiles,
inviting the Gentiles to join in the praise. Now, we not only
sing with Christ, we also sing to Christ. So when we sing the
mighty works of God in the Old Testament in descriptive and
declarative praise, we are praising the triune God, but our praises
are also to Jesus Christ. And that's what we've been seeing,
that Jesus Christ is seen as the Lord in the New Testament. And we see his wisdom and his
power. We see his rule as the one who
governs the universe. and the one who is also the Lord
our Savior. The song of Moses at the shore
of the sea has become the song of the Lamb. The new song of
the kingdom, the royal song, the song of the good news of
the presence of the Lord, the song of His ascension, as Peter
preaches from Psalm 16 on the day of Pentecost. Psalm 24, ascending
on high, and the Psalms of refuge and trust that point us to Jesus
Christ as our refuge, and where we can find our trust in Him. So we are singing the mighty
works of Christ, His great work of redemption, and we're also
singing the glorious name of Christ. We hallow the name of
God in the name of Jesus. God proclaims his name and Christ
himself hallows the name of God. Jesus is worshipped in the Gospels,
the extravagance of Mary's devotion as she anoints his feet. And
we worship Jesus through the language of the Psalms. In Jesus
Christ we seek God's face. And that was a great issue in
the Old Testament, to see the face of God. Jacob wrestled with
the angel, wouldn't let him go till God blessed him in the places
called Peniel, the face of God, because in the early dawn he
saw something of the liniments of the face of God. But we see
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The psalms yearn
for God's face, to see Him, to appear before Him, to be in His
presence, and that prayer finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ,
who is the image of God. So we sing God's glorious name
in praising Christ, hallowing God's name, seeking God's face,
and also delighting in God's beauty. I would refer you here
to Psalm 90, I read it in chapel yesterday, but where it says,
let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish
thou the work of our hands upon us. the work of our hands, establish
thou it." You know, there are three classes of terms for beauty
in the Old Testament. There are words which describe
the beauty of majesty, like the beauty of the cloud over the
tabernacle, the glory of God, the beauty of glory. And then
there are other terms which describe the beauty of God in terms of
design. It's translated holy array in
some of the Psalms. The beauty of majesty in Psalm
96.6. The beauty of design, of wisdom
in Psalm 96.9. And also earlier in Psalm 90
verse 16. That's like the beauty of the
high priest's breastplate with the jewels inscribed with the
names of the tribe of Israel, with the linen woven breastplate that held the jewels
and was tied around the high priest's chest. The beauty of
holiness, of rich design. The first is the overwhelming
majesty, majestic beauty of God. The second is the wisdom of God,
celebrated in the Psalms. And then finally, the beauty
of delight, of refreshing grace. the term for beauty which describes
a handsome man or a beautiful woman or a lovely landscape. And all three of these forms
of beauty are celebrated in the Psalms, and all three are ascribed
to God, that He is the source of our beauty as we praise Him,
and He is seen to be beautiful. And Calvin Zarefeld is a very
able Christian philosopher and esthetician who's done a lot
of thinking about Christian aesthetics. And I must say he warns against
thinking of beauty as being ascribed to God. He thinks that's an Aristotelian
kind of category and way of looking at it. But I would I would disagree
with that. It does seem to me that just
as God is the source of all truth, so that Truth is of God, and therefore we find of God the
source of knowledge and truth. And God is also the source of
all goodness. Ethics are grounded in God. So you can say that metaphysics
or ontology is all grounded in God, and ethics are all grounded
in God. Well, what about beauty? Yes,
I think so, and to defend that, I would strongly agree with Serafelt
that the aesthetic dimension is the dimension of elusiveness,
of where we see more than one dimension. See, if you see a
deer leap, well, it's a very economical form of propulsion,
well adjusted to the environment. How in the world can a deer run
through a thicket? Did you ever figure that out?
They do it, you know, but try it yourself. So, it's very efficient
as the deer goes along. But there's something about that. It's more than efficient. We
say it's beautiful. Well, what do we mean by that?
Well, we mean it has other dimensions. There's a gracefulness to it. There's an ease to it, a simplicity
to it. We talk about a solution to a
problem being beautiful if it's not messy. We've found a simple
and easy, clear way of doing it. That which is beautiful always
suggests another dimension in poetry. It's not simply that
something is said clearly, but in poetry, images are used, which
is a way of saying there's another level of communication. In poetry,
often either repetition or some form of repetition is used. so
that there's an interweaving, sometimes a very delicate interweaving
of words in a way that is quite different from ordinary discursive
language. So you see the beauty of poetry
because of the dimension of, full dimension, other dimensions,
variety of dimensions, multiplicity of perspectives. Vern Poitras at Westminster in
Philadelphia is known for the phrase multi-perspectivalism. More than one perspective. Well,
there's always that in aesthetics. And my own conviction is that,
you see, just as the truth of God is the ground of all knowledge,
and the goodness of God is the ground of all ethics, so the
richness of God is the ground of aesthetics. That is, God is so full, that is, the abundance
of His being, the richness of the diversity and unity of the
divine being, God is full of surprises, in the sense that
there's always more than we ever imagined in God. He's not only
good, but He's amazingly, surprisingly, unpredictably good. There's always
more than we ever could have imagined, you see. And the delight
that we have in that extra dimension, which I think is at the heart
of aesthetic experience, finds its total satisfaction in God. And that's why we speak of, when
I awake, I will be satisfied with your form. You see, the
total satisfaction. Yes. discernment when we start moving
at this subjective level, because there is an evil one who presents
himself as an angel of light, makes himself very attractive,
and when we say that all beauty is of God, aren't we going to
be very discerning You know what I mean? That's why people say,
every demon is of God. Everything that's attractive
is of God. Everything that makes me feel
good is of God. I think we need to be very discerning. Well, every good gift is from
above and comes down from the Father of lights with whom there's
no shadow of turning. All truth is of God. Even the
devil, can take a truth and put it in the wrong context and turn
it into a lie, but it's still so that all truth is of God and
all goodness is of God, even, you know, the angel of light
has to, when Satan poses as an angel of light, sure you have
to be discriminating, but I wouldn't want to disqualify a whole area
of God's revelation of himself because it can be corrupted by
sin, because so can ethics be corrupted by sin, so can truth
be corrupted by sin and turned into a lie. But what I'm suggesting is that,
you see, the source of reality in all its wonder and fullness
comes from God Himself, the Creator. And the reason I brought this
in, well, see, are the psalms a kind of waste? See? Psalm 119, that's such a long
psalm. It goes on and on, right? I mean,
every single letter of the Hebrew alphabet and eight verses for
every letter? I mean, what does Psalm 119 tell
us? We ought to walk according to
the law of the Lord. Well, you can say that in ten
words or less, right? I mean, why not come right out
and tell it? Why all this meandering around? There's a kind of meditation
that's called the lotus form of meditation, where you take
a center of thought and then you go out and come back. It's
supposed to be like the petals of a lotus. You go out and come
back, and go out and come back, and go out and come back, and
go out and come back. Well, Psalm 19's kind of like that, you know.
It starts and takes you off to think about something and brings
you back to God's Word. And you think about something
else, back to God's Word. And something else, and back
to God's Word. You know, on and on and on and on. And it's got
all this literary artistry to it, see. And, yes. I'm reading Alter's book on non-parallelism,
and you see the energy that is expelled in saying something
that could be said in a very simple way. And yet there's,
you know, the two verses, and the second one goes further than
the first. And they don't even do that simple
process by one way. They'll do it through multiple
ways. Yeah, how far it goes, we don't even know yet, because
they're still digging up more things, you know, they're talking
about some of the students of Hebrew poetry are pointing out
there's rhyme and reason to the way in which they even use the
masculine and the feminine of nouns, you know. There's an order
to that. In the first colon, it might
be masculine, masculine, and the second one feminine, feminine.
I think maybe at this point their imaginations may be running away
with them, I don't know. But still, there is structure,
and there is structure and order in the psalms, you see. And it's
an aesthetic structure and order. It's that extra dimension business,
see? Now, of course, there are functional
aspects to it. If you do it by the ABCs, it's
easier to remember. You know where you are in Psalm
119, because every single verse begins with a letter that you're
in. If you're in Coff, everything begins with Coff. So you kind
of know where you are. So there are functional aspects
to it, but there's all this beauty in the songs. Let the beauty,
and then I brought out, you see, the different aspects of beauty. The tremendous, overwhelming,
majestic beauty of the glory cloud. the ordered, structured,
designed beauty of the way in which Psalm 119 is put together,
for example, the beauty of wisdom, of order, and then the beauty
of loveliness, the beauty of grace, the beauty of refreshment,
in which Jesus Christ is the one who is altogether lovely,
the fairest of ten thousand, in which we take delight in Him,
though He was made hideous in His sufferings, so hideous that
He was inhumanly disfigured in His sufferings, yet to us He
is the One who is the Lord of glory and the One who is entirely
beautiful to our hearts and souls. Well, we can Think about that
some more and we will be spending some time looking at the literary
structure of the Psalms. Yes? It's talking about garments
that are ordered, made beautiful for the processions and so on.
Yes? Well, that's another subject
we could have a long. Thank you. We could have a long discussion
here, talking about why don't we have the Psalms in the Old
Testament, why don't we have a New Testament book of Psalms.
And my quick answer to that is, it has now come out in a new
edition. The Trinity Hymnal. And my wife was on the editing
committee and you all ought to buy one, you see. The new edition
of Trinity Hymnal. Now, I'm not joking, I'm really
not joking. Because, see, you take one of
two positions here. Either the book of Psalms, because
it is such a marvelous outpouring of praise to the living God,
because it is an inspired, divinely inspired book of praise, either
that is the only book of praise we ought to use, because we ought
to sing praises to God in inspired words, or not. And if it is, then we ought to
sing the Psalms exclusively. And that is the argument, of
course, and has been the argument in Reformed circles, and not
only in Reformed circles, Church of Christ circles too. Of course,
Reformed background, the Church of Christ originally. But there
are these beliefs that you ought to sing only the Psalms. Now,
there's a superficial argument against that that's quite mistaken
from Ephesians and Colossians, because there doesn't it say,
sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And so, not just psalms,
but hymns and spiritual songs. So psalms are what you find in
a versified form of the Book of Psalms, Psalms for Praise.
The hymns are what you find in a hymn book, and the spiritual
songs are the things you throw on the wall with an overhead
projector, and they're accompanied by guitars. Psalms, hymns, spiritual
songs, three categories. Now, that's completely mistaken,
I hasten to point out, because all these terms that Paul uses
in Ephesians and Colossians are terms that are found in the superscriptions
to the Psalms. So these are varieties of the
Book of Psalms. There are hymns in the Book of
Psalms, there are spiritual songs in the Book of, there are songs
in the Book of Psalms, and Paul adds the word spiritual. So the,
my friends, the covenanters at Geneva College and the Reformed
Presbyterian Seminary in Pittsburgh, they earnestly maintain that
we ought to sing only the Book of Psalms, and only the inspired
psalms. Now, one modification of that
would be you can sing not only the Book of Psalms, but also
the inspired songs from the beginning of the Book of Luke, for example.
You could sing those too. And then a further modification
would let you sing some scripture paraphrases. Well, the songs
of Revelation and other inspired songs. But that would still hold
to the principle that you ought to sing only inspired songs and
not non-inspired songs. And I respect that argument,
and certainly you can have wonderful blessing as you sing the Psalms. And in many of the Covenanter churches, the Reformed
Presbyterian churches that are called Covenanter because it
goes back to the covenanting days in Scotland when the Reformed
faith was being maintained by a national covenant. And the
exclusive use of Psalms has been characteristic of the branch
of Presbyterianism in the United States that is called Covenanter.
But I say, much as I respect their viewpoint, I do think it's
mistaken, and let me explain why. You really need to look
at both Colossians and Ephesians, at the passages that speak about
the use of song in worship. Let's look First at Ephesians 5 verse 18. Be not drunk with wine in which
is riot, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking one to another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody
with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all
things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, even the
Father, subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of
Christ. And then over in the book of
Colossians, the third chapter, verse 15, And let the peace of
Christ rule in your hearts, to which you are also called in
one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with grace in your hearts to God. Now, I think the way you
want to determine this question is to take these two passages,
I have it on an overhead but I don't have it with me, take
these two passages and collate them. These are parallel passages
in Ephesians and Colossians. So set them down side by side,
the two phrases, and where they overlap, recognize that, and
where they're different, recognize that. And when you put them together,
what you see is that Paul is teaching that we are to be filled
with the Spirit, and that we speak to one another in these
psalms and songs. And then he also says, let the
word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing
one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Now you
see, why does he say, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly? And then that word of Christ
enables you to admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs. Well, obviously, what he has
in view is that under the blessing of the Spirit, instructed by
the Word of Christ, we can sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs. Now, how is the word pneumatikos,
spiritual, how is that used in these epistles? What does Paul
have in view when he says that? Well, you see that in Colossians
chapter 1, that we might be filled with the knowledge of His will
in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. See, so the expression of the
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs is an expression of spiritual
wisdom. It's not from drunkenness that
we sing, but it's from the spiritual wisdom that's given to us in
Christ. And that spiritual wisdom that
we gain from the Word of Christ enables us to teach one another
in wisdom in Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Psalms. So there's
a clear continuity here. What Paul has in view is that
in the Church there will be, by the blessing of the Spirit,
growth in spiritual wisdom derived from the Word of Christ that
will enable us to exhort one another effectively. I'll say
that it's under the blessing of the Spirit as the Word of
Christ produces wisdom in you that enables you to speak in
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. If what you're doing is
just singing words that have already been given to you as
part of the inspired scripture. There'd be no need of the richly
indwelling Word of Christ producing the wisdom that produces these
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So I just would maintain
that the language of Paul in these two epistles makes it clear
that he's not thinking of just singing the Psalms. Now, and
of course, in 1 Corinthians 14, he says, when you get together,
if anybody has a psalm, well, does that mean he's just selected
one, that he's saying, let's sing a psalm too? I don't think
so. I think it means that under the
blessing of the Spirit, someone has a psalm to sing and ask others
to join. Now, another issue, quite a different
issue, is this. How about charismatic gifts? Are the psalms, hymns, and spiritual
songs of which Paul is thinking, are they inspired nonetheless?
Not Old Testament inspired songs, but inspired by charismatic gifts,
so that people are singing by revelation. Oh, I think that
certainly happened. I wouldn't be surprised if that's
what's in view in 1 Corinthians 14, a psalm that's been given
of the Spirit by someone who is a prophet or someone who is
filled with the Spirit to give utterance. I think that the charismatic
gifts of the apostolic age were revelatory gifts. It's my conviction
that there are no longer revelatory gifts given in the church because
the foundation has been laid once for all. But nevertheless,
it's perfectly clear that the singing was not simply songs
of David, but New Testament songs, songs filled with wisdom, songs
rich with the word of Christ, songs in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, if we have no trouble taking the
Colossians 1 passage, we have no trouble taking that and applying
it to ourselves, that we would be filled with the knowledge
of His will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. We
have no trouble with that, do we? That's a prayer for all of
us. Well then, if we're filled with
wisdom and spiritual understanding, can we not then express ourselves
to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs? And I would
say certainly yes. And so my answer to this question
is why we don't have an inspired book of Psalms in the New Testament
is this, that in the fullness of the gift of the Spirit in
the New Testament, in the fullness of the Word of Christ given to
us in the New Testament, we're given a marvelous liberty in
worship. so that we can sing new songs
of praise to God. It's part of the superlative
blessing of the New Testament time of fulfillment. that we
are not given one book of song, but we are freed to sing songs
through the wisdom that comes from the richly indwelling Word
of Christ. And you see then, this applies
not just to song, but it applies to worship more generally, doesn't
it? that while the elements of worship
are given to us in scripture, so that we must be careful not
to invent new elements of worship, nevertheless, the New Testament
does not give us a book of Leviticus. The New Testament does not give
us all sorts of details. The Old Testament has its book
of song to be used, but the New Testament creates in the community
the capacity for the production of fresh songs of praise and
of glory to God, so that the New Testament Church has indeed
become a New Testament Church, has become a singing church,
and through the ages, has sung the praises of God. Instructed
by the Psalms, guided by the Psalms, but not limited to the
Psalms, because the wisdom of the Spirit given through Jesus
Christ enables us to frame afresh the praises of God in the preparation
of new songs. You see, we can exhort one another
And that's part of our gathering for worship, isn't it? To exhort
one another. Well then, if we exhort one another in song, we're
free to do that too under the New Testament freedom of the
spirit. Yes. Yes, that's what they tried to
do. They tried to say, They try to meet the objection
that the Psalms, marvelous as they are, do not give us all
the fullness of New Testament revelation. They try to meet
that objection by saying, well, now when we look back at the
Psalms, we see them with new eyes, and therefore we can And
they would approve of this course, you see, to help to see Christ
in the Psalms. And Jack White, a very good friend
of mine, who's a leader at Geneva College, was a pastor for quite
a number of years, and I had the privilege of worshipping
at times in his church in Pennsylvania, and he did a beautiful thing. Before they would sing a song,
he would give a little quick, beautiful little summary. of
how Christ is found in that song. Just a few sentences, you know,
but he said, now let's sing. And then, you know, that was
well done, beautifully done, and helped people to sing with
New Testament understanding. So I certainly appreciate that
and approve of it, but I still think the objection is not really
met. that is really a condition of
the weakness, because he is agreeing, he is saying that we must sing
only in spot-times, and yet he would get up in like an un-spot-time.
Well, alright. Well, okay. Jack isn't here to
defend himself, so. Okay. Would the singing of new
songs include different forms and vocal singing, such as drama
or dance? No. All right, what other questions? Yeah, that's a good point. I
think I hadn't really given much attention to that. But I think
that's well, well, a point well made. Good observation. Would the You would think there would be
a more definite reference if he really were thinking of just
the Book of Psalms. You know, this course has been
taped, but this course has wandered so far from the structure I'd
laid down. You're a good class, and you
come up with wonderful questions, and then I answer them, but I
hope it proves profitable anyway. I'll make one more desperate
effort to get back on track. We won't tape them, though, for
the third hour today or tomorrow. The taping efforts will be made
tomorrow in the first two hours. It will be dismissed a little
bit early for lunch. And but let's try to get back
on time at the quarter after. OK.
Preaching Christ from Psalms #7
Series Westminster Seminary CA
Series given at Westminster Seminary California
| Sermon ID | 121907214246 |
| Duration | 40:23 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Bible Text | Psalm |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.