It is definitely good to be together in the house of the Lord that we may hear the reading and the preaching of His Word. And so to that end, if you would please join me in a word of prayer before we get into the message this evening. Let’s pray.
Father God, we ask and pray that You would open our hearts and our minds, that You would take away the distractions, the clouds of sin, that You would, by the gift of faith, enable us to clearly see the Lord Jesus Christ and His glory, that You would take the truths that You have given us in Your Word and plant them deep within our hearts, and to the outpouring of Your Spirit that You would give unto us a harvest of the fruit of the Spirit that is thirty, sixty, even a hundred fold, all unto Your glory and praise. We pray and ask all of these things in Christ’s name. Amen.
If you would please, let’s open our Bibles to Psalm chapter 8, Psalm chapter 8, which is the text for this evening’s message. Psalm chapter 8. We’ll read this chapter in its entirety; all nine verses. So Psalm chapter 8. Let’s give attention to the reading of God’s Word. Psalm chapter 8, beginning in verse 1. Hear now the Word of God:
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
May God add His blessing to this reading from His holy and inspired Word.
Among the 150 psalms, Psalm 8 is perhaps one of those that is more familiar to us. I can remember learning elements of this particular psalm when I was a teenager in the youth group as we sang a praise chorus that was based on the refrain that we see in verse 1 – “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” It has been a psalm that has inspired poetic verse as well as even versified versions of the Psalter, one of which comes to us from Isaac Watts. And Watts says, “O Lord, our Lord, how wondrous, great is Thy exalted name! The glories of Thy heavenly state, let men and babes proclaim. When I behold Thy works on high, the moon that rules the night and stars that well adorn the sky, those moving worlds of light.” As common as Psalm 8 is in the Church’s collective mind and memory, I think that we should also know that Psalm 8 is one of the most cited psalms in the New Testament. It’s one of the most cited psalms in the New Testament. In other words, as we look at Psalm 8, I suspect that we are drawn to its imagery and to the ideas presented therein because it certainly takes our mind back to the creation, back before the fall. It shows us the glory that God invested in humanity, in the person of Adam as He impressed His divine image upon Adam and Eve.
And so there’s a sense in which, I think, as we look back upon Psalm 8, we look back upon it thinking about the past, and that’s certainly something that we should do. But if Psalm 8 is one of the most quoted and cited psalms in the New Testament, then that should tell us that we should not only look back into the past and to God’s creation of Adam, but it also should cast our sight to look forward to the New Testament and to the person and work of Christ. To that end, what I think is an important fact for us to take note of, is the idea that among the many titles that exist for Jesus – whether we’re talking about His name, Jesus, whether we’re talking about Christ, Messiah, the Anointed, whether we’re talking about Lord, Savior – the Son of Man is His most favorite and used title. That’s the title that He invokes the most when He is teaching – “the Son of Man.” And that is a title that comes to us from Psalm 8. So the fact that Psalm 8 is one of the most quoted in the New Testament and that Jesus invokes this title for Himself should tell us not only do we want to look back to see what God has to say about the creation of man, but we should also want to look forward to see what God says about Jesus, the Son of Man.
In that regard, what we can say is that Psalm 8 is not just simply a reminiscence of the past, but rather Psalm 8 is a prophetic and a promise of a future hope that comes to us and is fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus. And so what we want to do this evening is we want to give thought first to what the psalmist has to say about the first son of man, about Adam. And then second, we want to see what the psalmist has to say and what the rest of the Scriptures have to say about the second Son of Man, that is, Jesus. And then third and finally, in the light of what the Scriptures say about Jesus the Son of Man, we want to give thought to what praise should fill our hearts and our minds as we look upon Jesus, the Son of Man. So the first son of man, the second Son of Man, and then praising the Son of Man.
The First Son of Man
So let’s first give thought to Adam as the first son of man. If we were to position ourselves in the creation to give ourselves a vantage point to look down upon the ideas that the psalmist presents here, the photograph that comes to my mind is perhaps one of the more famous; it’s called “Earth Rising.” Perhaps you’ve seen it. And if you haven’t seen it, after the worship service go home and Google it. The NASA astronauts from the Apollo missions, they landed on the moon, and at one point what they did was they took a picture of the rising Earth, if you will, as it came up on the horizon from the moon. And it’s one of the most iconic pictures, I think, that we have taken because it gives us a completely different perspective upon the Earth, one that, up until that point, we really had not been able to see.
And so if you keep that picture in mind of Earth rising, I think that gives us something as to what the psalmist is doing as he begins to spy out the creation. He not only casts his gaze up into the heavens, but he also, I think, considers the massive nature of the creation itself of the world. And it’s against the backdrop of the beauty and the glory of the creation that he reflects upon humanity’s creation when he says in verse 4, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Think of that massive backdrop of the creation, of the entire cosmos, and all of a sudden when you begin to think about that for just a minute, the sheer size of the universe can almost make you think that, “What are we doing here? Who are we? Why are we here?”
Now the information that I am going to give you, I had to look it up. I know little to nothing about science. All of the science knowledge that I have comes from Star Wars, and that’s not far off the mark, I assure you! But when we think of the vastness of the cosmos, according to the sources that I found, the cosmos in its expanse in the universe is 93 billion light years from end to end. Now I have no idea how they make that calculation. I suppose it’s really smart people with a really big telescope. And maybe a couple of days ago you saw this on the internet or saw it in the news – they put up a new telescope which has enabled them to be able to begin to take estimated guesses as to how many galaxies there are in the universe. Now our tiny little planet, you know, exists within the Milky Way, that galaxy. But when you think of the Milky Way, that’s a pretty big galaxy, as far as galaxies go, but what they say is that there are as many as 2 trillion galaxies out there. Two trillion. Again, I have no idea how they count these things, but let’s just assume that some smart people have come up with those numbers. Two trillion galaxies.
Let that sink in for a moment. Two trillion galaxies. And so here we are, on what amounts to, more or less, a cosmic speck of dust that is orbiting a rather ordinary star, one of several trillion, and all of a sudden we begin perhaps to get a sense as to something as to what the psalmist talks about when he says, “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Why would God, the Creator of the visible and invisible heavens, condescend to create us, let alone to impress upon us His image and to give us His glory and to crown us with honor?
In her book, Peggy Noonan wrote her book, When Character Was King, which is a biography of President Ronald Reagan, and she recounts this true story of an elderly woman who was 83 years old by the name of Frances Green. And Frances Green lived on a fixed income and so she basically only had her Social Security check. But once a month she would write out a $1 check to the Republican National Committee and she would send in her monthly donation – $1; $12 a year. So by those figures, you can tell that she is obviously somebody of modest means. Nevertheless, because she wrote in her check once a month, she received an invitation to attend a White House banquet in the honor of donors. But what she missed at the bottom was the fact that there was a significant donation required in order to get in. So she missed that detail. Nevertheless, she saved her money, month by month, until she had enough money to buy a four-day train ticket, and she did not have enough money to pay for a sleeper car ticket and so she road coach the whole way, sleeping in coach, going across the country.
She arrived at the White House the night of the banquet and the guard would not let her in. He said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, your name is not on the list.” And she explained her situation and that did nothing to change the guard’s mind. But standing behind her was a high ranking executive from the Ford Motor Corporation and he began to overhear the conversation. He pulled her aside and talked to her and he said, “I’ll tell you what, I can’t get you in tonight, but if you meet me here tomorrow, I’ll give you a tour of the White House.” And so she did. She returned the next morning and this Ford Motor Company executive began to give her a tour of the White House. But what he told Frances was, he said, “Look Frances, I can take you on a tour of the White House, but I don’t think we are going to be able to see the President today because he is very busy.” And in fact, not only is he very busy, but the Attorney General that day, Ed Meese, had resigned and so there was a bit of administrative chaos in the office. But as they came up on the Oval Office, all of a sudden the doors opened and the National Security Council walked out. So imagine these important people, not only the council itself but generals and all of these people of weight and honor come walking out. And as she peered in just past some of these men walking by, all of a sudden she caught the President’s eye and the President smiled and he said, “Frances! Come on in!” And the President of the United States sat down with Frances on this, one of the busiest days in his administration, and he spent time with her. He called her in by name into his presence.
That, I think, begins to give us just a little bit of a glimpse as to what it’s like to have the God of the cosmos, the Creator of the visible and invisible heavens and earth call us into His presence, and to not only call us into His presence but to stamp His image upon our very being. “You have made us a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned us with glory and honor.” God has crowned us and He crowned Adam in His initial creation. In Shakespeare’s, Hamlet, Hamlet goes on in a monologue that he gives to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. And he says this – “What a piece of work man is. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god. The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals, and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” We are dust! We are but of the earth, and yet God has taken us and shaped us and molded us and crowned us with glory and honor, given us His image. He has placed human beings in dominion over the creation with Adam’s enthronement and He has “placed everything under his feet,” the psalmist says. And it’s this fact that causes the psalmist to cry out, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
And so we look back and we see the beauty, we see the glory, the honor, and yet in spite of all of this, we know something has gone wrong. The author of Hebrews registers this fact when he quotes Psalm 8 and he reflects upon it. He says in Hebrews chapter 2, verses 7 and following, “You made him for a little while lower than the angels, you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside of his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.” So the author of Hebrews looks back upon Psalm 8 and he says, “Yes, we see that you did put Adam in dominion over the creation, and yet,” he says, “we look out upon the creation and we see that everything is not in subjection to him.” We know of the existence of sin, we know of the fall, we know of the chaos, seemingly so. The fall has twisted, contorted, and gnarled the world, as well as human beings. In fact, it was Charles Darwin who said, “Man, with all his noble qualities, with his Godlike intellect, which has penetrated into the movements and constitutions of the solar system, with all these exalted powers, man still bears the bodily frame at the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.” If Darwin can look upon the human being and he can say, “Look at all of these Godlike qualities,” and still nevertheless say, “yet he is still descended from a monkey,” we know something has gone wrong. He looks in the complete opposite direction as the psalmist. Darwin looks down to the animal, whereas the psalmist looks up to the Creator. Something has gone wrong.
We, as image bearers, are in rebellion against God, and were we to stop here, I think we could only look at Psalm 8 as a relic of a bygone day. I was in a museum this week, and in that museum I saw a lot of different things that were old. And you’d look upon them and think, “Hmmm, that’s interesting, I didn’t know they did it that way,” knowing full well that we don’t do it like that anymore. We would look at Psalm 8 as a museum piece, a relic of a bygone day, and yet this is where we have to recognize that Psalm 8 is not merely a retrospective glance to the past. It’s not simply a look back upon the tragedy of Adam’s loss of his pre-fall glory. Rather, we should remember Paul’s crucial words in the fifth chapter of Romans where he says in Romans 5:14 that “Adam was a type of the one who was to come.” In other words, Adam prefigures Jesus. Adam is a foreshadow of Jesus. Adam points forward to Jesus. And so what this means then, is that Psalm 8 is a prophecy of Christ. It does not stop with Adam. We can put it this way – when we look back, we go to the future. It’s back to the future is what the psalmist is saying.
The Second Son of Man
And so Psalm 8, we can say, tilts forward and finds its fulfillment in Christ, which brings us to our second point, which is the second Son of Man. And all I’ve got to say at this point is, buckle up, because we are going to be moving fast through a lot of passages of Scripture, but it’s just because I want you to see how many times this pops up so that you can get a sense as to how important this passage is. And one of the first places we want to look is Daniel chapter 7 because in Daniel chapter 7, the prophet sees a vision and it’s a vision that is terrifying to him. I will give you the net of it here. It’s that Daniel sees a vision of Psalm 8, but there’s a twist, because in his vision he sees a first beast that’s like a lion and it has eagle’s wings in verse 3. In verse 5, he sees a second beast which is a bear that is running wild. The third beast is like a leopard with four wings of a bird on its back in verse 6. And then in verse 7 there’s a fourth beast that he says is terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong.
Now there are a lot of people in the church that want to look at this vision and they want to know, “Who is he talking about? What nations is he talking about?” And I want to say, well, we can talk about that, but I don’t want us to get into that. I want us to take a step back and look at the big picture. Because notice, if you’re there, what he says in verse 6. “After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it.” Daniel sees Psalm 8, but it’s upside down. The beasts have dominion. The beasts have dominion. The creatures are running the world. Verse 12 – what happens here is that, very briefly – and I encourage you to go home and reflect upon this passage in the light of Psalm 8 – is that Yahweh pulls up in his fiery chariot. And what does He do in verse 12? “As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away.” So God begins to take this upside down picture of Psalm 8 and He starts to turn it right side up. Because what has happened is, with the introduction of sin, it’s turned the world upside down. And so he writes it.
And what do we read in verses 13 and 14? “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man.” There came one like Adam on the clouds!
“And he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” God takes this vision of Psalm 8 and He rights it and He says, “Here comes one like Adam on the clouds, but He receives an everlasting dominion, an everlasting kingdom, that all peoples shall worship Him and serve Him.”
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the foal of a colt and the children cried out, “Hosanna! The Son of David!” The Pharisees were indignant. “How dare you! Why do you not rebuke these children for what they say?” And what was Jesus’ quote? Matthew 21 verse 16 – “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” He’s quoting Psalm 8! He says, “Haven’t you read Psalm 8? They’re praising Me! I am the Son of Man!” When the Pharisees tried Jesus and demanded that He tell them, “Who are you? Tell us!” “Are you the Christ?” the high priest asked Him, Mark 14:61. “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” and Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” Jesus quotes Daniel 7, Daniel 7 sees a vision of Psalm 8. He says, “Yes, I am. I am the Son of Man. I am the one you will see coming on the clouds. I am the one like Adam who will right the creation and put things back into the places that God ordained them to be.” What did the high priest say? What did the religious leaders say? “Blasphemy! What more evidence do we need?”
The author of Hebrews, as I intimated earlier, joins the chorus of Psalm 8. “At present,” Hebrews chapter 2 verse 8, “we do not see everything in subjection to Him, but we see Him who was made a little lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” It’s Jesus, the second Son of Man, or we can say the last Son of Man; the Son of Man who restores God’s dominion throughout the creation.
But not only does He restore God’s dominion throughout the creation, but as He said in Luke 19:10, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save.” He has come to redeem us, fallen sons and daughters of Adam, that He would restore us to the place of dominion over the creation through His life, death and resurrection. And it’s the apostle Paul who reflects upon these very truths in the first chapter of Ephesians when he writes in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 19 and following, “What is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but in the age that is to come.” And here he goes – listen, right here – Ephesians 1:22, “And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Jesus is the last Son of Man!
Praising the Son of Man
Psalm 8 is not just about Adam; Psalm 8 is about the glorious reign of Jesus Christ, which brings us to our third and final point, which is praising the Son of Man. Against the wider backdrop of the testimony of Scripture, Psalm 8 becomes a praise for Jesus, the Son of Man. We can look to the creation and to Adam’s creation we can mourn his fall. And with the author of Hebrews we can even wonder at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to the Son of Man. And with Daniel, we can pull past the veil of the events of history and we can see all of the world’s power and might; we can see the nations raging. We can see the revolutions and the counter revolutions, the empires rising and falling. We can see the persecution of the Church, the suffering of God’s people. And yet, we can smile and we can have hope because the God who made the cosmos, all 93 billion light years across, filled with trillions of galaxies, has come to us in the person of His Son, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. And He currently reigns in the midst of His enemies as He has made them His footstool and He has begun His reign. And just as Jesus calmed the waters upon the sea, He will return and He will say, “Peace, be still,” because He is the Son of God. He is the Son of Man. He is the One to whom the nations will bow and worship. He is the One who reigns at present. He is righting the creation. He is turning Psalm 8 back right side up.
Beloved in Christ, we can rejoice all the more because in the vast expanse of this cosmos, the all- powerful Creator of the heavens and earth is mindful of us. He is no mere President who calls us into His presence by name, but rather as the prophet Isaiah says, in Isaiah 43 verses 1 and following, “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” God calls us by name! Why would He deign to know my name? Why would He deign to know your name? Even more so, what is it God says in Isaiah 49:16? “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” The Son of Man has redeemed us and has engraved our names on His hands.
So as you gaze upon the creation through Psalm 8, don’t look upon it as a relic, as a museum piece, a vestige of a lost kingdom, but rather a prophetic promise of the coming and the present reign of Christ. Take courage and hope that God our heavenly Father has not forgotten us, but has sent us His Son, one like Adam, a Son of Man, to restore God’s kingdom throughout the earth. And rejoice, because the beauty and the order that you see in the creation beckon us to something greater, which is the reign of Jesus Christ. “When we look at the heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have set in place, what are we that You are mindful of us, and the sons and daughters of Adam that You care for us? You have made us a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned us with glory and honor. In Christ, You have given us dominion over the works of Your hands. You have put all things under Christ’s feet, all sheep and oxen and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea.”
Beloved in Christ, in the light of the finished work of Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, may we cry out with the psalmist, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!” Let’s bow together in a word of prayer.
Father God, we are grateful that You have deigned not only to create us but that wonders never cease, to redeem us from our sin-fallen state. Who are we, O Lord, that You would crown us rebellious creatures with Your restored image through Christ, the Son of Man? O Father, we pray that as we look out and peer out upon the world and we see the chaos, we see the beasts running wild, help us to remember that You have sent Jesus, the Son of Man, He who is righting the creation through the Gospel. We pray, O Lord, that You would fill us with hope, that You would help us to know that You have sent One like us, and that One like us sits at Your right hand, reigning and ruling but on the other hand He is not like us, for He was sinless and perfect and He is our Savior and Redeemer. We pray, O Lord, fill our hearts with thanksgiving and praise. Fill our hearts with love for You, our triune God. We pray and ask all of these things in Christ’s precious and holy name, amen.