December 20
“O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens! Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that You may silence the enemy and the avenger. When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 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, all sheep and oxen – even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!” Psalm 8:1-9.
Psalm 8 is another Messianic psalm, a psalm that speaks of the promised Messiah and Savior of the world. The psalmist gives all glory to God, who is the Creator of all things – of heaven and earth, and of all living creatures on earth, in the air, and in the waters. We are reminded of another psalm, which reads, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork,” Psalm 19:1.
The whole beautiful creation is the work of God’s hands. It is something that could not possibly have come into existence by itself. It has long been a known fact that nothing can come out of nothing. The universe is something that human beings could not produce. Yet, the psalmist says, “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength.” Little children recognize the hand of God in the works of creation, and often they recognize it better than many adults who think that they are learned and educated. When you look honestly at the creation, with the psalmist you must confess, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth.”
The psalmist asks, “What is man that You are mindful of him?” There is no possible comparison between man and the almighty God. Furthermore, man, the highest creature of God’s creation on earth, brought sin and sorrow into the world – nothing of which to be proud.
God’s name is excellent in all the earth because of the work of redemption. The expression, “Son of Man,” refers to the Lord Jesus, as we learn from Hebrews 2:6-10. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes, “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.” Jesus suffered and died on Calvary’s cross to redeem all people from sin, death, and the power of the devil.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul tells us that the ascended Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God, and that, “(God) put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church,” Ephesians 1:22. Paul also wrote the same thing in his First Epistle to the Corinthians (15:27-28). Jesus lives and rules over all things.
Faith and trust in Jesus, our Redeemer and Ruler, moves us to say with the psalmist, “O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens!”
“Hail, Thou once-despised Jesus!
Hail, Thou Galilean King!
Thou didst suffer to release us;
Thou didst free salvation bring.
Hail, Thou universal Savior,
Who hast borne our sin and shame,
By whose merits we find favor;
Life is given thro’ Thy name.” Amen.