EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (4)

We could never see how it could be humility in any creature, whatever the dignity of his condition, to assume the office of a Mediator and to work out our reconciliation. We do not forget to how extreme degradation a Mediator must consent to be reduced, and through what suffering and ignominy he could alone achieve our redemption; but neither do we forget the unmeasured exaltation which was to be the Mediator’s reward, and which, if Scripture be true, was to make him far higher than the highest of principalities and powers; and we know not where would have been the amazing humility, where the unparalleled condescension, had any mere creature consented to take the office on the prospect of such a recompense. A being who knew that he should be immeasurably elevated if he did a certain thing, can hardly be commended for the greatness of his humility in doing that thing. The nobleman who should become a slave, knowing that in consequence he should be made a king, does not seem to us to afford any pattern of condescension. He must be the king already, incapable of obtaining any accession to his greatness, ere his entering the state of slavery can furnish an example of humility. And, in like manner, we can never perceive that any being but a divine Being can justly be said to have given a model of condescension in becoming our Redeemer.... If he could not lay aside the perfections, he could lay aside the glories of Deity; without ceasing to be God he could appear to be man; and herein we believe was the humiliation—herein that self-emptying which Scripture identifies with our Lord’s having been “made a little lower than the angels.” In place of manifesting himself in the form of God, and thereby centering on himself the delighted and reverential regards of all unfallen orders of intelligences, he must conceal himself in the form of a servant, and no longer gathering that rich tribute of homage, which had flowed from every quarter of his unlimited empire, produced by his power, sustained by his providence, he had the same essential glory, the same real dignity, which he had ever had. These belonged necessarily to his nature, and could no more be parted with, even for a time, than could that nature itself. But every outward mark of majesty and of greatness might be laid aside; and Deity, in place of coming down with such dazzling manifestations of supremacy as would have compelled the world he visited to fall prostrate and adore, might so veil his splendours, and so hide himself in an ignoble form, that when men saw him there should be no “beauty that they should desire him.” And this was what Christ did, in consenting to be “made a little lower than the angels;” and in doing this he emptied himself, or “made himself of no reputation.” The very being who in the form of God had given its light and magnificence to heaven, appeared upon earth in the form of a servant; and not merely so—for every creature is God’s servant, and therefore the form of a servant would have been assumed, had he appeared as an angel or an archangel—but in the form of the lowest of these servants, being “made in the likeness of men”—of men the degraded, the apostate, the perishing.—Henry Melvill, B.D., 1854.

Verses 5, 6.—God magnifies man in the work of creation. The third verse shows us what it was that raised the Psalmist to this admiration of the goodness of God to man: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; Lord, what is man?” God in the work of creation made all these things serviceable and instrumental for the good of man. What is man, that he should have a sun, moon, and stars, planted in the firmament for him? What creature is this? When great preparations are made in any place, much provisions laid in, and the house adorned with richest furnitures, we say, “What is this man that comes to such a house?” When such a goodly fabric was raised up, the goodly house of the world adorned and furnished, we have reason admiringly to say, What is this man that must be the tenant or inhabitant of his house? There is yet a higher exaltation of man in the creation; man was magnified with the stamp of God’s image, one part whereof the Psalmist describes in the sixth verse, “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet,” etc. Thus man was magnified in creation. What was man that he should have the rule of the world given him? That he should be lord over the fish of the sea, and over the beasts of the field, and over the fowls of the air? Again, man was magnified in creation, in that God set him in the next degree to the angels; “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels;” there is the first part of the answer to this question, man was magnified in being made so excellent a creature, and in having so many excellent creatures made for him. All which may be understood of man as created in God’s image; but since the transgression it is peculiar to Christ, as the apostle applies it (Heb. ii. 6), and if those who have their blood and dignity restored by the work of redemption, which is the next part of man’s exaltation.—Joseph Caryl.

Verses 5-8.—Augustine having allegorised much about the wine-presses in the title of this Psalm, upon these words, “What is man, or the son of man,” the one being called אֱנוֹשׁ, from misery, the other בֶן אָדָם, the Son of Adam, or man, saith, that by the first is meant man in the state of sin and corruption, by the other, man regenerated by grace, yet called the son of man because made more excellent by the change of his mind and life, from old corruption to newness, and from an old to a new man; whereas he that is still carnal is miserable; and then ascending from the body to the head, Christ, he extols his glory as being set over all things, even the angels and heavens, and the whole world as is elsewhere showed that he is. Eph. i. 21. And then leaving the highest things he descended to “sheep and oxen;” whereby we may understand sanctified men and preachers, for to sheep are the faithful often compared, and preachers to oxen. 1 Cor. ix. “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn.” “The beasts of the field” set forth the voluptuous that live at large, going in the broad way: the fowls of the air, the lifted up by pride: “the fishes of the sea,” such as through a covetous desire of riches pierce into the lower parts of the earth, as the fishes dive to the bottom of the sea. And because men pass the seas again and again for riches, he addeth, “that passeth through the way of the sea,” and to that of diving to the bottom of the waters may be applied (1 Tim. vi. 9), “They that will be rich, fall into many noisome lusts, that drown the soul in perdition.” And hereby seem to be set forth the three things of the world of which it is said, “they that love them, the love of the Father is not in them.” “The lust of the heart” being sensuality; “the lust of the eyes,” covetousness; to which is added, “the pride of life.” Above all these Christ was set, because without all sin; neither could any of the devil’s three temptations, which may be referred hereunto, prevail with him. And all these, as well as “sheep and oxen,” are in the church, for which it is said, that into the ark came all manner of beasts, both clean and unclean, and fowls; and all manner of fishes, good and bad, came into the net, as it is in the parable. All which I have set down, as of which good use may be made by the discreet reader.—John Mayer.

Verse 6.—“Thou hast put all things under his feet.” Hermodius, a nobleman born, upbraided the valiant captain Iphicrates for that he was but a shoemaker’s son. “My blood,” saith Iphicrates, “taketh beginning at me; and thy blood, at thee now taketh her farewell;” intimating that he, not honouring his house with the glory of his virtues, as the house had honoured him with the title of nobility, was but as a wooden knife put into an empty sheath to fill up the place; but for himself, he, by his valorous achievements was now beginning to be the raiser of his family. Thus, in the matter of spirituality, he is the best gentleman that is the best Christian. The men of Berea, who received the word with all readiness, were more noble than those of Thessalonica. The burgesses of God’s city be not of base lineage, but truly noble; they boast not of their generations, but their regeneration, which is far better; for, by their second birth they are the sons of God, and the church is their mother, and Christ their elder brother, the Holy Ghost their tutor, angels their attendants, and all other creatures their subjects, the whole world their inn, and heaven their home.—John Spencer’s “Things New and Old.”

Verse 6.—“Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands,” etc. For thy help against wandering thoughts in prayer ... labour to keep thy distance to the world, and that sovereignty which God hath given thee over it in its profits and pleasures, or whatever else may prove a snare to thee. While the father and master know their place, and keep their distance, so long children and servants will keep theirs by being dutiful and officious; but when they forget this, the father grows fond of the one, and the master too familiar with the other, then they begin to lose their authority, and the others to grow saucy and under no command; bid them go, and it may be they will not stir; set them a task, and they will bid you do it yourself. Truly, thus it fares with the Christian; all the creatures are his servants, and so long as he keeps his heart at a holy distance from them, and maintains his lordship over them, not laying them in his bosom, which God hath put “under his feet,” all is well; he marches to the duties of God’s worship in a goodly order. He can be private with God, and these not be bold to crowd in to disturb him.—William Gurnall.

Verses 7, 8.—He who rules over the material world, is Lord also of the intellectual or spiritual creation represented thereby. The souls of the faithful, lowly and harmless are the sheep of his pasture; those who, like oxen, are strong to labour in the church, and who, by expounding the Word of Life, tread out the corn for the nourishment of the people, own him for their kind and beneficent Master; nay, tempers fierce and untractable as the beasts of the desert, are yet subject to his will; spirits of the angelic kind, that, like the birds of the air, traverse freely the superior region, move at his command; and those evil ones whose habitation is in the deep abyss, even to the great leviathan himself, all are put under the feet of King Messiah.—George Horne, D.D.

Verse 8.—Every dish of fish and fowl that comes to our table, is an instance of this dominion man has over the works of God’s hands, and it is a reason of our subjection to God our chief Lord, and to his dominion over us.