Psalms
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Introduction[i]
The
Book of Psalms has evidently a peculiar character. It is not the history of
God's people, or of God's ways with them, nor is it the inculcation of positive
doctrines or duties, nor the formal prophetic announcement of coming events.
Many important events, doubtless, are alluded to in them, and they are
immediately connected with various prophetic revelations (as, indeed, with
precepts and all the other parts of the divine word to which I have just
referred); but none of these form the true character of the book itself. The
subjects too, of which the various parts of scripture I refer to treat,
necessarily find their place in the thoughts expressed in the Psalms. But the
Psalms do not directly treat of them.
The
Psalms are almost all the expression of the sentiments produced in the hearts
of God's people by the events (or I should speak more correctly if I said,
prepared for them in the events), through which they pass, and indeed express
the feelings, not only of the people of God, but often, as is known, those of
the Lord Himself. They are the expression of the part the Spirit of God takes,
as working in their hearts, in the sorrows and exercises of the saints. The
Spirit works in connection with all the trials through which they pass, and the
human infirmity which appears in those trials; in the midst of which it gives
thoughts of faith and truth which are a provision for them in all that happens.
We find in them consequently the hopes, fears, distress, confidence in God,
which respectively fill the minds of the saints-sometimes the part which the
Lord Himself takes personally in them, and that, occasionally, exclusive of all
but Himself, the place which He has held that He might so sympathise with them.
Hence a maturer spiritual judgment is required to judge rightly of the true
bearing and application of the Psalms than for other parts of scripture;
because we must be able to understand what dispensationally gives rise to them,
and judge of the true place before God of those whose souls' wants are
expressed in them; and this is so much the more difficult as the circumstances,
state, and relationship with God, of the people whose feelings they express are
not those in which we find ourselves. The piety they breathe is edifying for
every time; the confidence they often express in God in the midst of trial has
cheered the heart of many a tried servant of God in his own. This feeling is
carefully to be preserved and cherished; yet it is for that very reason so much
the more important that our spiritual judgment should recognise the position to
which the sentiments contained in the Psalms refer, and which gives form to the
piety which is found in them. Without doing this, the full power of redemption
and the force of the gospel of the grace of God is lost for our own souls; and
many expressions which have shocked the christian mind, unobservant of their
true bearing and application, remain obscure and even unintelligible.
The
heart that places itself in the position described in the Psalms returns back
to experiences which belong to a legal state, and to one under discipline for
failure and trial in that state, and to the hopes of an earthly people. A legal
and, for a Christian, unbelieving state is sanctioned in the mind: we rest
content in a spiritual state short of the knowledge of redemption; and while we
think to retain the Psalms for ourselves, we keep ourselves in a state of soul
in which we are deprived of the intelligence of their true use and our own
privileges, and become incapable of the real understanding of, and true delight
in, the Psalms themselves; and, what is more we miss the blessed and deeply
instructive apprehension of the tender and gracious sympathies of Christ in
their true and divinely given application. The appropriating spirit of
selfishness does not learn Christ as He is, as He is revealed, and the loss is
really great. There are comforts and ministrations of grace for a soul under
the law in the Psalms, because they apply to those under the law (and souls in
that state have been relieved by them); but to use them in order to remain in
this state, and to apply them prominently to ourselves, is, I repeat, to
misapply the Psalms themselves, lose the power of what is given to us in them,
and deprive ourselves of the true spiritual position in which the gospel sets
us. The difference is simple and evident. Relationship with the Father is not,
cannot be introduced in them, and we live out of that if we live in them,
though obedience and confiding dependence be ever our right path.
I
purpose in this study of the Psalms to examine the book as a whole, and each of
the Psalms, so as to give a general idea of it. The most profitable manner of
doing this (though the character of the Book of Psalms renders it more
difficult here) will be, as I have attempted in the books we have already
considered to give the meaning and object of the Spirit of God, leaving the
expression of the precious piety which it contains to the heart that alone is
capable of estimating it, namely, one that feeds on Jesus through the grace of
the Spirit of God.
The
Psalms, and the workings of the Spirit of God expressed in them, belong
properly in their application and true force to the circumstances of Judah and
Israel, and are altogether founded on Israel's hopes and fears: and, I add, to
the circumstances of Judah and Israel in the last days, though as to the moral
state of things those last days began with the rejection of Christ. The piety
and confidence in God with which they are filled find an echo, no doubt, in
every believing heart, but this exercise, as expressed here, is in the midst of
Israel. This judgment, of which the truth is evidently demonstrated by the
reading of the Psalms themselves, is sanctioned by the Apostle Paul. He says,
after citing the Psalms, "Now we know that whatsoever things the law
saith, it saith to them who are under the law."
The
Psalms then concern Judah and Israel, and the position in which those who belong
to Judah and Israel are found. Their primary character is the expression of the
working of the Spirit of Christ as to, or in, the remnant of the Jews [See Note #1] (or
of Israel) in the last days. He enters into all their sorrows, giving
expression to their confessions, their confidence of faith, their hopes, fears,
thankfulness for deliverances obtained-in a word, to every exercise of their
hearts in the circumstances in which they find themselves in the last days; so
as to afford them the leading, the sanction, and the sympathy of the Spirit of
Christ, and utterance to the working of that Spirit in them and even in Christ
Himself. In addition to this, the Psalms present to us the place which Christ
Himself when on earth took among them, in order to their having part in His
sympathies, and to make their deliverance possible, and their confidence in God
righteous, though they had sinned against Him. They do not as the Epistles,
reason on the efficacy of His work; but in the Psalms which apply to Him, present
His feeling in accomplishing it. They intimate to us also the place He took in
heaven on His rejection, and ultimately on the throne of the kingdom, but, save
His present exaltation (which is only mentioned as a fact necessary to
introduce, and to give the full character to Israel's ultimate deliverance),
all that is revealed of the Lord in this His connection with Israel is
expressed, not in narration but in the utterance of His own feelings in regard
to the place He is in, as is the case with the remnant themselves. This feature
it is which gives its peculiar character and interest to the Psalms.
The
psalms teach us thus that Christ entered into the full depths of suffering
which made Him the vessel of sympathising grace with those who had to pass
through them-and that as seeing and pleading with God in respect of them. In
the path of His own humiliation, He got the tongue of the learned to know how
to speak a word in season to him that was weary. They were sinners, could claim
no exemption, count on no favour which could deliver and restore. They must, if
He had not suffered for them, have taken the actual sufferings they had to
undergo in connection with the guilt which left them in them without favour.
But this was not God's thought; He was minded to deliver them, and Christ steps
in in grace. He takes the guilt of those that should be delivered. That was
vicarious suffering as a substitute. And He places Himself in the path of
perfect obedience and love in the sorrow through which they had to pass. As obedient,
He entered into that sorrow so as to draw down, through the atonement, the
efficacy of God's delivering favour on those who should be in it, and be the
pledge, in virtue of all this, of their deliverance out of it as standing thus
for them, the sustainer of their hope in it, so that they should not fail.
Still,
they must pass through sorrow, according to the righteous ways of God, in
respect of their folly and wickedness, and to purify them inwardly from it.
Into all this sorrow Christ entered, as He also bore their sins, to be a spring
of life and sustainer of faith to them in it, when the hand of oppression
should be heavy without, and the sense of guilt terrible within and hence no
sense of favour, but that One who had assured to them and could convey this
favour had taken up their cause with God, and passed through it for them. The
full efficacy indeed of His work in their deliverance, in that one Man's dying
for the nation, will not be known by them till they look on Him whom they have
pierced. They are purposely left (and especially the remnant, because of their
integrity; for the rest will join the idolatrous Gentiles for peace' sake) in
the depth of trial, which, as ways of God in government, brings them through
grace to the sense of their guilt in a broken law and a rejected and crucified
Messiah, that they may truly now what each of them is, and bow before an
offended Jehovah in integrity of heart, and say, "Blessed be he that
cometh in the name of Jehovah."
But,
though the deliverance and a better salvation be not to come till then, still,
in virtue of the work wrought to effect it, Christ can sustain and lead on
their souls to it; and that is just what is done in these Psalms. These are His
language to, or rather in, their souls when they are in the trouble-sometimes
the record of how He has learned it. Hence too, souls yet under the law find
such personal comfort under them. Let not any soul, let me remark in passing,
suppose that deep heart interest in these sorrows of Christ is lost by passing
from under the law to be under grace. There is immense gain. The difference is
this-instead of using them merely selfishly (though surely rightly) for my own
wants and sorrows, I, when under grace, enter in adoring contemplation and
joyful love into all Christ's sorrows, in the deeper competency given by His
Spirit dwelling in me. I go back now in peace, as He is on high, and I trace
with divinely given interest and understanding (whatever my measure) all the
sorrows through which He passed when here, tracing this "path of
life" in love to us across a world of sin and woe, glorifying God in it,
through death itself, to the righteous glory in which He now is. Christ
comforted His disciples in John 14, though not indeed as under law, but He says
at the close, "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I said, I go to
the Father." Under law the Psalms may comfort us in profitable distress;
under grace we enjoy them as loving Christ and with divine intelligence.
But
to return. The great foundation which had to be laid to make sympathy possible
was, that Christ did not escape where the remnant of Israel will, [See Note #2]
because He must suffer the full penalty of the guilt and evil, or He could not
righteously and for God's glory deliver them. Thus Christ must pass personally
fully through the sorrow as He did in spirit; and besides that, make atonement
for the guilt. He passed through it, save in atonement work, near to God; and
makes all the grace and favour of God towards Him, all that He found God to be
for Him in sorrow, available, through the atonement, to those who should come
to be in it, that they might thus have all the mind of God towards them in
grace in that case to use when they found themselves in it, even though in darkness.
If it be said, How can they when they have not yet learned that God is for them
in the atonement? These Psalms, entering into every detail, are precisely the
means of their doing so according to Isaiah 50, as already referred to. In
truth, many Christians are in this state. They cling to promise, feel their
sins, are comforted by hope, see the goodness of God, use the Psalms as suiting
them, and do not know redemption nor peace.
The
Psalms, then, belong properly to Israel, [See Note #3] and in Israel to the godly remnant. This
is the first general principle, which the word itself establishes for us, as we
have seen stated by Paul-What they say, they say to those under the law.
In
examining the Psalms themselves, we shall find other elements of this judgment,
which are very clear and positive. The Psalms distinguish (Psalm 73) and
commence by distinguishing (Psalm 1) the man who is faithful and godly,
according to the law, from the rest of the nation. "The ungodly are not
so," nor shall they "stand in the congregation of the
righteous." Indeed, Isaiah teaches the same truth doctrinally just as
strongly. [See Note
#4] Their characteristic subject is the true believing remnant, the
righteous in Israel (Psa_16:3 and many
others). It is, therefore, the portion and hope of Israel which are in view in
them. In Psalm 1 this is definitely and distinctly presented. But it is the
hope of a remnant, whose portion is from the commencement distinguished in the
most marked way from that of the wicked.
Again,
it is evident (and it is the second general principle I would notice), that it
is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of prophecy, which speaks. That is to say,
it is the Spirit of Christ interesting Himself in the condition of the faithful
remnant of Israel. This Spirit speaks of things to come as if they were
present, as is always the case with the prophets. But this does not make it the
less true that it is a spirit of prophecy which speaks of the future, and which
in this respect often resumes its natural character. But if the Spirit of
Christ is interested in the remnant of Israel, Christ's own sufferings must be
announced, which were the complete proof of that interest, and without which it
would have been unavailing. And we find, in fact, the most touching expressions
of the sufferings of Christ, not historically, but just as He felt then,
expressed as by His own lips at the moment He endured them. [See Note #5] It is
always the Spirit [See Note #6] of Christ that speaks, as taking part
Himself in the affliction and grief of His people, whether it is by His Spirit
in them or Himself for them, as the sole means in presence of the just judgment
of God, of delivering a beloved though guilty people. Hence we see the
beautiful fitness of the language of the Psalms in a point I shall touch upon
farther on. In the Psalms which speak properly of atonement Christ is alone,
and thus His work is secured. In those which speak of sufferings not atoning in
their nature, even though they go on up to death, parts may be found personally
applicable to Christ, because He did personally and individually go through
them, but in other parts of the same Psalms the saints also are brought in
because they will have a share in them, and thus His personal sufferings are
presented to us, but His sympathy too is secured.
Another
principle connects itself with this, which gives the third great characteristic
of the Psalms. The sins of the people would morally hinder the remnant's having
confidence in God in their distress. Yet God alone can deliver them, and to Him
they must look in integrity of heart.
We
find both these points brought out: the distresses are laid before God, seeking
for deliverance; and integrity is pleaded and the sins confessed at the very
same time. Christ, having come into their sorrows, as we have seen, and made
atonement, can lead them in spite of their sins and about their sins, to God.
They do not indeed know at first perhaps the full forgiveness, but they go in
the sense of grace as led by Christ's Spirit, (and how many souls are
practically in this state!) [See Note #7] in expressions provided in these very
Psalms, to the God of deliverances, confessing their sins also. They "take
with them words and return to the Lord." Forgiveness also is presented to
them. The Spirit of Christ being livingly in them (that is, as a principle of
life), and fixing the purpose of their heart, they can, through confessing
their sin, plead unfeignedly their integrity and fidelity to God. But the
thought of mercy everywhere precedes that of righteousness as their ground of
hope. In substance, all this is true of every renewed soul who has not yet
found liberty, the liberty obtained by known redemption. The Psalms, unless
certain praises at the close of the book and the end of some others, are never
the expression of this liberty: and even when the expression of it is found, it
is that of earthly deliverance or forgiveness.
In
sum, then, the Psalms are the expression of the Spirit of Christ, either in the
Jewish remnant (or in that of all Israel), or in His own Person as suffering
for them, in view of the counsels of God with respect to His elect earthly
people. And since these counsels are to be accomplished more particularly in
the latter days, it is the expression of the Spirit of Christ in this remnant
in the midst of the events which will take place in those days, when God begins
to deal again with His earthly people. The moral sufferings connected with
those events have been more or less verified in the history of Christ on the
earth; and whether in His life, or, yet more, in His death, He is linked with
the interests and with the fate of this remnant. In Christ's history, at the
time of His baptism by John, He already identified Himself with those that
formed this remnant; not with the impenitent multitude of Israel, but with the
first movement of the Spirit of God in these "excellent of the
earth," which led them to recognise the truth of God in the mouth of John,
and to submit to it. Now it is in this remnant that the promises made to Israel
will be accomplished; so that, while only a remnant, their affections and hopes
are those of the nation. On the cross, Jesus remained the only true faithful
one before God in Israel-the personal foundation of the whole remnant that was
to be delivered, as well as the accomplisher of that work on which their
deliverance could be founded.
There
are some further general observations on a point to which I have already
alluded, which, while in a great measure they are drawn from the Psalms
themselves, yet, through the light the Gospels also cast on it, may aid us in
seeing the spirit of the whole book, and entering into the purport of many
psalms in detail. I mean the sufferings of Christ. We have seen in general
already that the book brings before us the remnant, its sorrows, hopes, and
deliverance, and Christ's association with them in all these. He has entered
into their sorrows, will be their deliverer, and has wrought the atonement
which lays the foundation of their deliverance, as it does of the deliverance
of any living soul-but He died for that nation. Of course His own perfection
shines out in this; but here we are to look for its connection with Israel and
the earth, though His personal exaltation to heaven be mentioned, from which
their final deliverance flows. We are not, however, to look for the mystery of
the assembly, which at this time was hid in God, nor for Christ viewed in His
associations with the assembly. The Psalms furnish most exquisitely all the
earthly experiences of Christ and His people which the Spirit of Christ would
bring before us. We must look to the New Testament (as in Philippians, for
example, and elsewhere) to find the heavenly ones of those He has redeemed.
Now
Christ passed through every kind of moral suffering the human heart can go
through, was tempted in all points like as we are, sin apart. Nor can anything
be more fruitful in its place (for it must not be too long dwelt on in itself,
and entirely separated from the divine side of His character, or it becomes
profitless or hurtful, because really fleshly sentiment), than to have the
heart engaged in contemplating the sorrows of the blessed Redeemer. Never were
any like His. But the Psalms will bring them before us, and I refrain from
entering on them here. In these introductory remarks, I can only shortly refer
to the principles on which, and the positions in which, He suffered. There are,
I think, three. He suffered from man for righteousness and love, for the
testimony He bore in that which was good, in which He bore testimony to and
revealed, God: He suffered from God for sin. These two distinct characters of
suffering are very simple and plain to every believer's mind. The third kind of
suffering supposes somewhat more attention to scripture. It is said of
Jehovah's ways with Israel, "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and
the angel of his presence saved them." This was (as to the last part, yet
will be) most especially fulfilled in Christ, Jehovah come as man in the midst
of Israel. But the sufferings of Israel, at least of the remnant of the Jewish
portion of the people, take a peculiar character at the close. They are under
the oppression of Gentile power, in the midst of utter iniquity in Israel, yet
are characterised by integrity of heart (indeed, this is what makes them the
remnant), but conscious of, for that very reason, and suffering under, the
present general consequences of sin under the government of God and the power
of Satan and death. The deliverance which frees them from it not being yet
come, the weight of these things is on their spirits. Into this sorrow Christ
has also fully entered.
During
His whole life, up even to death itself, He suffered from man for
righteousness' sake (see, in connection with this Psalm 11 and others). Besides
this, on the cross He suffered for sin, drank the cup of wrath for sin, the cup
His Father had given Him to drink. But besides these two kinds of suffering He
bore in His soul, at the close of His life (we may say from after the paschal
supper), all the distress and affliction under which the Jews will come through
the government of God-not condemnation, but still the consequence of sin. No
doubt He had anticipated, and, so far felt it, as in John 12 the coming cross;
but now He entered into it. It was, as to the point we are now on, as He said,
apostate Israel's hour then and the power of darkness. But He was still looking
to His Father in the sense of faithfulness. Nor was He yet forsaken of God. He
could still look to man's watching with Him. What could watching do when divine
wrath was upon Him? But the distinctive character of these kinds of suffering
is clearly seen if we, as taught of God, weigh the psalms which speak of them
respectively. Thus we shall see that, when He suffers from man, He looks, as
speaking by His Spirit in and for Israel, for vengeance on man. Others too are
then often seen to suffer with Him. When He suffers from God, He is wholly
alone, and the consequences are unmingled blessing and grace. As to suffering
from man, we can have the privilege of so suffering, having the fellowship of
His sufferings. In suffering from God as under wrath, He did so that we might
never have the least drop whatever of that cup; it would have been our
everlasting ruin. In the sufferings He underwent under Satan's power, and
darkness, and death, when not yet actually drinking the cup of wrath, besides
what was due to the majesty of God in view of this see Heb_2:10), He suffered to sympathise with the
Jews in their afflictions, which they come into through their integrity and yet
in their sins. Every awakened soul under the law will find comfort in this. All
these sufferings are entered into in the Psalms as to Christ and as to Israel.
But the Jews passed into utter ruin, and loss of all the promises (save
sovereign grace), and the remnant into their place of trial and sorrow as such,
by the rejection of Messiah.
It
is to be remembered that, though all three principles of suffering are
essentially different, and all very clear and important in their character, at
the close of Christ's life all coalesced and united in the sorrows of His last
hours-save that I doubt not, in coming out of Gethsemane, the pressure of
Satan's power on His spirit had been gone through and was over, but on the
cross He suffered from man for righteousness, and from God for sin only. I am
persuaded that this last, when fully on His soul, was too deep to leave it
possible for the other or anything else to be much felt.
Having
made these general observations, which appeared to me necessary to understand
the book, we will now examine, with the Lord's help, its contents; and may He
indeed guide both myself and my reader in doing it! If it does depict Christ's
sufferings and His interest in His people on earth, it behoves us to search
into it reverently, yet with child-like confidence, and to wait-as indeed we
ever should-upon His teaching, that we may be led and taught in our search.
That which speaks of what He felt should be touched with confiding love, but
with holy reverence.
It
is generally known that the Psalms are divided into five books, the first of
which ends with Psalm 41; the second, with Psalm 72; the third, with Psalm 89;
the fourth, with Psalm 106; and the fifth, with Psalm 150. Each of these books
is distinguished, I doubt not, by an especial subject. Our examination of the
Psalms contained in each will give the fullest insight into the character of
the several books; but it may be well to give here a general notion of their
contents.
The
subject of the first book is the state of the Jewish remnant before they have
been driven out of Jerusalem, and hence of Christ Himself in connection with
this remnant. We have more indeed of the personal history of Christ in the
first than in all the rest. This will be readily understood, as He was thus going
in and out with the remnant, while yet associated with Jerusalem. I use Jewish
here in contradistinction with Israel or the whole nation.
In
the second book, the remnant are viewed as cast out of Jerusalem (Christ, of
course, taking this place with them and giving its true place of hope to the
remnant in this condition) The introduction of Christ, however, restores them,
in the view of prophecy, to their position in relationship with Jehovah as a
people before God (Psalms 45, 46). Previously, when cast out, they speak of God
(Elohim) rather than Jehovah, for they have lost covenant blessings; but by
this they learn to know Him much better. I doubt not, the history of Christ's
life afforded occasion to His entering into the practical personal sense of
thus condition of the people, though, of course, less historically His place in
general. In Psalm 51 the remnant own the nation's (more precisely the Jews')
guilt in rejecting Him. [See Note #8]
In
the third book we have the deliverance and restoration of Israel as a nation,
and God's ways towards them as such (Jerusalem, at the close, being the centre
of His blessing and government). The dreadful effect of their being under the
law, and the centring of all mercies in Christ are brought out in Psalms 88 and
89, closing with the cry for the accomplishing of the latter. Electing grace in
royalty for deliverance, when all was lost, is presented in Psalm 87.
In
the fourth, we have Jehovah at all times the dwelling place of Israel. Israel
is delivered by the coming of Jehovah. It may, in its main contents, be
characterised as the bringing in the Only-begotten into the world. Jehovah
having been always Israel's dwelling-place, they look for His deliverance. For
this the Abrahamic and millennial names of God, Almighty and Most High, are
introduced. And where is He to be found? Messiah says, "I seek them in
Jehovah, the God of Israel." There He is indeed found. Thus there will be
judgment on the wicked, and the righteous delivered. The full divine nature of
Messiah, once cut off, is brought in to lay the ground for His having a part in
the latter-day blessings, though once cut off. He is the unchangeable living
Jehovah, the Creator. Then comes blessing on Israel, creation, judgment of the
heathen, that Israel might enjoy the promises. But it is the same mercy which
has so often spared them.
The
last book is more general, a kind of moral on all, the close being triumphant
praise.
Having
spoken of the details of their restoration, through difficulties and dangers,
and God's title to the whole land, the wickedness of the antichristian tool of
the enemy, the exaltation of Messiah to Jehovah's right hand till His enemies
are made His footstool, and the earthly people made willing in the day of His
power-we have then a rehearsal of God's ways, a commentary on the whole
condition of Israel and what they have passed through, and the principles on
which they stand before God, the law being written in their hearts.
Then
the closing praises.
As
this rapid sketch will have shewn (and the details I shall now enter on will
shew more clearly still), there is far more order in the Psalms than is
generally supposed by those who take them up as each an isolated ode to serve
as the expression of individual piety. They are not connected, it is true, in
one continuous discourse or history, as other parts of scripture may be; but
they express in a regular and orderly way distinct parts of the same subject;
that is, as we have seen, the state of the remnant of the Jews or Israel in the
latter day, their feelings, and Messiah's association with them. These topics
are treated in the most orderly way. The Spirit of God, who has superintended
the structure, as He has inspired the contents of the whole scripture, has
stamped the unequivocal traces of His hand on this especial part of it. Who
collected these divine songs, the work of diverse authors, and written at
different epochs, I do not pretend to say. This the learning of divines may
discuss; but the result cannot, I think, leave a doubt on the mind of any one
who enters into their purport as to whose power wrought in it.
I
have already noticed generally the subject of each of the five books. The
distinction of subject I found in them had led me to divide the whole Book of
Psalms in the same way, before my attention had been drawn to the well-known
fact of its being so divided in the Hebrew Bible. But this principle of order
is carried out also in the details of each of the books This order in the first
book, and the contents of the psalms which compose it, are now to occupy us. It
is, perhaps, the most complete in the general and characteristic view it gives
of the subjects treated of in the Psalms, and so far the most interesting. The
others naturally pursue more the details which carry out the general idea thus
given.
It
will be remarked that the following principle runs through it, and indeed, more
or less, the others when it is applicable some great truth or historical fact
is brought forward as to Christ or the remnant, or both, and then a series of
psalms follows, expressing the feelings and sentiments of the remnant in
connection with that truth or fact.
Note #1:
This
so distinctly characterises the Psalms that there are very few indeed even of
those which are prophetic of Christ, where the remnant is not found. In the
second book they are not, because that element is distinctly presented as the
primary subject in the first: the connection being moral through His entering
into their sorrows in grace, this is easily understood. And it is necessary to remember
this, to account for various passages in which they come in, though partly
applicable to, or used by; Christ.
Note #2:
It
is in the point of death that the sufferings of Christ, whether for
righteousness' sake, and that which He underwent to be able to sympathise with
them when they suffer under the government of God, on the one hand, or
atonement on the other-the latter prefigured in the burnt and sin-offering
(compare Hebrews. 9), the former the expression and testing of perfectness in
the meat-offering-meet. Christ suffered onward up to death. Then He also made
atonement for sin. Some of the remnant may suffer unto death, as faithful under
the trials of this government; but then, like Christ, they will obtain a better
resurrection Of course, the atoning part is exclusively His.
Note #3:
I
here use Israel as contrasted with the Assembly and Gentiles We shall see Judah
distinguished from Israel when we enter into details
Note #4:
Compare
Isa_48:22; Isa_57:21.
Note #5:
Hence
the intimacy of feeling and peculiar interest of the Psalms. They are the
beating of the heart of Him, the history of whose circumstances, the embodying
of whose life, in relationship with God and man, whose external presentation,
in a word, and all God's ways in respect of it, are found in the rest of
scripture.
Note #6:
Compare
1Pe_1:11.
Note #7:
The
state of the prodigal till he met his Father-the state of every soul, where the
God who is light and love has been revealed in Christ; but redemption-work, and
acceptance in Him are not known-there is confidence, but not peace.
Note #8:
I think
it will be found that the first two books are somewhat distinguishable from the
last three. The first two are more Christ personally among the Jews; the last
three, more national and historical. And so Psalm 72, the last part of the
first two books, closes with the Solomon reign.