Ps 110
MESSIAH
(Psalm 110)
Jason Procopio
introduction
• I’ve decided to title this sermon simply “Messiah”, because this is what’s called a “messianic psalm”—it’s a psalm which serves the double function of being both a song of worship and a prophecy of the coming Messiah.
• The “Messiah” was predicted by God’s prophets in the Old Testament, and he would be a divine man whom God would send to deliver his people.
• Obviously in their context, in which they were almost constantly oppressed by foreign enemies, the people assumed the Messiah would deliver them from political oppression (and that wasn’t an unfair assumption; many of these prophecies, including this one, contained elements of God’s victory over his enemies).
• So the people weren’t wrong in that regard, they were just thinking too small. God’s main concern was not the human, political enemies who waged war on his people; he had a much bigger enemy in mind.
• The title: “A Psalm of David”
• Perhaps for no other psalm is this title more significant, because the NT refers on more than one occasion, not only to this psalm, but to the fact that its author is David.
• Mark 12.36 (Jesus himself)
• Acts 2.33-35 (Peter)
• Why is the fact that David is the author actually important in this case, for the way we read the psalm?
• Because this is a royal psalm—a psalm which speaks about the Lord’s king—and David himself was the king at the time he wrote this psalm.
• He speaks of a king to come after him, to whom David himself owed allegiance.
• It constitutes what Derek Kidner calls an “enthronement oracle”: a prophetic word spoken about a king at the moment that person becomes king (cf. 1 Sam 10.1, 2 Kings 11.12).
• The fact that David is the author of this psalm “[forms] the basis of the apostles’ teaching on the exaltation, heavenly session and royal priesthood of Christ.” (Kidner)
110.1-3: Authority (The King)
1 The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion
your mighty scepter.
Rule in the midst of your enemies!
3 Your people will offer themselves freely
on the day of your power,
in holy garments;
from the womb of the morning,
the dew of your youth will be yours.
• The opening lines of this psalm literally read: “The oracle of Yahweh [God] to my lord [or king]”.
• David wants anyone singing this song to immediately know that the words he’s about to say are God’s words directed toward God’s King—the King that God himself has set in place as his ultimate ruler.
• As we saw before, Jesus pointed to the fact that David spoke of this King as my lord as significant, because David himself was the king God has set in place. We saw this a while back when we were in the gospel of Luke.
• God had promised a King, a “Messiah,” who would come and rescue his people from oppression. This King would come from the family of David.
• But that created a problem for this psalm, because in Israel it was the patriarchs who were revered, not their descendants. You didn’t revere your grandson; you revered your grandfather.
• And yet David, clearly speaking of this King that God would set up, calls him, MY lord. Even though this future King would be his descendant, David shows him reverence and honor.
• Jesus’s point was to show that even though the Messiah would be from the line of David, he would be more than David—more than a mere human king who happened to be a part of David’s family.
• And the following words bear out the more-than-human quality of this King.
• God says to this King, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” To be seated at the right hand of God meant to be given the power and authority of God himself.
• All kings have a certain degree of authority; but this King would have ultimate authority, and not only that, he would have the power to exercise that authority over his enemies.
• So this King shares in God’s own power and authority, and we can see that even better in v. 2: God holds the royal scepter, and sends it before him; but he invites his King to rule.
• And in v. 3, we see God’s people rallying behind his King to join him in battle against his enemies, on the day of his power.
• The King who is the subject of Psalm 110 has the power, the authority of God himself; he is more than a mere human being ruling over a country. He is a human with divine authority and power.
• The New Testament is abundantly clear that this King is Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, who ascended to heaven and is reigning today, and whom all humanity is called to worship and serve.
• This is undoubtedly one of the things that makes people the most uncomfortable about Christianity: the idea that we human beings are not fully autonomous, that we are not self-governing, but rather that we owe our allegiance and obedience to someone who is greater than us.
• It’s a problem, because even if it’s not always articulated this way, most people have this inherent idea that there is nothing “greater” than us. Oh sure, mountains are bigger and more majestic, and so are certain animals.
• But ultimately, when it comes down to who has the right to decide what’s good for us, what we should or shouldn’t do, that’s us—we should be able to decide what’s best for ourselves.
• But the Bible is clear that we are not autonomous; we are not self-governing. Whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, we sit under a greater authority than ourselves. God is our Creator, and God has the right to tell us what to do and what not to do. And rebellion against his authority makes us his enemies.
• Now if that were all that was said about this King, who rules for God as the God-man, it would be little more than divine dictatorship.
• But David goes further—with a statement that may seem obscure to us, but which would have spoken volumes to David’s people.
110.4: Solidarity (The Priest)
• And before we read the verse, I’ll go ahead and tell you the point behind it, because it could be easy to miss if you’ve never read this passage before.
• The point of v. 4 is that not only will this King share in authority with God, he will also share in solidarity with his people.
• He will not be a King who remains above, and removed from the lives of his people; he will be a King who is where they are, WITH them in their struggles.
• V. 4:
4 The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind,
“You are a priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek.”
• So there are two questions we need to ask in order to get to the bottom of what this means:
• What is the function of a priest? and
• Who is Melchizedek?
• Who was Melchizedek?
• Melchizedek is mentioned several times in the New Testament, but we only actually see him once in the whole Bible.
• In Genesis 14.18-20, the patriarch Abram (who would later be Abraham) came back from battle and was met by two kings whom he had helped. One of those kings is Melchizedek, the king of Salem. And at the end of Genesis 14.18, we see very briefly mentioned that “He was priest of God Most High.”
• This is really strange. This was before the people of Israel, before God had made a covenant with them. There were no priests of Israel at that time.
• And yet we have this guy who is, apparently, a priest of God Most High, who blesses Abram as a representative for God to him. In other words, Melchizedek isn’t a priest because of any link he has to a specific tribe; he’s not a priest by blood. He is a priest because God sovereignly decided to make him a priest.
• Here’s why this is important for the way we see the Messiah, the way we see Jesus.
• Jesus was born a descendant of David. His earthly father, Joseph, was of the line of David. This was in keeping with the prophecies.
• David belonged to the tribe of Judah. But priests belonged to the tribe of Levi. Jesus, through his natural lineage alone, couldn’t be a priest, because he wasn’t a member of the right tribe.
• And neither was Melchizedek.
• The long and short of it is, God can do what he wants. If he wants to establish a priest from another tribe, he can decide to do it, because he is God. He did it with Melchizedek, and although Jesus was of the tribe of Judah, God would make him a priest anyway.
• Now, that being said, what is the function of a priest?
• What is the function of a priest?
• (Bring in stuff from Gentle & Lowly here.)
• The priest’s main function for the people of Israel was to be an intermediary between the people and God.
• There was a distance between God—who is absolutely holy, absolutely pure, absolutely perfect—and the people, who no matter how “good” they may have seemed, were, like all of us, stained with rebellion against God, sinful, and imperfect.
• So God designated that certain members of the people of Israel, members of the tribe of Levi, be able to come into God’s presence and stand before God in place of the people.
• The priests offered worship to God through offerings; but most especially they offered sacrifices to atone for the sin of the people.
• These sacrifices seem barbaric to us today, but they make sense. Sin—rebellion against God—is an infinitely grave offense against God; at its root, sin is the rejection of everything that is good, that is right, that is worth celebrating, because it is the rejection of God himself.
• God is always, perpetually, angry against sin—and his anger is right and just. It’s right to be angry against the rejection of good. And the only fit punishment for an infinitely grave offense is death.
• But God had made a covenant with his people, that he would be their God, that he would live amongst them as their God, so there had to be some kind of justice for sin that wouldn’t cost the lives of the people.
• That’s where the priest comes in. He would symbolically “place” the sins of the people on an animal, and would sacrifice that animal before God. So in a sense, the animal was punished for the sins of the people, and God accepted that punishment as sufficient to forgive the people.
• The problem, of course, is that an animal isn’t a human being; animals aren’t made in the image of God. So they are imperfect sacrifices. And as imperfect sacrifices, they aren’t enough to cover the people’s sin once and for all—they have to keep being offered, again and again.
• But God offered up a once-for-all sacrifice for his people.
• He sent Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, to be the sacrifice for his people. Only a human being could take the place of human beings; and only God could bear the full wrath of God against sin.
• Jesus is the perfect sacrifice we needed; and now that his sacrifice has been given and accepted by God, he stands as our intermediary—as our great high priest before God.
• He is the constant witness before God that our sins have been punished. Our sins were put to death, when he was put to death.
• I know a lot of these ideas and images can seem kind of archaic if you haven’t been to exposed to biblical theology. So let me put this a different way that may make it more accessible.
• The fact that Jesus Christ is our perfect high priest means that he stands in solidarity with us.
• He didn’t remain above, looking down on us. He came down to us. Although he is God, he became a man. He didn’t stay removed from our suffering, but joined us in our suffering. He didn’t stay removed from our temptation, but joined us in our temptation. He didn’t stay removed from our sin, but took on our sin.
• He knows what it’s like to hurt. He knows what it’s like to be betrayed. He knows what it’s like to be guilty before God (because he was declared guilty in our place).
• And not only that, he went beyond our suffering. No human being has ever resisted temptation until the very end; every one of us, and many times, has given in to temptation. Christ never did. No human being has suffered the full wrath of God…except for Christ.
• So Jesus Christ stands in perfect solidarity with us. He does not remain removed. Living in us by his Holy Spirit, he joins us in our pain. Standing before God as our high priest, he defends us before God’s perfect justice.
• And we will never need another priest. This is the major theme of the letter to the Hebrews, which quotes this verse on multiple occasions. Because our priest is eternel, our salvation is eternal.
• This is the heart of every bit of our assurance. This is why we can rest.
• The old priests died, and new priests had to come take their place. But Jesus Christ has defeated death—he lives forever. He is not only a perfect high priest, but an eternal high priest: he is priest forever.
• Accepted and loved by God, we need nothing more, and we need nothing better, because there is nothing more—there is nothing better.
110.5-7: Justice (The Warrior)
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
6 He will execute judgment among the nations,
filling them with corpses;
he will shatter chiefs
over the wide earth.
7 He will drink from the brook by the way;
therefore he will lift up his head.
• So God has declared that this coming Messiah would be a King for his people; that he would be a priest for his people.
• And finally, God declares that he would be a warrior for his people.
• David’s “Lord” is the one whom God would send to exercize judgment.
• In v. 5-6 he speaks of judgment against “kings” and “chiefs”. He says that “the day of his wrath” will come, and on that day, every wicked ruler, every oppressor of God’s people, will be judged.
• Now it would be really easy to take this prophecy and imagine that God is prophesying some kind of massive political takeover—and that’s pretty much what the people of Israel thought. But we can’t be too hard on them; when you are oppressed and persecuted, and you hear the word “justice,” it’s very hard to think of anything else but the kind of narrow, restricted justice that only applies to your immediate situation.
• But God had something much bigger in mind. He was aiming for a kind of justice which would extend not just to the problems of oppression and persecution, but to the root of those problems.
• When Jesus came, he brought two incredible and important clarifications with him.
• The first was that the judgment, the condemnation of God, wasn’t reserved to merely those in power, but hung over every human being who ever lived.
• The second was that he came in order to bring a solution to that condemnation.
• We see both of these clarifications in John chapter 3.
• First, God’s judgment hangs over all of us. John 3.18-21:
18 Whoever believes in [Christ] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
• These verses are devastating to us, and here’s why: not a single one of us would love to have every single act, thought and attitude put on display for all to see. Every one of us have done things that we are ashamed of. Every one of us have had thoughts we would be ashamed to speak of. Every one of us have had attitudes we are not proud of.
• We would be horrified to have all of these things brought out into the light for all the world to see.
• That’s what we see described in v. 19-20. When we have something we’re ashamed of, what do we try to do? We try to hide it. We try to cover it up. We don’t want people to know.
• Or—best case scenario—we try to make amends. But even then, there is always some kind of self-serving reason behind it. Yeah, I did something wrong, but maybe if I do this to make amends for it, what I did won’t seem so bad. People will see that that’s not the kind of person I am.
• But when we come to God, what happens? All of our evil deeds, every bad act, thought and attitude is exposed, because God sees everything and he knows everything. So naturally we run away from God, because we don’t want our sins to be brought into the light like that.
• On our own, this is what we all do. The only person who wouldn’t do this is the person who has nothing hanging over his head. No more secrets. Nothing to hide.
• And that is precisely what Christ provides.
• John 3.16-17:
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
• God sent his Son Jesus Christ, to save us. He takes our sin, and puts it to death; he does away with it; he burns it up.
• So we’re no longer ashamed to come to God, to come into the light, because there are no more sinful secrets hanging over us. There’s no reason for us to be condemned anymore.
• The question is, how did that happen? How did Christ do that?
• We saw a part of the answer earlier, in Psalm 110.4. He became the perfect sacrifice for us. He took on our sin, and allowed God to pour out all of his wrath onto him instead of us.
• But it’s really important to know that Christ’s sacrifice for us was not a passive thing. He didn’t simply let it happen to him. When Christ took on our sin, and suffered in our place, he passed through death, and came out the other side victorious. He actively defeated both sin and death, and exited the tomb a victorious warrior, having fought the ultimate war and won.
• Now, that work isn’t entirely finished. We can see the effects of Christ’s victory in us, if we have placed our faith in him. We know that he put our sin to death, and raised us up to new life in him.
• But even though Christ defeated sin and death, we still see sin all around us. We still see death all around us. And even for Christians, we still die. My grandma died back in January; she knew and loved Jesus Christ. But right now, even if her spirit is with Christ right now, her body is still lying in a grave in Oklahoma City.
• But the Bible says that a day will come in which he will finish what he started at the cross.
• A day will come when he will return to the earth, and resurrect the dead, and renew us to be like him. And on that day, the work of judgment that he began in himself—when he judged our sin by taking our sin on himself—he will finish. He will judge the living and the dead.
• So think about what this means for the injustice we see in the world. We often get very bent out of shape over injustices we see—and that’s a good thing; we should feel upset about that.
• It’s especially upsetting when we see people committing injustices…and seeming to get away with it.
• We as Christians have a unique and profoundly restful hope. Every injustice will be punished—either when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, or because Christ was punished in the place of those who place their faith in him.
• Our Messiah is a warrior who fights evil and wins.
Conclusion
• So you see the picture this particular psalm paints of Jesus Christ.
• He is a King, who has authority over all the earth.
• He is a priest, who makes intercession for his people.
• And he is a warrior, who exercises perfect judgment against sin.
• What does knowing these things about Christ change in us? How do we respond to this knowledge?
• We respond by resting in our Messiah, and by becoming like our Messiah.
• Christ is King...
• …so we rest in his authority as our King.
• How gracious is God to tell us what we need to do to live as he created us to live? How reassuring is it to know that we don’t have to figure out how to do this on our own? How comforting is it to know that there is a King who is taking care of us, who is sovereign over every pain in our lives, who blesses us with every good thing, and who is always working for our good and his glory in our lives?
• We rest in this knowledge, like a child taking comfort in the strong authority of a loving father.
• …and we seek to become like him, by submitting to this authority, and obeying his commands.
• Our King has a plan, a blueprint for how he created humanity, how we are designed to function.
• We become like him by choosing to go in that same direction, to live the way he created us to live.
• Christ is Priest...
• …so we rest in his intercession.
• Every time we sin, we are again tempted to hide that sin. To run away to a dark corner where no one will know.
• But when we realize that our great High Priest always lives to make intercession for us, to defend us before his Father, rather than running away from him when we sin, we run to him, because he is the only hope of forgiveness and redemption we have.
• Our sin saddens us and hurts us…but we no longer have to live under the weight of that sin, because Christ bore its weight for us.
• …and we seek to become like him, by accepting the help of his Spirit to put our sin to death.
• This is probably the hardest thing to believe in Christianity: because Christ killed our sin on the cross, it no longer has any power over us. Because Christ put our sin to death, we can resist it. We can say no. We can fight it. And we can win; because Christ has already won for us.
• Through his Spirit, through his finished work, we can put our sin to death.
• Christ is the victorious Warrior...
• …so we rest in his judgment.
• We don’t try to run away from the reality of our sin—it is awful, it is detestable.
• But God has already judged our sin in the person of Christ. As far as God is concerned, if we are in Christ, our sin has already been punished.
• We no longer have to fear his judgment if we are in him, because he has forgiven us.
• …and we seek to become like him, by forgiving others as he forgave us.
• We often suffer from the sins other people commit against us. And we are naturally filled with anger against those sins.
• But our perspective changes a good bit when we remember that no matter how gravely someone else has sinned against us, it is less than we deserve. We deserve hell. We deserve eternal condemnation.
• And rather than giving us what we deserve, Christ took that judgment on himself. He forgave us. He showed us grace when we deserved punishment.
• When we remember that fact, our attitude towards sinners changes. We remember that the same sin which was directed at us is also in us. We remember that God didn’t give us what we deserved, but gave us grace instead. And we are filled with pity and compassion for the sinner, because Christ showed us that same pity, that same compassion.
• Knowing that Christ is our King, our Priest, our Warrior, changes everything. Rather than seeking to establish our own authority, to build our own power, to render our own judgment, we submit to his authority; we rest in his solidarity toward us; and we take comfort in his judgment. That changes the way we see God; it changes the way we see ourselves; and it changes the way we see other people.
• So let us see him, ourselves, and others the way we ought, and live according to what we see.
