We continue with our reading program. If you started on Monday, December 30, you might have read Psalm 8 today, parts of it are well known. It opens:
O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! (Psalm 8.1, NKJV)
It continues…
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? (Psalm 8.3, 4, NKJV)
If you want to sing it, try “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” on this paraphrase:
1 Lord, our Lord, majestic is Your name throughout the whole wide earth;
You display and set Your splendor o’er the heav’ns which show Your worth.
2 From the mouths of infant children, You establish strength and praise;
Make the enemy and vengeful cease before Your wondrous ways.
3 When I see Your glorious heavens, moon and stars which You ordain;
4 What is man that You regard him, son of man with care maintain?
5 Yet You made him slightly lower than the angels high above;
Crowning him with glory, honor, just beneath the God of love.
6 You made him to rule creation, put all things beneath his feet—
7/8 Sheep and oxen, beasts and cattle, birds of heav’n and fish of sea;
All that swim within the pathways of the sea declare Your worth.
9 Lord, our Lord, majestic is Your name throughout the whole wide earth.
The writer of the Hebrews uses this passage to point to Jesus:
For He has not put the world to come, of which we speak, in subjection to angels. But one testified in a certain place, saying:
“What is man that You are mindful of him, Or the son of man that You take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, And set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”
For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But 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. (Hebrews 2.5 – 9, NKJV)
So Psalm 8 appears to have several layers of meaning. God did put creation under Adam in Genesis 1 and 2. And God has put all things under Jesus:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2.5 – 11, NKJV)