Trinity & Gospel in the Psalms

A few weeks ago at North West Partnership we looked at the Psalms in our Bible Overview session, and I was seriously bowled over by what we saw... and it was only the first of two sessions!


Justin mentioned lots of errors people make when reading the Psalms, and pretty much every example made me think "yep... I've done that!" For example, picking a psalm to read at random, and perhaps taking it and applying it directly to myself. But we saw how Psalms should actually (obviously) be treated like any other book of the Bible, and we need too employ the same tools to look at it's context and everything in order to understand it. We thought about how there was an editor who chose to compile the psalms the way he did... and was inspired by the Spirit to compile them in that way, and so they should be read that way. It is a book, not just an anthology.


So that was eye-opening - and then we started to look at a couple of places in more depth and I was really really REALLY encouraged by what we saw.


We looked first at Psalms 1 & 2 and saw how the "blessed" man and the "Son" was not David, but Jesus. Because David wasn't perfect. Obviously we all strive to be like Jesus but only he was the perfect one and was the one being described prophetically by David. And he was the one in whom David knew we would be blessed, if he sought refuge in him (psalm 2v12). He knew that he needed to seek refuge in him because he WASN'T perfect, which I guess is seen most clearly in his psalm 51 when he prayed "Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit in me".


But then this is what made Psalm 24 so amazing to me, because I guess from time to time the thought has occurred to me, that Jesus doesn't exactly explain the Gospel as it is preached in our pulpits did he? The whole dying-for-our-sins-to-make-us-right-with-God message. Not explicitly in so many words. And I've wondered if it's something I've swallowed because someone else has come up with it and everything just seems to fit, or whether or not I would have been able to understand it myself if no one had thought of it first?


Well, I'm not sure because I HAVE been privileged enough to have people explain it to me, but it is just SO clear here in psalms, tied up with David saying that all who take refuge in the Son are blessed. i.e. they are like the blessed man described in psalm 1. Because then in psalm 24 God says 


"Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
    And who shall stand in his holy place?
⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
    who does not lift up his soul to what is false
    and does not swear deceitfully."

But we know that we could never be that one with clean hands and a pure heart. So who is it? 


"Lift up your heads, O gates!
    And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in."


and who is the King of glory?


"Who is this King of glory?
    The Lord, strong and mighty,
    the Lord, mighty in battle!
⁹ Lift up your heads, O gates!
    And lift them up, O ancient doors,
    that the King of glory may come in.
¹⁰ Who is this King of glory?
     The Lord of hosts,
    he is the King of glory! Selah"




Ahh.... double whammy! The only one who can ascend the hill of the Lord is the one who is pure, the same blessed man in psalm 1, the Son, in whom we can take refuge and also be blessed. And who is he? He IS the KING OF GLORY, the LORD strong and mighty, mighty in battle, the LORD of Hosts.


Well if that's not a bit of Trinity in the Old Testament I don't know what is! And we see that David had a real understanding of what God's servant, the Messiah was going to do and what the Gospel message would be, that if we take refuge in a perfect substitute, we can "ascend the hill of the LORD", i.e. have a restored relationship with God.... :)