Bible Commentaries
Psalms 8

Verses 1-9

That brings us to the end of this period of suffering, for in the next Psalm we have the appearance of the Son of Man and see Him set over all things. It is a wonderful Psalm and it is referred to again and again in the New Testament. We are no longer occupied with vain man and his ungodly ways, not even with the sufferings of the people of God, but we turn away to consider the wonders of God’s name and the glory of His creation. “O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! who hast set Thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”

The day has come when God arises to shake terribly the earth, to bring to an end the long ages of Satan’s rule, to still the enemy and the avenger; and the Psalmist looks up and says: “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” Oh, says David, I feel so small. I thought I was so important before. My own grief and distresses so pressed upon me, but now when I look at the heavens and see those galaxies of suns with their surrounding planets in the heavens, universe after universe stretching out into infinity, I wonder that God pays any attention to me at all. “What is man, that Thou art [so] mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?” But God has His eyes on the Second Man, and it has pleased Him to appoint a time when man is to have absolute authority over this universe. God gave this authority to Adam, but Adam was not the Son of Man and therefore this passage cannot be referring to him. It was God’s purpose that man should hold this lower creation in subjection to himself, but he failed and so the Second Man comes into the scene, and He is before the eyes of God here, “Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned Him with glory and honour.” It is our Lord Jesus Christ, as we know from Hebrews, who came from Godhead’s glory and took a place lower than the angels. Do you realize that our Lord Jesus Christ is just as truly Man in glory as He was when here on earth? That is one of the most wonderful truths of Scripture for the comfort of our hearts. “There is…one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Stephen said, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56)-Jesus, a Man in glory crowned with glory and honor!

“Thou madest Him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands.” Though Satan has sought to thwart God’s purpose it is going to be carried out. “Thou hast put all things under His feet.” In Hebrews we read, “Now we see not yet all things put under Him.” We have only to walk the streets of Chicago to realize that all things are not yet put under His feet; but the writer goes on to say, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour” (Hebrews 2:8-9). Therefore, knowing that God is going to carry out His purpose we do not see everything put under Him, but we do see Him put above everything, and not only in the moral world but in the lower creation as well.

“All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.” I love to think of the time when the groaning creation that has shared in the fall through no fault of its own, is going to be delivered from the bondage of corruption in the day of the manifestation of the glory of God. We learn from passages in Isaiah that blessing is to come to the very beasts of the field and the cattle. John Wesley prepared two or three sermons to show that cattle and beasts are going to heaven, for he thought that referred to heaven and that God was going to make up for all they suffered here by taking them to heaven at last. But Scripture speaks of them as “natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed” (2 Peter 2:12). What it does show is that when He reigns and everything is put under His feet, the lower creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption and the very beasts will be brought into a more delightful existence than we have ever known.

And so he concludes this octave with the words, “O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!” His heart is bubbling over with joy at the thought that God’s Man, the Man of God’s pleasure, the Son of Man whom He has made strong for Himself, is soon coming to be over all things. And so you can see what a complete picture we have of the ways of God, from the first advent of Christ to His second coming.