ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Grace in Focus and our series on the Messianic thread. Continuing today to look at that thread in the Psalms. Friend, we are glad to have you with us today. This is the ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society and you can find out more about this organization at faithalone.org. There you will find information about our conference ministry, about our online seminary where you can earn an MDiv degree, our free subscription magazine also called Grace in Focus, and our blogs. We produce blogs daily and you can subscribe to them right through this website faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s discussion here are Bob Wilkin and Philippe Sterling. 

BOB: Okay, Philippe, we were talking about Christ in the Psalms and there’s over 100 prophecies about Christ’s First Coming in the Old Testament and over a hundred of His Second Coming as well. And a lot of them are found in the Psalms. 

PHILIPPE: Yes. We’ve just talked a little bit about His preexistence, His incarnation, His rejection is there. 

BOB: Like Psalm 22. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, Psalm 22, His rejection, His betrayal, His death. We can trace through the Psalms by the direct quotations and allusions in the New Testament that all made through those passages. Concerning to His death, of course, most clearly, Psalm 22.

BOB: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” 

PHILIPPE: On the cross, yeah. And that was a way for Him to refer to the entirety of Psalm 22 as has been fulfilled by Him.

BOB: Which ends with the reign of Messiah. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, it certainly talks about His suffering, His death, His resurrection and ascension and reign, if we were to read through all of Psalm 22. The specificity, like you said, even piercing My hands and My feet, casting a lot for My clothing, you know, is all there in Psalm 22. But of His resurrection, also, we see that in Psalm 16:10. And Peter clearly says that David died, we have His tomb and with us, but so he says David was speaking really of Christ. In Psalm 16:10, David wrote, “For you will not leave My soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” 

BOB: Right, and the Holy One refers to the Lord Jesus. He was not allowed to see corruption, which would have taken place if His body had decayed for longer than say three or four days. 

PHILIPPE: Yes. And Peter, in his first sermon, Pentecost sermon, interprets Psalm 16:10 for us. Acts 2:25-31, “For David says concerning Him, ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face.’ ” And then verse 27, “For you will not leave My soul in Hades, nor will you allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” And then he says in verse 29, “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch, David, that he is both dead and buried and His tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.”So concerning the resurrection, that’s clearly in the Psalms, and the same thing about His ascension. 

BOB: So the book of Psalms actually tells us that after he rose from the dead, he ascended to the third heaven? 

PHILIPPE: Ephesians 4:8, Paul talks about when He ascended on high. That’s a quotation allusion to Psalms 68:18. 

BOB: When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive and He gave gifts to man.

PHILIPPE: Yes. “You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive.” So Paul clearly relates that to the ascension of Christ. Then concerning His return and His reign and His warrior priesthood, three Psalms are quoted in the Old Testament concerning that. Perhaps some more, but these are the major ones. Psalm 2:7, Psalm 2 is this great Psalm concerning the the enthronement of the Davidic king, but ultimately the enthronement of Christ, the promised seed of David. And of course, you’ve worked on those Psalms, in your writing of the commentary. 

BOB: Right. You are My Son, today I have begotten Thee, which will be said when Jesus is enthroned on the throne of David beginning with the Messianic kingdom. But this was also said at every Judean king, when they were enthroned, they would say you are my son today I begotten thee. 

PHILIPPE: Son is a throne name. And so it applies to every one of the Davidic kings.

BOB: Now they’d be sung with the lowercase s. He’s sung with an uppercase s, but ultimately the term son was God’s representative. So every one of the Judean kings was a representative of God on earth. And the ultimate representative will be God himself on the throne of David. 

PHILIPPE: Yes. So the writer of Hebrews, in Hebrews 1:5, and in chapter 5:5, applies that to the enthronement of Jesus. 

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PHILIPPE: As we continue on to the enthronement and the reign of Jesus, we come to what is a royal Psalm, Psalm 45 concerning the marriage of the king. And verses 6 and 7, it says, “Your throne. O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.” And that’s ascribed to Jesus by the author of Hebrews in Hebrews 1:8-9, “But to the Son He says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.’ ” So here the Son is called God, “Your throne. O God” in fulfillment of what was said by David in Psalm 45. 

BOB: Yeah. And verse 7 says, “with the oil of gladness more than Your companions,” which is quoted in Hebrews 1:9.

PHILIPPE: About His metachoi, and potentially could be you and me all who are faithful to him. 

BOB: In the Greek Old Testament, that metachoi is the word used for companions and the word used in Hebrews 1:9. 

PHILIPPE: And then the last thing we can refer to is about the royal priesthood of Jesus in the book of Psalms. It’s Psalm 110:1 and 4. This is one about the Melchizedekian priesthood. Verse 1, “The Lord said to My Lord,” or Yahweh said to my Adonai, “Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” And verse 4, “The Lord has sworn and will not relent. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” In Hebrews 5:6, and Hebrews 7:17, says that is fulfilled in Jesus. So in the book of Hebrews, in Hebrews 5:6, the author says, “So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.’ As He also says in another place: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ ” So God the Father is speaking to the Son according to the book of Hebrews, in quoting Psalm 110 as being prophecy, concerning this statement there. So a direct quotation to Psalm 110:1 and 4, concerning the royal priesthood of Jesus. 

So we trace then, everything about Jesus from His preexistence, His incarnation, to His suffering, to His death, His resurrection, His ascension, His reign, His royal priesthood, all there, the portrait of Christ in the book of Psalms. 

BOB: Why is this important? In other words, why would the apostles go to great lengths to show that Christ is found in the Old Testament, in the Psalms, and in other books in the Old Testament? Why go to this effort? Why not just preach Jesus? 

PHILIPPE: Because He is the one of whom the Scriptures spoke about as He said concerning Himself. And so everyone should have read the Scriptures to know who He was and to believe in Him for everlasting life. As he tells Nicodemus, you know, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and you do not know?”

BOB: John chapter three. This would be certainly important for Jewish evangelism, right? Because the Jewish people need to know this is the promised Messiah. But I think it’s also effective for Gentiles as well, to know that this isn’t just something that Jesus made up. He didn’t just claim to be this person. He proved it by the miracles He did. He proved it by His death, resurrection, and ascension, and the Scriptures prove it by all of these prophecies. 

PHILIPPE: So whether it would be Nicodemus or whether it would it be the woman at the well, to knowing that this is the Christ. He’s the giver of life. 

BOB: And she wasn’t Jewish. She was Samaritan, which, some people would argue she’s Jewish, but most people would say she’s half Jewish, half Gentile. 

PHILIPPE: Yes. And then what was Peter telling Cornelius? He was showing from the Scriptures, Cornelius as a Gentile. So it is part of drawing people to believe in Jesus for everlasting life, to show that, concerning that portrait that is clearly in him to all of Scripture. 

BOB: So yeah, I think that’s very good because Peter when he’s talking to Cornelius in Acts 10 is citing from the Old Testament. And all of the apostles would go back to the Old Testament to show this is not some new religion. Really Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. In other words, this is the direction that the Old Testament was going. Now, of course, if Israel had accepted her Messiah, then the kingdom would have come in the first century, and evidently there wouldn’t have been a Church. But because Israel rejected the Messiah, we have the church age. 

PHILIPPE: Yes, we have this inter-advent age, between His First Coming and His Second Coming.

BOB: Yes, that why it’s called the inter-advent—between the two comings. And that’s why in eternity there’ll be three groups. There’ll be the nations, there’ll be Israel, and there’ll be the Church. 

Well, thanks so much, Philippe. It has been a great study, and I urge all of you to take the time to look at Christ in the Psalms. I think you’ll be very encouraged, and in the meantime, let’s all keep grace in focus. 

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On the next episode: the Messianic Thread in Isaiah. Please join us, and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.