Glory, Goodness, and Grace | Psalm 8

The influential atheist writer, Christopher Hitchens, once said in a debate with a Christian:

“If you want to be awe-inspired, ladies and gentlemen, let me just say… those of us who do not believe we are divinely created, let alone divinely supervised, are not immune to the idea of awe and beauty and the transcendent. Let me invite you to look for a moment at the pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope… The extraordinary revelations of swirling yet somehow beautiful new galaxies in color and depth and majesty like nothing I think the human eye has ever seen. Turn away from that [glory] if you wish, and gaze at a burning bush in an illiterate desert part of the Middle East and say that that’s where [beauty] comes from. I don’t think you’d be able to do it!”

Later on in the debate he remarked: 

“[Going over the lip of the event horizon in a black hole] would be majesty, that would be magnificence, that would be awe-inspiring, that would be apocalyptic. So it’s in the natural world, it’s in the world of science and the world of innovation and discovery and doubt. We wouldn’t have discovered any of these things if we’d taken the religious story [as true].”

For a man so captivated by the beauty of the heavens, it’s quite sad that Christopher Hitchens could ascribe no glory to the Creator. Even more than that, it is sad that he could see no goodness in God. 

Maybe you are here this morning and you are skeptical and unbelieving like Christopher Hichens was.

Or maybe you go through your days mindful of the beauty and majesty of nature (you love watching Planet Earth), but you are not mindful of the Creator. 

Or perhaps more likely for those of you here… You believe in God—you’ve grown up in the church—but you think of him as distant and disconnected from your day-to-day experience. Or maybe you find yourself feeling apathetic or confused about your purpose in life as a Christian, and you need to be reminded of it. Or you lack delight in God and don’t know where to turn to find it. 

If that is you this morning, then our text has something to say to you! If you have your Bibles with you, would you please turn with me to Psalm 8? We will be spending our morning there. 

As C.S. Lewis once reminded us, “The Psalms are poems, and poems are intended to be sung.” 

This is especially true of Psalm 8—it is an unrivaled hymn that revels in the majesty of God. And King David here wants to stir our atrophied affection for and admiration of God.

And Psalm 8 shows us that…God reveals his majestic glory, goodness, and grace to secure our awe-inspired praise. 

And I want to break that down this morning and consider each of those things in part: First, God’s glory in creation, then his goodness to man, and lastly his grace in Christ. And it’s my hope that in doing so, you might leave here more mindful of the unmatched majesty of God’s name in all the earth and beyond.

So to begin with let us consider

God’s Glory in Creation

The psalm begins and ends with this powerful refrain: 

“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Notice, the psalm is not addressed to just a generic god among the gods, this is our God who has made covenant with us. And though we claim this God as our sovereign master and lord, the God that we long to obey and please, this God is also the king of all creation! 

His glory is revealed in all that he has made—and this is true for those who acknowledge it and even for those who don’t.

His name is majestic in all the earth. Majestic. This is not a common word used in the Bible, but it describes something that is “wide, great, high, powerful, [and] noble.” It conveys that his name is everywhere, and it is above everything. There is nothing more glorious, more perfect, more infinite, more bountiful, more beautiful than the character and the works and the perfections and the name of our Lord—THE Lord of all creation. 

And yet as we consider God’s name in all the earth, John Calvin reminds us that “…the earth is too small to contain the glory or the wonderful manifestations of the character and perfections of God.”

And so where does David take our minds in this psalm? He takes our minds to the heavens.  In verse 3 he says, 

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place…”

This is the context of King David’s thoughts here. 

Have you ever been up in the mountains on a clear night and looked up into the sky? Have you seen the Big Dipper and Saturn and Jupiter? Have you beheld the beauty of a shooting star as it zips across the sky? Have you marveled at the Milky Way and all its glory? Have you ever considered God’s promise to Abraham (Gen. 15:5) about the number of his offspring as you’ve looked at the vast number of stars in the universe? Perhaps David had this in the back of his mind here. 

Have you acknowledged with Job that it is God…

“…who alone stretched out the heavens…who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south; who does great things beyond searching out, and marvelous things beyond number”

—Job 9:9-10

Have you considered ALL this before?…Have you tried to wrap your mind around that majesty… Matthew Henry says of these heavens, 

“He made them; he made them easily.”

It was easy! Simple! 

He made them all with a simple swish of his finger like an artist. It’s just incredible to ponder. And King David tells us that the glory of God rises even higher. He says, 

“You have set your glory above the heavens.”

If you find yourself struggling to feel connected to God or if you find your delight in God dwindling…. Do you know that he made the heavens so that you might know his glory and majesty? Your awe at the night sky is just weight training in beholding glory for the purpose that you can actually behold the weight of God’s glory. And Psalm 8 reminds us that the skies testify and tell of this glory! 

So we see that God’s glory is in the highest of places. And yet, the highest and mightiest of men often do not acknowledge God as the fountain and source and Creator of all this glory and wonder. But they are without excuse.

It reminds me of the quote from GK Chesterton where he says, “The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.” And so, we would rather explain these things with appeals to aliens, and evolution, and Big Bangs, and eternal matter, and crystals on the backs of monkeys, than to give glory to God. 

And so who is it, according to Psalm 8, that actually confounds the Richard Dawkinses, and the Joe Rogans, and the Christopher Hitchenses of the world? It is not the smartest and the brightest and the most powerful, though God can use those people as well, but Psalm 8 reveals that it is the weakest and simplest and most humble. 

Verse 2 says…

“Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and avenger.”

In the New Testament, Jesus quotes this same passage saying,

“Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise”

—Matt. 21:16

There is no stopping God from receiving glory from what he has made. 

Though the haughty and the insolent and the worldly-wise despisers of God refuse to give him glory, God orders praise to come forth from the mouths of babies and infants and this is sufficient for him to rout and still his enemies. 

Just as JRR Tolkien’s the Dark Lord Sauron unfortunately overlooked the humble hobbits in his war for the ring, so the Devil to his demise has overlooked what he has deemed as simple and weak and foolish. 

And yet, Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians that, 

“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

—1 Cor. 1:27-29

Do you ever feel intimidated by the wisdom of the world? Do you sit in science class, like I did once, worried that you will be shamed for believing what you believe? 

Then fear not because Psalm 8 reminds us that God’s glory cannot be contained or suppressed. The pride of man is mocked by the mouths of little children. 

God’s glory is in the highest places and it is in the lowest places, and it is everywhere in between. And King David wants us to be stirred up with this reality so that we would see God’s majesty in everything and turn to him at all times in awe-inspired praise. 

But this isn’t even the greatest reason for praise that Psalm 8 reveals.  As majestic as God's glory is in creation, God reveals even more of his majesty in his goodness to man.

God’s Goodness to Man

At the very heart of this psalm is the question: What is man? And more specifically, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? (v. 4)

If you look closely, you’ll notice that Psalm 8 is a chiasm. A chiasm is a literary device where a series of ideas is presented, building up to a certain central point, and then the series of ideas is repeated again in reverse order. And the center of the chiasm is the main point the author wants to emphasize. 

The pattern here in Psalm 8 is A / B / C / C / B / A. 

It begins and ends with (A) the majesty of God’s name in verses 1 and 9. And then as we move toward the center, we consider (B) God’s glory above the heavens, and down below in verses 5 through 8 (B) Man’s glory above the earth. And finally right in the middle, the psalm crescendos with us considering in verses 3 and 4 (C) the insignificance of man compared to the vastness of God’s creation and (C) the significance of man when we see how God cares for us. 

King David shows us that God’s glory is so clearly revealed in all that he has made, and God’s goodness is so tangibly felt and known in how he has compassionately cared for us. 

Calvin says again, 

“How is it that God comes forth from so noble and glorious a part of his works, and stoops down to us, poor worms of the earth, if it is not to magnify and to give a more illustrious manifestation of his goodness?”

Do you think that the Lord is distant from you and your current circumstances? Do you think he is preoccupied with managing the universe and doesn’t have time for you and your concerns? 

Psalm 8 reveals God’s goodness to us by reminding us that though he is transcendent and above all things, he is also and simultaneously imminent and near to us. He has not forgotten you or given you a meaningless existence. He cares for you. So you can trust him and cast your cares on him (cf. 1 Peter 5:7). He is good. 

And according to Psalm 8, what are the ways that he has cared for and been good to man? 

First of all, he has dignified man to the highest place in creation. As one commentator says, God has made him “the crown and captain of creation.”

Verse 5 says, 

“Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.”

While man has been made less than divine and lower than the angels, he has not been made without glory and honor. He has dignity. 

Of all God’s glorious creation, only man is made in the image and likeness of God. And he has made us to resemble him, to represent him, and to relate with him. This is a magnificent honor. 

We resemble him in our rational capacities and creativity and morality. We represent him as his vice regents on earth. And we relate to God and to one another to display his love and glory in the world. 

And second, he has given man dominion over the earth. Verses 6 through 8, 

“You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.” 

This language is reminiscent of Genesis 1:26-28. In Genesis, we call this the creation mandate or the dominion mandate. Dominion here is not a passive activity. It doesn’t happen on a lazy boy chair, with a remote in one hand, and a bag of potato chips in the other. 

It happens when people take action in this world for the glory of God. When they act as God’s stewards of the earth. When they order their homes and their lives and their businesses and their health for God’s glory. 

Do you live with this type of purpose in your life? To see God’s rule extended into your little corner of the world? Is it your desire to see God’s kingdom come and God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven? If it is not, then perhaps you need to ask yourself why that is.

God desires that humans take dominion of the earth in his place as his dignified image bearers. 

However, if you’ve seen the animated movie Wall-E, which my family and I just watched a few weeks ago, then you know what this dominion looks like when it goes South, or more accurately, when it’s altogether abandoned. Rather than man ruling over nature, the movie depicts nature ruling over man, with robots and screens and slushies diminishing man’s rule and role in the world. If you haven’t seen Wall-E yet, then you should. It might be one of Pixar’s best and most profound animated films. 

Though obviously fictional, it is an illustration and a poignant reminder that we live in a Genesis 3 world, where sin has distorted and corrupted God’s good intentions. 

Furthermore, we live in a world where many people do not give glory to God, nor do they understand his goodness, nor do they obey him as their Lord.

Romans 1 reminds us…

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

—Romans 1:20-23

Without praise and gratitude toward God, we cannot live rightly in God’s world. 

As one commentator points out:

“‘Doxology gives dominion its context and legitimacy.’ God intended for humans to have such power and authority, but without praise to God humans only pervert and abuse that power.”

—Allen P. Ross

Friends, God shows you his goodness by caring for you and setting you apart among the entire creation as his image bearers, so that you need not ever feel insignificant or worthless. He shows you his goodness by calling you to take dominion of what you are responsible for for his glory, so you need not be confused about your purpose in life. 

And he shows you his goodness by revealing to you that you were made to worship and delight in Him, and that you need not be unsatisfied by other things. 

Yet, our failure to praise and delight in God as we were made to and our failure to take dominion of the earth as God intended reveals to us that the ultimate fulfillment of Psalm 8 is not found in us. 

And the ultimate way in which God has been mindful of us and the ultimate way in which he has cared for us is in sending his Son to earth as a man, so that we might be saved by him. 

So lastly, we will look at God’s grace.

God’s Grace in Christ

And though Psalm 8 is not properly considered a messianic psalm, this psalm clearly points us beyond ourselves to our Savior. 

And as we consider this psalm, we should take note of how the New Testament authors viewed these verses. As one scholar points out: 

“4 different verses of Psalm 8 are quoted 7 times in 4 separate NT books by 3 different NT authors—and every single time it is interpreted as referring to Jesus! [And he says we should] learn to read the Psalms like an apostle [and I would agree].” 

Perhaps the most direct application of Psalm 8 to Jesus is found in Hebrews 2:6-9, which says, 

“It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.”

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Jesus, the Son of God, was made a son of man to redeem man from the curse of sin so that man could be renewed and restored after the image and likeness of the Creator (cf. Colossians 3:9-10; 2 Corinthians 3:18). 

Psalm 8 speaks of God putting all things under man’s feet, but we know that this was not possible in our own power and strength and will. As a matter of fact, not even Adam in his state of integrity—before sin—could complete such a task. 

We needed a perfect man, the Son of Man, to come and redeem, and restore, and renew us. And only through the life and death and resurrection and reign of this perfect man can we experience the grace to live rightly in this world. 

To quote Calvin one final time, he says, 

“Christ, it is true, is the lawful heir of heaven and earth, by whom the faithful recover what they lost in Adam; but he has not as yet actually entered upon the full possession of his empire and dominion. Whence the apostle concludes, that what is here said by David will not be perfectly accomplished until death be abolished.” 

And when will that happen? Well, if you remember from Pastor Ryan’s sermon a few weeks ago on Psalm 110, we know that Christ is already raised and he is already ruling and reigning at God’s right hand don’t we? 

And Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:25-28: 

“For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”

You can see the language of Psalm 8:6 is repeated here, and Paul is indicating to us that Psalm 8 is progressively being fulfilled right now. 

The glory and the goodness and the grace of God in Psalm 8 is that truth that those who trust in the Lord will not only be saved from their sins but they will also share in his dominion as they reign with Christ in the New Creation (Rev. 5:10). Under the Kingship of Christ, what was lost in Adam is recovered in the New Adam. What was tarnished by sin, will be redeemed by grace. 

And as people bend the knee to Christ, their high calling as humans and their significant place in the Creation will take on a whole new dimension as those who are now being sanctified through the Son. 

The glory of Creation, the beauty and majesty of the heavens, the goodness of God manifested in his mindfulness and care toward you as a human, the purpose he has given you to take dominion of the earth, and the grace he has showed you in Christ all beckon you to turn to him in awe-inspired praise. 

Will your response be one of cold indifference and pride, or will you say with King David and with all the saints, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”