The Blessed Man Who Is The King: The One Messiah of Psalm 1-2

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The Psalter is generous and intentional in the opening chapters. Psalm 1-2 is recognized by many to be the reader’s interpretative guide for the remainder of the book. One way to view chapters 1 and 2 is to see a two-part theme of the book: first, the primacy of Scripture; second, the promise to David in 2 Sam 7. Another way of understanding 1 and 2, first introduced to me by Robert L. Cole, is to consider their unity–Psalms 1 and 2 are two parts of really one psalm (Psalm 1-2).

This unified reading suggests that there is really one central theme of the book: the hope of the Messiah, the promised Son/King of David. This one central theme becomes apparent when we consider that the first and second psalm are not speaking about two different things.

The opening chapter is more than an example of a life saturated with the Word. The verbal links and the lack of a superscript in Psalm 2 signify that there is an intentional unity. The two contrasts in 1-2 are the same, although 2 is more developed. The wicked in Ps1 become the nations who rage in Ps2. The contrasted blessed man of Ps1 who does not sit in the seat of scoffers becomes the King who is set on Zion in Ps2. Interestingly, he is set there by the one who sits in the heavens and laughs in derision at the vain plots of the peoples.

The link between the King and a man who meditates on the Law day and night is clearly discernible in light of the Pentateuch. Moses’ stipulations concerning Israel’s kings states that the king must be a man of the Scriptures (Deut 17:18-19). The thematic King of the Book of Psalms will not fail as the past kings have. This King is blessed and he walks in blamelessness because of his delight in the Scriptures.

Moreover, this King enjoys a unique relationship with the LORD. This King is called Son and he is given supremacy over the nations. The King who reigns in Zion will be the King who will reign over all the earth. At this point, supremacy is the definite highlight. This King will judge and the warnings are rightly sounded (2:9-11; cf. Num. 24:8; Rev. 19:15). Pay homage to this King lest you perish in the way, perhaps the way (derekh) referred to in 1:1 (see also “perish” in 1:6).

But then here again is the blessed (‘ashrei). Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Blessed are all who take refuge in the King who is the blessed man whose delight is in the law of the LORD. Could this be the Psalter’s version of the Pauline theme of union with Messiah? To be sure, by the end of Ps2 we can say: May I be found in the King, not walking in the way of our own, but in that which is of the LORD, the way of the blessed man who is our refuge.

The Primacy of the Word in Worship

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… And the full revelation of God is absolutely clear: if there is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ, then faith in Jesus Christ is certainly the basis of worship…

Worship begins with the response to divine revelation. But if little time of attention is given to the revealed Word of God, read, proclaimed, or taught, then to what do people respond? The result is that worship becomes superficial or sentimental. If the church is truly interested in recapturing the spirit and nature of the prophetic and apostolic ministry of the Word in worship, then there will have to be a greater emphasis placed on reading, teaching, and preaching the Word of God, but it has to be with clarity, accuracy, power, and authority.

Allen P. Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory, 419, 429

God and Scripture Together: Communicative Agent and Communicative Action

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The spiral seems inescapable. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? We are helped by understanding that our views of God and Scripture are not formulated independently of one another. We form our views of each together. (See David Kelsey, Proving Doctrine).

So writes Kevin Vanhoozer:

I submit that the best way to view God and Scripture together is to acknowledge God as a communicative agent and Scripture as his communicative action. The virtue of this construal, as far  as first theology is concerned, lies in its implicit thesis that one can neither discuss God apart from Scripture nor do justice to Scripture in abstraction from its relation to God. For if the Bible is a species of divine communicative action, it follows that in using Scripture we are not dealing merely with information about God; we are rather engaging with God himself–with God in communicative action. The notion of divine communicative action form an indissoluble bond between God and Scripture.

First Theology: God, Scripture, & Hermeneutics, 35.

Are You Reading That Right? : Interpretation and Fittingness

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The crucial question is simply this: “Which interpretation is right?” The easiest response would be to immediately say that the right interpretation is that which is most loyal to the original author’s intention. I think that this answer is right on in many ways.

However, to be honest, we must admit that such an answer is still situated within a certain interpretative framework. Authorial intention has not always been the flag flown throughout the church’s interpretation of Scripture. Besides how accurate we think such a framework may be, we cannot pretend as though this framework did not come within an interpretative community in the same way that other frameworks have. Authorial intention and reader-response and speech-act theory and the medieval four-fold sense have something in common: they are all products of a certain epoch within church history. They have not always existed. They have come to be.

To simply revert to the author’s intent would create the contention that we are claiming our interpretative community to be superior to other interpretative communities. It is not merely about which interpretation is correct, but would be about which method of interpretation is better. The question, “Which interpretation is better?” could be restated as “Which interpretative community is better?”

Now we are at the real question: To unfalteringly close your eyes and white-knuckle authorial intention at this point is on the verge of interpretative pride. Are we willing to say that the way we read the Bible at this point in time is superior to how everyone else throughout the history of the Church has read the Bible? Perhaps? The Church is growing up into mature manhood (Eph. 4:12-15).

But what do we say? Our understanding of Scripture itself is very important. We do not refer to our interpretative community norm in order to validate an interpretation of the text. We must refer to something that transcends interpretative communities altogether. The right interpretation of Scripture is the interpretation that is most fitting to the dramatic reality of what God is doing in Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, within the history of His creation. The witness of this dramatic reality is the canon. Kevin Vanhoozer writes:

The canon is the abiding theological witness to God’s pattern of communicative action in Israel and in Jesus Christ. As theo-dramatic script, the canon is witness to what God has done. As covenant document, the canon is witness to the solemn agreement that binds God and God’s people together…

The canon, seen in light of its connection to the covenant, is much more than a theological slide rule or criterion for true propositions. It has a properly soteriological purpose as well. The notion of covenant document helps to put the canon into proper perspective, with regard to form and content alike. As to content, Scripture depicts the history of God’s covenantal relations to humanity, including those divine communicative acts—promises, warnings, commands, consolations—that witness to what God was doing in Christ. As to form, the canon is an authoritative and binding witness to the fact, and the terms, of covenant relationship. The canon is thus the instrument through which the Spirit of God ministers and administers the covenant today. The origin (and hence the authority) of the canonical Scriptures is thus far removed from that of human constitutions (Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Drama as Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005], 138).

The canon is the ancient witness to what God has already accomplished and it is also the ongoing reminder of what He has yet to consummate. It is the covenant record of His past faithfulness and the unwavering promise of His faithfulness in that which is yet to come. What fits into this far exceeds the human conjectures of any interpretative community.

We must submit our (or any) interpretation of Scripture to the canon, that is, to the greater reality of what God is doing through Jesus Christ and by His Spirit.

Vanhoozer again:

Dramatic fittingness with what God has done in Christ is the supreme criterion for truth, goodness, and beauty alike…

Christo-dramatic fittingness means canonical fittingness. We must think through the canon in order rightly to think about Jesus Christ. The standard of fittingness is specification of this “whole and complete” action. Sounds doctrine is distinguished from the dross of mere opinion only because the former accords with the commissioned testimony of the biblical authors and the latter does not (Vanhoozer, Drama, 258).

The Epitome of Folk Religion

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But we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we did, both we and our fathers, our kings and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and prospered, and saw no disaster. But since we left off making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” And the women said, “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, was it without our husbands’ approval that we made cakes for her bearing her image and poured out drink offerings to her?” (Jeremiah 44:17-19 ESV)

The people of Judah do not get it. Jeremiah has been pouring himself out in warning them of coming judgment. They have forsaken the God who created them and called them his own. How hideous. We can’t get this picture. We don’t know what it means for our creation to replace devotion to us for headlong affection for that which does not satisfy. It is atrocious. It deserves wrath of  a kind that we cannot fathom.

And here is the people’s logic: “Hey, when we worshiped the queen of heaven we had enough food to eat and weren’t threatened at all. Therefore, in order to have enough food to eat and not be threatened at all, then we must worship the queen of heaven.”

We are prone to revert to his mentality often. It is a human thing. We are dumbly pragmatic. The people of Judah should have looked beyond the transient logic of their current situation and instead listened to God’s Word. But that is exactly what they did not do. Over and over the Book of Jeremiah tells us that they did not listen, very reminiscent of Deuteronomy (Jer 6:10; 7:13, 26-27; 13:11; 16:12; 17:23, etc.; cf. esp. Deut. 28). The calling is to hear the word of God despite what our immediate circumstances may look like. This is what faith is.

And in order to have that, it takes a certain kind of heart (Jer. 31:33; Deut. 30:6).

Love and the Destiny-Fulfilling Obligation to my Neighbor

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Love involves my acknowledgement that I am obliged by my neighbor as a reality given to me by God, a reality which I would often like to evade but which encounters me with a transcendent imperative force. Why is this ‘transcendent’ ground for works of human fellowship theologically decisive? Because thereby my neighbour, the one with whom I stand in relation, is given to me, forming part of my destiny in the company of the saints. My neighbour is a summons to fellowship, because in him or her I find a claim on me that is not causal or fortuitous (and thereby dispensable) but rather precedes my will and requires that I act in my neighbour’s regard. Without a sense that fellowship is (God-) given, my neighbour would not present a sufficiently strong claim to disturb me out of complacency and indifference into active, initiative-taking regard… My neighbour obliges me because he or she is the presence to me of the appointment and vocation of the holy God. Without givenness, without fellowship as more than a contingent fact, without the neighbour as a divine call, there is only my will. But, if fellowship is a condition and not merely one possibility for my ironic self to entertain, then in building common life– in culture, politics and ethics– I resist the relationlessness of sin into which I may drift, and, sanctified by Christ and Spirit, I realize my nature as one created for holiness.

John Webster, Holiness, 97

This is one of the best paragraphs that has ever been written in the history of mankind.