3611 — The Psalms and Our Lord
Some time ago the following statement was in the "Signs": "The psalms express the fulness of the experience of our Lord." I have since read the book of Psalms with deeper interest, and yet I can not understand fully how all of them do, and sometimes fail to make clear to others what is not clear in my own mind. Now by that statement it is not meant that every psalm expresses the fulness of Christ. And we would not say that every psalm expresses any of the experience of Christ. But the psalms taken all together do express His fulness. Some of these psalms, of course, are psalms of historic character, like 78, for instance, and 104, 105, 106, pointing out God's wonderful deliverances. Of course these deliverances were wrought through our Lord Jesus Christ, the Angel of God's presence, who was with His people. The 22d Psalm is simply filled with the experience of Jesus standing in the place of the sinner when He was here upon the earth. Some of the psalms teem with expressions which indicate the experiences which our Lord passed through and will pass through. Let us not try to force them. If we will keep the thought in mind that our Lord Himself stood in the place of the sinner and passed through, for our sakes, just what the repentant sinner must pass through—yea, He passed through what even the lost must pass through, in giving Himself to die upon the cross—we can see more and more in all the Scriptures pointing to our blessed Lord. But there are also the experiences of others given, as well. And in many cases the thought in the mind of the writer must have been his own experience, and the things which surrounded him; but God, speaking through him, led his thoughts for later generations into much wider fields. It is marvelous how broad and comprehensive the psalms are. They cover all phases and conditions of human experience, and give hope and encouragement in all times of sadness and trial. When we look upon it from the divine plan, this is just as it ought to be. They were the songs which God's children were to sing, expressive of their pilgrimage journey and the triumph at last.