Psalms 89:19-29

Nothing, I venture to believe, hath tended more to obscure the glories of the Lord Jesus, and to hide from the view of an ordinary reader the many blessed things which the book of Psalms is continually holding forth, concerning the person and kingdom of Jesus, under the name of David, than the confounding what is said of Christ with the thoughts of David, king of Israel. David was an eminent type of Christ, it is true; but the name of David, as meaning Christ, was used by the prophets ages after David was dead and buried. See Jeremiah 30:9 ; Ezekiel 34:23-24 ; Hosea 3:5 . Hence Peter the apostle, in his sermon, on the memorable day of Pentecost, endeavored to call off the attention of the Jews wholly from David, to fix it on Christ. In this passage (the 19th verse) particularly, it would be doing the greatest violence to the scripture to suffer the smallest idea of David, king of Israel, to cross the mind, while attending to the sublime truths here recorded. What vision, or what holy One, could these words mean, but Him who was set up from everlasting, and who alone was found worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof? Proverbs 8:23 ; Revelation 5:1-9 . And was not Christ in his human nature, as the Christ of God, chosen out of the people? Is it not blessed to consider that individual Person, that holy Thing, so called, Luke 1:35 ; that body which the Father gave him for the express purpose of salvation, Hebrews 10:5 ; the one, the very individual one chosen out of the people? To behold the Father's choice, and the Spirit's anointing of him, our great Representative, suited for the purposes of our salvation, and accomplishing our redemption by his blood, and righteousness? And, in this point of view, how blessed are all those covenant-engagements and promises of a faithful God, and how eternally secure doth it make all our assurances of righteousness and everlasting happiness in him! Reader, if we read these scriptures with reference to Christ and our interest in him, by virtue of his merit in all he did and in all he suffered as the Surety and Representative of his people; we shall, through the Spirit's teaching, enter into the full enjoyment of the blessings here enumerated, and faith will find a sufficient warrant and authority in the Father's testimony concerning redemption.