Village Schools of the Bible

GOD'S GLORY IN MAN'S DIGNITY
A Study in Psalm 8 by Max Frazier, Jr.

One of the great social concerns of the past few decades has been that of improving man's self-esteem. Since the close of the Vietnam Conflict, there has been an emphasis on helping man to feel better about himself. This attitude has even crept into Christian circles and one can enter most Christian and religious bookstores and find many titles dealing with man and his self-esteem.

David had an answer for man and his problem with self-esteem. His answer is so simplistic that we have overlooked its importance. David says that man finds his source of dignity and self-esteem by focusing on the greatness of God.

The problem today is that we have become impotent and ineffective in our Christian lives because we have lost our vision of the greatness and holiness of God. Our country does not need a new economic policy; our country does not need a new administration; our country needs to rediscover God.

I think the great French physicist and Christian, Pascal, best summed up Psalm 8 when he wrote, Oh, the grandeur and littleness, the excellence and the corruption, the majesty and meanness of man.

The Praise of His Glory Psalm 8:1-2

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

The thought of these verses is that the Lord's name is super abundant in majesty. There is no other name above His. The prophet Isaiah, relating the scene of the holiness of God observed while in the temple mourning the passing of King Uzziah, wrote, And they (referring to the seraphim) were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3). David penned these words, Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, O my soul (Psalm 103:20-22).

Secondly, God's honor is so secure that He let the defense of His honor be committed to babies and children. Why does God use children? He does it to offend the adversary. How many unbelievers have been rebuked by the innocent remarks of a God-fearing child? I am reminded of an exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees as Jesus was entering the city of Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday. The children were crying out Hosanna to the Son of David and the Pharisees asked Jesus if He heard what they were saying. These people thought Jesus should have been offended by the remarks of these street children, but Jesus understood what was going on. He said, From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise (Matthew 21:16). God delights in using those people the world considers as weak to confound those the world considers as wise. The Apostle Paul expressed it this way, Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him (First Corinthians 1:26-29).

What is Man?

Psalm 8:3-8

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.

David is at first overwhelmed with the magnitude of God's heavens. He has paused and looked up into the night sky and has been blown away as he pondered the creation that was before him. Let's see if we can grasp something of the magnitude that David felt.

Suppose we wanted to take a trip through the universe. We will travel at the speed of light - 669,000,000 miles per hour. (That is incredibly fast, equal to traveling around the world at the equator seven and one half times in one second!) At that speed we will reach the moon in 1.3 second; the sun in 8.3 minutes; and the farthest planet, Pluto, in 5.5 hours. To reach the nearest star will take 4.3 years (remember we are traveling at the speed of 669,000,000 miles per hour). It will take us 50,000 years to reach the edge of our solar system, and one million years to reach the nearest galaxy. Is it any wonder that David is totally overwhelmed? God is so AWESOME and IMMENSE. We cannot even fathom Him as the Creator. Yet, for God to create all these things was no big deal for Him. John Wesley stated it like this: God created the heavens and the earth and did not half try. It was finger work!

Next, David looks at himself. Wow! Who am I really? Why would God care for man in the light of the immensity of His creation? What is the significance of man? There are two possible answers to that question. First, man is nothing but another animal species. He is insignificant. Shakespeare, in his play Macbeth wrote, Life is but a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Bertrand Russell, Britain's atheistic philosophert, wrote, The life of man is a long march through the night surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, toward a goal that few can hope to reach and where none may tarry long. One by one as they march our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent death. Brief and powerless is man's life. On him and his entire race the slow sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matters roll on its relentless way. For man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day. Friends, the result of such thinking is: frustration, gloom, despair, suicide.

But there is a second way of answering the question about the significance of man.

Man shows God's greatness.
Man has a unique relationship to God.
Man is to be the instrument by which God can do His work in the world.
Man is the creature nearest to God.
Man is the only creature created in the image of God.

I believe that the greatness of God can be seen in the life of that person who walks in faithful obedience to the will of God. This is what God created man to do: to walk in fellowship with Him, and to have dominion over His creation. But this can only happen when we walk in obedience.

Now comes the very difficult question: Why did God care for man who proved to be a constant failure? The answer almost seems paradoxical: God cared for us because we were failures. Jesus died upon the cross for you because you were a failure, not because you were a success. Man can only find his real worth in a relationship with Jesus Christ.

I challenge you to read Psalm 8 everyday for the next month. Then, as you are out and about, notice the world around you - the creation that God has given you to enjoy, and then praise God for who you are through Him. And you will sing with David, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

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