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Scripture Reading: Psa. 8
In this message we come to Psalm 8. The more we read this psalm, the more we have to admit that it is altogether heavenly language. No mere human word could express the divine concept in this psalm. The heavenly language in it must come from the divine revelation.
In the previous message, we saw David's concepts concerning a godly life in Psalms 3—7. In this message we want to see his inspired praise of the excellency of Christ in Psalm 8. If we read Psalms 3—7 with much prayer, we can realize that they all are on the same level and in the same category. They describe many bad things, showing that the earth is a messy earth. But when we read Psalm 8, we feel that we are not on this messy earth. When we come to Psalm 8, the tone changes.
I would like to read this psalm so that we can consider it verse by verse. In verse 1 David said, "O Jehovah our Lord,/ How excellent is Your name/In all the earth,/You who have set Your splendor above the heavens!" This one verse covers both the earth and the heavens. In Psalms 3—7 the earth is a mess, but in Psalm 8 there is something excellent on the earth. This excellent item is the excellent name of the Lord Jesus. He is not here today physically, but His name is here. This earth today is nothing but a mess. But, thank the Lord, at least on this earth there is something excellent — the name of Jesus! His name is the exalted name, the glorified name.
Verse 1 mentions both the earth and the heavens. We need to realize that this psalm tries the best to link the earth to the heavens and to bring down the heavens to the earth. In verse 1 we can see this linking. Jehovah's name is excellent in all the earth, and He has set His splendor above the heavens. Actually, the heavens are the source of the excellency. The excellency does not initiate from the earth, but from the heavens.
Verse 2 says, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings/ You have established strength/Because of Your adversaries,/ To stop the enemy and the avenger." This verse shows us three negative categories of persons: the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger. Above the heavens is God's splendor, and on the earth Jesus' name is excellent. But in this universe, there are still many adversaries, enemies, and avengers. Adversaries are those who are within, enemies are those who are without, and the avengers are those who run back and forth (cf. Job 1:7). Satan can be signified by these three categories. First, Satan was within God's kingdom. Then Satan became an enemy without, outside the kingdom of God. He is also the avenger, running back and forth. Above the heavens there is splendor, and on the earth there is the excellent name. But in between the heavens and the earth, there are the adversaries within, the enemy without, and the avenger running back and forth.
What would God do about this? God does something in a consummate way. He establishes His praises out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, the youngest, smallest, and weakest ones. Babes are a little stronger than sucklings, and sucklings are somewhat smaller than the babes, but both of them are in the category of the smallest and weakest.
In this message I would like to ask if we consider ourselves as babes and sucklings? Perhaps some of us have a doctor's degree, or others are high school seniors. Are we seniors, or are we sucklings? If you would ask me, I would say that I am the smallest suckling. In the kingdom of God, there is no old person. The Lord Jesus told people, "Truly I say to you, Unless you turn and become like little children, you shall by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens" (Matt. 18:3). He also said, "Allow the little children and do not prevent them from coming to Me, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens" (19:14). The Lord stressed that to participate in the kingdom of the heavens, we must be like little children. All the people who are in the kingdom of the heavens are as babes. A brother may be over sixty years old, but in God's kingdom, he is a suckling.
Psalm 8 is poetry. Poetic writing should not be understood in a mere physical and literal way. We have to understand the terms according to a poetic way. Babes are not the real babes, and sucklings are not the real sucklings. These are the children of the kingdom of the heavens. All the people who are in the kingdom of the heavens are either babes or sucklings. If we consider that we are people with a high degree or status, that we have a doctor's degree, that we are seniors, we are not in the kingdom. The brothers and sisters who are seniors in high school should not take this standing in the church life. We should not be seniors, but sucklings. The psalmist means that we, the children of God, all are babes and sucklings, yet God could cause us to praise Him.
Psalm 8:2 says that the Lord has established strength out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Seemingly, strength does not refer to something that comes out of the mouth. When the Lord quoted this verse in Matthew 21:16, He used the word praise instead of strength. Weaker ones in themselves cannot praise. To cry or weep does not require strength, but to praise requires strength. When we gossip, argue, or reason with people, that does not require strength. But without strength, we cannot praise the Lord. Some praises may come out of our mouth, but they cannot be considered as perfected praises, because they are not so full of strength. Praises should be full of strength. Many times when the saints are praising the Lord, we can see the strength.
The Septuagint version of the Psalms translated the Hebrew word for strength into praise in Psalm 8:2. This translation was quoted by the Lord in Matthew 21:16. This means that the Lord admitted that this translation was right. The scholars who translated the Old Testament into Greek for the Septuagint did have some kind of spiritual knowledge. To praise is to have the strength in our mouth. God can work in His redemption to such an extent that the weakest ones and the smallest ones can have the strength to praise Him. God has established this.
The Hebrew word for established is a hard word to translate. In the Lord's quotation in Matthew 21:16, it says that He has "perfected" praise out of the mouths of the babes and sucklings. Psalm 8 says that He established strength out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, but the Lord Jesus quoted it by saying that He perfected praise. Is our praise perfect? We have to admit that our praise is altogether imperfect. Psalm 8 is not a long psalm, but it is a completed, perfected, and perfect psalm. If we are short of strength, we cannot praise. If we do not have the extra strength, we cannot have a completed, perfected, and perfect praise.
On earth the Lord's name is excellent; above the heavens is the Lord's splendor, His glory. In between there are the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger, who are stopped by the praise of strength that comes out of the mouths of the smallest ones and the weakest ones. This is God's marvelous consummation. The highest consummation of the Lord's work in His redemption is to perfect the praise to Him out of the mouths of the smallest and the weakest.
The Lord does this because of His adversaries, with the purpose of stopping the enemy and the avenger. The Chinese translation shows that to stop the enemy and the avenger means to shut up their mouths. Today before the Lord and God, Satan's mouth has been shut up. In the whole universe, there are many voices. The adversaries have their voices, the enemy has his voice, and the avenger has his voice. But all these voices have been stopped by the overcoming Christ. He has overcome all of God's enemies in the entire universe, so He can perfect the praise to Him out of the mouths of the smallest and weakest persons, in order to stop the voices of His enemy and His avenger.
Verse 3 says, "When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers,/The moon and the stars, which You have ordained." David did not say that he saw the heavens, but he saw "Your heavens." We have a hymn on this psalm in our hymnal (Hymns, #1097). In the second stanza of that hymn, the writer referred to the sun, the moon, and the stars. The writer added the word sun, but this is wrong. In Psalm 8 David saw only the moon and the stars, not the sun. We cannot see the sun, the moon, and the stars at the same time. When we see the moon and the stars, we cannot see the sun.
The moon and the stars in Psalm 8 indicate that it was in the night. In the nighttime, everything is dark. But the psalmist lifted up his eyes to look at our Father's heavens. In the night he saw the moon and the stars which God had ordained. The scientific experts can bear witness to this ordination. The divine ordination of the moon and the stars is truly a wonder.
After the psalmist turned his view from the messy earth to the bright heavens, he said, "What is man, that You remember him,/And the son of man, that You visit him?" (v. 4). He turned his view from the moon and the stars in the heavens back to man on this earth. First, God remembers man. Second, He visits man. We have to understand this in a poetic way. God in the heavens remembered man before He became incarnated. Then He came to visit man by becoming a man through His incarnation. The Triune God came to visit us. Before coming to us, He remembered us. The Triune God was very busy, yet He remembered us. Then according to His remembrance of us, He became incarnated to visit us.
As believers of Jesus, we surely have been visited by Him. Each day when I pray, I experience the Lord's visitation. He comes to me in the way of incarnation; in the way of His human living; in the way of His crucifixion; in the way of His resurrection; in the way of His ascension; and in the way of His descension. The Lord is there in my study room as I spend time with Him in prayer. We all need to enjoy the Lord's visitation day by day. If the Lord Jesus had never gone through all the above processes, how could He be with us today? He is now with us. In order to visit us, the Lord did not simply drop down from the heavens. He took a long journey. The Lord has remembered us and also visited us. He is with us all the time. If we did not have the visitation of the Lord, we would be pitiful.
Psalm 8:5 says, "You have made him somewhat lower than angels/And have crowned him with glory and honor." The word angels in Hebrew is Elohim, which is normally translated God (Gen. 1:1). The Septuagint translated Elohim here into angels. In Hebrews 2:7 Paul quoted this verse, not according to the Hebrew version but according to the Septuagint version. God made him somewhat lower than the angels. Who is "him" in this verse? "Him" actually refers to the man Jesus. God has made the man Jesus somewhat lower than the angels. To make Jesus lower than the angels refers to His incarnation with His human living. In the sense of being in the flesh, He was somewhat lower than the angels.
After His human living, He was resurrected, and in His resurrection, He was glorified. Then He ascended to the heavens, and in His ascension, He was honored. "Crowned...with glory and honor" indicates or implies two steps: Christ's resurrection and His ascension. Before His resurrection and ascension, there was the death of Christ. If there is no death, there is no resurrection, and if there is no resurrection, there is no ascension. Furthermore, without His incarnation and human living, He was not qualified to die. He had to become a man and live for thirty-three and a half years. Thus, in Psalm 8:5 we can see all the steps of the Triune God's process: incarnation, human living for thirty-three and a half years, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Verses 6-8 say, "For You have caused him to rule over the works of Your hands;/You have put all things under his feet:/All sheep and oxen,/As well as the beasts of the field,/The birds of heaven and the fish of the sea,/Whatever passes through the paths of the seas." Whatever passes through the paths of the seas are the sea animals other than the fish. These verses refer to the kingdom in which Christ will rule over all the created things and to the restoration in this one-thousand-year kingdom, the millennium.
Psalm 8 is a short psalm, but it comprises and implies Christ's incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, ascension, and His being crowned to be the Lord and Christ and the King of kings, the unique Ruler of the entire universe. The day will come when He will be in the kingdom for a thousand years to rule over all the creatures. This is the revelation in Psalm 8.
The last verse of this psalm repeats the first part of the first verse by saying, "O Jehovah our Lord,/How excellent is Your name/In all the earth!" At the end of the psalm, David does not say anything further about the heavens, because eventually the earth will be as excellent as the heavens.
Now that we have read through Psalm 8 in an interpretive way, let us consider in more detail the major points in this psalm.
Psalm 8 is David's inspiration, his inspired praise of the excellency of Christ.
The Lord's name is excellent in all the earth, and His splendor has been set above the heavens. I want to say again that this psalm tries the best to join the earth to the heavens and to bring the heavens down to the earth, making the earth and the heavens one.
In Psalms 3—7 it was a mess on the earth according to David's human concept. Here in Psalm 8, something, that is, the Lord's name, is excellent (majestic) in the earth according to the divine revelation, and the Lord's splendor (glory) is above the heavens in the sight of David. Today the earthly people do not see this revelation. They do not have such a view, but we have such a heavenly view about Jesus. Above David in the heavens was the glory, and with David on this earth was an excellent name. Thus, his view, his vision, brought him away from the view of the messy earth. The news media reports all the bad things that happen on this earth every day. To live anywhere on earth without the church life would be terrible.
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings the Lord has established strength (praise — Matt. 21:16) because of His adversaries, to stop the enemy and the avenger (Psa. 8:2). We have seen that babes and sucklings are the youngest, smallest, and weakest among men, indicating the highest consummation of the Lord's work in His redemption. In God's salvation, the top consummation is to perfect the smallest and the weakest to praise God.
When we enjoy Christ's redemption to the uttermost, we will be bold to praise the Lord. When we are discouraged and disappointed, we may sigh and groan. But when we praise the Lord, this is the highest experience of our enjoyment of Christ. The enjoyment of Christ will make us so strong to utter a complete and a perfected praise to the Lord. We all have to learn how to praise. This is the highest consummation that God has completed in His redemption through Christ.
We all need to be the babes and sucklings in the church life. We may not be old in our physical age, but in our Christian experience we may be like tired and fatigued old folks. If we are still young in the Lord, we will praise the Lord on the way to the meetings. When we were in Elden Hall in Los Angeles, a certain brother was shouting praises to the Lord while he was driving to a meeting. A policeman saw him, followed him, and told him to pull over. The policeman asked the brother what happened to him. Then the brother said, "I was praising Jesus!" Then the policeman let him go. This is the right way to come to the meeting. When we drive to the meeting, we should sing, praise, and shout, "Amen! Hallelujah! Amen! Lord Jesus! Amen!" Many of us will not do this because we have become too old. To be old means to be weak. We need to shout more, say "Hallelujah" more, say "Amen" more, praise more. Our meetings should be full of joyful noise.
A number of the sisters among us are still in their early twenties, but their fatigued attitude makes them seem like they are over one hundred years old. With them there is no freshness and no strength. With them nothing is in the morning; instead, everything is in the sunset. They need to learn to praise the Lord. The weakest among men being perfected to praise the Lord indicates the highest consummation of the Lord's work in His redemption.
The Lord does such a consummate work because of His adversaries. He does this to insult Satan. It is as if God says, "Satan, you have done that much. Let me show you how much I can do. I can do much, much more than what you can do. Look at all My children now. They are all babes and sucklings praising Me." This praising shuts Satan's mouth. The enemy's speaking is stopped by our praising. The Lord establishes strength, perfects praise, out of our mouths because of His adversaries (within), for the stopping of the enemy and the avenger (without).
David saw the heavens, the works of the Lord's fingers, the moon and the stars, which the Lord has ordained (Psa. 8:3). This indicates that David had a view turned from looking at the earth to contemplating the heavens, in the night. In the night, if you look at the earth, you will see nothing because of the darkness. But if you look up to contemplate the heavens, you will see the moon and the stars. In this view David had a pure vision to see the pure work in God's creation and ordination. In the universe there is not only God's creation but also God's ordination. David saw the divine order in the universe.
This is the aim in the Lord's redemption — to turn us from the messy earth to the bright heaven. Before we were saved, we were in a messy situation. But after we were saved, our messy earth became a bright heaven. Our view was turned from looking at this messy earth to looking at the bright heaven. When bad news comes to me, I have to exercise to turn my view to look at the bright heaven. When I turn my view from the bad news and look up to the heavens, I can praise. We must learn to turn our view. The aim in the Lord's redemption is to turn our view from the earth to the heavens. The earth is messy, but the heavens are bright.
In Psalm 8:4 David asked, "What is man, that You remember him,/And the son of man, that You visit him?" In his view in the heavens, David turned his consideration to man on the earth. The ordination of the moon and the stars is marvelous. Then how about man on this earth? We should not forget that the psalmist in this psalm is trying the best to bring the heavens down and to bring the earth up to join with the heavens. He looked at the heavens with the moon and the stars. That is wonderful, but what about man? We may think that man is pitiful, but according to the divine view in this psalm, we are wrong. Man was pitiful in Adam and in the fallen situation, but today man in Christ is not pitiful. The man in Christ is wonderful.
Three portions of the Word speak of the same thing concerning man — Genesis 1, Psalm 8, and Hebrews 2. What is revealed in Psalm 8 was first spoken of in Genesis 1. Genesis 1 says that man was commissioned with the authority to rule over all the created things (vv. 26, 28). Psalm 8 repeats this. Then in Hebrews 2:6-8 Paul quotes Psalm 8. These three portions of the Word show us that man has been in three stages: created in Genesis 1, fallen in Psalm 8, and redeemed in Hebrews 2.
This redeemed man is no longer in a pitiful situation. He is joined to Jesus. Actually, Jesus, the incarnated God, first joined Himself with us. Now in His redemption we are joined to Him. There is an organic union between Him and us. Christ has passed through human living, and He died to solve our problems. Then He resurrected and ascended to be crowned and enthroned with glory and honor. He was breathed into us and poured out upon us. Today He is both in the heavens and also within us and outside of us. What kind of men are we? We are men who have been mingled with Christ.
Man is the central object of God in His creation for the accomplishment of His economy to fulfill His heart's desire. The first "man" in Psalm 8:4 is Enosh in Hebrew. Enosh means a fragile, weak man. The second "man" in 8:4 is Adam in Hebrew. Both Enosh and Adam in this verse refer to the God-created man in God's creation in Genesis 1:26; the Satan-captured man in man's fall in Psalm 8:4; and Christ as a man in His incarnation for the accomplishment of God's redemption in Hebrews 2:6. We should not forget Genesis 1, Psalm 8, and Hebrews 2. These three portions cover the three stages of man.
Such a man God remembers in His economy and visits in His incarnation (John 1:14; Phil. 2:7). Thank God for His remembrance, and thank God for His incarnation. He remembered us in His economy, and He visited us in His incarnation.
The Lord has made man somewhat lower than the angels (Psa. 8:5a; Heb. 2:7a). This refers to Christ's incarnation (John 1:14). In His incarnation Christ was made somewhat lower than angels in the sense of being in the flesh. In the flesh Christ was lower than the angels.
God has crowned man (Christ) with glory and honor (Psa. 8:5b; Heb. 2:7b). This refers to Christ's resurrection in His glory. Through resurrection He entered into glory; He was glorified in His resurrection (John 7:39b; Luke 24:26). This also refers to Christ's ascension in His honor (Acts 2:33-36; 5:31a). Christ's resurrection is mainly in His glory, and His ascension is mainly in His honor. Glory refers to the condition. Honor refers to the position. Condition-wise, Christ is in glory. Position-wise, Christ is in honor. He has both glory in condition and honor in position.
This was through His all-inclusive death (Heb. 2:9). Without death He could have never entered into resurrection, and He could have never reached His ascension.
God has caused man (Christ) to rule over the works of God's hands and has put all things under His feet: all sheep and oxen, the beasts of the field, the birds of heaven, the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the seas (Psa. 8:6-8; Heb. 2:7b-8a). This word was fulfilled first in Adam (Gen. 1:26-28). But this word was broken by man's fall. Today nothing is subject to us. Even the mosquitoes still come to defeat us. Nothing today is under us because the order has been fully destroyed by man's fall. But there will be a time, the time of restoration, when everything will be in a good order. This word will be fulfilled in full in Christ in the millennium, the age of restoration (Rev. 20:4-6; Matt. 19:28). Isaiah 11:6-9 and 65:25 speak of the wonderful divine order in the time of restoration. This is because of Christ's redemption.
Psalm 8:9 repeats the first part of verse 1 by saying, "O Jehovah our Lord,/How excellent is Your name/In all the earth." This strengthens the thought concerning the excellency of the Lord's name in all the earth. The earth now is full of the excellency of Christ. Now the earth is not a messy earth but an excellent earth because the excellency of the name of Christ fills all the earth. In this verse the psalmist considers that the earth is as excellent as the heavens, as indicated in the first part of the Lord's prayer: "Our Father who is in the heavens, Your name be sanctified; Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth" (Matt. 6:9-10).
I would like to repeat the goal of this psalm once more. The goal is to join the earth to the heavens and to bring down the heavens to the earth, making these two one. If we are victorious and overcoming every day, this is our reality. Today with us, the earth is joined to the heavens, the heavens are brought down to the earth, and the two are one. But with the unbelieving ones and with the defeated Christians, the heavens are far away and the earth is dark and messy. This is why the unbelievers need all kinds of worldly amusements and sinful pleasures. But we do not need them. We need only Christ and the church life.
When we live Christ and live in the church life, the heavens and the earth are one. With us, our earth is really joined to the heavens. With us, the heavens are always here. Here on earth we have the excellent name of Jesus. On this earth today the only excellency is with the name of Christ. Hallelujah! There is such a name! We have this precious name on earth, and we also have our splendor, our glory, above the heavens.
Eventually, with us, the earth and the heavens will be one in a complete way. In the coming age, in the millennium, in the age of restoration, the heaven is down and the earth is up. There we will enjoy God's salvation to the uttermost. In the millennium all of us will be babes and sucklings. There will be no older ones, no fatigued ones. Everyone will be fresh, young, living, and full of strength.
Today many Christians like power, but the Bible in Psalm 8 speaks of strength. We need to be full of strength to praise the Lord, to express God's consummated work in His redemption.
Psalm 8 has nine verses. Verse 1 and verses 6-9 are somewhat easy to understand. Verses 2-5, however, are very puzzling and not easy to understand. Why did the psalmist, after talking about the earth with the excellency of Jehovah's name and the heavens with the glory, turn to the babes and sucklings? We need to see that verses 2-5 show us how the babes and sucklings are produced.
In Psalms 3—7 David thought the earth was messy and full of problems, but in the Lord's view, His name is excellent on this earth. Furthermore, the Lord has set His splendor, His glory, above the heavens. The earth is excellent, and the heavens are glorious, but the Lord has three categories of opposers. The first is the adversaries, the second is the enemy, and the third is the avenger. On the earth, there is no problem; in the heavens, there is no problem; but what about in the air? In the air there are the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger. How does God deal with them?
Psalm 8 is all-inclusive. It talks about the earth, the heavens, man, and the coming kingdom. But in addition to the earth, the heavens, man, and the coming kingdom, there are the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger. Verse 2 says that because of the Lord's adversaries, He has established strength, or perfected praise. The Lord has established strength or perfected praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings for the purpose of stopping His adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger. In this way God kills "three birds with one stone." Because of the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger, God makes the babes and sucklings to praise Him in a complete way.
Now we need to consider who the babes and sucklings are. The sucklings are even younger than the babes, the infants, because they are still feeding on their mother's milk. They are the youngest. The little babes and sucklings do not do anything. But after growing up, they do many things. To stop a person from doing things is nearly impossible, because all human beings are doers. The whole earth is filled with man's doings. Who can stop this? Only the Lord can. No unregenerated man is a babe or a suckling. We become babes and sucklings by regeneration.
Before I was regenerated, I was very active. One day when I was nineteen years old, I was saved. That made me a quiet person. Regeneration reduced my natural activity. I began to hate my doings, my speaking, and my thinking. I was remade, re-created, by the Lord's regeneration. Every believer who has been genuinely regenerated has experienced the same thing. When a person becomes regenerated, he becomes quiet, not wanting to act or speak in himself. When I was regenerated, I just wanted to read the Bible, to kneel down to pray, to muse on God, and to consider the things of the Lord. I became a real babe and a real suckling. The Lord made me such through regeneration. We natural beings are always busy, doing a lot of work. The proper, genuine salvation stops our human doing and makes us the babes and sucklings to praise the Lord.
We also have to realize that for the Lord to regenerate us, He had to undergo a number of procedures, or processes. He had to become a man, to live on this earth, to die, to enter into Hades for three days and three nights, and He had to rise up to become the life-giving Spirit. As the Spirit, He comes into us to regenerate us. Thus, regeneration comes out of all the procedures of the Lord.
This is why right after speaking about the babes and sucklings, the psalmist continues by saying, "When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers,/The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,/What is man....?" (vv. 3-4a). In this verse Your heavens, the works, and the moon and the stars are all in apposition. Strictly speaking, the writing here in verses 3-4a is not grammatically complete. From the word When to the word ordained is a long subordinate clause, but where is the main clause? In this sentence, there is no main clause. There should be a main clause following the subordinate clause. Instead, after the subordinate clause, David asks, "What is man?" This writing is incomplete. David said in a poetic way, "When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers,/The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,/What is man?" This is not a complete sentence.
The psalmist may have been wrong grammatically, but the Spirit could never be wrong. The Spirit inspired David to compose it this way, leaving an opening for us to fill in the main clause. After he says, "When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers,/The moon and the stars, which You have ordained," what should be said? The main clause can be filled in. I would propose four ways. It could read, "When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers,/The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, I say, What is man....?" I say is the main clause. Or it can read, "When I see Your heavens...I wonder," or "I consider." It could also read, "When I see Your heavens...I shout." The psalmist also could have said, "When I see Your heavens...I weep." This is very meaningful.
After David said, "When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers,/The moon and the stars, which You have ordained," there is the need of a "selah," a pause. We have to stop here for a rest to consider what to say. When I see the heavens, the works of God's fingers, the moon and the stars, I have to say and I have to ask and I have to find out — "what is man?" I have to say this; I have to ask this. I have to find out what man is that God remembers him and visits him.
By what way did God visit man? The answer follows in verse 5a — "You have made him somewhat lower than angels." Today we understand that this is incarnation. How did God visit us? He visited us by becoming incarnated. He put on humanity and became a man to be a little lower than the angels. This is the way God visited us.
He was also crowned with glory and honor (v. 5b). Glory refers to His resurrection, implying His death. Without death He could not have entered into resurrection. To be crowned with glory is to be glorified. To be crowned with honor implies the ascension. Therefore in one verse, verse 5, we see Christ's incarnation, His all-inclusive death implied, His resurrection for His glorification, and His ascension for Him to be honored.
God visited man by being incarnated, living on this earth, dying, rising up from the dead, and ascending to the heavens to be crowned with glory and honor. Thus, God visited man through the long journey of His process to become the life-giving Spirit to reach us and to enter into us. Ultimately, He was consummated as the life-giving Spirit. The incarnated One is now the life-giving Spirit. It is this One that can produce the babes and the sucklings.
The babes and sucklings are produced through regeneration in the initial stage. Then they continue to be produced in full through their sanctification, renewing, and transformation. Through transformation they are perfected in praising the Lord. This is the Lord's recovery and the Lord's victory. God overcomes His enemy through these babes and sucklings. The work of Christianity is to produce active ones; they endeavor to produce "giants." Our work is to produce babes and sucklings.
Verses 6-8 say, "You have caused him to rule over the works of Your hands;/You have put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen,/As well as the beasts of the field,/The birds of heaven and the fish of the sea,/Whatever passes through the paths of the seas." These verses refer to the kingdom. All things will be ruled over by Christ with His Body, and all things will be subjected under His feet. This really perfects the praise, completes the praise, in this psalm. This short psalm reveals so much. It speaks of the heavens, the earth, babes and sucklings, man, three categories of enemies, and the Lord's incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, ascension, coming back, and kingdom.
We Christians may praise the Lord, but our praise needs to be perfected. We need to praise Him for His splendor above the heavens and His excellency on earth. Then we can praise Him for His incarnation for Him to come to visit us. Then we should go on to praise Him for His human living, for His death, for His resurrection, for His ascension, and for His kingdom. We have to praise Him with all these matters. Then our praises will be perfected, completed. This praise is the strength out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Such perfected praise is the ultimate consummation of the Lord's work of incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming back to rule on this earth.
When we come to the Lord's table, we stop every kind of human speaking and human doing. We stop our work. We are here at the table to do only one thing — to praise Him. In order to praise, we must stop our work. Thus, at the Lord's table, we all are the real babes and sucklings. While we are here being stopped from all of our doings to praise the Lord, the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger are all defeated. This is a shame to God's enemy.
We need to remain in the condition and spirit of the Lord's table. Our Christian life should be like the Lord's table. When we go home after the Lord's table, we should continue to praise the Lord. We have to learn not to do too much. On the other hand, we should not be lazy. The point is that we should stop our human doings and be those who simply praise the Lord.
