Psalm 8 - Jesus' Glorification
How a psalm written hundreds of years before Christ is actually telling His death and resurrection story.
When considering the writing found in the New Testament, Hebrews is, as the saying goes, a different animal. There is really nothing else like it. The constant quoting of the Old Testament and the depth of argumentation practically screams of an original audience with an undeniably strong Jewish background.
This is one of the letter’s (or should we say “sermon’s,” for that is almost certainly how it was first intended) most intriguing aspects. Its overwhelming Jewishness is clearly on display. This makes it all the more enlightening to follow as the author begins to give a crash course in hermeneutics to his Old-Testament-soaked audience. Should this not be the people more equipped to interpret the Scriptures than any other? And yet, they have spent so much time on “elementary teaching about Christ,” such as “a foundation for repentance from dead works,” “faith in God,” “resurrection of the dead,” and other matters that they are unaware of how to talk about some of the more powerful texts and their relationship to God’s Messiah, Jesus (Heb. 5:11; 6:1-3).
This becomes abundantly clear in the author’s use of the very well-known Psalm 8.
When read as part of the Psalter without input from Jesus (see Luke 24:44), it seems obvious that the author is writing about humankind. Psalm 8:3-8 seems self-evident in its intention which is to point out the surprising decision of God to grant authority to human beings over all the works of creation:
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
But this is not how the Hebrew writer reads this passage.
Hebrews 2:6-9 quotes Psalm 8:4-6 (contained in the passage above) and elaborates on the meaning:
6 It has been testified somewhere, "What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8 putting everything in subjection under his feet." Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
The inspired author of Hebrews completely skips over any reference to the Psalm’s original intention of poetically referring to God’s grace in giving dominion to humans over the created order. He does not acknowledge it at all. He moves straight into the idea that the psalm is and has always been about Jesus, the true Son of Man.
In this way, the sermon’s author is teaching his original audience (and certainly us, too) how to interpret Scripture properly. If all of Scripture is really telling the story of Jesus, then it is only right in this author’s mind to read such blatant clues as we have italicized above as unquestionable references to the One and Only True Son of Man. (For all the Scriptures being about Jesus, see Luke 24:27, 44-47; John 5:39; Acts 26:22-23; Rom. 16:25-27; 1 Cor. 2:6-16; 15:3-4; 2 Cor. 3:14-18; 1 Peter 1:10-12; et. al.)
What the original human author intended as a poem about the grace of God extended to mankind, even in his low estate, the divine Author—the Holy Spirit—has written about Christ. But it is written in such a way that its primary referent could not be deduced prior to His death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of God.
The author of Hebrews has taken the Lord seriously. He has fully accepted that all Scripture—even that which may seem so self-evident on the surface—is really about Jesus.
Looks like there is a new hermeneutic in town, folks. We would be wise to pay attention.