Psalm 8

Order of Service

• Scripture Reading — Psalm 8
• Sermon
• Pastoral Prayer

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Sermon Title: The Majesty of God Seen in Man His Image Bearer

Scripture: Psalm 8

I. The Majesty of God Found in God's Condescension to Man

A. The psalm opens and closes with the same refrain — O Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth — forming a literary bookend around the psalm's content

B. A parallelistic pattern in Hebrew poetry contrasts God's transcendence with his condescension

1. Psalm 8:1 and 8:3 declare God's transcendent glory set above the heavens — he places stars as if putting them on a board
2. What follows each transcendence statement is startling: out of the mouth of babies and what is man that you take notice of him?

C. The Hebrew God is unique among all religions — he is both transcendent and immanent

1. Other religions present God as either utterly transcendent or pantheistically immanent
2. The Hebrew God stoops low from his transcendent heights and condescends to man by covenant — he takes notice of man, his image bearer, not the ant, the monkey, or the elephant

D. God's condescension is meant to cause wonder at his majesty

II. The Majesty of God Found in Man's Dominion

A. Psalm 8:5-6 uses royal language — man is crowned with glory and honor and given dominion over the works of God's hands

1. Adam is God's vice-regent, ruling creation on God's behalf
2. The Hebrew word for image (tselem) was used of conquering kings who placed statues of themselves in a city to signify sovereignty — mankind as God's image bearer similarly signifies God's sovereign rule over all creation

B. Man's creative dominion is meant to point upward to the majesty of the God who made him

1. Natural creation draws the heart to God's transcendent wonder
2. Human innovation — building, technology, even planting a flag on the moon — reflects man ruling and taking dominion over creation as God's image bearer

C. Man's dominion is not an end in itself but directs hearts to the wonder of man's Creator

III. The Majesty of God Found in the Son of Man

A. Son of man is the most popular self-designation Jesus uses in the Gospels — over 80 times — and he uses it as the ultimate fulfillment of Psalm 8

B. Jesus as the Son of Man fulfills God's condescension to man

1. The baby in the manger is the apex of out of the mouth of babies you have established strength — nowhere else does a baby demonstrate the strength of God as in the God-man Jesus Christ
2. Hebrews 2:5-8 explicitly applies Psalm 8 to Jesus Christ, showing God subjecting all things under his feet
3. Philippians 2 — he counted equality with God not a thing to be grasped but made himself nothing, stooping down from his transcendent throne to become a servant and a man

C. Jesus as the Son of Man exercises dominion over creation, fulfilling the creation mandate

1. Jesus turns water into wine, walks on water, calms wind and sea, withers a fig tree, and feeds thousands — he exercises dominion over creation as the God-man, one person acting in both natures
2. Peter walks on water through union with Christ by faith; when his eyes leave Christ, creation swallows him up
3. The disciples in Acts replicate the works of Christ — not in their own names but in the name of Jesus Christ — extending the creation mandate given to Adam
4. Abraham Kuyper: There is not one square inch of this universe that Jesus Christ does not say mine — he does this now through his church as it spreads from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8)

D. The second and last Adam fulfills what the first Adam was called to do — extending the rule and dominion of Christ over all the earth through his church