Psalm 110
How evident it is that this psalm supplies the divine answer to the riddle of a suffering Messiah. In Psalm 109:4, 5, “For My love they are My adversaries ... ... and they have rewarded Me evil for good, and hatred for My love,” and in this one, “Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool....Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.” “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” Isaiah 53:11.
The first verse is quoted five times in the New Testament; the first time (Matthew 22:41-46) when the Lord Jesus asked the Pharisees concerning the promised Messiah; the second time, and the third (Mark 12:36 and Luke 20:4144) when He asked the same question of the scribes and Sadducees; the fourth time, when Peter in Acts 2:34 gives the answer the Jewish leaders could not or would not give because of unbelief. Last of all this verse is quoted in Hebrews 1 in declaring various glories of the Son of God (verse 13).
It will be noticed that in the Psalms, the present period of grace, and the taking out of a people for heaven, chiefly from the Gentiles, is wholly left out. In verse 1 of our psalm, the despised and rejected Man of Psalm 109 is invited to sit at the right hand of Jehovah until His enemies are made His footstool. They are not being made His footstool now, certainly, for the gospel of the grace of God is proclaimed to all, both Jew and Gentile. That the Church of God to be composed of all who believe in the Lord Jesus from the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) to His soon-coming descent from heaven to claim them (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17), was secret not disclosed in Old Testament days, is expressly told in Ephesians 3:1-13.
The position of Psalm 110 is that the Lord Jesus, as Israel’s Messiah, has appeared again on earth according to prose; has defeated and destroyed the mighty host assembled by the Western powers in the land of Israel, and has set up His authority as Israel’s King in Zion (Jerusalem). His people who formerly demanded and secured His crucifixion, crying, “Away with Him; crucify Him,” will now be willing in the beauties of holiness (or, in holy splendor), and as born again in that day.
The fourth verse speaking of the order of Melchizedek, invites a reference to brews, chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8, where the subject is taken up and explained. It will suffice here to remark that believers need and have been given, a High Priest in the blessed Lord Jesus; and that He could not be a priest according to the law of Moses, because He was not of the tribe of Levi, but of Judah. Melchizedek furnished an illustration which the Holy Spirit has made use of, of a priest not tracing his descent from a family of priests, nor passing on his priesthood to others after him.
“He shall drink of the brook by the way” (verse 7), refers to His lowly, dependent life while passing through this world on the way from the manger to the cross.
ML 10/04/1931