A decade ago as I was wrestling with the problem of multiplying data disks to keep my computer files organized, a friend showed me a way to double the capacity of my disks. All I had to do was take each of my 5.25 floppy disks and notch it on the opposite side. This gave my computer access to that reverse side whenever it was flipped over. The real problem then as now was remembering to organize the information in a reasonable manner so that important data can be recovered. In this same way, the economy of a two sided picture puzzle may reflect completely different views according to which side you choose to assemble. The artists who print such ingenious methods of taxing the mental capacities of puzzle fans, know that they have a certain responsibility to shade the pictures so that their fans can immediately know which side is up! I say this to lead to the fact that our passage today is a text of dual nature.

In the process of translation from Hebrew into Greek these last verses of Psalm 102 take on an expanded meaning which the author of the book of Hebrews applies to demonstrate the deity of Jesus Christ. Now, we are obligated to be very careful in our translation of the sacred texts into the contemporary English. And very many mistakes can crop up if we are sloppy in our work.

The nineteenth century's understanding of Genesis resulted from misunderstanding and application of the word "kind" in Genesis One. This understanding was challenged by the evolutionists and as a result of fighting for the wrong understanding, a much greater war over studies in origins was temporarily lost. Part of the problem was a certain evangelical insistence that only one possible meaning could be gleaned and applied from certain texts. I am finding this out in my prepatory studies of the book of Deuteronmy which I hope to begin in the month of May. In addition to having to learn more about Theonomy than I anticipated, I just became aware of an opposite school that works from an intrusionist framework. At the very least, that means another book to be sought out and understood. Then a careful, prayerful analysis within the limits of the understanding of the greatest Fathers and Doctors of the church, so that our studies together may truly honor and magnify the Lord of all the earth.

We always have to be careful that a too insistent mentality of only one possible meaning can become ingrown and eventually dishonors God's word and effectively limits the witness of the Church. If such a limited proposition was true, there would by necessity be only one commentary and one set of sermons to be preached over and over again. Copernicus and Columbus and all the rest would forever be limited to the cultural world view celebrated and maintained by self-appointed censors. This has happened time and time again in the history of the world. The Jewish Leaders of Jesus' time were but one similar example of the current PC domination of college campuses that attempts to control human thought. Such is the growing educational emphasis that only educators know enough about any subject to teach it in the minimal fables and fabrications with which their minds are so poorly capable.

Well should we pray that the president's focus on educational choice be made manifest, legal and obtainable. After twenty-five years of experience in "edukashun", if I ever have a chance to open a private church school, there will be a sign on the front door:

Now before you think me just as oppositely politically correct as that miserable crowd who have taken total control of our schools - you can believe me that we will teach evolution, psychology and all the rest of fallible human wisdom - just so our children may know from first hand knowledge how the wisdom of man falls short of the wisdom of God. The best preparation I had for college was the fact that I did indeed read Dewey, Darwin, Freud, Jung and many others first hand in their own words.

Whenever, some of the young white supremacists come my way, I ask them if they have read Hitler's Mein Kampf? Now that is not a positively fool proof method of setting them straight. After all there are some very weak minds that will not notice the absolute stupidity of Hitler's abnormal mental emotionalism. However, even an average person can get sick of his diatribes within fifty or so pages. The same is true of the so called great thinkers in psychology. As I read them in my teen years, my reaction to their meanderings was: these people are sick, abnormal and downright dangerous!

How refreshing in comparison is the eternal Word of God in contrast to the sinful predictability of the human mind. A growing understanding of God's Word undermines the brightest of mankind's best theories and forces us to focus anew on the wisdom of our Eternal God. In that sense we may certainly affirm the first phrase of verse twenty-three in our Psalm today. "He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days." Our intellectual strength is indeed broken and even the days of wicked men are cut short. Our psalmist begs that he might know the eternity of God's knowledge. In verse twenty-five he affirms the creative action of our Triune God. There was, he says a beginning of the created order. Then in verse twenty-six he acknowledges that all this will come to an end. Worn out like a favorite suit of clothes. But, God is eternal, unchanging. And because of that eternal nature, His children will one day share His eternal presence.

This in our translation is the Psalmist's experience recorded in the ancient Hebrew text. And true to the Masoretic text, our translation fixes our focus on the Old Testament milieu. In the course of time, this passage as well as the entire Old Testament was translated into the Greek. This Septuagint version presupposes the same Hebrew consonants in verses twenty-three and four. However, the Greek translators understood the vowel points differently than the Hebrew scholars. The Greek version may be read in this way: "He answered him in the way of his strength, 'Declare to me the fewness of my days. Do not bring me up in the middle of my days: your years are for generations on end.'" The importance here is that the Greek translation makes the words of the these verses, "the words of God to the psalmist, whom God addresses as the Lord and Creator; and this is how Hebrews 1: 1-10 quotes verses twenty-five to twenty-seven, in proof of the Son's deity." The clear implication is that the Messiah is the one addressed. Derek Kidner's argument here transfers our understanding of this psalm from being a Patriot's Plaint as Spurgeon would have it, to a psalm which explains our Lord Jesus Christ's worldly suffering, His anticipation of His Kingship and His eternal reign with God in heaven.

Even Spurgeon and Calvin can be corrected. In fact there is one supposition of Calvin on on the first chapters of Genesis that has caused no end of mischief. His observation that Adam was one of many humans made in chapter one, who is set apart in chapter two with Eve created separate from the rest of mankind to be his helpmate. Weak KKK and White Supremacist minds take that supposition to pretend that somehow supposedly inferior human members of God's creative work somehow survived the flood through the family of Noah or even apart, and may thus be considered sub-human in substance and treatment. The exact place that the Nazis arrived at in their theory of multiple evolutions. They believed that the Asians evolved from the Orangoutang, the Africans from the Great Apes, the Americans from the Giant Sloth and the blonde blue-eyed Aryans from some theoretical missing white ape in the Himalayan mountains.

Diversions and digressions are always interesting, but we must return to the godly emphasis of this psalm portion. In short our psalmist's plea and anticipation becomes God's assurance that Christ's servants and children will live in His presence forever, simply because the Messiah is God incarnate. Will you accept that assurance and through the spiritual application of God's eternal Word realize His perfect will is in and through Christ for your benefit? No wisdom of man brings us to the claims of the Gospel. God in His wisdom claims us for Himself through His eternal Word. Did our psalmist desire salvation? God used his words to demonstrate that and more. The something more is the witness of the psalmist's testimony. Our struggles like those of our Lord Jesus Christ do indeed serve the purpose of our Lord and King. May our life struggles, like those of our psalmist give witness of and to the God we serve. Amen.

 

Resources Used:
Kidner, Derek.	Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Psalms.
Spurgeon, C.H.	The Treasury of David.
The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Thomas Nelson Publishers (1992)
0102b.htm	15 September 91 & 28 January 2001

Permission granted to redistribute unedited versions with this notice.