Psalm 8:5-6
"Yet you have made him a little
lower than the heavenly beingsand crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet..."
Comments:
I have commented on v. 1 and v. 3-4 three times each, so
here is something different. (Note: Although psalms should generally be taken
as a whole unit, after reading the whole psalm I will generally just comment on
a couple of verses.)
Man is the apex of God’s creation and has been “crowned
him with glory and honor” but
we too often think that glory is ours to seek and grasp, as I began my poem,
Humble Glory,
Born
to share glory, not seek it.
Yet
sniffing, climbing, grasping, fighting, expecting,
We
hunt along a different path
Twisted
we claim it, kill it,
Poisoned
by pride…
Just as the Bible speaks of the spirit of antichrist (1 John
4:3), I have found its fraternal twin, which I call anti-glory. After mankind
turned away from a dependent relationship with the Glorious and fell into sin,
he sought to replace that lost glory through his own efforts or images (Romans
1:23; Philippians 3:19). But this imitation glory—this vainglory—leaves a
bitter aftertaste. Dr. Ron Frost uses Augustine’s relational metaphor to describe
the tragic consequences of that first temptation to be like God,
"It is the adultery of the
heart, the lust for human glory, the idolatry of greed, and the careless
self-absorption of pride that Jesus condemns. The behavioral dimensions of sin
are merely barometric indications of the hurricane of death that destroyed and
destroys hearts through their desire to be like God."[1]
The serpent lied. We are not God and never could be divine,
except through humble participation in Christ’s love. As I later poetically described
(again from Humble Glory),
Glory
is given not grasped,
Belonging
to God—Father, Son, Spirit—
Shared
in his Trinitarian community of love.
Yet
he invites us in as family, to eat once again
What
we once lost by taking.
The psalmist here worships the Lord fully, recognizing that
any humble glory he had, any dominion he exercised was what had been given him
by God. I am no king nor psalmist, but I have a share in the glory of the King…because
he died for me!
[1]
Paul L. Metzger, ed. Trinitarian Soundings in
Systematic Theology (New York: T & T Clark, 2005), 105.
