Psalm 110: Jesus

After a freshman year far from home I transferred to a college a more manageable 250 miles away from my parents and brother. During those next few years, I came home every month or so to see my family, get my laundry done and fill up on home cooked meals. The only time of year I could not get home was during baseball season. I played all three seasons from my sophomore to senior years and then was an assistant coach the year after I graduated. We had games most weekends, so making the 250-mile journey from Pennsylvania to Virginia was rarely possible. We played a couple of games each season at a school in the Washington D.C. area, my parents always came to those games. It was great to see them, and the trip was not too far. There was one Saturday morning during my junior year that I will not ever forget. We had an early game, 9:00 AM at a college not too far from Philadelphia. When we arrived at the field there were two people already sitting on the bleachers, my Mom and Dad. They had gotten up early that morning and driven more than 4 hours just to see me play. I was so surprised, I remember asking “What are you doing here?” While the answer was obvious, the shock of seeing them, when I had not planned on it and where I had never expected it was a blessing I have never forgotten. 

Psalm 110 is like an unexpected visit. It is filled with prophesy, theology, and the end times and yet more than anything else it is a picture of Jesus. Nearly two-thirds of the way through the Psalms, almost out of nowhere, we are presented with this psalm of David written about the Messiah. What is interesting is that it cannot be about anyone but the Messiah. It cannot be about David or any other king of Israel because in Israel, the priest and the king were two separate offices, but verse 4 of Psalm 110 says that this king is “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” It could not be about someone from the past, David’s present or ours because no one has ever shattered “chiefs over the wide earth”. While writing about his life, his struggles and his trials, while pleading with God to thwart his enemies, to change his fortunes and to forgive his sin, David was moved by the Holy Spirit to remember and to remind that there is a King like no other King, there is a Messiah who sits at God’s right hand and will rule the nations from Zion. 

Psalm 110 is so important that a dozen New Testament books quote or refer to it. Jesus quoted it in a dispute with the Pharisees asking if the Messiah was “the son of David”, then why did David, “in the Spirit” call him Lord? Peter, during the first sermon preached after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, quoted Psalm 110 and then declared that this One David wrote about was in fact “Jesus whom you crucified.” Hebrews 1:13 uses it to establish that Jesus is greater than the angels, in chapter 5 to prove that Jesus’ priesthood is eternal and in chapter 10 to show that His sacrifice is sufficient. This one chapter, written nearly 1,000 years before Jesus’ birth, reveals Him as not just the Messiah, but as King, Priest and Warrior. He is more than Israel expected, more than the church realizes and all that we will ever need. 

And then there is Melchizedek. This mysterious figure was introduced to us in Genesis 14 as the king of Salem and the “priest of God Most High” and just as quickly as he arrived, he left. He was not mentioned again until Psalm 110, probably 900 years later. And then, not spoken of again in Scripture until the author of Hebrews speaks of him, in reference to Jesus, three times between chapters 5 and 7. He was the first person ever called a priest (the first time the word priest is used in the Bible was Genesis 14), the first person to bless Abram, thereby being the first person to fulfill the promise of Genesis 12 and he brought Abram bread and wine from Jerusalem (that is what the ancient city of Salem became). Many believe that Melchizedek was a type of Christ or possibly that this was in fact a theophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. Think about it this way, Melchizedek’s name is mentioned 5 times in Scripture, four of those times it is only to draw our attention to Jesus the Messiah. When Melchizedek went out to meet Abram it was only to point to the day when the Messiah would come to us all.  

The psalm ends with descriptions of Jesus’ second coming: “he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath”; “He will execute judgment among the nations”; “he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth”. These descriptions take us to other prophetic passages such as Isaiah 63:1-6, Ezekiel 39:17-20, Zechariah 14:3-5 and Revelation 19:11-16. The King who sits at the right hand of God is the Priest who makes intercession for us and the Warrior who will defeat His enemies and rule all the earth from Zion. 

This psalm is prophetic, theological and eschatological. It deserves great attention and careful study, but its purpose is clear and, in my mind, concise, Jesus was, Jesus is, and Jesus will forever be enough. In the Garden, almost immediately after man sinned, God promised that He would send One to crush the head of the serpent, even though He would suffer in doing so. When the man God chose to be the father of His own nation was still childless, God sent a man to bless him, to give a glimpse of the greatest blessing to come, a man who was both priest and king, who would represent the One who would one day come as both God and man. Nearly 900 years after Abram’s meeting with Melchizedek, the Holy Spirit, who Jesus would later say only glorifies the Son, inspired King David to write a psalm about that Messiah, that the Messiah would use to make Himself known more than 1,000 years after they were written. The Messiah was promised to Adam and Eve, glimpsed by Abram, prophesied to and through David, glorified by the Holy Spirit, proven by the Scripture and revealed as Jesus. From the beginning to the end Jesus is the center. He is the One who holds the pillars in place (Psalm 75:3), not only the Creator of all things but the One in whom all things are held together (Colossians 1:17). I say it often, but I do not believe it can be said too much, Jesus is enough. 

On that cold Saturday morning in Philadelphia nearly 30 years ago I was initially surprised to see my parents sitting on the bleachers waiting to watch me play in a baseball game. After that initial surprise, a little laughter and some hugs, I realized that it was no surprise at all, this was what they did, it was who they were. When we turn from Psalm 109 to Psalm 110, we might not be expecting to read about Jesus, but we should be. Depending upon what translation you read of Revelation 13:8, Jesus is either the Lamb “slain from the creation of the world” or our names were written “before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain”. In either case, Jesus has been at the center of redemption before there was creation. His death and resurrection were not God’s response to our sin, they were God’s plan for our fellowship with Him. His return is not waiting for the world to get to its worst or the church to get to its best, it is firmly held in God’s patience, willing that none would perish but that all would come to repentance. My encouragement today is not to keep Jesus as the center or to try to make Him the center, but to see that Jesus has always been the center of everything. He is always more than we expect, more than we realize and all that we need. His appearance should never be a surprise because His presence is constant, His character is good, and His grace will always be sufficient no matter what we need. He is not just in control; He is the center. Nothing happens outside of Him and in Him, everything that is needed is found.