Psalms 110:3 - Forerunner Commentary

Psalms 110:3

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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain The Book of Psalms 110:3:

Psalm 110:1-3
Excerpted from: Psalm Genres (Part Three B): Messianic (continued)

Now the first verse here is the most quoted verse from the Old Testament in the New. It is used 14 times in the New Testament, so you know that it is a truly important verse and there are several other allusions to this throughout the New Testament beyond the 14. The reason is, this verse provides the textual foundation for a handful of important doctrines. But particularly the one that is most important that derives from this—The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool"—is that it provides the textual foundation for the Father-Son relationship. And the Father-Son relationship is the true basis of all theology. Or maybe I could say it is the basis of all true theology. Did you notice a third person in there? No, it is "The Lord said to my Lord." There is not a third person in a trinity. It is just not there.

And this is the verse that is the foundation of that doctrine, that there is a God being who has worked with humanity from the very beginning. He is our Creator, but He has a Lord. There is One who is greater than He. We just read that verse there in John 14:28. What He said there in John 14:28 verifies what is said here in Psalm 110:1. Those are the only two there as divine God beings at the present.

Now this is what you would read in Hebrew without the English that I am going to use here. It says, "Yahweh declares to my Adon, 'Sit at My right hand.'" Now I use those two Hebrew words because they are important. Yahweh obviously is the great God of all things, His personal name, the I Am, the One who was, the One who is, and the One who shall be. Adon, if you know your Hebrew, is related to what the Canaanites had as their god, Adon, and the Greeks later had their god Adonis. That word, which is original to the Hebrew, is Lord or master. It means the one of highest rank.

So there are three persons mentioned here in the first line of the first verse: the Father, who here is called Yahweh; and then King David is represented by the word my. He is the author here; and then the Son, Christ, is called Adon, the Lord or the master. And what did they call Him when He was living? They called Him Lord most frequently.

The time setting of verse 1 is Christ's ascension to heaven after His resurrection. This is when the Father said, "Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool." That is when Jesus rose and ascended to heaven and sat down at the Father's right hand. In the second verse the time setting moves forward to Jesus Christ's second coming. It is very quick. You go from AD 31 to whatever the time will be 2,000 years later roughly. And at that point the Son—the Word, Jesus Christ—is King of kings and He rules on the earth amidst the nations that tried to fight Him. And it says here that He will rule out of Zion, out of Jerusalem, and from there His sovereign might goes out. "The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies!" And we know that He will come down on the Mount of Olives, and He will fight against His enemies that come against Him.

Back in Psalm 110, verse 3 speaks about those who comprise His army. It said here, "Your people," and "they shall be volunteers." I mentioned this last time but I want to go over it again. This is really neat. It is very encouraging to think about where He calls His people volunteers. It is showing that they choose the side that they want to be on. They choose His side, and they choose, they voluntarily choose to sacrifice and serve.

Now how do I get that? Well, actually, the word volunteers is not volunteers. Literally in the Hebrew, the word means freewill offerings or sacrifices. And we can compare this in parallel to what Paul tells us in Romans 12:1 that it is our reasonable service to become living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. That is what He is talking about here, that the ones who are in His army are the ones who decided by … . . .

Psalm 110:1-7
Excerpted from: Psalm Genres (Part Three): Messianic

Let us read Psalm 110. I am not going to have time to do much commentary on it, but I want you to see it. This is the purely prophetic psalm that I mentioned earlier that can only refer to Jesus Christ and no one else. Sometimes it is categorized as a royal psalm because some scholars think that it was used as liturgy for the coronations of Davidic kings, but to me, even if it was used that way, it does not fit. It fits better as a purely prophetic Messianic psalm.

It applies to no one else but Christ. It is prophesying of the anointed God-Priest-King, if you will, of the line of David. The Old Testament Davidic kings could not act as priests, so it cannot apply to them. And the Maccabean kings who came after the return from exile and before they were pretty much overthrown by the Romans, they were Levites. They were not Davidic, so they do not fit either. The only one that does is Jesus Christ.

Now this psalm is divided into two parts. Verses 1 through 3 and verses 4 through 7. And they are two oracles that are put back-to-back, two prophecies from God. Oracles are prophetic declarations or decrees and one is given in verse 1 and the next two verses give you a glimpse of its fulfillment. And then the second divine oracle is given in verse 4 along with an oath from God that is irrevocable. He says He will not relent. He will not change His mind. And then in verses 5, 6, and 7 is another glimpse of its fulfillment.

A lot of people do not understand this psalm. They understand verses 1 and 4 to a certain degree because they are explained considerably in the New Testament, but they do not understand the fulfillments very well. Also, the language in some of these verses is obscure and so there are a lot of different translations that you can find.

But like I said, I am not going to be able to go into too much detail here. But I want to at least get to verse 1 and to make sure you understand—you probably do—what is being talked about here. Both Jesus and Peter, Jesus in Matthew 22:43 and Peter in Acts 2:34, verified that David, acting here as a prophet, is the author of this verse. And you have to believe that in order to understand the pronouns that are used and the Lords that are mentioned here. If you do not have David as the author, then this gets really confusing about who is being talked about and who is talking.

If I can make it a little simpler, the declaration or the oracle that said in verse 1 is, "Yahweh declares to my Adon, 'Sit at My right hand.'" We are talking about three different people here. This is not two, this is three. Yahweh is the Father. My is a reference to David. And then the second Lord, Adon, in the Hebrew is his Master or his Lord.

So, "God above all said to my Master, 'Sit at My right hand [meaning Yahweh's right hand or the Father's right hand], till I make Your enemies [that is, Christ's enemies] His footstool.'" What this does is it is very important in establishing the Father-Son relationship and the fact that there are two God beings. There is the Father called here Yahweh, and then the Son called here Adon, or the Master, the Lord. And then David is below Them. David's master is Christ and the Son. Once you have all that straight, then the rest of the psalm gets a little bit easier to understand.

I also want to mention just before my time runs out here that the time setting here in verse 1 is Christ's ascension to heaven after being resurrected from the tomb. That is when the Father said, "Sit at My right hand. I will make Your enemies Your footstool," and everything goes from there. By the time you get to verses 2 and 3, we are talking about Christ's second coming. And just interestingly, if we endure to the end, you are mentioned in verse 3. "Your people shall be volunteers." That means you have a choice. And you will come to Christ and serve Him and be a part of that great army that comes from heaven and defeats His enemies.

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The Beauty of God's Law
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God the Father in the Old Testament
Psalm Genres (Part Three B): Messianic (continued)

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