A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM XXIV.
_God’s lordship in the world.—The citizens of his spiritual kingdom.—An exhortation to receive him._ A Psalm of David. The earth _is_ the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lift up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This _is_ the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who _is_ this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift _them_ up, ye everlasting doors: and the King of glory shall come in. Who _is_ this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he _is_ the King of glory. Selah. This Psalm is a prophecy concerning the kingdom of Christ to be spread and extended throughout the whole world by the Gospel. By a striking apostrophe David turns himself to the kings, princes, and wise ones of the earth, and the men of power and authority, whom he calls after the genius of the Hebrew language, the ‘gates of the world.’ Remember, (saith he to such,) that the earth is the Lord’s, he is Lord of all. It was he that gave you your kingdoms. He has set up his Christ as King over all, whom if ye adore and acknowledge not, ye shall perish together with your kingdoms, and shall be dashed in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
He exhorts such to acknowledge themselves sinners: for these powerful ones, these pharisees and these wise ones of the world, being blinded with a conceited opinion of human wisdom and righteousness, are above all others enfuriated against the Gospel: for when the kingdom of grace and of the remission of sins is preached; when this Christ is declared and proclaimed by the Gospel to be the only King of eternal peace, the only victorious King over sin, death, and the devil; then these tyrants and powerful ones of the world immediately burst out with their cry of pride “Who is this King of Glory? Who?” As if they should say, what! Shall those poor abject fishermen, those dross of the earth teach us? Shall they, instead of the law of Moses, and instead of the religion which we received from our forefathers, force upon us this new worship of God, and this King of theirs who was hanged upon the cross? Shall they persuade us to believe such dreams as these? This Psalm, therefore, at the same time intimates that this kingdom of Christ should not be corporeal or earthly, nor of such a kind as should destroy political governments: but a kingdom in which the preachers of it should bring into subjection unto Christ the world and the kingdoms of the world by the word and the Gospel.
To this kingdom (says David) kings and rulers shall oppose themselves and shall crucify the King and Lord of Glory, and shall persecute the Apostles and Ministers of the word: but he nevertheless shall break through all kingdoms, and in defiance of every opposer shall enter into the world and reign by the Gospel in the midst of his enemies: he shall give to his Apostles a mouth and wisdom which none of their adversaries shall be able to gainsay or resist: and while the mightiest kingdoms of the earth, as Daniel saith, shall be moved and destroyed, this eternal king shall endure for ever and be truly manifested to be the Lord of victory and of glory. It has reference to the First Commandment of the Decalogue, and to the first, second, and third petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.