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Inspiration for this book came from a series of presentations I gave at the Inman Forum for Biblical Preaching at Ohio Valley University, Vienna WV, in the summer of 2015. My dear friend Mike Moss invited me to speak on preaching from the OT. I developed a newfound love and appreciation for the OT as a result of my doctoral studies at Westminster Theological Seminary, where many courses focused on the NT use of the OT. In particular, a class on biblical interpretation during the Second Temple period taught me to wrestle with the complexities of the interpretive environment of the NT writers. While the NT authors share the interpretive methods of Judaism, their starting point for biblical interpretation was that Jesus Christ is the summation and goal of the Jewish Scriptures. I must humbly confess this was the first time that I was introduced to the christological character of the OT, as the NT understands it (e.g., Luke 24:25–27, 44–47; John 5:39–40). I will unpack this throughout this book, but for the moment the point here is that the NT reads the OT from a post-resurrection perspective, finding throughout its pages a comprehensive witness to the redemptive-historical significance of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

As a seminarian, I was excited to explore the exegetical “tools of the trade” of the NT use of the OT: typology, allegory, intertextuality, prophetic fulfillment as “filling up” (plēroō) a passage with christological meaning, adaptation, to name only a few.1 These tools are, in part, the exegetical methods themselves that the NT employs when interpreting the OT in light of the Christ event. To be sure, these methods are not unique to the NT; they are part and parcel of first-century Jewish exegesis. The NT authors simply apply the methods of their time to the interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures in light of the salvific work of Jesus Christ. Even more than my enthusiasm around exegetical technique, I also became convinced that the NT interpretation of the OT is less about method per se, and more about interpretive starting point. Richard Longenecker concludes after a robust examination of the NT use of the OT: “The Jewish context in which the New Testament came to birth, significant though it was, was not what was distinctive or formative in the exegesis of the earliest believers. At the heart of their biblical interpretation was a christology and a christocentric perspective.”2 In other words, the NT understands Israel’s Scriptures in light of the gospel story where the resurrected Lord is the lens for a proper understanding of the OT. To be clear, what we find in the NT is a “backward reading,” beginning with a post-resurrection perspective, and the faith conviction that the ultimate meaning of the OT is found in none other than Jesus Christ. In short, the NT reads the OT through a “Jesus lens.”3 Stated provocatively, the NT does not start with Genesis and work its way to the gospel, but rather the reverse: it begins with the gospel and reads backward to Genesis in light of established conclusions and convictions concerning the gospel of Christ. Therefore, the interpretive starting point for understanding the christological character of the OT is the NT itself.

This brief immersion into the NT use of the OT was a paradigm shift in my understanding of the Bible. Another shift occurred as a result of an elective course on Psalms in my last semester of doctoral coursework. I had always loved Psalms, probably for the same reason many other Christians do: as a storehouse of human emotions that resonates with our emotional and spiritual experiences as we wrestle with the mystery of faith. Psalms is not pop-psychology, but deep spirituality written from faith for faith, whether in the heights of spiritual jubilation or the depths of personal agony. But my affection for Psalms eventually shifted to other concerns as I learned the intricacies of the organization (or “shape”) of the Psalter, its convergence with torah, its end-times trajectory, its inner-biblical exegesis (i.e., how it interprets other parts of the OT), and the messianic import of the “royal psalms.” Coming to grips with the multifaceted theology of Psalms proved to me to be a counterbalance to a personal experience of its emotional expressions.

I write about these two seminary courses and their respective emphases simply to illustrate that the forum topic I eventually settled on was “Christological Preaching from Psalms.” Therefore, I write this book as a personal and passionate exploration of two topics close to my heart: christological interpretation of the OT and Psalms. To be sure, this is not the first book to connect NT Christology with Psalms, nor is it the first to apply a christological interpretation to the OT generally. This book shares a general outlook of interpreting Psalms christologically with Richard Belcher’s The Messiah and the Psalms. Belcher’s thesis is that all the psalms have a relationship to Christ, not just the traditional messianic psalms.4 He examines some psalms that are quoted in the NT and some that are not. A distinguishing feature of my work is that none of the psalms studied here are quoted in the NT; for that matter, there is only minute overlap between the psalms covered in the two books (excluding Pss 46, 88, 137). The present book also converges with Patrick Reardon’s Christ in the Psalms, which offers short summaries of the historical setting of each psalm (in the LXX) followed by brief christological reflections. Reardon’s book is not research based per se, whereas the current book offers documentation of the historical analysis as it explores the ancient setting of each psalm, as well as its anticipation of NT Christology. Sidney Greidanus’s Preaching Christ From Psalms was published during the writing of the present work. As is the case with Belcher, there is some overlap in the psalms treated (e.g., Pss 1, 23, 29, 100); yet nearly half of the psalms in Greidanus’s book are quoted in the NT in some messianic sense (e.g., Pss 2, 8, 22). Therefore, his work does not have a sustained focus on non-messianic psalms. Additionally, his lectionary approach is very different from the present work. Greidanus’s book is geared toward the academic discipline of practical theology (i.e., preaching and worship), while the current one is geared more toward biblical theology (i.e., the organic unity of the OT and NT), understanding that these are not mutually exclusive, at least not ideally.5 In spite of the differences between these three books and the current one, they have proved indispensable for my work.

Far from being an exhaustive application of Psalms to Christ, the approach of the current book is quite simple: to apply the NT conviction that the book of Psalms is ultimately about Christ to select non-messianic psalms. My approach is canonical, so that when examining a psalm’s christological character, I want to propose answers to questions like: What canonical connections exist as a result of a christological reading? How does this psalm evoke Christ? How does it point to Christ? How do Christ’s life, death, and resurrection illuminate the psalm? Because Psalms is the book of the OT most quoted in the NT, each psalm should be read in the context of the Christian canon of the Old and New Testaments for a Christian biblical theology of Psalms.6 I believe the main thrust of a psalm is more christological than its various verses. Therefore, I will draw attention to each psalm as a whole, and will not attempt a verse-by-verse christological application. To be sure, not every verse of a psalm is christological, but the psalm as a whole points to Christ, and is illuminated by his person and work. Certain verses in a psalm may resonate a christological tone more loudly than others, but the combination of a psalm’s verses sounds a louder, more harmonious christological song.

This book examines the following twelve psalms from the Hebrew Bible: Pss 1, 23, 29, 30, 46, 67, 88, 100, 119, 127, 137, and 148. Why these twelve psalms? Mostly out of personal interest, but also because none of them are traditional messianic psalms, and because they span the five books of the Psalter, allowing for a more comprehensive look at the Christology of the whole. I will approach each psalm from two angles. First, I will apply what biblical scholars call “grammatical-historical exegesis”7 in an effort to understand the psalm in its historical context in terms of vocabulary, structure, poetic parallelism, metaphorical language, historical setting, etc. For brevity, I will simply refer to this step as “History.” Second, I will apply a christological hermeneutic to each psalm in order to illustrate how it points to the gospel of Christ. I will refer to this step as “Christology.” Why these two steps? If the goal is christological interpretation, can we not skip the first step? No, because God is a god of history, and reveals himself within human history. The Bible did not fall out of the sky, but grew out of the soil of ancient Palestine. Vern Poythress explains, “God spoke to people in human language, in human situations, through human authors. God himself in the Bible indicates that we should pay attention to these human factors in order to understand what he is saying and doing.”8 Simply put, historical concerns matter for establishing the original meaning of a passage of Scripture from the standpoint of the human author and his audience. However, historical exegesis is not the be-all-end-all of biblical interpretation. While it is helpful for establishing a base meaning of the text in its historical context, it is insufficient for reaching the divine author’s meaning, which ultimately concerns Jesus Christ. God elevates the human discourse to a higher plane to serve his larger redemptive purpose of the gospel.

As a brief example of how history and Christology work together to illuminate a psalm, consider Ps 27. Assuming the superscript (“of David”) is historically accurate, the psalm describes an event in the life of King David.9 It is a poetic description of God’s sanctuary as a place of solace for David as he seeks shelter from his enemies.10 The psalm does not prophesy about the future Messiah per se in any grammatical-historical sense, and the NT never quotes Ps 27; therefore, it is not among the traditional “messianic” psalms. It is about an unknown period of David’s life, recounting how God sheltered David when his enemies pursued him. The story of David demonstrates that his life was in constant danger. Using the tools of historical interpretation, Ps 27 commemorates the salvation of God throughout David’s life, and the psalmist recalls these past experiences for the purpose of conveying a faith message to his original audience. This is the stuff of grammatical-historical exegesis, which seeks to understand the linguistic, historical, social, and religious setting of the original author and his audience.

At the same time, God is the ultimate author of Scripture, and his meaning is primary over that of the human author. God uses the words of the psalm to transcend the specific historical circumstances described therein. Another way of stating this is that when we, as Christians, read a psalm through a canonical lens, that is, in light of the completed Christian canon of the Old and New Testaments, the psalm’s meaning may extend well beyond the intentions of the human author, especially as it relates to Christology. God’s later words of revelation have bearing on his earlier words, and vice versa. Therefore, no biblical text exists in isolation from other biblical texts. Poythress observes, “Any passage is to be read in the context of the entire Bible. God intended from the beginning that his later words should build on and enrich earlier words, so that in some sense the whole of the Bible represents one long, complex process of communication from one author.”11 Therefore, I will demonstrate later that the psalmists were not likely thinking of Jesus Christ, much less the church, when they first penned their psalms; however, the larger context of the divinely-inspired canon nevertheless provides connecting links between passages, where the OT and NT carry on a canonical dialogue as readers read both testaments in relation to each other. In the case of Psalms, the NT transforms our understanding of the Psalter when we read it in light of Jesus Christ, as it calls to mind various aspects of his life and work of redemption. There is, therefore, no need to limit interpretation to discovering the intent of the original psalmist; the divine author’s meaning, which always points to Christ, is supreme. The completed canon, then, helps discover God’s intent in relation to Christ for later generations as the recipients of the completed canon.

Given that the OT is about Jesus, the divine meaning establishes a christological connection not apparent on the surface level of the psalm. Read christologically, Ps 27 becomes a song of God’s protection of Christ from those who sought to kill him. Indeed, God vindicated Jesus from the charge of false testimony through the resurrection. Consider 27:12–13: “Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence. I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” When read christologically, this passage evokes Jesus’s passion (i.e., suffering and sacrifice) and resurrection: false witnesses maliciously insulted and assaulted him, yet God delivered him by raising him from the dead. Given that the OT does not have a developed doctrine of the resurrection, the original context involves David’s faith in God’s deliverance in this life, that is, the “land of the living,” in contrast to the vague non-existence of the grave.12 For the poet, there is no life beyond the grave; salvation consists of God’s preservation of life in this world. However, the “land of the living” evokes the resurrection—eternal life beyond the grave—when read from a post-resurrection vantage point. Church fathers like Augustine and Jerome, for example, referred to eternity in heaven as the “land of the living” in contrast to life in the fallen world as the “land of the dying.”13 Yet their understanding comes about not from an analysis of the historical setting of the psalm, but from their Christian conviction that Jesus Christ defeated death at the resurrection, and this allows them to apply the original language of the psalm in a Christian context. Much more could be said regarding the grammatical-historical exegesis of this psalm and its subsequent christological interpretation (e.g., “The LORD is my light and my salvation”; Jesus is the light of the world; “Wait for the LORD”; Christians eagerly await the promise of Jesus’s Second Coming and the final resurrection, etc.), but the point here is that God’s meaning elevates this psalm from its historical rootedness in the life of David to a witness to the eternal gospel.14

To be sure, we need both exegetical methods because God is not aloof from human history; yet his larger redemptive purposes transcend the original situation of the human author. Dan McCartney and Charles Clayton observe:

Since Scripture functions in human contexts, our access to its divine meaning can only be by way of the human authors and their contexts. The human author’s meaning and his concrete sociolinguistic situation provide the starting point for understanding God’s meaning for all his people. We get to know the human author’s “point” in order to fully grasp God’s “point.”15

The Bible must be read in accordance with the rules of ordinary human language. As Friedrich Schleiermacher explains, “A more precise determination of any point in a given text must be decided on the basis of the use of the language common to the author and his original public.”16 Given that Scripture was written by human beings, our entry point for understanding its content comes by way of apprehending what the authors meant based on the original linguistic context of the words they used, how their audiences would have most likely understood those words, and the cultural and religious setting shared by the authors and their audiences. In fact, this is how we understand any written text, ancient or modern. Even so, Christians believe Scripture is much more than a mere human document—it is not just another ancient writing—its authority as the word of God bears witness to the divine author who has spoken first through the human authors, but finally and fully in Jesus Christ, the Word (John 1:1; Heb 1:1–2). Scripture’s pinnacle purpose is to point readers to Christ as the climactic revelation of God.

Therefore, I will follow a two-step method of historical interpretation followed by christological interpretation throughout this book. I will examine each psalm in its original historical context, and then apply a christological reading to demonstrate how the psalm points to Christ. Ultimately, I want to explore what it means to follow the interpretive assumptions of the NT, not by stepping directly in the footsteps of the apostles, only going where they go, but by following their lead, and going in the direction that they set for us when interpreting the OT. I want to read Psalms through a Jesus lens not to find Jesus under every rock in the OT (although 1 Cor 10:4), but to see it as an expansive redemptive-historical witness to the gospel.

This book is an introduction to christological interpretation of the OT for beginning college and seminary students, church leaders, and interested lay readers. I hope it serves as a valuable tool for preaching and teaching Psalms from a Christian perspective, offering pastors something meaningful to say about the relationship of Christ to Psalms, and its relevance to the church as a witness to the gospel. Many people in our pews have not been taught to read the OT through a Jesus lens; therefore, they remain bogged down in what appears to them to be an antiquated, bygone part of the Bible with no connection to their Christian identity, apart from a few moralisms and messianic references scattered throughout. I hope this book contributes to a robust reading of the OT that understands Jesus as its summation and goal.

Following the NT, which sets forth the trajectory of christological interpretation of the OT, my hope is that we can experience fresh readings of non-messianic psalms by illustrating their christological character. In other words, I want to explore the question, “What might it look like to apply christological interpretation to non-messianic psalms?” I use the term explore intentionally because I do not presume any christological interpretation in this book as definitive for any particular psalm. I am simply exploring the issue and proposing interpretations that I believe are consistent with the NT conviction of the christological character of the OT. The general approach of this book is to highlight christological themes in select psalms from a bird’s-eye view. I do not want to sacrifice the overriding theme of the psalm at the expense of methodological minutiae. I will not, therefore, enter into the morass of theories and definitions concerning methods like intertextuality, authorial intent, and the multifaceted nuances of the NT use of the OT, but will briefly address these when applicable, and refer the reader to the notes for additional resources on the topic.17 I have adopted a canonical approach that reads OT passages in light of NT ones, and vice versa, within the larger context of the Christian canon, in order to show how the passages may illuminate each other when read christologically. I have transliterated original language terms for the sake of readability, and have included a bibliography of the sources used for this book, as well as additional sources on christological interpretation of Psalms, NT use of the OT, and Psalms generally.

Many thanks to David Musgrave, Andy Walker, and Paul Watson for their input; their expertise has proved invaluable. To Rodney Cloud for encouraging us faculty in the Turner School of Theology to take time to research and write, while at the same time making the spiritual nourishment of the students at Amridge University a priority. To Dr. Michael Turner and the administration at Amridge for their ongoing support. To Doug Green, now at Queensland Theological College, for introducing me to the academic study of Psalms during his tenure at Westminster Seminary, and for pressing for bold christological interpretations of the Psalter. To Mike Moss at Ohio Valley University for inviting me to speak at the Inman Forum. To Lauren Daniel for her editorial efforts. To the good folks at Wipf & Stock for their professionalism during the publication process. To my wife and kids for their faithful love. And finally, to my parents, Joe and Dianne, for their eagerness to hear of the weekly progress (or lack thereof) of this book, and for their constant encouragement and exhortation in the faith, which they have so bountifully passed down to me.

1. E.g., Typology (John 3:14; cf. Num 21:8–9); allegory (Gal 4:24; cf. Gen 16; 21); intertextuality (Phil 2:10–11; cf. Isa 45:23); prophecy as “filling up” (Matt 2:15; cf. Hos 11:1); adaptation (Eph 4:8; cf. Ps 68:18).

2. Longenecker, Exegesis, 187.

3. For a popular-level treatment, see Williams, Jesus Lens.

4. Belcher, Messiah, 7.

5. For Brevard Childs, “Biblical theology is by definition theological reflection on both the Old and New Testament. It assumes that the Christian Bible consists of a theological unity formed by the canonical union of the two testaments” (Childs, Biblical Theology, 55). Geerhardus Vos explains the organic, unfolding nature of the Bible, where revelation is not completed in one exhaustive act, but unfolds in a long series of successive acts. In other words, biblical theology asserts that revelation is an organic process, whereby a line of development is drawn from the OT to the NT, as the former grows into the latter, like a seed grows into a mature tree (Vos, Biblical Theology, 5–18).

6. Wenham, “Canonical,” 348.

7. It is difficult to do better than the following definition: “Grammatical-historical exegesis attempts to uncover the meaning that the text would have had to its original human authors and readers. This involves a consideration of the cultural, social, geographical, linguistic, and historical background to the original situation, the usual significance of the words, phrases, and idioms used, any special circumstances or problems faced by the author or his original hearers, how the passage fits in with what the author says elsewhere, what type or genre of speech/writing this is, the purpose of the book as a whole, how the passage functions literarily in the larger text, and where the original hearers stand in redemptive history” (McCartney and Clayton, Reader, 120).

8. Poythress, “What Does God Say?,” 98.

9. I will address the “of David” superscripts in the Introduction.

10. For a grammatical-historical interpretation of Ps 27, see Fletcher, “Sanctuary,” 97–119.

11. Poythress, “What Does God Say?,” 91.

12. Wilson, Psalms, 487.

13. Augustine contrasts men who seek to do “good” in the “land of the dying” with saints who trust that they will see good in “the land of the living” (Augustine, Expositions 112, §5). Similarly, Jerome’s Letter to Eustochium, written in 404 CE, mentions “the land of the living” when speaking of the eternal destiny of Paula, a devoted Christian convert from Rome, who had recently died (Shaff and Wace, Nicene, §29). On “land of the living” as a reference to the afterlife in Psalms, see Dahood, Psalms, 170.

14. I would encourage the reader to read Ps 27 twice; the first time taking note of the grammatical-historical issues, metaphorical language, parallelism, etc., and then a second time as a witness to Christ’s sufferings and exaltation. This is the kind of interpretive method I will be using throughout this book.

15. McCartney and Clayton, Reader, 26.

16. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics, 117. Similarly, Alexander Campbell sounds much like Schleiermacher: “The words and sentences of the Bible are to be translated, interpreted, and understood according to the same code of laws and principles of interpretation by which other ancient writings are translated and understood; for, when God spoke to man in his own language, he spoke as one person converses with another—in the fair, stipulated, and well-established meaning of the terms” (Campbell, Christian System, 3).

17. Beale and Carson, Commentary; Beale, Doctrine; Carson and Williamson, It is Written; Fletcher, “Nicodemus,” 111–32; Fletcher, Signs; Gundry, et al., Three Views; Hays and Green, “Use of the Old Testament,” 122–39; Hirsch, Validity; Juel, “Interpreting,” 283–303; Longenecker, Exegesis; McCartney, “New Testament’s Use,” 101–16; Moyise, Evoking; Snodgrass, “Use of the Old Testament,” 209–29.