Word of Salvation – Vol.44 No.43 – November 1999
The Ruler of God’s Creation
Sermon by Rev. B. Hoyt on Psalm 8:3-8
Scripture Readings: Genesis 2; Psalm 8
Suggested Hymns: BoW 57:1,3-5; 66:1-4; 12:3-6; 227; 488
Brothers and Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ.
This Psalm speaks of one aspect of God’s creation. The focus here, as you can see, is on man himself as the pinnacle of God’s creation. In several Psalms, the Psalmist calls us to consider the creative works of God. He was an observer of God’s creation. Having observed, he bursts out in praise to God. That ought always to be the result of our observation and of our study of God’s works. In this Psalm, his mind turns in another direction. Not so much to the stars and the heavens and so forth, his mind now turns to mankind, to the human race, that stands in the centre of the creation.
You might wonder what I mean, that man stands in the centre of creation. Well, to the Psalmist, and to us as well, it looks very much like we are in the centre of the universe. As astronomers gaze out with great telescopes, whether radio telescopes or visible-light telescopes, or whether they use the one they put up in space, the Hubble telescope, they find the density of the stars and galaxies to be the same in every direction they look. It looks as though the universe centres on the earth. It certainly appeared that way to the Psalmist as he looked at the night sky, night after night.
So locationally, you might say that man is in the centre of the universe as far as we know. And nothing in recent astronomic developments has given any indication otherwise. That fact bothers some scientists.
But also dimensionally man is at the centre of the universe, in terms of his size. Some of you are over six feet tall and the rest of us are short, not reaching that awesome status. But we are not too far apart in size, when we consider the scale of the universe, the vast reaches of outer space.
And then, when we think about the small things in God’s creation down to the sub-atomic particles, the protons and the neutrons and the gluons and the mesons, etc, dimensionally man is mid-way between the sub- atomic and the vast reaches of space. I can give you all the figures, but it would bore you.
But more importantly man is at the centre of the universe theologically. Man stands between God and the whole of creation for he has been created in God’s image but he is a creature. He is part of this creation. He stands between God and all the rest of the creation as the image of God. And it’s this truth which the Psalmist is considering in our text.
Let me read the text. We have sung it, but let’s hear it as God gave it through David. “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that Thou dost take thought of him? And the son of man, that Thou dost care for him? Yet Thou hast made him a little lower than God, and dost crown him with glory and majesty! Thou dost make him to rule over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field. The birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes through the paths of the seas.” What is man? What kind of an answer does the Psalmist give?
- Man is a Very Small Creature in a Vast Universe
Firstly, man is a very small creature in a vast universe. The Psalmist considers the heavens, not just the heavens but “Thy heavens”, God’s heavens. He considers the work of God’s fingers, he considers the moon and the stars that God has ordained in their courses. He recognises the majesty and the beauty and the wonder and the organisation and the order and the design and the vastness of God’s works.
We might say, “Well, the Psalmist didn’t have a very good understanding of the vastness of God’s works.” But we would be arrogant to speak that way. OK, perhaps the Lord has blessed us with better instruments and technology than that Psalmist had. We know there is more to the universe than the Psalmist would ever have imagined, and yet, in the Psalmist’s day also, the universe was vast. Even though people in those days might have considered the heavens to be a solid dome on which the stars were little lights fixed at various points, it was a dome that was vast beyond comprehension. And today it is all the more vast, isn’t it? Vast beyond comprehension. If in those days they considered it vast, how much more must we today.
The closest object to our earth is the moon. Now it doesn’t look all that far away but it is. It took a long time for man to be able to reach it. And it took an enormous amount of technological development and planning and expense until man finally got to the moon. If you were to travel that distance in a car, you would have to go around the world many times before you travelled the distance to the moon. The closest planet to the earth is Venus. We can’t visit Venus because it’s too hot, so the next plan is to visit Mars. Anything beyond Mars is out of consideration at present as being too far away. If you talk about the nearest star, that’s unimaginably far away. The nearest star is a hundred millions times the distance from here to the moon. Imagine that! A hundred million times travelling to the moon before you get to the closest star. And the farthest star we can see is a billion times that.
This vast universe God has made. When the Psalmist considers it, he says, “What is man?” Man is an insignificant dot, a little needle in a vast haystack, one you couldn’t possibly find if you went looking for it. There are lots of science fiction movies and TV programs in which man finds other intelligent life. If you were looking for man in the universe, trying to find a needle in the haystack would be nothing by comparison. We might consider the other end of the scale, we might consider the works of God’s fingers in the small things he has made, like the cells in our bodies. Millions and millions, millions of millions of cells in each of your bodies. And within each one of those cells, the DNA spiral in the nucleus of the cell has all of the information that represents you, the physical you. DNA molecules are big compared to the atoms that make them up. One teaspoon of water has a million, million, million molecules of H20 and God made every atom, every proton and neutron and electron.
So we consider, what is man? What is man to a God who has made such complexity. We stand in awe with the Psalmist and we say, “His knowledge is too great for us. His works are far beyond our imagination.” How small is man. “How majestic is Thy name in all the earth.” Yes, man is a very small speck in a vast universe.
- Man is the Object of God’s Care
But that’s not all the Psalmist says about man. Look in verse 4, “What is man, that Thou dost take thought of him? And the son of man, that Thou dost care for him?” Man is the object of God’s care and that’s why the Psalmist speaks in the way he does. He is amazed, he is utterly astounded by this fact as he considers the universe. He can hardly believe that God is concerned for man- for you and me. You see, man is not a speck of dust lost in a vast universe as far as God is concerned. He’s certainly not a cog in a machine as far as God is concerned. Man is frail. The Hebrew in the original text indicates that. The word for man is not the usual word for man. It’s a word that indicates man in his frail condition. Just a puff of air, like a vapour that’s gone in a minute. What is frail man? Although he is seemly insignificant and very tiny, although he’s just one of millions and millions of different kinds of life on this earth, although he’s just one aspect of the intricate and complex design of things as God made them, God takes thought for man. God considers man. God is concerned for man. God cares for man.
It says God takes thought for man, then it doesn’t just mean he knows that we exist. It means that God bends his mind down to show his concern for us. And then the Psalmist goes on to elaborate. Not only does God bend his mind down to show his concern, but he is energetic and active to care for man. That is an amazing thing. The almighty God, the One who made all this creation that we have spoken about is concerned for and cares for man in the midst of His vast creation. We ask why? Why would God in his providence care for man? In the midst of this vast universe, why is God concerned for him? There’s one answer that’s given in Scripture: man is the image of God and God has created this universe as his home. God cares for this vast universe for man’s sake as his image. He will do it and continue to do it, day after day, as he has promised despite the fact that man has sinned.
Turn with me back to Genesis chapter 8. As you know, sin enters the world in chapter 3. But chapter 8 is the time when man became so bad that God sent the flood to judge the world. And after the flood subsided and Noah came out of the ark, we read in Genesis 8:20, “Noah built an altar to the Lord and he took of every clean animal and every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and the Lord said to himself ‘I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth’.” In other words, despite man’s evil intentions, God isn’t going to do what he did before, bring a flood to destroy the whole world. “I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.” The sign of God’s promise is the rainbow. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. Why? Because God cares for man’s home. God is concerned for man.
You see, God has a very special relationship with man. He made him last, but not least. He put something of His greatness into His creation. He made man in his own image, male and female he made them. There’s a mystery here, which we cannot begin to plumb the depths of.
Often I’m asked the question in catechism class, “Is there life elsewhere in the universe?” Well, I’m not Mr know-everything and I can’t answer that question. Actually I think the question was really a theological one. Does Scripture allow for life elsewhere in the universe?
The search for extra-terrestrial life, intelligent life goes on. Millions, billions of dollars have been spent on that search already. And the answer that Scripture gives us is, yes, there is. There are the angels and the demons. They are not bound to this earth, they manoeuvre around the creation. But that doesn’t quite satisfy us, we want to know if there’s life similar to human life out there. But the Bible doesn’t tell us. However, it does tell us that man is the object of God’s concern and that man has a special relationship to God. Whatever other life there may be out there, whether plants or animals or some kind of intelligent beings, they are not the focus of God’s interest, man is.
That’s an astounding fact. Man is so much the interest of God that He cares for His whole universe for the sake of man. And so much is God concerned that when man sinned and rebelled against him, God brought a curse on the whole of creation. The whole creation, wherever man goes, even if he goes to the stars, will be telling him, you’re a sinner and you need salvation through Christ.
God has not forgotten. What is man that you remember him, that you take thought of him and the son of man that you care for him? God promised this after the flood. He said I’m going to keep on caring for this world day by day, the harvest and the spring will return for man’s sake.
- Man Was Created to be the Ruler of God’s Creation
But thirdly, the Psalmist speaks about something else which is very important. Man was created to be the ruler of God’s creation. Imagine that! You and I, the human race, was created to rule God’s universe. The Psalmist points us to this fact. Yes, man is small. The Psalmist knew that man is made from dust. He is just like every other creature. Our bodies consist of atoms and molecules like everything else. From dust we were taken and in death we return to dust, says the Scripture. The Psalmist knew that and yet he knew something else. He learned it from Genesis 1 and 2, just as we have. He says, “…yet Thou has made Him a little lower than God.” The Hebrew word for God here is ‘elohim’. That’s the usual Hebrew word for God. Sometimes that word is used to refer to the angels and as a result it is so translated in the New Testament by way of the Septuagint. Whichever it means, the point the Psalmist is making is that man has been given a very high position in the creation. He goes on to elaborate, “You have crowned Him with glory and majesty!” That’s man he’s speaking about. “You have made him to rule over the works of your hands”, that is, over this vast universe. That includes the sheep and the oxen, the domesticated animals, and also the beasts of the field, the undomesticated animals, as well as the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea.
We see that man was created to rule right from the beginning. Before God created Eve, before God gave a wife to Adam, Adam had to do some scientific research so that he might come to understand his need. Men, you can be humbled as you consider that fact. You have a need that can only be met in the woman God has given to you. Adam had to name the animals. God commanded him to do that so that he might understand his need. And then when he came to understand his need, when he realised there was no other creature that could meet his need, God took a rib from his side and created woman. And Adam responded, “that’s what I needed, that’s what I was looking for, here she is.” But Adam had to do some work first. He had to earn his wife, as it were, by doing that scientific work of observing the animals and naming them. Naming required him to observe them and give them a proper name according to their nature. Thus God showed man that he has authority over the animals.
How great is man? He was created with a position over all of the animals to rule over them, to observe them and to consider their nature, and to give them their names. “But,” you say, “maybe man was created that way but he doesn’t have that place now.” True, he doesn’t. Because of what happened in Genesis 3 man is not able to rule the creation, in fact, man no longer is able to rule himself. He can’t control his own tongue. Isn’t that what James tells us? The tongue no man can tame. It is filled with deadly poison and evil. That’s man’s little tongue. He can’t even rule it.
Man certainly has not done the task that God gave him, caring for the creation. He has exploited it, but he hasn’t cared for it. He can’t rule the beasts. He has a few domesticated animals that he is partially able to rule. He can’t rule the birds and I’m sure the fishermen will tell you, he can’t rule the fish.
Brothers and sisters, this fact points us to something which is not stated explicitly in the Psalm but which is there nevertheless. The phrase ‘son of man’, refers to the human race. But the human race failed in this task of ruling and obeying the Lord and serving as his vice-regent, as king over the earth. But God is still concerned for the race, so He sent His son to be THE ‘Son of man’ who succeeded. Christ rules the creation single-handedly. Christ is the one who will restore man to his original position of authority and rule. Christ won the victory where Adam failed. We see Christ’s authority in the gospel record and so we realise that Christ did what Adam failed to do.
You remember that story about the wind and the waves? The disciples were out in the boat with Jesus who was sleeping in the bottom of the boat. A sudden storm was about to swamp the boat. So the disciples shook Jesus awake and said, “Lord don’t you care, we are drowning?” And the Lord said, “Oh men of little faith.”
Then he spoke to the wind. Amazing! He spoke to the waves. Amazing! And they obeyed him. Even more amazing! The Son of man rules over the creation.
Brothers and sisters, though Peter and James and John were fishermen, they didn’t hold a candle to the Lord Jesus Christ, did they? He said, “Let your net down on the other side.” They had been fishing all night and they knew that lake. But they obeyed the Lord and pulled in 153 fish. You remember another occasion when Jesus told Peter, “Go to the lake and throw in your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours” [Mat.17:27]. The Lord rules over the fish of the sea.
Brothers and sisters, we don’t yet see man as ruler over all creation. We don’t even see the full reign of Christ yet. His reign is invisible. But we do see Christ by faith. He has obtained glory and honour and all authority. We know He has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God executing the decrees of God. One day when He has finished His work of saving His people, He will come again to restore His people, the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve, to the place of rule. That ought to give us great encouragement and comfort when we think about how puny we and our efforts are. When we think about ourselves as worth very little, let us remember Christ who reigns. God cares for us and has given us a dignity beyond our comprehension. We shall judge the angels and eventually we shall rule over the universe as God intended.
How then shall we live in view of all of this? Well, in this life, we are here to learn how to live for Him, to be equipped and trained to rule the creation. We are learning to walk in His ways where Adam failed. We are learning to appreciate His word and listen to it as Adam and Eve failed to do. We are learning to be once again the image of God.
I would like to conclude by reading just a few words from Revelation Chapter 22, the very last chapter of the Bible, the conclusion of the great work of God. It’s says in chapter 22 verse 5, “And they” (that’s God’s redeemed people) “shall reign forever and ever.”
Amen.