PSALMS 97


1 Yahweh reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.

2 Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his [Yahoshua] throne.

3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.

4 His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled.

5 The hills melted like wax at the presence of Yahweh, at the presence of the Adon of the whole earth.

6 The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory.



7 Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye Elohim.

Elohim is a name bestowed on angels and orders of men.

'Worship him, all ye Elohim'... is quoted by Paul in the first chapter of Hebrews as a command of the Everlasting Father to the angels, that they should do homage to the Lord Jesus as His Son, when He shall introduce Him, into the world again at the opening of the future age. It is also written concerning Him, 

"Thou hast made Him a little lower than the Elohim."

Paul applies this to Jesus, saying, "we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels." He continued inferior to them a little upwards of thirty years, from his birth of the flesh to His resurrection, when He was exalted far above them in rank and dignity, even to the "right hand of power," which is enthroned in light, where dwells the Majesty in the heavens.

Elpis Israel 1.6.



8 Zion heard, and was glad; and the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of thy judgments, O Yahweh.

9 For thou, Yahweh, art high above all the earth: thou art exalted far above all gods.


Michael the Great Prince

The Michael, then, contemporary with Moses, Joshua and Daniel, was only provisional viceregent of Israel till the Son of Man should attain to authority and power. Until this event, the "Aion" or course of things, was subjected to angels, as clearly appears from Jewish history. But when the Son of the Eternal Spirit, born of a Jewess of the house of David, was begotten from among the dead, the decree proclaims

"Let all Elohim bow down to Him.."

This was the person of whom it was said to Moses at the bush, Yahweh, that is, HE SHALL BE; and, concerning Him, David saith, in the same Psalm,

"Thou art Yahweh, Most High above all the earth; greatly hast thou been exalted above all Elohim" (97:7, 9).

This Yahweh was exalted by the Father Spirit. He was the Eternal Form, and, therefore,

"thought it no robbery the being as God" saying "that God was his Father" (John 5: 18). "He made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in men's likeness; and being found in habit as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross".

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that to the name of Jesus every knee of heavenly ones and earthly ones, and subterranean ones should bow: and that every tongue should confess that the anointed Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:6-11).

This high exaltation of Yahweh by the Eternal Ail placed him above the prince whom Joshua saw, whose viceregency over Israel terminated when the handwriting of the ordinances was nailed to the cross, and the principalities and authorities it established were spoiled, and made a spectacle of publicly (Col. 2:14, 15), the mission of the Mosaic Michael was consummated. Israel had "provoked Him", and "He would not pardon the transgressions."

He had expelled the ten tribes from Palestine, where He had p1anted them, because of idolatry and its abominations; and now because Judah, Benjamin, and their priests had crucified one to whom he had bowed, and would not accept pardon in His exalted name, He stirred up the Roman Horn of the Goat against them, and would deliver them no more.

Phanerosis


10 Ye that love Yahweh, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.


11 Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.

It means the day of gladness that awaits the sons of God, gladness such as they can never know in the flesh; the gladness of a living union with Christ - a living union with God; not a union by faith, but of actual, manifest, and exhilaratingly-experienced fact.

We do not know what gladness is now. We have never tasted the real joys of existence. It is with difficulty that we pull ourselves along, by reason of our own weakness, physically and mentally, and by reason of the coldness and the darkness of the present evil world.

But joy is appointed nevertheless.

It waits.

Bro Roberts - The cup of Blessing



12 Rejoice in Yahweh, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

The things of God, like the orbs of heaven, are great and bright, but because they are, for the time being, distant, they are liable to be very completely eclipsed by the gewgaws of the Vanity Fair that is going on universally upon the earth.

The liability to be deceived by "thine own heart and thine eyes" is so great that we require the blue fringe in the daily worn garment. "The Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation," and that only in their diligent reading and daily remembrance. Under their inspiration, the heart and eyes are kept in a correct relation to truth, and no longer mislead us by a false interpretation of things.

We may apply this line of reflection in a special manner to the central ordinance of our weekly assembly. We break bread in 'remembrance.' The bread and the wine are a special form of the blue fringe. They have to do with wounds that were healed and that have a healing power for the wounded.

"By his stripes we are healed."

Body broken, blood shed, for us. As we look on them, we are to distrust "our own heart and our own eyes" as to what is acceptable with God. Our own heart and our own eyes would tell us, what many preachers proclaim, that kindly feeling and neighbourly ways and good house management and sound and honest business dealings are the things that constitute righteousness (God forbid they should be in the least underrated in their place).

Our own heart and our own eyes would say that the breaking of bread was child's play; that the death of Christ was pure barbarity; that his resurrection was a fable; and that all Bible ways and Bible things are so much antiquated trash, which it is the best and the most convenient thing for men of sense to discard.

We look on the blue fringe before us, and we say to our own heart and our own eyes, "Cease your presumptuous gabble." God has spoken and we will listen. He has commanded and we will obey. He has provided a mode or system of righteousness in Christ which we will joyfully submit to as the highest privilege and honour open to mortal man. We will not be like the Jews of Paul's day, of whom he says,

"Being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God" (Rom. 10:2).

Of God, Christ is made unto us righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30), and we will rejoice in it as his humble servants. We hear him say,

"This is my body given for you . . . Except ye eat of the flesh and drink of the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you."

We believe it, and we eat and drink with thanksgiving-spiritually, in the discernment of what he accomplished in his submission to death; literally, in eating the bread and drinking the wine in remembrance of these things.

Seasons 2.10.