Psalm 8:3-9 – The dignity of man

In verses 1-2 David acknowledged that God is indeed awesome and majestic. His greatness is unsurpassed. And this God had created this ever expanding universe that runs with great precision. The more he contemplated on the constellation of the planets orbiting in exactitude, the more he marveled at the wisdom of God’s hand behind it. His thought then naturally gravitated toward man whom God had made. We can detect a tint of despair when David compared man with the enormous universe. He couldn’t help but see how tiny and puny man really is, in comparison with God’s great universe. Man would have languished in despair had God not come down to our level, and let us know how valuable we are in His sight. We are in fact the prize and crown of His creation. How marvelous it is to know that we are an eternal being of great value, dwelling in God’s great, unending universe!  

Before even time began, God had us in mind. He thought about how He wanted us to be, and then took care to fashion us. In saying that we are made a little lower than God, David was echoing what the first part of Genesis 1:26 said. That was when the Trinity interacted and decided within themselves, and declared, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness….” Think about it, only man is made in the image and likeness of God! Among all of God’s creation, only human is capable of asking that question, “Who am I that God should be mindful of me?” To acknowledge that we are fashioned in the image and likeness of God is to accept that we are indeed given exceptional worth and honor. And our worth can only truly be seen in the fact that we are the object of God’s love. No matter what life will dish out to us, we are still God’s priceless creation whom He loves and has attached infinite worth.

Verses 6-8 continue to echo the remaining half of Genesis 1:26. It tells us what God has assigned us. In God’s own words, “…so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Here in three verses, David in this Psalm reiterates this mandate given to man. God’s mandate for us suggests how significant we are in His sight. While He rules the universe, He left the running of the earth to us, man and did not leave it to any other creature. We must always bear in mind that we are made in God’s image, and ordained to rule and have dominion over His creation. That is and had been God’s intention from the onset.

What had interrupted the original program of God was when Adam chose to disobey God. And because of his disobedience, all mankind had inherited a fallen nature. But God in His glorious plan didn’t leave us in our fallen state. He sent Jesus. And through His life and ministry, makes us God’s new creation. Hence after quoting part of this Psalm, the author of the letter to the Hebrews said, “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” (Hebrews 2:9). Jesus came to bring man back into the glorious state God had in His mind before the beginning of time.

So David fittingly ends where he began by exclaiming again, ^“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!” What our great God intends for us to experience cannot be fully realized until we come back to Him through Christ. For it is in Christ that the fullness of God dwells in completeness. And only in Christ are we complete. As Paul has said in Colossians 1:27, indeed our hope of glory is found only in Christ. Since we are now connected to Him, our Sovereign Lord, we must constantly build on this relationship. And as we do so, we will incrementally enter into the fullness of all that He has installed for us to experience!