Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
... I understand the idea that Christ is God, therefore all speaking of God can be argued as being speaking of Christ, at some level, I think that even naming this thread "The Psalms are the Word of Christ" takes this a little further than the revelation suggests. We can accurately say that it all points to Christ. But the scripture itself does not say that it is all the speaking of Christ or the Word of Christ...
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Yes; in my efforts to counterbalance Mr. Lee, I went further than Paul's phraseology in Ephesians and Colossians might allow. So my title should not be taken literally, as in "...all the words in the Psalms are words of Christ".
As I have said before, I have the penchant for dramatic effect, and often overstate my point to make it. My take on LSM's version of Psalms was that they felt that only a little of it was "The word of David", a man who was "natural", i.e. fallen. Those "natural concept" sections are either ignored, or dismissed summarily, even perjoratively.
Then there are what they call the "revelation of (i.e. about) Christ".
See 1 Peter 1:10-12:
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
LSM teaches that there are revelatory words of the "Spirit of Christ" interspersed with the "natural" words of David and the other psalmists. My point is this: that according to Mssrs Lee et al there are few revelations of Christ to be found in the Psalms, and a lot of "natural" speaking. See my post regarding the footnotes of Psalms 1 through 21, and also
VoiceInWilderness' excerpt from the Life-Study of Psalm 34 as representative samples. As I noted, only 3 of the first 21 Psalms are "of Christ" according to Lee & Co, and only verse 20 from the whole of Psalm 34. The rest is "natural", or "shallow".
In my rebuttal of this notion, I may have left the door open to an interpretation which is equally unbalanced. And thank you
OBW for closing that.
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Another reason why the Psalms deserve closer scrutiny than they have been given, at least by Mssrs Lee, Kangas, Marks et al, is that the notion of "voice" in the Psalms is quite muddled. Sometimes the voice is first person: "The zeal of thy house has eaten me up" in Psalms 69 -- the "Me" here, according to the quotation in John chapter 2, would seem to be of Christ Himself. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" from Psalm 22 also is the example of the "word of (from) Christ" Himself.
But sometimes the psalmist is speaking to Christ: "they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone." from Psalm 91, as an example.
Sometimes the psalmist is speaking to another about Christ: "Kiss the Son unless He become angry..." in Psalm 2.
And so forth. You also might have God speaking through the psalmist about Christ; you might have God speaking through the psalmist about the "wicked" who reject Christ, you may have the psalmist in his "natural concept" saying things about himself, etc etc. Many voices. Not easy to sort out. And resistant to the template put forth by Lee.
The problem is confounded by the fact that sometimes the "voice" may be seen to be the psalmist, but upon further reflection a deep revelation of "the mystery of Christ" awaits. My analogy is that a college physics book might show an image of "an orange ball" in its pages. A second grader would not be incorrect to identify it as such. But a more sophisticated reader (i.e. a college student) might identify it is a representational of an atom's electron shell. Neither answer is incorrect; one merely goes deeper into the heart of the matter.
My question is: how could so many people who were otherwise possessed of critical faculties be so oblivious to a teaching which is very shallow and inadequate? And, especially, when it is void of the very Christ whom they profess to seek?
Currently, my answer tends toward John 7:13: "But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the Jews", and John 12:42: "Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him... but... they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue..."
Ironically, the ministry which is supposed to free people from the bondage of the clergy/laity system put them into the silence of fear: don't mention that the emperor's teachings have no clothes. Don't be "negative", or "critical".
I suspect that within the Lee crowd there were/are some who believe that there is "more Christ" in the text than what has been officially pronounced. They believe this, but because of trepidation they won't speak it.