S. The Divine Glory in Nature

THE DIVINE GLORY IN NATURE

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” - Psalms 19:1-6 THIS psalm has three parts; the first being introductory to the second; the second receiving its full practical application in the third. The central portion (Psalms 19:7-10) is preeminent. We rise to it in that which precedes (Psalms 19:1-6); we descend from it in that which follows (Psalms 19:11-13); but only to rise higher again at last (Psalms 19:14). Starting from the contemplation of the divine glory in nature, we mount upwards to its manifestation in law and grace. And from that height, we go down again into the lowest depths of our own depravity, which that glory, thus manifested, searches out. But it is all with a view to its giving place ultimately to that service of mouth and heart which God accepts.

There is, in the first place, a devout contemplation of the divine glory in nature. Let me place myself, with the Psalmist, under the gorgeous canopy of an eastern summer’s sky, in the solemn stillness of an eastern summer’s noon. Reposing from toil; gazing on the cloudless lustre of a calm heaven over-canopying a tranquil earth all around, I worship reverently, with all nature, the Maker and Lord of all. It may be natural worship thus far. But then, secondly, as a believing child of God, I call to mind that he, the very God whose majesty is displayed in that visible scene of glory, has opened up another scene of glory far surpassing that. The material firmament stretched out over my head vanishes from my view. Another firmament, moral and spiritual, is felt to be all above and around me. These azure heavens are gone. The heaven of heavens alone is seen. And, supreme there, as the sun in that other bright firmament now eclipsed by a brighter, is the law of my God; the law of Jehovah, my Saviour and Lord. To me now that law alone is glorious, altogether glorious! Its manifold excellences fill and transport my whole soul; and my tongue delights to praise them in detail. But now, thirdly, how does it bear upon me? “Woe is me! I am a man born in iniquity and conceived in sin. The very perfection of that law, the more I understand its spirit, and appreciate its grace and glory, fills me all the more with a sense of the evil that is in me! It penetrates into the lowest recesses of my inner man. It makes such sad discoveries there, and stirs up so fierce a strife, that I am fain to cast myself on the last refuge of the helpless - prayer, prayer to the lawgiver himself whose law thus tries me, and who alone can pardon and sanctify, and save and bless: “Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, Lord, my strength and my redeemer” (Psalms 19:12-14).

Part First This praise of the divine glory in the natural world of creation is first general (Psalms 19:1-4 a); and then particular (Psalms 19:4-6). First, the heavens generally are the theme; and then, secondly, in particular, the sun in the heavens is singled out.

I. (Psalms 19:1-4) - Generally, the whole visible expanse of sky is the theme or occasion of praise; or rather, it is the very organ and instrument, if not even itself the agent, in the act of praise. The heavens all above; the firmament all around, not only suggest voice and song, but become themselves vocal. The personification here is very significant. It is not I who praise God on their account. They themselves praise him. It is not I who declare God’s glory in the heavens, and show his handiwork in the firmament. The heavens themselves declare his glory; the firmament itself showeth his handiwork. For who or what am I that I should aspire or presume to be the spokesman of the creation of God? That I should undertake to come in between him and the glorious things that he has made? Does he need me to be, as it were, his showman? the exhibiter and laudator of his works? Am I to stand forth, in front of the gorgeous panorama which his pencil of light has painted in the deep blue vault of heaven, and on the green earth on which it smiles, and make vain and vaunting proclamation to the waiting crowd, that I will show its wonders; that I will expound its meaning?

Too often does man, in his fond conceit of wisdom, seek thus, more or less consciously, to glorify himself, in the very demonstration, instinct perhaps with genius, by which he proves that all things glorify God! But let not that position be mine. No; let me better understand and accept the becoming place that belongs to me. Let me be still. I may be called to teach, the truths of science. I may have to remove the thick clouds of ignorance that hinder so many from looking intelligently on the face of nature, and interpreting fairly her divine revelation. I may have to put a telescope into the hands of my fellow-observers; or to be, as it were, myself their telescope, that I may discover to them, or enable them to see, what these heavens really are, and what this all-embracing firmament. Still, when my humble task is done, let me gracefully and reverently retire. Let me stand aside and suffer them to speak for themselves; for they can themselves tell their own wondrous tale, and publish the work of the Almighty hand that made them, and is upholding them continually. And they can do so with such fulness as to leave all without excuse who will not learn the lesson they are meant to teach; the lesson of seeking after their great Author, if haply he may be personally found; found, so that all who find him may say: Now we believe, not because of their saying, but we have heard him ourselves, - him whose glory the heavens declare, and whose praise the firmament showeth; and we find him to be none other than the Eternal Son, the Christ of God, the Saviour of the world! But now, let the special qualities of this teaching and testimony be observed. These are chiefly three: -

(1.) It is constant and continuous. It is kept up incessantly day by day, night after night. What the heavens are telling of the glory of God, they are telling always; without weariness; without vacation. If I am to be the declarer of God’s glory in the heavens, and of his handiwork in the firmament, I can discharge that office only with intervals. I have not always the needful strength, I have not always the needed spirit. My lectures and exhibitions must be comparatively few and far between. My tongue must be often silent, and my class-room often shut. But the class-room where the heavens lecture, and the firmament is the exhibiter, is open, open always. The teaching they conduct is always going on. Into that academy whose roof is the vaulted sky; with earth and ocean for its pavement, and the far-off horizon for its walls, you may at any time enter. At earliest dawn; at highest noon; amid evening’s gathering shades; in the deepest gloom of moonless and starless night. Let the arched canopy that covers it be sun-irradiated, or star-bespangled, or black with lurid thunder-cloud. Let the flooring be smiling fields of waving corn, or the stormy sea, or the desert’s arid sand. Let it have for boundary the rugged mountains, or the low level line where earth and heaven seem all around to meet. In the garish noontide, in meek moonlight’s shades, you may be ever learning something new, or recalling as new something you learned long ago, concerning the power and providence of him who is God over all, and over you. Thus the heavens are ever declaring the glory of God, and the firmament is ever showing his praise. Day and night are ever equally praising him. “Day unto day uttereth speech; night unto night showeth knowledge.”

(2.) This teaching, or testifying, of the heavens declaring the glory of God, and the firmament showing his handiwork, is independent of language. It is mute and inarticulate. It is dumb and silent; but, on that very account, it has an advantage over all who would set up to be its expositors. In how many different languages can you converse about the glory of God the Creator? and to how many, or how few, is your discourse, in any way, intelligible? Truly to celebrate the majesty of the great Creator, worthily to tell of his wonderful works, and especially to tell of them in their moral and spiritual bearing on the sovereignty of the lawgiver, and the salvation of the breakers of his law, would need an angel’s tongue, and lips touched with celestial seraphic fire. The loftiest genius, sanctified by the most burning devotion; even inspiration itself, would seem to own its inadequacy for the task, Milton cannot achieve it so as to satisfy himself. Nor can the gorgeous pile of imagery which closes the book of Job, proceeding as it does from God’s own mouth, reach the full height of poetry or song, fitted worthily to commend the author of all this gorgeous structure to the worship of his saints. Let speech then be hushed. Let no voice of articulate sound be heard. Then, in their own silent wonderfulness and inexpressible beauty, the works of God, revealing his power and love, will of themselves praise him. The heavens will declare his glory, and the firmament will show his handiwork.

(3.) Hence it follows, as one more inference, that this teaching, or testimony, is universal (Psalms 19:4, first clause). As at all times; and in all tongues, in any and every tongue, because in none; so also in every place, “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” Everywhere nature bears witness of its great author: “The invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen; being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead” (Romans 1:20). This property, indeed, belongs to every work of God; the property, I mean, of a wide, universal, and universally diffusible revelation of whatever it has to tell of God. By a natural and necessary law this is so. Whatever is a work of God in nature, providence, and grace; in judgment as well as in creation, tells of God. It is adapted, designed, destined to tell of God; and it tells of God at all seasons; to people of all languages and tongues; everywhere, over all the world. It cannot be subject to any limitation in respect of time, or tongue, or place. To all these three restrictions every word of man, everything that man may say about God, is and must be subject. First, it cannot be always uttered; you cannot reckon on its continuance or its consistency. Secondly, it cannot be understood and appreciated by men of different languages, different modes of speech and thought. And hence, thirdly, we cannot reckon on its being universally diffused, and universally diffusing what it has to say. But whatever any work of God has to tell concerning him is independent alike of intervals of time or space, and of diversities of language. It speaks always and everywhere; and it speaks always and everywhere in the same tongue, the same universal utterance. Hence every work of God must have a universal voice potentially; a voice capable of being, when it is allowed to speak for itself, universally understood, appreciated, and believed. This is true of the work of creation. From pole to pole, from east to west, in either hemisphere, and in every clime, the heavens tell the same tale of their Maker’s glory, and the firmament gives the same display of his handiwork. Therefore “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20). The same thing is true of the work of redemption. It also has a universal speech and language. What the cross, as a finished work and accomplished fact, has to discover to men of the glory of God, it can discover always, to people of all languages, and everywhere, through all the world, wherever the knowledge of it may come; just as truly as the visible heavens and the visible firmament give forth, wherever they are displayed and discerned, their revelation of created glory. Its line, like theirs, is gone out through all the earth, and its word to the end of the world. This may be the explanation of that remarkable reference to this passage which occurs in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: “But, I say, Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world” (Romans 10:18). He quotes the words as applicable to the discovery which God makes of himself and of his saving grace in the glorious gospel. To all men, universally, that discovery is in a measure made. All nature, all providence, tells of God; of his power and wisdom; of his forbearance also, and of his goodness; of his purpose of mercy in sparing the guilty, ready to pass into a purpose of saving grace, if only they will but feel after him so as to find him. But there is more than the light of nature shining forth over all the world, and declaring the creative glory of God. From the beginning there has ever been the light of supernatural revelation, declaring his redeeming glory too, - a light as fitted for universal diffusion as that other light can be held to be. Dimly it had been shining hitherto among the nations. Dimly it shone before Christ came. But now, in these last days, it shines clearly in Christ and his cross. Now, it is not the material heavens but the spiritual that are opened to our enraptured gaze. The firmament where the throne of God is, and in the midst of it the Lamb slain, is unveiled. These are the heavens that declare his glory; this the firmament that shows his praise. The line going forth from those heavens, and from that firmament, does indeed reach to all the earth. The words which issue from thence reach to the end of the world. It has as world-wide a tale to tell; it has a language as universal in which to tell it, as has the blue ethereal sky. The revelation of Jesus Christ, the glory of his cross, proclaims everywhere and always the same truth concerning God, that whosoever believeth in the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Hence, perhaps, a lesson may be learned by every preacher of the cross, every one who, in whatever sphere, would hold forth the word of life to his fellow-sinners. Like the heavens and the firmament, let the cross, as far as possible, tell its own tale, show its own light, give forth its own voice for God. It does not, any more than the heavens and the firmament, need much of our aid in conveying its lesson. It has its own speech to utter; its own knowledge to teach. We may have to clear away mists that cloud its lustre, misunderstandings which mar its simplicity. “We may have to rescue it out of the hands of those who have distorted or defaced it by zeal without knowledge, or by philosophy, falsely so-called. And we may have work more than enough in bringing men face to face with it, and persuading them to look and listen. But let us have strong faith in the inherent power of the pure and naked exhibition of the truth, and in the power of that Spirit who shines into the hearts of men, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of his Son, Jesus Christ.

II. Amid the blaze of created light, reflecting and transmitting the uncreated, in the wide expanse of the high heavens and the vast firmament, a single power, dominating over all, is selected as fixing the worshipper’s devout gaze (vers. 4-6). The sun is hailed and welcomed. And the commission given generally to the heavens to declare God’s glory, and to the firmament to show his handiwork, is centred in the particular ascendency and sovereignty of the orb of day. His sovereignty is brought out in different ways. His ascendency in the heavenly host is set forth in different lights.

1. He has a position which implies supremacy: “In them hath God set a tabernacle for the sun” (Psalms 19:4). The heavens that declare the glory of God, with the firmament that showeth his handiwork, are chiefly noteworthy, as providing room, furnishing a place, for the tent of the sun being pitched. It is pitched there, moreover, by him whose glory these heavens declare, whose handiwork that firmament shows. It is their crowning distinction that they hold, or, as it were, house the sun.

2. The bright and radiant bravery of the sun is illustrated by significant comparisons: He “is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race” (Psalms 19:5). A bridegroom leaving his robing-room - an athlete, all on the stretch for the strife, are meet emblems of splendour and of strength. Arrayed in the magnificence, exulting in the prerogative, conscious of the power, of an eastern husband on the high-day of his espousals; or as a candidate in the fleet course, with frame well knit, and nerves well strung, and bosom all on fire with the joy of anticipated victory; the sun issues gloriously from the eastern gate, and at once assumes the part of royal majesty and triumph.

3. Finally, the two leading features of his supremacy are clearly indicated; the wide sweep of his command: “His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it” (Psalms 19:6); and the penetrating, all-searching potency of his beams: “There is nothing hid from the heat thereof” (Psalms 19:6). For it is this combination of qualities that makes the solar reign; the commanding dominion of the orb that rules the day, universal, thorough, absolute. It is universal and yet particular; general and yet individual; comprehending the utmost range of territory, and yet causing itself to be felt in every minutest spot; reaching over all the wide surface of earth, and yet reaching into every particle of the dust of which earth is composed, and every one individual of all the races by which earth is occupied, and every single incident in the ongoings of earth’s multitudinous affairs. Such is the sun; meet representative, as it were, in the natural kingdom, of that God whose glory the heavens declare, whose handiwork the firmament shows. In the sun, as ruling thus in the material world, the distinctive attribute of Deity may be said to be exemplified; - supremacy. Supremacy, first, settled, and secure, as of one who has a fixed and prepared habitation; supremacy, secondly, unhesitating and unquestioned, as of a bridegroom-prince, or an unconquered athlete; supremacy, thirdly, all extensive and yet all minute; wide, and at the same time thorough, taking in the whole domain, but overlooking, omitting nothing. Such supremacy, fit type of the supremacy that belongs to God himself, is here challenged for the sun, which in nature is his truest image and best representative.

Part Second And here, the transition is made from the natural world to the spiritual. It is made with startling abruptness (Psalms 19:7). It is made at once from the sun, in the material, to the law, in the moral firmament. There is no general contemplation of any moral heavens, and any moral firmament, as glorifying God, and giving a seat for this moral luminary. The moral and spiritual constitution of man’s nature, in reason, conscience, and will, is assumed as being the counterpart of the heavens and the firmament. And at once the eye, caught and fixed by the one glorious object of vision, the sun, supreme in the meridian sky of nature, passes to the corresponding object of surpassing glory, the law, supreme in the meridian sky of grace. But now, there is above us the bright lamp of day, monarch of all the world of sense. Lo! as in the stroke of a magic wand, that sun is gone. Another sun breaks forth from a higher heaven - the law of the Lord! What means this sudden, this almost sleight-of-hand substitution - the law of the Lord in the moral, for the sun in the material economy?

I. It implies similarity or analogy. It warrants our transferring to the law, with reference to the world of mind, the properties by which the sun is characterised with reference to the world of matter. And what are these?

1. There is the fixed position which the sun has assigned to it; being no vague wanderer, but having a tabernacle set for him. So also the law of the Lord has a fixed position. It has a set place, firm and fast, in the moral government of God: “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one tittle of the law to fail.” The law stands secure in the essential nature of God and of man.

2. There is the commanding bravery and strength with which the sun is invested. And, like the sun, the law has a most resplendent beauty and most authoritative power, having dominion over a man as long as he lives (like the husband’s dominion over his wife), and having strength to outstrip the swiftest racer that would try to outrun or outmanoeuvre it.

3. There is the all-embracing circuit and all-penetrating heat, or power, ascribed to it. And so, also, like the sun, the law has a sweep and range to take in the uttermost bounds of human consciousness and experience, as well as a piercing, fiery energy, to ransack every nook and cranny in the thoughts and intents of the human heart.

These two things are surpassingly glorious, as reflecting the glory of God; the sun in the natural firmament, the law in the spiritual. What object in the whole natural kingdom of God can stand comparison with the sun, as he has a tabernacle set for him in the heavens? Monarch of all the sky, sweeping, with his bright burning beams, all around the wide horizon, he penetrates and pierces into every corner, every crevice, and recess, of this lower world, and subjugates all the earth to his sway. Even so, in the moral and spiritual kingdom of God, the moral and spiritual law, fixed immovably in the very heart of the heavenly economy, shines forth in majesty and power; all-embracing, all-searching; comprehending within its range all intelligent beings; trying all the thoughts of each one of them; wielding an empire which no sin can overturn; asserting a jurisdiction which even mercy herself cannot gainsay; which the very herald of mercy is himself the foremost to own, and satisfy, and appease; in the saving of its transgressors magnifying the law and making it honourable.

II. It must be so. For in this great analogy a difference is to be noted. It appears in the names given to the Supreme. As creator, he is God; God, the Almighty (Psalms 19:1). As lawgiver, he is Jehovah (Psalms 19:7); the I am; the everlasting; everlastingly the same. Creation is the work or effect of his almighty power. Law is the expression of his unchangeable moral nature, and the assertion of his unchangeable moral authority. The lawgiver is Jehovah. As Jehovah God specially revealed himself to his people when he interfered on their behalf in the land of Egypt. As Jehovah, he gave them his law, amid the thunders of Sinai: “I am Jehovah, thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: Thou shalt have none other gods before me.” This Jehovah, unchangeably faithful to his people in their redemption, is unchangeably faithful to himself as their lawgiver. The law is the law of Jehovah; for the divine law, moral and spiritual, stands inseparably, essentially, connected with the unchangeableness of the divine nature and sovereignty, and is in fact invested with that attribute. Hence a contrast coming out of the comparison. For in this respect the law has a glory, a majesty, a supremacy, far surpassing that of the sun in the material heavens. The heavens, in which the sun reigns, declare the glory of God, the Almighty. The law is the glory of Jehovah, the unchangeable. The heavens manifest his infinite power, wisdom, and goodness. The law manifests his essential holiness, and holy sovereignty. The heavens are the result, in time, of what God, as the Almighty, is pleased from all eternity, in the absolute and discretionary exercise of his own will, to determine freely to do. The law is the image, from everlasting to everlasting, of what God, as Jehovah, from everlasting to everlasting, necessarily is. And as what God in his essential nature is, transcends incalculably in glory what God, in the exercise of his discretionary choice, may think fit to do, so the law of Jehovah transcends the heavens which declare his glory, and in which he has set a tabernacle for the sun. The heavens are made, and may be unmade, altered, or destroyed. The sun in them had a beginning, when there was set for him a tabernacle. He may have an end when the heavens in which his tabernacle is set, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Not so the law. It is not made; neither can it be unmade, altered, or destroyed. From the beginning, from all eternity, it is the law of Jehovah; and to all eternity it must continue to be the law of Jehovah still. It is the law of Jehovah. As such it shares the inviolability and unalterableness of the nature of Jehovah. As soon shall Jehovah cease to be what he is, in his essential perfection and inalienable supremacy, as the law shall cease to be what it is, in respect of its holy character, its just authority, its inviolable obligation, its true, and righteous, and faithful sanctions. The heavens in which the sun cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and as a strong man rejoicing to run a race, are after all, in their largest and loftiest expanse, only a little larger and loftier than this earth on which we tread. But the law of Jehovah has a tabernacle set for it. Nay, not a tabernacle, as if it were a wayfarer and passing pilgrim, at the best. No. The law of Jehovah has its perpetual abiding-place, its everlasting seat, its eternal home, in the heaven of heavens; nay, rather, in the very bosom of Jehovah. The law is Jehovah’s throne. The law is Jehovah’s nature. The law is what Jehovah is himself. For the law is light and the law is love. In conclusion, let it be observed, that the upholding of the holy supremacy of his law may be said to be the one chief end which, in all his dealings with men, and especially in the economy of grace, the Lord ever keeps steadily in view. To establish the law, to magnify it and make it honourable, to maintain its uncompromised majesty, as the rule and principle of his own administration, and to reinstate it, in all absolute sovereignty and power of command, in the consciences and hearts of men; that is largely the design both of the Son’s work, and of the Spirit’s. For this purpose the Son is made under the law, that by the perfection of his infinitely meritorious obedience, and by his endurance of the penal death of the cross, the law, broken by us, may be satisfied by him in our stead; its claims all met; its sentence not evaded; so that in justifying the ungodly who believe in Jesus, the Lord puts upon the law a new crown of glory. For this purpose also the Spirit comes forth, to bring home to us the law in all its high authority, its endless breadth and searching spirituality; so that, owning its right to rule in us and over us; and feeling its excellency, its equity, its reasonableness, goodness, and holy beauty, we become alive to the guilt of sin and the strength of indwelling corruption; and because thus alive to that, dead ourselves. Through the law we are dead by the law; convinced of sin and of sin’s condemnation; the Holy Spirit using the law to empty us of all our old self-righteous conceit of life, and cause us, in utter self-despair, to embrace Christ, crucified for us, and to be ourselves crucified with him. Then we live, Christ living in us; and the Spirit puts the law, divested of its curse and of its covenant form, in our hearts, and writes it in our inward parts. Beloved, let us make sure of this work of the Spirit being accomplished in us. Let us make sure of our entering into the law-fulfilling and law-vindicating work of Christ. In and with him let us learn to say, “I delight to do thy will, God! yea, thy law is within my heart.”