C.S. Lewis once wrote a book Reflections on the Psalms but it is not very recommended reading because of his treatment of the doctrine of inspiration and the imprecatory psalms (or psalms of cursing). To reflect ‘on’ the Psalms seems to be the wrong approach – since it establishes a position of personal opinion above Scripture. This cannot be right: we come to the Scriptures with humility and trust in order to be changed by them, not to have our own assumptions reflected back at us unaltered. We should not walk away from the mirror of Scripture without ‘looking’ intently into the ‘perfect law of liberty’ in order to continue in its precepts, remembering the way in which it has exposed our character (James 1:22-25). We should behold in that mirror ‘the glory of the Lord’ in order to be ‘changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’ (II Corinthians 3:18).
The Early Church Fathers (especially Athanasius (c. 296-373), Bishop of Alexandria) viewed the Psalms in this way. Athanasius is famous for his mighty defence of the deity of Christ. In his Letter on the Psalms, he praises the Psalter very highly:
[Within it] are represented and portrayed in all their great variety the movements of the human soul. It is like a picture, in which you see yourself portrayed and, seeing, may understand and consequently form yourself upon the pattern given…you learn aboutyourself. You find depicted in it all the movements of your soul, all its changes, its ups and downs, its failures and recoveries. Moreover, whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you do not merely hear and then pass on, but learn the way to remedy your ill (p.19).
Athanasius stresses the singing of the Psalms – for him this is their primary use and purpose, and he finds a special benefit in this:
It seems to me, moreover, that because the Psalms thus serve him who sings them as a mirror, wherein he sees himself and his own soul, he cannot help but render them in such a manner that their words go home with equal force to those who hear him sing, and stir them also to a like reaction…just as in a mirror the movements of our own souls are reflected in them an the words are indeed our very own, given us to serve both as a reminder of our changes of condition and as a pattern and model for the amendment of our lives (p.22-23).
Athanasius, together with all the Church Fathers as well as the apostles, also sees the Psalms as the Book about Christ, words that are His very own spoken about Himself: reflections of the perfect life of the perfect man. ‘And therefore, before He came among us, He sketched the likeness if this perfect life for us in words, in this same book of Psalms; in order that, just as He revealed Himself in flesh to be the perfect, heavenly Man, so in the Psalms also men of good-will might see the pattern life portrayed, and find therein the healing and correction of their own’ (p.24).
John Calvin continued the idea in calling the Psalter ‘an anatomy of all parts of the soul, since no one can experience emotions whose portrait he could not behold reflected in its mirror. Yes, the Holy Spirit has there depicted in the most vivid manner every species of pain, affliction, fear doubt, hope, care, anxiety, and turbulent emotion, through which the hearts of men are chased’.
As a book for corporate at least as much as individual praise the book of Psalms is also able to reflect and to change the Church as its songs are sung together (for the Church in the interpretation of the Psalms see Bishop Horne’s classic exposition).
Posts
