Messiah's reign.
"Men shall be blessed in him." This great promise looks back to the glorious and amazing assurance thrice given to the Patriarch Abraham (and repeated to his son and grandson, Genesis 12:3; Genesis 18:18; Genesis 22:18). St. Paul says the gospel was thus "preached before" (Galatians 3:8). In the third of these passages, and in the text, the Hebrew word is strictly "bless themselves" (margin, Revised Version); but the sense is governed by the other two passages (so Genesis 26:4 compared with Genesis 28:14). As we are said to wash ourselves in water, though it is the water that cleanses; or to feed ourselves, though it is the food that nourishes; or to rest ourselves, though it is the resting place which yields us rest; so we bless ourselves when we take the blessings God gives us, and find cleansing, food, rest, in Christ. Ancient Hebrew expositors took this glorious psalm as a prophecy of Messiah. Modern Christian critics have spent great learning and ingenuity in dethroning Christ, and leaving Solomon in his stead. If Solomon really wrote this psalm concerning himself, it must be pronounced such a piece of self-glorification, with such Eastern exaggeration, as we nowhere else find in Scripture. Yet we may regard the peaceful glory of Solomon's reign, unlike anything before or since, as an earthly and typical fulfilment, in part, of this majestic, prophetic picture, taking it to refer not to Solomon personally, but to David's royal line, crowned and consummated in Christ (so of Abraham's line St. Paul says, "which is Christ," Galatians 3:16).
I. GOD'S WORD PROMISES BLESSING IN WHICH ALL NATIONS ARE TO SHARE. This wondrous chain of promises, stretching across, thousands of years, holds out a hope which has no root but in the Bible—the universal equal happiness of all nations of mankind. Men may discard the Bible, and yet cling, in the name of progress and civilization, to this splendid hope. But whence did it spring? National happiness or welfare, or, in the strong Bible word, "blessedness," depends on six things—justice, freedom, virtue, knowledge, distribution of wealth, peace (Psalms 144:15).
1. Justice is the first office and object of government (Romans 13:1-5), the first condition of national welfare (Deuteronomy 4:8). Great Charters, Petitions of Right, Declarations of Independence, and the like, are the outcry of oppressed peoples for this prime necessity of national life.
2. Freedom is really implied in justice, the only real guardian of right and nurse of true virtue.
3. Virtue is no less essential to real national happiness and greatness. Fraud, intemperance, impurity, covetous greed, wild love of pleasure, sloth, cowardice, suck the vitals and sap the roots of national life.
4. Knowledge is the parent of all progress. Not mere labour, but wisely directed labour, is the source of wealth. The mind that invents and foresees must guide the hand which toils.
5. Right distribution of wealth is the most urgent national problem of our own day in our own and all civilized nations. No nation is blessed in which immense wealth stagnates in a few hands, and the toiling millions are wretched and joyless.
6. Peace is the fence and crown of all the other elements of national welfare. War is a short name for all calamities, cruellest of misfortunes, if necessary and just; if unjust, avoidable, the greatest of crimes.
II. ALL NATIONS ARE TO BE BLESSED IN CHRIST.
1. Possibility and reasonableness of this. It is not open to question that if even the bulk of a nation, its rulers, legislators, and individual citizens became real Christians, such as may be found by thousands, loving God truly and their neighbour unselfishly, hating vice, dealing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God,—that nation would soon be the envy of all nations. Let every nation undergo such a transformation, and war would be impossible; slavery and tyranny would be things of the past; social problems would be solved, not by legislation, but by every one's sense of what is due to others; mutual help would take the place of fierce competition; labour would become faithful, and wealth beneficent; even secular knowledge of all kinds would receive a mighty impulse from the new value given to each human life and the high moral tone of society. These things the gospel can certainly do, if only all men would believe.
2. Hopelessness of such a condition, except from the kingdom of Christ. Human nature has not in itself the tendency to produce such a state of things. Knowledge and progress do not change human nature, do not give life; Christ alone gives life (John 10:10).
3. Hopefulness of this prospect.