Of old hast thou founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands
God answers a dying man's prayer by telling us who that man is. He speaks to One whose strength had failed and whose days were running out — and He calls Him the Maker of earth and sky.
The psalm begins as the cry of a sufferer. At this verse the voice changes. Commentators find the proof in Hebrews, which puts these lines in God's mouth, spoken to the Son.
It is certain from Hebrews 1:10 that there is a change of speakers at verse 25. The opening of the psalm, in its full meaning, can only be the words of Christ suffering for His people. But the apostle reasons from Psalm 45:5-6 and Psalm 102:25, and so shows that in these last verses we have God's answer to the divine sufferer. Can anything be more touchingly beautiful? Christ mournfully pleads, "O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days." Jehovah replies — "Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will remain," and so on. The crucified One was Himself also the Eternal — a blessed mystery, and the foundation of all God's purposes of grace and glory!
He asked not to be cut off early. God's reply does not add years to His life. It says who He is.
This is from Psalm 102. It is Jehovah's response to the One who was destitute and weak, and whose days were shortened here. He took up the sorrows of His earthly people. For their sake He bore indignation and wrath at Jehovah's hands. Enemies reproached Him, and He sounded the lowest depths of trouble, weakness, isolation, and grief. He prays: "I said, O My God, take Me not away in the midst of My days." In Hezekiah's case, God answered with a mercy that added fifteen years to the threatened life. Here Jehovah does not do that. He replies instead with this marvellous statement of the Sufferer's glory.
The One dying on the cross had made the earth under it and the sky above it. The psalm also sets His "days" beside His "years."
The One who is crying out of all this distress laid the earth's foundation; the heavens that then darkened over Him were the work of His hands. But the material creation, in the form we know, will perish, while He stands and endures. Its days are numbered. Heaven and earth will show the signs of decay and age. But He will be the same, and His years shall have no end. Notice how He speaks in His humiliation of His "days" four times over (verses 3, 11, 23, 24). In Jehovah's reply to Him, God speaks of "Your years." They are throughout all generations, and they shall have no end.
The psalm raises a hard problem. If the promised King is cut off, what becomes of the promised kingdom?
In these closing verses Christ is presented as a divine Person — God — identified with Jehovah. The question arises, How can Jehovah intervene in blessing for His people if the Messiah is cut off? For the Messiah can say, "He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days." How can the kingdom be established if the anointed King is cut off? There cannot be a restored kingdom without the King. The answer is disclosed in the great mystery of His Person. The Messiah who identified Himself with His suffering people and was cut off is none less than Jehovah Himself. So these verses tie the Messiah in Person to Jehovah, just as earlier verses tied Him in suffering to His people.
The creation named here has a purpose and an end. He will one day set aside what He founded — and He Himself will never change.
He is the Creator who made the earth and the heavens. He made them so that in them He might show in full what God is in His righteousness, as opposed to all iniquity. When these works of His hands have fulfilled their purpose, He will set them aside as one would set aside clothing no longer used. Then He will establish a new creation in which righteousness will dwell. But in that new creation He will be the same. As He was and is, so He shall ever be. He is the pledge that His word will stand, and that every thought of God's heart expressed in blessing will remain.
The distance between the prayer and the answer is the whole point. Faith learns to say both things about the same Person at once.
Can you conceive of, or bring together, two greater extremes apparently — most abject need and helplessness, the cry of One calling out in weakness to God, and the response coming from the very throne of God Himself, addressing this suppliant as God over all, blessed forever? Do we not turn with adoring heart to that blessed One and address Him in that language too?
- The cry. A Man in deep distress asks God not to cut His life short.
- The answer. God does not add years to His life. Instead God declares the glory of the One who prays, and calls Him the Maker of earth and heaven.
- The Person. Here is the answer to the psalm's problem. The Messiah who is cut off is Jehovah Himself, so the kingdom stands even through His death.
- The garment. He founded the earth and heavens, and He will fold them away when they have served their purpose. A new creation follows.
- The same. All that is material will change. He will not. His years have no end, so every promise of blessing stands.
*They* shall perish, but *thou* continuest; and all of them shall grow old as a garment as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.
Psalm 102 is the prayer of a man who is worn down and cut off in the middle of his life. Verse 26 is not part of that complaint. It is part of the answer to it. The reply sets two things side by side: a creation that wears out like clothing, and a Person who stays.
The psalm raises a hard question. If Zion is to be rebuilt one day, what becomes of the Messiah whose life was cut short before that day came?
The psalm that contains it is one of the fullest expressions in Scripture of what Jesus felt in His humiliation on earth. It shows His dependence on Jehovah. It also shows that, after He was raised up as Messiah from among men, He was cast down and His days were shortened. If Zion were rebuilt — and the psalm foretells the time when it will be — where would He be, Messiah as He was, if, weakened and humbled, He was cut off in the middle of His days, as in fact happened? … The words quoted here are the answer to this question. Humbled as He might be, He was the Creator Himself. He was always the same, and His years could never fail. He founded the heavens. He would fold them up like a garment, but He Himself would never change.
The New Testament takes these words and applies them to the Son. One writer points out that a single small word in the quotation carries the weight.
No human being would ever have known the real meaning of this psalm if it had not pleased the Spirit of God to give it in this chapter. The little word "and" shows that in verses 25-27 the Son of God is addressed by God as the Creator of all things. It is Jehovah's answer to the prayer of His Son suffering as man and dying.
This declaration of who He is comes at the moment He looks weakest.
He was cut off in the middle of His days as man. He had lived only half the span given to man on earth. Yet He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last. He is the Ancient of days. Before time was counted, He was. When it comes to an end, His years will not be finished.
The garment image tells us what the heavens and earth are. He wears them for a time. They are not permanent.
But even the earth and the heavens as they are now will not continue. They will perish, while He Himself is unchangeable (v. 26). They are only like a garment that He puts on for a brief time. So creation grows old. 2 Peter 3:7 foretells its destruction by fire, and then "new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13). It is the Lord Jesus Himself who will bring about this great change (v. 26).
The verse does not say creation is thrown away. He changes it. The change comes when its work is done, not when it fails.
He is the Creator who made the earth and the heavens. He made them so that in them He might show in full what God is in His righteousness, against all iniquity. When these works of His hands have fulfilled their purpose, He will set them aside as one would set aside a garment no longer in use. Then He will establish a new creation in which righteousness will dwell. But in that new creation He will be the same. As He was and is, so He will always be. That is the pledge that His word will stand, and that every thought of God's heart expressed in blessing will remain.
The comfort God gave His suffering Son is the comfort He now gives His suffering people.
As the Captain of our salvation, He was made perfect through sufferings. So He has become the perfect example for all His sorrowing and tried saints. But here is the marvel. While He walked the path of rejection, He seemed to labour in vain and to spend His strength for nothing. The comfort given to Him then is of the same kind as the comfort given to us on our own pilgrim path. Was He told, as in the psalm, of His changeless being? We are told the same thing as we pass through this world of change: He remains, and He is always the same… Christ remains, even if we lose everything else.
- The cry. A suffering man prays as his life is cut short. Commentators read the psalm as the Messiah's own prayer, made before Zion's promised rebuilding.
- The answer. God answers by calling Him Creator. The One dying as man made the earth and the heavens, so time cannot finish Him.
- The garment. Heaven and earth are clothing worn for a season — they wear out, while the One who wears them does not.
- The change. He folds them away once their purpose is served, and brings in a new creation where righteousness dwells.
- The rest. The very comfort spoken to Christ in His lowest hour is spoken to us: everything else may go, but He remains.