What is man, that God is mindful of him?

A wonderful inquiry this is, which is quoted from Psalm 8: "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" It is an inquiry founded upon his nothingness in himself, but bringing out, in God's answer to it, all His own counsels in Christ. "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" Such is his littleness; yet, when it comes to be answered not according to what man is but in the counsels of God, we find him to be the one in whom all the wisdom of God is displayed. Nor is it the display of power merely - creation shews that - but all those qualities in God where His nature comes out, which are more than attributes. Power can say a word, and the thing is done: very wonderful, of course; but there is a great deal more than this. Man is the one in whom angels have to learn what God is in His ways and counsels, for the simple reason that the Word of God was in those counsels to become a man - that He who created angels does not take up angels, but takes up man.

A wonderful inquiry is this which is quoted from Psalm 8, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" - an inquiry founded on the nothingness of man in himself, but bringing out, as God's answer to it, all His counsels in Christ. "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" Such is his littleness. And then the answer comes, not according to what man is, but according to the counsels of God, in which we find Christ is the Man in whom the wisdom of God is to be displayed. I speak not merely of the display of power - creation shews us that - but also of the display of all those qualities in God in which His nature comes out; and these are more than His attributes.

(Vv. 6-9). To bring out this great glory of Christ, the writer quotes from Psalm 8, where the question is raised by David, “What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?” The question brings out the littleness of man: the answer the greatness of Christ, the Son of Man. David, when contemplating the moon and the stars, feels his own insignificance in comparison with their immensity, and exclaims, “What is man?” Looking at man fallen, he is indeed very small; looking at man according to the counsels of God as set forth in Christ, the Son of Man, he is very great. Led by the Spirit of God, the writer of Hebrews sees Christ in the Son of Man of Psalm 8, and can say, “We see Jesus.”

In the eighth psalm again is opened up to us the Person of the Lord; as though God said, I have set before you in the first psalm what you ought to be; and in the second psalm, Him who is to be King in Zion, through whom alone you can be blessed. I have put before you your experience in the world, in the face of the enemy, of opposition and trial; and now you emerge from that experience again to have set before you Man. But what Man? God's Man: "When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars that thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?" What is poor, puny man, with his little experiences, with his brief day upon earth? "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him?" Ah, you know in what a divine way the apostle treats that subject. He says, "We see Jesus, made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." We have Jesus before us as the true Man — the Second Man — and all things put beneath his feet. These eight psalms form a sort of preface to the whole book. It is Christ at the beginning and Christ at the ending, and whatever the experiences through which we pass, they are linked with our apprehension of Christ, and we enter more fully into the knowledge of Him through the experiences.

When the Psalmist looked up into the heavens and contemplated the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars which He had ordained, the littleness of man came before him, and he wondered that God took such account of him. But if the littleness of man filled the vision of the Psalmist so that he was forced to exclaim, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” it was Christ that filled the vision of the Spirit: not Adam, but the Seed of the woman, the Son of Man, the object of divine counsel, and He saw everything put under His feet; and though this is not manifestly so yet, the same Spirit fixes our attention upon the Man in heaven, who is crowned with glory and honour, having tasted death for everything. If we see not yet all things put under man, we see the Man under whom everything is to be put, and we see Him in the highest place in glory.

When the Psalmist looked up into the heavens and contemplated the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which He had ordained, the littleness of man came before him, and he wondered that God took such account of him. But if the littleness of man filled the vision of the Psalmist so that he was forced to exclaim: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" it was Christ that filled the vision of the Spirit: not Adam, but the Seed of the woman, the Son of Man, the object of divine counsel, and He saw everything put under His feet; and though this is not manifestly so yet, the same Spirit fixes our attention upon the Man in heaven, who is crowned with glory and honour, having tasted death for everything. If we see not yet all things put under man, we see the Man under whom everything is to be put, and we see Him in the highest place in glory.

An infidel measures the earth, contrasts its puny measurement with the grandeur of the heavens, and argues that God could never have given His Son to save the puny inhabitants of an orb like this. Scripture only argues therefrom the wondrous love of Him who could do this. The Psalmist too beholds the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which He has ordained, and he too asks, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" But for him Christ is not a stumbling-block, but the sufficient answer. "Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels; Thou hast crowned Him with glory and honor; Thou hast set Him over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet." "In that He put all in subjection under Him," argues the apostle, "He left nothing that is not put under Him." Thus he sees man in Jesus elevated to the throne of the universe — of those very heavens which had made him ask the question, and he has nothing but adoration for Him who has done this.

The question was asked of old in a certain place: "What is man?" As we think of the infinity of creation above us and about us, how small, how puny, how feeble we are! How is it that God takes knowledge of us, that He actually visits us? Why is it that the angels do not occupy a place in the thoughts and purposes of God such as man occupies? We ask again, Why? and we find the answer in the blessed Son of God, in Jesus. Faith says, "We see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor: that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man." Man is lower than the angels in the order of creation, so Jesus has taken His place lower than they. And when we ask, Why did He take that place? — in the answer we read our salvation.

When the psalmist lifted up his eyes to heaven, and, in view of God's glorious handiwork there, exclaimed, "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? — the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" the answer is, "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." But made whom? He is speaking, not of the first man, but the second — the One in whom alone his true ideal of man is realized — the One of whom Adam the first was but the fleeting image, and even the contrast too.

Here we have again the testimony of the Old Testament. The habitable earth was designed for man, as is plain, at the beginning, and, spite of his fall, the purpose of God in this cannot be defeated. The angels are not to displace him here. In the quotation of the eighth psalm man is seen indeed, not merely made naturally a little lower than the angels, but such an one as makes it a matter of God's condescending grace, if He remembers him at all. The very glory of God in the heavens over his head makes the psalmist ask with astonishment, how God can visit this fallen son of man. The answer is plainly that it is not the fallen man with whom God is occupied, but Another altogether. And when Christ is seen, then the glory of the visible heavens is all eclipsed in comparison. What does it all amount to when compared with the glory of Him who is now before the eye of God, made indeed Himself a little lower than the angels, but to be crowned with glory and honor, and with all things put in subjection under His feet!