A people whom I have not known hath served me: in the hearing of the ear it hath obeyed me."(4) Therefore this people of the nations, which Christ did not know in His bodily presence, yet has believed in that Christ as announced to it; so that it might be said of it with good reason, "In the hearing of the ear it hath obeyed me," for "faith is by hearing."(5) This people, I say, added to those who are the true Israelites both by the flesh and by faith, is the city of God, which has brought forth Christ Himself according to the flesh, since He was in these Israelites only.For thence came the Virgin Mary, in whom Christ assumed flesh that He might be man.Of which city another psalm says, "Mother Sion, shall a man say, and the man is made in her, and the Highest Himself hath founded her."(6) Who is this Highest, save God? And thus Christ, who is God, before He became man through Mary in that city, Himself rounded it by the patriarchs and prophets.As therefore was said by prophecy so long before to this queen, the city of God, what we already can see fulfilled, "Instead of thy fathers, sons are born to thee;thou shall make them princes over all the earth;"(7) so out of her sons truly are set up even her fathers [princes] through all the earth, when the people, coming together to her, confess to her with the confession of eternal praise for ever and ever.Beyond doubt, whatever interpretation is put on what is here expressed somewhat darkly in figurative language, ought to be in agreement with these most manifest things.
CHAP.17.--OF THOSE THINGS IN THE 110TH PSALM WHICH RELATE TO THE PRIESTHOODOF
CHRIST, AND IN THE 22D TO HIS PASSION.
Just as in that psalm also where Christ is most openly proclaimed as Priest, even as He is here as King, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool."(1)That Christ sits on the right hand of God the Father is believed, not seen; that His enemies also are put under His feet doth not yet appear; it is being done, [therefore] it will appear at last: yea, this is now believed, afterward it shall be seen.
But what follows, "The Lord will send forth the rod of Thy strength out of Sion, and rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies,"(2)is so clear, that to deny it would imply not merely unbelief and mistake, but downright impudence.And even enemies must certainly confess that out of Sion has been sent the law of Christ which we call the gospel, and acknowledge as the rod of His strength.But that He rules in the midst of His enemies, these same enemies among whom He rules themselves bear witness, gnashing their teeth and consuming away, and having power to do nothing against Him.Then what he says a little after, "The Lord hath sworn and will not repent,"(3) by which words He intimates that what He adds is immutable, "Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,"(4) who is permitted to doubt of whom these things are said, seeing that now there is nowhere a priesthood and sacrifice after the order of Aaron, and everywhere men offer under Christ as the Priest, which Melchizedek showed when he blessed Abraham?
Therefore to these manifest things are to be referred, when rightly understood, those things in the same psalm that are set down a little more obscurely, and we have already made known in our popular sermons how these things are to be rightly understood.So also in that where Christ utters through prophecy the humiliation of His passion, saying, "They pierced my hands and feet; they counted all my bones.Yea, they looked and stared at me."(5) By which words he certainly meant His body stretched out on the cross, with the hands and feet pierced and perforated by the striking through of the nails, and that He had in that way made Himself a spectacle to those who looked and stared.
And he adds, "They parted my garments among them, and over nay vesture they cast lots."(6) How this prophecy has been fulfilled the Gospel history narrates.Then, indeed, the other things also which are said there less openly are rightly understood when they agree with those which shine with so great clearness; especially because those things also which we do not believe as past, but survey as present, are beheld by the whole world, being now exhibited just as they are read of in this very psalm as predicted so long before.For it is there said a little after, "All the ends of the earth shall remember, and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He shall rule the nations."CHAP.18.--OF THE 3D, 41ST, 15TH, AND 68TH PSALMS, IN WHICH THE DEATHAND RESURRECTION
OF THE LORD ARE PROPHESIED.
About His resurrection also the oracles of the Psalms are by no means silent.For what else is it that is sung in His person in the 3d Psalm, "I laid me down and took a sleep, [and] I awaked, for the Lord shall sustain me?"(7) Is there perchance any one so stupid as to believe that the prophet chose to point it out to us as something great that He had i slept and risen up, unless that sleep had been death, and that awaking the resurrection, which behoved to be thus prophesied concerning Christ? For in the 41st Psalm also it is shown much more clearly, where in the person of the Mediator, in the usual way, things are narrated as if past which were prophesied as yet to come, since these things which were yet to come were in the predestination and foreknowledge of God as if they were done, because they were certain.