I lie down to rest and I sleep.
I wake, for the Lord upholds me.
I will not fear even thousands of people
who are ranged on every side against me. —Psalm 3
Here I will share some midnight reflections on fulfillment and what this puzzling word might mean for the Christian; I hold that to those who adhere to His Word–prophecy, psalm and story is pregnant with meaning and not merely an anachronism read ingeniously into the text, but also meaning brims out of scripture towards a Telos (a goal or end); Telos transfigures meaning and reflects it back transforming how adherents place themselves in the story and how the story unfolds itself. As the sun reflects off objects and gives perception and meaning to objects, so the Telos of scripture makes us able to see configurations, whether prefiguration or transformation. This is anagogic.
Let’s take a thread and see how it spells itself out. Time permits us not to address every kind of reading, but for now let’s surmise that a psalm may be read thusly: personally–this can be broken up into three types: the author of the psalm, the person reading the psalm, the messianic person applying the Psalm–and collectively: the community of Israel under Torah and the community of Israel under Christ who both fulfills and is Torah, prophets and writings. The messianic reading is the telos, whether Jesus is prefigured or whether Jesus fills the meaning of the psalm and story to it’s brim, to the point where my cup runneth over.
Perhaps it is incorrect to refer to either this or that happening with how the Messiah brings scripture to it’s goal, prefiguration and transformation collapse into each other and enmeshed bring something fresh and new into the world. Psalm 3, placed after a psalm dealing with righteous and unrighteous people and another on God’s great king. In short, I grant that Psalm 2 and 3 immediately refer to David; but since Jesus is of the line of David and reigned as king perfectly, “a man after God’s own heart” and without sin, nor permanent death, it applies all the more. Taking this trope to it’s logical end we may say as Jesus said of David’s son, “a greater than David is here.”
With Jesus everything is greater: greater temple, greater Torah, greater wisdom, greater Israel: this last perfection in substance is precisely where fulfillment brims and is transformed. In ancient Israel, Israelites were subsumed vicariously into their leaders. David not only represented a good king and lover of God, but was a centralizing hub for worship and monotheism, how so? Because he became a focal point for God’s love and a kingly mediation through which God’s love and will reached Israel; later his progeny would increase this function by building God’s temple: centralizing where Israel was to look for God, no longer in the groves, high places or in strange lands but in Jerusalem, where the priests lived and were vicars for the community.
In application then, what is true of Israel would be true of the Messiah from the blessings down to the curses. Christ stepped into the role of Israel perfectly as an Israelite and God himself. He took upon himself, in human flesh, the songs Israel sang, the hopes they had dreamed about, salvation they longed for, and the righteousness they sought. He did this often in surprising ways that defied thought or consensus at that time even till today.
An error of historical criticism is believing that getting back as close to the source as possible will divulge the real meaning, this cannot be entirely true since those who were present with Jesus for his entire ministry did not understand the full extent of what he said and did. After all, who would have thought that, “Moab is my washbasin, on Edom I toss my sandal; over Philistia I shout in triumph,” (Psalm 60:8) would be so scandalous as to mean he subdued these eternal enemies through loving, serving and dying for them. Through his condescending love they are called to service and not through conventional warfare as most had predicted. Slaves by choice? How outstanding!
What is true of Israel is true of the true Israelite; this is not a stretch. That David hyperbolically could stand before 1000 without fear (and one might argue, he did this very thing standing up against Goliath and Philistia) is even more true in Jesus who could stand up against a howling mob, a disfigured super power and the dark finality of death with the confidence that he would be raised and God would not leave him entombed. Praise be to God! Christ transfigures this psalm beyond the realm of mortal men and into the realm of the abyss and the afterlife; not merely 1000s but millions and billions, not a small philistine army but the unconquerable will of Rome and by extension any power that exists.
It was through his putting the story beyond itself, what it could have ever meant, by treading into the dark unknown and cutting on the light as big brothers do, that we come to be able to follow into his steps. Through the power of the Spirit of God and the memory and example of the risen Christ, Stephen was able to embody Christ’s hope and stood up to “1000s” and the power of death, now defeated, and died gracefully looking at the Telos. The Telos who transformed this psalm beyond anything dreamed of and in it’s reflection transforms us into the image of Him who called us according to his purpose. Christ not only fulfilled the Psalms, he became them having fully embodied them in his person. He is the Light that gives us Light; the first to give flickering life to the first candle at a vigil. Stephen was the second, and on and on, until our light shines on a hill so that all may see and hear us complete the psalms and fill the cups of others who wish to drink from the eternal songs of God.
ה קול (Voice) 