Discipleship in the Psalms: The Wonder of Creation
Author: Daniel Owens, PhD
March 01, 2024
Fifth in a series.
Psalm 104
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul!
O LORD my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
2covering yourself with light as with a garment,
stretching out the heavens like a tent.
3He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;
he makes the clouds his chariot;
he rides on the wings of the wind;
4he makes his messengers winds,
his ministers a flaming fire.
5He set the earth on its foundations,
so that it should never be moved.
6You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
7At your rebuke they fled;
at the sound of your thunder they took to flight.
8The mountains rose, the valleys sank down
to the place that you appointed for them.
9You set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth.
10You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills;
11they give drink to every beast of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;
they sing among the branches.
13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
14You cause the grass to grow for the livestock
and plants for man to cultivate,
that he may bring forth food from the earth
15and wine to gladden the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine
and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
16The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has her home in the fir trees.
18The high mountains are for the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.
19He made the moon to mark the seasons;
the sun knows its time for setting.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the beasts of the forest creep about.
21 The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.
22When the sun rises, they steal away
and lie down in their dens.
23 Man goes out to his work
and to his labor until the evening.
24O LORD, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
25Here is the sea, great and wide,
which teems with creatures innumerable,
living things both small and great.
26There go the ships,
and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.
27These all look to you,
to give them their food in due season.
28When you give it to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
29When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die
and return to their dust.
30When you send forth your Spirit, they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
31May the glory of the LORD endure forever;
may the LORD rejoice in his works,
32who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke!
33I will sing to the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34May my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the LORD.
35Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the wicked be no more!
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
Praise the LORD!
Creation realities confront us daily. But in Western culture we have absorbed a broken kind of dualistic view of the world that separates the spiritual from the physical. Mentally we can separate Sunday morning glories from Monday morning burdens. What’s more, we can be guilty of a God-of-the-gaps kind of mentality, where only miracles or the transcendent count as things related to God. Everything is just secular.
This division is neither accurate nor safe. All creation realities come under the sovereignty of God, and they ought to usher us into wonder, praise, and gratitude to God. All our discipleship takes place within the context of creation, so we need to know how creation realities shape our discipleship. Psalm 104 presents a beautiful, almost playful, meditation on creation realities under God. Therefore it is a fantastic place to consider how our discipleship is shaped and informed by creation realities.
We begin as the psalm begins, with worship of God. The psalm begins in the same way that the previous psalm begins and ends, with “Bless the LORD, O my soul!” (Psa. 104:1; compare Psa. 103:1–2, 22). Perhaps worship is where we ought to end up at the end of this psalm, as does the psalmist, but he helpfully frames the experience as one of worship. The content of this worship is a highly imaginative portrait of God, who is “clothed with splendor and majesty” (v. 1), that is, with light (v. 2). The psalm continues by imagining the dwelling place of God being erected, with the heavens as his tent (v. 2) and the waters for a foundation (v. 3). He then switches metaphors and imagines God riding “on the wings of the wind” (v. 3). He switches yet again, and wind and fire become his messengers (v. 4).
The exalted language and shifting metaphors here reveal the transcendence of God, who cannot be limited to a physical space or particular metaphor. In truth, we must always understand the nature of God in ways mediated through creation realities. God has chosen to reveal himself to us in ways that we can understand, and we are creatures tied to creation. We dare not create an image of him, for that would reduce him to creaturely finitude. But the psalmist gives us manifold images that get at his transcendent glory. If we imagine God in simplistic, two-dimensional ways, our discipleship will be stunted and may even stray into idolatry. But when we learn with the psalmist to see his glory revealed in a variety of creation realities, we will be all the richer for it.
Building on the splendor of God refracted through creation, the psalmist meditates on his works to establish creation in verses 5–9. The language is vivid and dynamic, both describing a creation that shall not be moved (v. 5) and hills and valleys that rise and fall at God’s command (v. 8). Water flees at God’s word (v. 7) and respects the boundaries that he set after the flood (v. 9). We take for granted that the earth will still be solid under our feet in the morning when we rise, and we can only move earth with great labor or heavy machinery. But God speaks, and the world moves. These images should give us confidence in his power to achieve his will.
Next the psalmist considers the ways that God provides for his creatures in vv. 10–23. This loving provision spans from the water he provides for beasts (v. 11) to plants for food for humans (v. 14), even wine for enjoyment and oil for beauty (v. 15). The beasts under his care span from singing birds (v. 12) to lions that seek “their food from God” (v. 21). This section concludes with the labor of man (v. 23). It is a paradox that we labor for our food, but even the strength to labor is a gift from God (Deut. 8:18). This also highlights the ongoing responsibility of humans to carry out the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28. All ethical labor is pleasing to God, not only because it is the means to provide for our families, but also because by it we exercise the dominion or kingly and queenly rule that he gave to our original parents. Clearly Monday morning burdens are tightly woven into the fabric of the creation God made for us.
Verses 24–30 meditate on the wisdom of God evident in creation realities. The creation-wisdom connection is a common theme in the Bible (Job 28; Prov. 8:22–31), and indeed we can see Christ, the wisdom of God reflected in God’s creative activities (John 1:1–3; 1 Cor. 1:24). But note the particular concern of the psalmist is the frightful reality of creation’s dependence upon God. First, verse 26 speaks of Leviathan, the sea monster, who plays in the ocean. But second, he returns to the animals that depend on God for food and are dismayed, die, and return to the dust when God takes his sustenance away (vv. 27–29). The breath of life from God’s Spirit undergirds all creaturely existence. We must always be aware that we depend upon God for our very breath, a fact that should fill our hearts with gratitude and a holy fear.
The psalm concludes with praise and joy in the Lord (vv. 31–34) and a prayer for God’s judgment on the wicked (v. 35). To us this might seem like a throwaway statement, not fitting for Christians called to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44). But when we recall that evil cannot dwell with God (Psa. 5:4; see the previous post in this series), that the psalm would end here makes sense. The psalm has been a celebration of the goodness of God’s work in creation, and it looks ahead to the judgment of the wicked and establishment of the New Creation envisioned in Revelation 19–22 that contains none of the evil characteristic of our current creation realities. We might say that the psalmist groans in the same way that the creation itself groans for our redemption (Rom. 8:19–23).
Creation realities are about so much more than the mundane physical world in which we live. They raise our hearts to worship and understanding of God, undergird our faith in his power, remind us of his faithful care, afford us opportunities for labor in obedience to God, check our pretensions to independence from him, and conclude with the judgement of God, when he will restore his creation to its unvarnished, original goodness.
Daniel Owens, PhD, is NCC’s pastor of discipleship. Go to the NCC Blog for the previous posts in this series.
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