Psalm 98 - Joy to the World
- Chad Werkhoven
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
The best way to praise God and learn His Word is to sing the words He gave us back to Him!
PSALM 98
A Psalm.
1 O sing to the LORD a new song,
For He has done wonderful things,
His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him.
2 The LORD has made known His salvation;
He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations.
3 He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel;
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
4 Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth;
Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises.
5 Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre,
With the lyre and the sound of melody.
6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn
Shout joyfully before the King, the Lord.
7 Let the sea roar and all it contains,
The world and those who dwell in it.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
Let the mountains sing together for joy
9 Before the LORD, for He is coming to judge the earth;
He will judge the world with righteousness
And the peoples with equity.
Heidelberg Catechism
Q&A 96
Q. What is God’s will for us in the second commandment?
A. That we in no way make any image of God
nor worship him in any other way
than he has commanded in his Word.
Summary
Once again, this week's psalm opens with the command to sing a new song. These new songs that Psalms so often implore aren't really referring to songs that nobody as ever sung before, but they refer to the songs sung in the context of ancient Israel's military victories. So in other words, these psalms that call for new songs are themselves declarations of Christ's victory over all things.
And just like our contemporary songs of victory - think of the American National Anthem - recount heroic actions (the flag was still there despite the bombs bursting in air), so too do new songs like Psalm 98. Only in this case, the war hero is the LORD: His right hand has gained the victory for Him; He's made known His salvation, revealed His righteousness, and remembered His lovingkindness (nearly every time you see the word 'love' in a compound form in your English Bible, it's referring to God's ḥěʹ·sěḏ - His covenant love).
The LORD's victory isn't reserved for a certain nationality or isolated to a specific geographic region. The psalmist indicates that all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
Dig Deeper
One historic distinctive about Reformed churches is our love of singing psalms. Many of our churches don't just have ordinary hymnals, rather we have psalter-hymnals in which well over half the book is filled with songs that match the 150 Biblical psalms as closely as possible, often set to metrical tunes that make them easy for everyone in the congregation to sing.
But even beyond the psalter portion of our hymnals, many of our favorite songs are actually paraphrases of psalms. One of these songs is Isaac Watts' famous Joy to the World, which for some strange reason only gets sung as a Christmas carol even though it's actually a rendition of Psalm 98:4-9.
Psalm 98:4-9 | Joy to the World |
4 Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth; Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. | Joy to the world! The Lord is come: let earth receive her King; |
7 Let the sea roar and all it contains, The world and those who dwell in it. 8 Let the rivers clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy... | Joy to the earth! The Savior reigns: let men their songs employ; while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy |
9 ...Before the LORD, for He is coming to judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness And the peoples with equity. | He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love |
Some churches restrict their singing to what's referred to as exclusive psalmody. The Christian Reformed Church, in fact, held to a strict psalms-only songbook until 1932! The idea behind such policies was that, as much as possible, God's people needed to sing God's Word, and not human innovations.
The first combined Psalter-Hymnal, published in 1934, explained in its preface that until this time, they "sung only the Old Testament Psalms in public worship, barring a few specific exceptions." It goes on to explain:
The reason for depriving ourselves for so many years of such songs that reflect the light that the New Testament adds to the Old was not the theory that the Church should sing only inspired psalms... We were aware of the unsound or unsatisfactory character of many current hymns, and we feared that in an environment where the Psalms are seldom song the introduction of hymns in public worship would lead to the neglect of those deeply spiritual songs of the Old Testament which the church should never fail to use in its service of praise.
It's been nearly a century since the CRC wisely revised it's Church Order to allow for other worship music beyond the psalter, and we've experienced many blessings since by singing songs based on the entirety of God's Word, especially those that help unpack the truths of the gospel and turn them into anthems of praise.
But also keep in mind this sound advice from our long gone church fathers published in that old maroon Psalter-Hymnal. Realize that many songs sung in public worship continue to be 'unsound or unsatisfactory,' and in addition to theologically robust and aesthetically beautiful hymns and praise songs, be sure "not to neglect those deeply spiritual songs of the Old Testament..."
The best way to both praise God and learn His Word is to sing the words He gave us back to Him! Encourage your church to sing the Psalms every week!
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who has done wonderful things;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Thank God for giving us such beautiful words from the Psalms to praise Him with, even as these words teach us the salvation the LORD has made known;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
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