King Jesus

Psalm 45:1-9

A six-year-old girl was drawing a picture one day. Her teacher said, ‘What are you drawing?’ The little girl answered, ‘I am drawing a picture of God.’ The teacher was surprised and said, ‘But nobody knows what God looks like!’ The little girl carried on drawing and replied, ‘They will in a minute.’

The writer of Hebrews sees this psalm as a prophetic description of Jesus. He writes, ‘But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever…”’ (See Hebrews 1:8–9, quoting verses 6–7 of this psalm).

This is one of the clearest cases in the New Testament of Jesus being addressed as ‘God’ – as the legitimate object of worship. Jesus is the fulfilment of the expected ‘anointed King’, known as the Messiah. Jesus fulfils these prophecies.

Jesus said, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father’ (John 14:9). In other words, if you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.

He is ‘anointed with grace’ (Psalm 45:2). We see in these verses hints of the whole Trinity: God the Father (‘God, your God’, Psalm 45:7), Jesus the Son (‘Your throne, O God’, v.6a), and the Holy Spirit (‘the oil of joy’, v.7b, see also Isaiah 61:1,3).