So far we’ve seen that the Psalms are the songs that speak about Jesus, they are the songs that Jesus sung (that we should sing too!) and now, finally, I want to consider the Psalms as the songs that Jesus wrote.

You might think that an incongruous notion–after all, don’t the Psalm superscriptions (which Christians consider to be inspired) name other authors? And yet I have the cheek to suggest that Jesus wrote the Psalms?! What about David, ‘the sweet psalmist of Israel’? (2 Samuel 23:1).

Yet Jesus is the Logos, the Word of God (John 1:1). He is the inspiration behind all Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter 1:10-11). Muslims believe that the Quran is the direct, literal word of Allah as given verbatim by the angel Gabriel to Muhammad; it effectively dropped down from heaven in Arabic exactly as it is today. The Christian doctrine of inspiration is different: the Bible is the infallible word of God, but the Spirit of Christ didn’t bypass the individual styles and creativity of His human mouthpieces—hence the hymn line, ‘Isaiah’s wild measure and John’s simple page’.1 In this we see a microcosm of how God works: He decrees all things yet He uses human beings for the furtherance of His providential purposes—in this case, the writing of the Bible. Every word is how He wanted it. A great example of this is the four ‘servant songs’ which Isaiah the prophet wrote (often using first person), yet which can only truly be fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Isaiah 42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12).

So what about the Psalms?

Righteous Sufferer

Many of the Psalms are written from the perspective of a righteous sufferer. Poetry alone can capture this depth of pathos. The awe-inspiring words of Jesus on the cross from Psalm 22:1, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (cited in Matthew 27:46), reveal the staggering cost of what it cost Jesus to die in our place, what we call penal substitutionary atonement. Psalm 22 is perhaps the most profound of the many Psalms of lament which constitute as much as 40 percent of the Psalms, but, whether lament or not, these are all songs that Jesus wrote. ‘Christ leads our songs and is the chief composer of our hymns’, declares John Calvin.2

The parallels between Christ the Righteous Sufferer and the Psalms would be uncanny if not for the reason that ‘we hear a voice speaking by the Spirit of Christ and fulfilled in the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ in his earthly sufferings’.3 Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

No individual can repeat the lamentation Psalms out of his own experience; it is the distress of the entire Christian community at all times, as only Jesus Christ has experienced it entirely alone4

The Lord Jesus is with His people ‘to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20). It may seem more ordinary, but one of the quite tangible ways He is present with us is through the Psalms. And we know His presence most when we deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him in the path of the righteous sufferer (Matthew 16:24).

Divine Teacher

Christopher Ash demonstrates that Christ speaks ‘with the voice of the Teacher in the Psalms’, citing Matthew 23:10: ‘for you have one instructor, the Christ’.5 For example, Matthew 13:35 quotes Psalm 78:2 of Jesus:

I will open my mouth in parables;
    I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.

Through the Psalms, Jesus teaches us a great many things concerning key topics such as covenantal history (for example, in the remainder of Psalm 78 or in Psalm 136), the nature and place of mankind in creation (for instance, Psalm 8), and the necessity of delighting in and meditating in God’s word (especially in Psalm 119). As we read the Psalms, like Martha’s sister Mary, we sit at Jesus’ feet and hear His teaching (Luke 10:39).

Ash next reveals an astonishing point that ‘what is said of God in the Psalms is referred to Jesus Christ in the New Testament’.6 Therefore, we can identify Christ with God or ‘the LORD’ (Yahweh) in the Psalms.7

For example, Psalm 103 uses the Hebrew word חֶסֶד (transliterated as ḥeseḏ or chesed) four times (Psalm 103:4, 8, 11, 17), meaning God’s covenant lovingkindness—if you only learn one word in Hebrew then let it be ḥeseḏ! In verse 3 we read:

[the LORD] who forgives all your iniquity,
    who heals all your diseases

Mark 2:1-12 demonstrates that Jesus not only has the power to heal the paralytic but also to forgive sins, even in the face of the sceptical scribes, echoing this very Psalm: ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ (Mark 2:7). How is divine ḥeseḏ dispensed except through Christ?8

In the Psalms, Jesus reveals Himself as our Divine Teacher.

Emotional Exemplar

In the Psalms Jesus not only showcases His divinity but, in Calvin’s classic phrase, He also gives us an ‘anatomy of all parts of the soul’,9 showing us what godly emotions look like, what life as those born of the Spirit should be.

In our eagerness to proclaim Jesus’s full divinity against dodgy Arian10 or kenotic Christology,11 we can sometimes forget His humanity and run the risk of slipping into the opposite extremes of Docetism12 or Apollinarianism.13 The Psalms are a welcome hypostatical corrective here.14 They reveal to us Jesus’ perfect emotions; they are to be studied alongside the Gospel accounts, adding a raw, penetrating colour to the narratives which should be precious to every soul that loves Jesus. ‘Jesus personified the Psalms’, declares Michael Lefebvre.15 What did it feel like for Jesus that night on the Mount of Olives? His human forebear David, when he fled from his son Absalom, similarly ‘went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went’ (2 Samuel 15:30). Psalm 3, which was written at that time, captures something of his emotions:

LORD, how many are my foes!
    Many are rising against me;
many are saying of my soul,
    “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah
But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,
    my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I cried aloud to the LORD,
    and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

On this Psalm, Charles Spurgeon writes, ‘there is here […] far more of David’s Lord than of David himself’.16

I think the clearest proof that Jesus Christ is ultimately the inspirer and author of the Psalms lies in Gethsemane and the cross. In John 13:18, Jesus speaks Psalm 41:9, ‘He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’. John 19:28-30 explains that Jesus fulfilled Psalm 69:21 whilst on the cross, ‘for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink’. In Luke 23:46, as He expired, completing His work on the cross, Jesus cries out Psalm 31:5, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’17

Merciful Mediator

However, the statement that the Psalms are the songs that Jesus wrote is not without its difficulties. Most readers from a comfortable, modern context can feel a bit squeamish about the Psalter’s repeated pleas for God’s judgement on the wicked which is interwoven with the most beautiful poetry. To claim that Jesus had a hand in their composition is seemingly at odds with the one who cried, ‘Father, forgive them’ (Luke 23:34). C. S. Lewis, the literary scholar, in comparing the ‘cursing’ in the Psalms with contemporaneous literature of other nations, states that:

One’s first impression is that the Jews were much more vindictive and vitriolic than the Pagans.18

Even Calvin goes so far as to accuse the Psalmist at one time of ‘an improper and sinful excess of passion’.19 So how do we reconcile these so-called ‘imprecatory’ Psalms with Christ being the greatest expression of God’s love?

At times I’ve tried to rationalise these, ‘we wrestle not against flesh and blood’ (Ephesians 6:12 KJV), therefore, these invectives only apply to our spiritual enemies now, not to actual people. However, whilst there’s some truth in this, I’m not sure that helps us: ‘For I the Lord do not change’ (Malachi 3:6). If it would be wrong to apply it to ‘flesh and blood’ enemies now, then would it not be wrong then as well? God’s kingdom may now be a spiritual one, ‘not of this world’ (John 18:36), but His standards have not changed.20

Lewis states that this is no ‘animal rage’,21 suggesting instead that in part it was ‘because they took right and wrong more seriously [as] these things are manifestly wrong, [because they are] hateful to God as well as to the victim’.22

As Joel Beeke writes, in these pleas, ‘we do not pray for personal vengeance but for God’s glory and the good of the church’.23 Even the strongest curses are fulfilments of the ‘revealed covenant will of God’.24 For example, Psalm 137:9 speaks horrifically of dashing little ones against the rock, but it is a prayer for the fulfilment of Isaiah 13:16. This is God’s judgement against His sworn enemies.

As Christians it’s not always clear to us who is hardened against God or not. When Jesus implored His Father to forgive those who crucified and mocked Him it was because ‘they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34).

Ash brings out a wonderful truth, worthy of much meditation, when he writes that,

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” […] All the curses due to a sinner are borne by Jesus Christ if that sinner comes to repentance and faith.25

The Lord Jesus Himself ‘came into the world’, just as He promised in the Psalms many years before, ‘to save sinners’ (1 Timothy 1:15). In the Psalms, Jesus shows us that He is the Merciful Mediator.

Conclusion

I hope in some small way you’ve been encouraged by this little series of blog posts to see the Psalms as the songs of Jesus. They are the songs that Jesus as God inspired for Jesus as Man to read, pray and sing. When we read, pray and sing, we do so with Jesus, to Jesus and for Jesus.

As Christians, we must feed on Christ, the ‘bread of life’ (John 6:35, 48, 51, 53-57). Jesus presents Himself to us through the Bible, and, I think, in a special way through the Psalms. I pray all Christians treasure this wondrously divine songbook in a way that draws us ever deeper into union and communion with the Triune God, to ‘direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ’ (2 Thessalonians 3:5).

And blessed be his glorious name
      To all eternity:
The whole earth let his glory fill.
      Amen, so let it be.26

▶ Footnotes
  1. M’Cheyne, Robert Murray, Jehovah Tsidkenu (first line: ‘I once was a stranger to grace and to God’). ↩︎
  2. Calvin, John, Commentaries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003), 22:67. ↩︎
  3. Ash, Christopher, The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary – Volume 1: Introduction (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 1:65. ↩︎
  4. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Psalms: The Prayerbook of the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1970), 46. ↩︎
  5. Ash, Psalms, 1:72. For his full explanation, see Ibid., 72-76. Also compare John 6:45 with Isaiah 54:13. ↩︎
  6. Ibid., 76. ↩︎
  7. On this point Belcher states: ‘Because Christ is fully God, any psalms that speak of God or Yahweh (the LORD) can legitimately apply to him.’ (Belcher, The Messiah and the Psalms, 196). ↩︎
  8. See, for example, Titus 3:4-6. ↩︎
  9. Calvin, John, preface to Commentary on the Book of Psalms, trans. James Anderson, in Calvin’s Commentaries (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003), 5:xxxvii. ↩︎
  10. Arianism, named after a chap called Arius, is the outright denial of Jesus’ divinity and was condemned as a heresy at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Modern Unitarian (as opposed to Trinitarian) movements, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, trace their lineage through Arianism. ↩︎
  11. Kenosis (κένωσις) theory reckons that somehow Jesus ‘emptied himself’ of or limited His divinity to become human. This is based on a dodgy reading of Philippians 2:7. Orthodox Christology instead declares that Christ remained fully divine but set aside His own preferment to ransom sinners. ↩︎
  12. Docetism was an early heresy which suggested that Jesus only ‘seemed’ (δοκέω, dokeo) to be human and was countered by John in John 1:14 and 1 John 4:2-3. ↩︎
  13. Apollinarianism was another heresy which unhelpfully suggested that Jesus had a human body but not a human mind. ↩︎
  14. The hypostatical union of Christ is what theologians call the union of His one person in two natures, divine and human. ↩︎
  15. Lefebvre, Michael, Singing the Songs of Jesus: Revisiting the Psalms (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2011), chap. 3 in ePub edition. ↩︎
  16. Spurgeon, C. H., The Treasury of David (London: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 1:25. ↩︎
  17. A verse which Stephen wonderfully echoed as he was stoned to death in Acts 7:59: ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ ↩︎
  18. Lewis, C. S., Reflections on the Psalms (San Diego, CA: Harcourt, 1986), 27-28. ↩︎
  19. Calvin, Commentaries, 5:76. ↩︎
  20. For more on this point, see Ash, Psalms, 1:167-168. ↩︎
  21. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, 31. ↩︎
  22. Ibid., 30. ↩︎
  23. Beeke, Joel, Why Should We Sing Psalms? (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 2015), chap. 1 in ePub edition. ↩︎
  24. Ash, Psalms, 1:169. ↩︎
  25. Ibid., 171. ↩︎
  26. Psalm 72:19 in The Psalter: A Revised Edition, (London: Oxford University Press, n.d.), 152. ↩︎