It’s been quite a while since I published any of my devotional thoughts on Psalm 45. You may read the previous installments from the links below.

Part 1: vv1-2

Part 2: vv3-5

Part 3: vv6-7

Part 4: vv8-9

Psalm 45 is a beautiful love song between Christ and His Bride, the Church. So far, we have heard the Church singing of her adoration for Christ. Vv10-11 introduce a new portion of the song, where Christ begins to sing of His love for His Bride, His Church, to encourage us and comfort us.

Hear, O daughter, He sings. Why should the bridegroom call His Bride His daughter?

Let’s compare another passage. In Song of Solomon 4:9, Christ says to the Church: You have stirred my heart, my sister, my bride. The Church is both Christ’s Bride and His sister here. Why? First, because in taking on our humanity, He has become our brother according to the flesh. Second, because wife and sister are both deeply beloved by a man. So Christ would have His Church to know that He loves us with a double love, as both Bride and beloved sister.

Likewise, Christ is called Everlasting Father in Isaiah 9:6. This is not a confusing of two Persons of the Godhead, as if God the Father and God the Son were the same. Rather, it is speaking of the Fatherhood of God, as a divine attribute, which Christ possesses as God. He is the source of both our physical and spiritual life, since: In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind (John 1:4). Thus Christ can speak both tenderly to His Church as the Bride; and to instruct and admonish her as a daughter.

And this He does, for He instructs the Church to look and listen. We must listen to Him, first, because faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17 KJV). Faith first comes to life in our hearts through the preaching of the Gospel; and the proclamation of the Gospel sustains our faith. Faith brings her sisters, Hope and Love, with her. So in hope we reach out to Christ, eagerly awaiting the consummation of our wedding at His return; and in love, our heart clings to Him, and seeks to obey Him in all things: If you love me, hold on to my commands (John 14:15).

We listen also for His commands, to obey them, because we love Him: In fact, this is love for God: that we keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, because everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 5:3-5).

Now, beloved, do not read this and go away thinking the Apostle means that it is easy to obey when he says his commands are not burdensome. Rather, John is reminding us that our motivation for obedience is not fear of condemnation, nor is is trying to impress Christ with our goodness. Rather, we serve Him out of love that flows from faith. We serve Him with all confidence, even though our works are imperfect, because He has already overcome the world, and that includes the sin that still dwells in us. We listen because we love His voice; and we find true joy in obedience to Him.

Christ also tells us to look. We look to Him as our example, and desire to become more perfectly conformed to Him. Thus we are told, for instance, to let this attitude be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5).

But we are not saved by how perfectly we are conformed to Christ in this life. Were we to look to Christ only as our example, we would be most pitiable, indeed. Rather, we are told: Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who is the author of our faith and the one who brings it to its goal. In view of the joy set before him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of God’s throne (Hebrews 12:2). Look to Jesus, who first awakened faith in you, and will keep you to the end. Look to Him, knowing that saving His Bride was the joy set before Him, for which He endured the cross. Look to Him, now seated at God’s right hand, praying for you, and working all things together for your good. When we look to Him, we are confident that we cannot be lost, because we are held securely in the hands that were pierced for us, and bled for our salvation.

Christ continues to sing to His Bride: Forget your people and your father’s house, He says.

Now, this is the same Jesus who said: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26). Likewise, He is the same Lord who told Abram: Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you (Genesis 12:1).

Now, Christ doesn’t command us to forsake our natural affections for, and duties towards, our families. Elsewhere, He commands: Honor your father and your mother (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16; Ephesians 6:1-3). And through one of His Apostles, He declares: But if anyone does not provide for his own family, and especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (1 Timothy 5:8).

And yet, if our father, or our people (nation or culture) would hinder us from Christ, we must choose Him above them. For we are His Bride, and He is our Bridegroom: For this reason a man will leave his father and his motherand will remain united with his wife,and they will become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). And so, St. Paul says: He who loves his wife loves himself. To be sure, no one has ever hated his own body, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will be one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:28-31).

Through His Incarnation, the eternal Son was made bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh; that through faith we might be perfectly united to Him, as His Bride and body.

And so, we must say to Christ, our Bridegroom: wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you make your home, I will make my home. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God (Ruth 1:16). United to Him by faith, His Father becomes our Father, His Church, our people. And His people, His Bride, His Church, are a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language (Revelation 7:9). In Christ, we are no longer simply members of one tribe; but of a people composed of every people.

We are called, like Abram, to leave behind our people and our father’s house because the king desires your beauty. Now, this is not an inherent beauty, for He calls us to life from a valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14): But God, because he is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in trespasses. It is by grace you have been saved! (Ephesians 2:4-5). And again: in baptism you were also raised with him through the faith worked by the God who raised Christ from the dead (Colossians 2:12).

Rather, the beauty our royal Bridegroom desires in us is the very beauty He will bestow on us when we are perfected in glory. Then He will present us to Himself as a glorious church, having no stain or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27).

Christ sees His Bride as perfected even now, for already He has clothed us with His own perfections. Thus we sing: he has clothed me in garments of salvation. With a robe of righteousness he covered me, like a bridegroom who wears a beautiful headdress like a priest, and like a bride who adorns herself with her jewelry (Isaiah 61:10). But on the day of consummation, we shall appear before Him truly and fully prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2). For then, we shall have put on immortality and incorruptibility, and what is written will be fulfilled: We know that when he is revealed we will be like him, and we will see him as he really is (1 John 3:2).

Finally here, the Bride is told: Because he is your lord, bow down to him. We bow down and worship Christ, our Bridegroom, because He is both God and Lord. The Bride has already sung to Him: Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of justice (Psalm 45:6). The Church on earth always confesses Christ as: My Lord and my God! (John 20:28).

He is our Lord because He has not paid a dowry for us of silver or gold or anything that passes away, but His own precious blood (1 Peter 1:18-19). So we bow down and worship Him, and love Him with warm affections, and serve Him all the days of our life.

He is our Lord because He also shared the same flesh and blood, so that through death he could destroy the one who had the power of death (that is, the Devil) and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). And again, because we have been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son … in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14). Because He has rescued us our ancient foes, Satan, sin, and death; and has brought us into His own Kingdom, we bow to Him as Lord, and worship Him with gladness and gratitude.

And again we read: you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body (1 Corinthians 6:20). He has purchased not only our souls, but our bodies, with His life, death, and resurrection. Both our souls and bodies will be perfected together on the day of consummation, when His Kingdom comes in the fullness of its glory. So now, we bow before Him as Lord, and glorify Him in our bodies by our good works; and then, in glory, we shall enjoy Him forever.