This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, July 5, 1992.

We are turning to another psalm this evening, Psalm 110. We read it this morning and we will read it again this evening in another translation as we begin our scripture reading tonight. This is Psalm 110. Listen to the word of God. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet.

The Lord will stretch forth thy strong scepter from Zion, saying, Rule in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people will volunteer freely in the day of thy power. In holy array, from the womb of Adon, thy youth are to be as they do. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, Thou art a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at my right hand. He will shatter kings in the day of his wrath. He will judge among the nations. He will fill them with corpses. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country. He will drink from the brook by the wayside. Therefore, he will lift up his head.”

Genesis chapter 2, beginning at verse 8. And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden, and there he placed the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there provided it became four rivers.

The name of the first is Pyshon. It flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good, and Bebelium and the Onyx Stone are there. The name of the second river is Gion. It flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris. It flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. But in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.

Our Father, we know that your word comes, and there are those who are gifted by the Word and set apart, we thank you for the ministry of the Word, the way in which it helps, but also, Father, the way in which it provides a portent of the coming day in which there will be blessing for your elect and judgment for those you have passed by.

We ask, Father, that we would look upon the preaching of your word with all seriousness, therefore. And we also thank you, Lord, that your word comes so as to grant to the Church those who are gifted in rule. Oh, Father, we thank you for those in this Church who rule well. We thank you, Lord, for the blessing that they are to this Church. and those whom you have raised up in other places to rule judiciously, honestly, with integrity, with fairness. Our Father, we thank you, too, that there are those who are especially gifted to serve. We rejoice in the beacons of our church. We are blessed by them, in having them. We thank you for the alert spirit that they evidence as they go about their tasks.

And thank you too, Father, for the ministry of service that is evident in your church worldwide. May your word continue to have that impact and effect whereby these offices of your church are well filled And Jesus Christ in his fullness is set before the people for their good. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I have returned to Psalm 110 again this evening because of that interesting line with which the psalm ends, something of an enigmatic statement, certainly interesting in light of what has gone before. The line reads, He shall drink of the brook in the way. Therefore shall he lift up his head.” That in King James.

Now on the surface, this line seems like such a common statement. It seems like such a common statement, concluding a psalm filled with the most extraordinary statements. On the surface of it, this concluding verse sounds like such a common statement concluding a psalm that is packed full of extraordinary statements. Think of those extraordinary things that are said in the song. The Lord said unto my Lord, that doesn’t stop you in your tracks. I don’t know what will. Just to figure it out. The Jews of Jesus day had trouble figuring it out. He had to explain it to them. You may recall. David here is recognizing that he himself has a Lord. He, being a Lord in Israel, has a Lord to whom he must defer.

There is also the extraordinary statement that follows. It is mentioned made of the priesthood of this one. the extraordinary priesthood, not a priest like other priests in Israel who are after the order of Aaron. This one is after the order of Melchizedek, a remarkable figure that appears in Genesis 14, you may recall. So here we have presented to us this remarkable figure, this warrior priest, who has the Lord himself as the instrument of his justice, as if he were carrying the Lord in his right hand for the sake of executing that justice. He will bring down the pretentious and fraudulent rulers who despotically tyrannize the nation. If you work your way through the psalm, it’s obvious that we are dealing here with high and lofty stuff. But now we come to the psalm’s conclusion, verse 7, and a rather folksy description of that, a description that many have interpreted as merely a reference to the conquering king refreshing himself during a battle.

And it’s not that we object to quaint images like this. It’s not that we react against the familiarity that they communicate. The problem is one of incongruity. The problem is that the psalm has been so sublime, so high and lofty, and now it seems to end on an understatement. It seems to end on such a mundane note.

Why, with this background, would it be of any interest what this guy does while he’s stopped by a brook along the way? The seventh verse of this 110th psalm is seemingly more than anticlimactic. It sounds downright superfluous. Why even bother? Now it’s been the nagging nature of this problem that has driven some biblical interpreters back to the drawing board. Efforts are made afresh With respect to this text, is it as mundane as it appears on the surface? Is it as common and familiar as it appears on the page?

Efforts are now made to read this verse as if it were endowed with the same majesty, the same grandeur. the same glory as the rest of the psalms. Now, some, in taking up this final line of Psalm 110, see it as describing an act closely associated with the commencement of the king’s rule. closely associated with the commencement of the king’s rule. An act by which he then is sustained, even into and through battle, and guaranteed triumph. If this is the case then, The king’s blinking of the brook is brought into proximity to his ascension to the throne, his taking up the throne, his coronation. And the lifting up of his head is no mere reference to physical refreshment, for the completion of the battle in view, but rather a reference to a climactic and final lifting up of the head in the sense of exaltation with the absolute certainty of victory. Now I’m filling out this picture. What some commentators, what some scholars have observed is this.

They turn to the story of the son of David’s coronation. They turn to the story of Solomon’s coronation. And they note that in the record of it, in 1 Kings chapter 1, there is mention made of the fact that Solomon, in order to be declared king and anointed, is taken down to the brook Gihon. That brook, that spring, was the site then for the coronation of Solomon.

This scene, then, in which the Son of David, after the flesh, is present, is transformed, as it were, before your eyes, and given messianic overtones and themes. It is also filled, I’ll use the word, It is still with eschatological significance, messianic, eschatological, as Solomon, the son of David after the flesh, takes up his rule and begins his rule. at the spring gyr, that spring that flows from beneath the city of God, which then, according to this psalm, is partaken of. But while there is the partaking of the waters from the spring There is also a partaking of the life that is bound up representatively in those waters so that attached to the reign of the son of David is the affirmation of a reign that cannot and will not end. Life bound up, now, in the one who partakes of the waters, he himself partaking of an indestructible life, that he with lifted head might restrain and conquer all his enemies. would carry us even beyond the brook Gion in Jerusalem and present us with an extraordinary stream of water.

The stream Gion becomes reflective of something higher, something greater. Isn’t this the way You think of Psalm 46, for instance, in which we read about a river, the streams thereof make glad the city of God. We’re not here speaking of some earthly body of water. We’re talking about something that has transcendent significance, of which the streams in Jerusalem are but a type. They point to something greater and more sublime in Jeremiah.

God calls himself the fountain of living waters. The second chapter, the thirteenth verse, a statement then that will in fact be capitalized on by Christ as he declares himself to be such a fountain of life for all who are thirsty In Joel, God promises a stream issuing forth from the house of God, the temple of God, that will bring life to the wasted land.

Chapter 3, verse 18. In Ezekiel, the river of life flows from the threshold of the new temple, and everything in the river lives. Everything by the river lives. Chapter 47, verse 1, and following. In Zechariah, the stream is one that makes for cleansing, the purification of sin. Chapter 13, verse 1. It flows finally out of the city of God. Chapter 14, verse 8. As a perpetual stream, an unending stream that brings unending life to the world that it touches. Moving east and west.

In the book of Revelation, chapter 7, verse 17, we have the portrait of the Lamb upon His throne, who now guides His flock to the waters of life. In Revelation, chapter 22, verse 1, the picture is filled out of the sanctuary of the Lamb, wherein that sanctuary becomes the restored, but no, even more, the transcendent garden in which flows the river of the water of life. And in the very last chapter of the Bible, Revelation chapter 22, verse 17, there comes then that marvelous invitation for all to partake of the waters of life without cost, because they are freely and graciously offered. Proving these extraordinary waters are extended, in the final analysis, are they not, to more than just the king who rules?

More than just that one who first by right partakes of them, for all his subjects, all his servants, all his disciples, all his followers. all the members of his army, all the members of his body, partake as well. Such is the nature of the river by which you are supplied. It is the river of life. And the one who has partaken of it by right, willingly, openly, graciously, mercifully, shares its power and significance with you.

Now all of this is instructive to us for our understanding of Genesis chapter 2, is it not? Much has been made by commentators about the description that we find in that second chapter, the 10th verse through the 14th, and the description of the geography involved and touched by the garden.

And I suppose if we could spend a great deal of our time attempting to identify the specifics that are mentioned here, where is the river Paishon, for instance? Where is the land of Avalok? Do we know? But did you notice that there is an appearance here of Gion, the second river mentioned? Well I know that the meaning of that word is nearly stream or brook or river but is there a connection as we are drawn from the latter imagery that we have encountered to this primal imagery?

And make no mistake about it, the book of Genesis and its account here has in mind real places. We have places certainly that we can’t specifically identify, but at the same time we have places that we can. We can identify Assyria, which is mentioned. We can identify the Tigris and the Euphrates, two of the rivers that are in fact mentioned. why we would conclude that we would not be wasting our time trying to come to conclusions with regard to the specifics of geography that are mentioned here, yet we push beyond those specifics to even more weighty matters.

And as the rivers are set forth from us, we know it, we notice the architecture of the scene. We have a singular river that flows forth from Eden. Sound familiar? You hear about that river that flows forth from the throne of God, from the city of God. Now this river is like another river and If the rivers have a correspondence, then what about the garden and that which might even be above the garden, transcendent to it, the garden-like unto it?

There is the separation of the river as it goes out of Eden into four branches. We are reminded of the significance of the number four throughout scripture as indicative of the four corners of the earth, so something of a universal theme is at work here. But the point, the point as we think about the garden and its river in relationship to the ultimate, which is set before us in the Psalms and in the Prophets by Jesus himself and in the book of Revelation.

The point of it all, the point of it all is that Eden is not simply prophetic of some future habitation to which God will bring us by and by. No, Eden itself is an earthly copy of the heavenly original. And even though man in his sin will ruin the earthly copy, the heavenly original stands. And the work of our Savior then in light of what is hinted at in Psalm 110, in what is hinted at throughout the prophets, be it Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, or even Job. In what is declared to be true by Jesus and confirmed by John in the Revelation is this. Our restoration by redemption will not be to a mere earthly copy, but it will be into the heavenly original.

So grand and glorious is God’s work, and so marvelous His grace, that we are brought to the fountainhead itself in glory by the work of Jesus Christ. But even now, dear friends, in Christ, such benefits from glory flow forth for you as in a river, a river of life, and you are made partakers presently of heavenly glory and eternal life, in and through your Savior.

The marvelous, marvelous, ultimate son of David. David’s greater Lord. The great and final high priest after the order of Melchizedek. The one who by right drinks of the transcendent river. and now grants you privilege in partaking of the same so that you with him might delight in the certainties and in the wonders of his eternal rule his head having been exalted and lifted up Let us pray.

Our Father, how greatly we grieve over our sin and the obvious effect of it. how it destroyed us, destroyed the earthly copy. Oh Father, we are stricken in our hearts because it meant being driven from your presence and it seemed as if there was no hope at all of us then attaining unto the heavenly original through the earthly coming. But you, in your mercy and love, have worked on our behalf. And Father, to the end, that we would not merely be placed back in the position that Adam and Eve had prior to the fall, but that we might be brought into an eternal state through resurrection, redemption, regeneration.

O God, we glory before you and ask that we might live responsibly here, that we might live with integrity, with all honesty, that we might prove to be those in whom you shine as a light as you would glorify yourself in us before the world. We ourselves are pleased to be so used by you, for we love you and wish to serve you with all that is ours, even as Jesus served you.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.