Psalm 100: 'Anticipated Thanksgiving'

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

There are several good reasons why this Psalm has nothing to do with this earth but with the world to come. We will list them shortly. The Psalm is really an anticipated thanksgiving. The Psalmist has a good view of eschatology or the world to come and then at that time, he or she, as worshipper can imagine what it will be to worship with thanksgiving. The reason we say that it is eschatological and not the present history of Israel in any of its periods, is because (1) the worship is global “all the earth” (v. 1b); (2) the gates that the worshiper is to enter is not Jerusalem’s gates or the earthly temple’s gates, but “His gates” which is Heavenly Jerusalem, the Heavenly Temple (v. 4a); (3) the courts that are to be entered is “into His courts” (v. 4b) which is the Heavenly abode of God; (4) the aspect of eternity connected to all this brings about a time that history ended and eternity started “His mercy endures forever” and “His faithfulness is unto generations” (v. 5a-b).

            If you now look at the Psalm, the worshiper wants the whole earth to shout to the Lord (v. 1b). This shout is not for help but for thankfulness of salvation totally completed in the absolute, a time when this mortal body has taken on immortality and death and Satan totally destroyed. The new earth is created already and the worshipers of the whole earth are asked to shout thanks to the Lord.

           They are asked to “serve the Lord in gladness” for their salvation attained by the blood and ministry of the lamb on their behalf in all its phases. He wants the people to come together in singing (v. 2b).

           They are to know that the Lord Jesus Christ is God and that He is our Creator “and not we ourselves”. Evolution is trying to teach self-creation but the Bible is explicit that it is not the case (v. 3a-b). The whole earth is inhabited after its new creation, after the Hell event that exterminated all evil absolutely, and they are called “His people” and the flock of His pasture. They are the remnant, the spiritual Israel, the “called out ones” the “great multitude on the sea of glass” (v. 3c).

           The Zion city of Joel, or Psalm 46 “mighty fortress” or Revelation 20’s New Jerusalem is in mind here. The worshipers of the whole earth are to enter into His gates with thanksgiving (v. 4a). From there they are to enter into His sanctuary in praise (v. 4b). The word “courts” in the Hebrew literature denotes some aspect of the temple, whether inner or outer. There were three areas in the temple and the mercy seat of God was in the Most Holy. Worshipers are asked to enter into the outer court of the Heavenly Temple with praise and they should give thanks to God and bless His name. His name is eyehe waeyehe “I am what I am”; “I shall be what I shall be” and there are nearly 12 different ways to translate this. Yahweh is related to this root. God showed Himself through Revelation as a promise and acts of reality as an accomplishment of those promises that He is faithful to His word and does what He is.

           Praise and blessings should be given to God for He is good (v. 5a) and His mercy endures to eternity. His faithfulness is to all generations (v. 5b). The critical scholar Cheyne claimed that the Psalm is “a national song of thanksgiving with which an universalistic element is not completely fused” (T. K. Cheyne, The Book of Psalms). The Expositor’s Commentary says that “God revealed Himself in Israel; but to the world” (A. Maclaren, The Book of Psalms [The Expositor’s Bible]). If the eternal aspects were not mentioned in verse 5, we could have agreed with Maclaren but the setting is beyond the Hell event of biblical theology and especially biblical eschatology in the Seventh day Adventist sense of the word.

Dear God

Grant that all of us may enter through those gates of the Heavenly Jerusalem to enter the outer courts of Your Heavenly Temple and appear before Your throne and the throne of the Lamb of our salvation. In Jesus name, Amen.