O Lord, how great are Thy works! And Thy thoughts are very deep. Psalm 92:5 KJV
How great are Your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep. Psalms 92:5 NASB
The Psalm begins and continues with a call to give thanks and to praise the Most High. The Psalmist rejoices that he has known triumph through the work of Jehovah’s hands (v 4). Here is a God worthy of all our praise. Yet the writer, be it David or another, really knew very little of the full display of the greatness and glory of God. He lived on the other side of Calvary. We, who have been privileged beyond measure to live on this side of the cross, can say with added adoration that His works are great and His thoughts very deep.
Think of His work and how great it was:
It involved great shame. One of the reasons that Isaiah gives for the exaltation of the Lord Jesus is that “He was numbered with the transgressors” (Isa 53:12), a place of untold shame for the Son of God. David, speaking prophetically in Psalm 69 says concerning the Messiah, “Thou hast known my reproach, My shame …” We cannot measure the shame He endured.
It was linked with great sorrow, a sorrow so great that it approached what would have caused a natural man to die (Matt 26:38). What units of measurement could ever be devised to measure His sorrow as He wept in the Garden? His suffering was beyond human calculation as His sensitive soul was made an offering for sin. Calvary saw the greatest sacrifice ever offered to God, exceeding the numberless animals that had been led to Jewish altars. His work was great.
But His thoughts, as the Psalmist said, are very deep. We are not only privileged to view the work accomplished on Calvary, but we have been made privy to some of the thoughts behind that work. Paul tells us of eternal life promised before the world began (Titus 1:2). He lists among the wealth of blessings in Ephesians 1 that we were chosen in Christ before the world began (Eph 1:4); of “purposes and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (2 Tim 1:9). Add to these direct statements, what is implied in the title to which John introduces us in John 1:1. He has been the Word eternally, and as such we learn that it has been God’s eternal purpose to reveal Himself to us. Can you fathom the depth of love, mercy, and grace of a heart that would plan the best for the very worst?
Then, there are the deep thoughts of a Father to His Son for His willing obedience to a cross-death; there are the thoughts of a Son to His Father. We are all beyond our depth when we attempt to plumb such thoughts shared by divine persons. We get a glimpse of a Son’s devotion when we hear His words, “That the world might know that I love the Father” (John 14:31)). And again, “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again” (John 10:17).
His work was great, His thoughts very deep – an ocean which eternal years will scarcely suffice to traverse.
Consider
Collect from Isaiah and the Psalms some of the thoughts of the Father for a Son and for a Master to His Servant