Mention something “majestic” in nature, and many of us would think of mountains.

We might call to mind some great range of mountains, or a towering waterfall, or an expansive body of water with no end in sight. Majestic features are both imposing and attractive, both impressive and beautiful, both intimidating and inviting. They have a strange pull on the human soul, drawing on us to draw near, but with reverence and care.

In our language, as in biblical terms, the word majesty captures not only bigness but also beauty, awesome power combined with pleasant admiration, both great height or size and yet potential safety. Majesty brings together both greatness and goodness, both strength and splendor (Psalm 96:6). It’s not only a fitting descriptor for mountain majesties but also for God, who is, above all, “the Majestic One” (Isaiah 10:34). Psalm 76:4 declares in praise to him, “Glorious are you,” and then adds, “more majestic than the mountains.”

How Majestic His Name

Such divine majesty pulses with an expansive, evangelistic force. God is not only majestic in fact but also in renown. His greatness, his power, his glory are not to be hidden and kept secret, but to spread through sight and word far and wide, attaching his name to such greatness and glory. His majesty is to be known, and he to be known, by name.

In a song of high praise, Psalm 148 bids both kings and commoners, young men and maidens, old and young alike to praise God’s exalted name as an extension of his majesty:

Let them praise the name of the Lord,for his name alone is exalted;his majesty is above earth and heaven. (Psalm 148:13)

“Divine majesty pulses with an expansive, evangelistic force.”

So also Micah’s famous Bethlehem prophecy speaks of a great ruler arising, from the little town, who “shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth” (Micah 5:4).

Of course, nowhere is God’s majesty accented as memorably as in the first line of Psalm 8 and its refrain in the last. This is Scripture’s signature celebration of divine majesty. Yet here, God’s majesty is not like the renown of mere human splendor, whether of ancient Egypt or Babylon or Rome, or like the renown of a Washington or Napoleon, a Lincoln or Churchill. This psalm, perhaps surprisingly, largely assumes God’s natural majesty (as we might call it), equally visible to unbelieving eyes, while accenting his peculiar majesty — the summit of his beauty requiring a miracle of his grace to see and enjoy.

Two Modes of Majesty

Psalm 8 manifestly sings of glory — God’s glory, set above the heavens (verse 1), and man’s glory, appointed by God, as one he has “crowned . . . with glory and honor” (verse 5). And so, that memorable opening line, reprised as the final note, hails the majesty of God’s name:

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Here, under the banner of God’s majesty and excellence as his glory, we find two levels, or modes. First is what we might call a natural mode: the heavens (verses 1 and 3), the moon and the stars (verse 3), and we might presume the quintessential natural majesties like mountains and waterfalls and oceans, vast physical expanses that remind us of our smallness and the awe-inspiring bigness and authority and power of the one who made such majesties.

But then, second, is what we might call a special mode of his majesty, which is the particular emphasis of Psalm 8: verse 2 mentions the mouths of babies and infants (that is, the weak) testifying to his strength in the face of foes and the enemy and avenger. Then, at the heart of the psalm, verses 3–8 marvel at his grace toward mankind. In view of such natural majesties as the heavens (“your heavens”!) and moon and stars, and mountains, “What is man that you are mindful of him?”

“Yet,” says verse 5 — this is the “yet” of grace — God has made man “a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor.” In such a majestic creation, God has made man, with humanity’s smallness and limitations, in the divine image, and given him “dominion over the works of [God’s] hands.” The beasts of the field and birds of the heavens and fish of the sea are to be subject to man, thanks to God.

So, we find here both a natural majesty and special majesty. And Psalm 8, while acknowledging the obvious majesty of God in the bigness and beauty of creation, emphasizes “the unexpectedness of God’s ways” (Derek Kidner, Psalms 1–72, 66) which further demonstrates his majesty — indeed is his majesty in full flower.

God reveals his greatness and power and glory not only through his heavens and moon and stars and mountains but also by confounding his foes with the praises of the weak. God shows himself majestic through the heavens and surpassingly so through humans — and in particular the ones we’re prone to least expect: the humble, the lowly, those who naturally seem least majestic.

Great God, Graced Man

The point of Psalm 8, then, is this: God’s grace toward man redounds to the glory of divine majesty, to the fame of God’s name, to the extension of his renown through his world. The sum of the psalm is not how great is man, but how graced is man — and how great is our God. And for the faithful, he is our God: “O Lord, our Lord.” He is majestic in his greatness, power, and glory — and exceedingly majestic in grace toward his people, so much so that he is our Lord.

Psalm 8 includes this striking dignifying of humanity, yet without leaving any doubt as to where the accent falls, thanks to the refrain. The first word, and the last word, lest we forget, is how majestic is God’s name. The primary emphasis, driven home in verse 9, is “God and his grace” (Kidner, 68).

High and Exalted, Exalting the Lowly

Behind Psalm 8, the second “song of majesty” is Psalm 145, where we also find “two modes” of divine majesty. The fourth stanza praises God’s regal highness in the more typical terms: glory and power, mighty deeds, situated in “his kingdom,” under his kingly dominion. This is the stuff of natural majesty. Then the fifth stanza unfolds this peculiar majesty for the enlightened eyes of his covenant people — the people to which God, amazingly, is kind, or literally loyal (verses 13b and 17) by his gracious covenant.

Psalm 138 also contains a parallel, at least in showing the surprising majesty of God, and the global advance of his renown, his name:

All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O Lord,for they have heard the words of your mouth,and they shall sing of the ways of the Lord,for great is the glory of the Lord.For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly,but the haughty he knows from afar. (Psalm 138:4–6)

“We thrill at God’s mercy for the lowly, and marvel at his justice for the wicked.”

Mark his royal highness. His greatness shines out all the more in how far he bends down to help the lowly. His majesty is on display not just in his capacity to resist and decimate strong foes, but in his merciful, gentle stooping to rescue his weak people. His majesty is unsurpassed both in its highness (above the highest heavens) and in its regard for the lowly, how far he can bend, and will bend, to rescue the needy, comfort the afflicted, provide for the poor, and exalt the humbled.

His majesty is unrivaled. His greatness, his power, his glory are unmatched. And yet, to this incomparable natural majesty he adds the very summit of his greatness: his peculiar majesty that stoops to show mercy, raise up the lowly, and rescue the humbled. He is surpassingly majestic in his person and capacities, and then, even more, in his grace and mercy. His people delight in his gentleness toward them, and in his fierceness with their foes. We thrill at his mercy for the lowly, and marvel at his justice for the wicked.

And now we know, as the psalmists could only anticipate, the personal manifestation of this surpassing and peculiar majesty. Which brings us to Isaiah’s enigmatic suffering servant.

No Majesty, Now Majestic

The great prophet foresaw one who would have “no form or majesty that we should look at him” (Isaiah 53:2). From beginning to end, the earthly life of Jesus magnified the majesty of his Father. Jesus so spoke, and so acted, that as Luke 9:43 reports, “all were astonished at the majesty of God.”

Yet, even then, in the earthly ministry of Christ, a greater and more stunning majesty remained. Luke continues, “But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men’” (Luke 9:43–44). That is, he would accent the display of this emerging majesty with an unexpected and special majesty.

To natural eyes, Jesus had no form or majesty that we should look at him. Now he became to the eyes of faith the supremely majestic one. After the resurrection, eyes now fully opened to grace, Peter testifies of being an eyewitness to his majesty (2 Peter 1:16–17). Now the one without natural majesty, who humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, has been super-exalted and seated at the right hand of Majesty.

Which might remind us of what Hebrews 2:8 comments about man in Psalm 8: “At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.” But then he adds in verse 9, “But we see him,” that is, the God-man.

We see Jesus, who — by virtue of his becoming man, suffering, dying for us, rising in triumph, and ascending to sit at the right hand of Majesty — has become the first to fulfill the vision of Psalm 8, with all things under his feet. Not only is divine majesty on display through this man, but he is divine Majesty himself, shining in the peculiar glory that outstrips and surpasses our best notions of natural glory.

When we turn to the highest majesty that can be conceived, we look and listen to Jesus.

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Not only do books change lives, but paragraphs do. And not only paragraphs, but even single sentences. “Paragraphs find their way to us through books,” John Piper writes, “and they often gain their peculiar power because of the context they have in the book. But the point remains: One sentence or paragraph may lodge itself so powerfully in our mind that its effect is enormous when all else is forgotten.”

In fact, we might even take it a step further, to particular phrases. That’s my story. It’s been a loaded phrase, but a single phrase nonetheless, penned by Jonathan Edwards and printed in a book by Piper, that has proved life-changing: “admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.”

Lionlike Lamb

As a sophomore in college (and with the help of some older students), I was becoming wise to the bigness and sovereignty of God, but I was still naïve about how it all related to Jesus. Help came when Piper published Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ.

At first, I read it too fast, and benefited little. But when I came back to it, and read each chapter devotionally (thirteen chapters plus the intro, so a reading a day for two weeks), it awakened in me a new love for and focus on Jesus.

The most transformative section of the book was chapter 3. The chapter begins like this, landing on the phrase from Edwards that lodged itself so powerfully in my mind:

A lion is admirable for its ferocious strength and imperial appearance. A lamb is admirable for its meekness and servant-like provision of wool for our clothing. But even more admirable is a lionlike lamb and a lamblike lion. What makes Christ glorious, as Jonathan Edwards observed over 250 years ago, is “an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.” (29)

No One Like Him

The life-changing phrase first appears in a sermon, “The Excellency of Christ,” preached under the banner of Revelation 5:5–6. Edwards says,

There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ. The lion and the lamb, though very diverse kinds of creatures, yet have each their peculiar excellencies. The lion excels in strength, and in the majesty of his appearance and voice: the lamb excels in meekness and patience, besides the excellent nature of the creature as good for food, and yielding that which is fit for our clothing and being suitable to be offered in sacrifice to God. But we see that Christ is in the text compared to both, because the diverse excellencies of both wonderfully meet in him.

I was captured by the thought, and reality, that Jesus brings together in one person what no other men or angels — or even the Father or the Spirit — unite in one person. Lionlike strength and lamblike gentleness.

“Unless we know Jesus specifically, and in greater detail over time, we will come to know him wrongly.”

What I began to see for myself in those days is that Jesus isn’t just the means for humans to get right with the Father. Christ, the God-man, is also the great end. He is the fullest and deepest revelation of God to mankind. To see him is to see the Father. And the Father means for us to see, and savor, his Son as the great treasure of surpassing value, as the pearl of greatest price.

Fresh and Holy Discontent

What Edwards’s well-crafted phrase, and Piper’s short book, did for me was to woo me into a lifelong hunt for details about Jesus. The line awakened a fresh and holy discontent for the popular vagueness about Christ’s person.

Years ago, I heard from a veteran at a Christian publisher that books on Jesus don’t typically sell well today. People want to read and learn about trending topics and life application. They think they already know about Jesus. Tragically, they are content with little knowledge (and often vague knowledge) about the most fascinating, mindboggling, profound subject in all the universe: God become man.

Edwards was not that way. He didn’t mention Jesus on his way to some other more popular topic; he focused on Jesus. He lingered on Jesus — in the case of this particular sermon, for 15,000 words (roughly two hours).

Seven Diversities in One Son

In the first part of the sermon, Edwards addresses the diversity of Christ’s excellencies: his infinite highness as God and his infinite condescension as man, alongside his infinite justice and infinite grace. Then, in part 2, he speaks to the conjunction of those excellencies, specifically the virtues in Christ which “seem incompatible otherwise in one person.” This is the heart of it — seven “admirable conjunctions” Edwards highlights in Christ:

Infinite glory, and lowest humility;
Infinite majesty, and transcendent meekness;
Deepest reverence toward God, and equality with God;
Infinite worthiness of good, and the greatest patience under sufferings of evil;
An exceeding spirit of obedience, with supreme dominion over heaven and earth;
Absolute sovereignty, and perfect resignation;
Self-sufficiency, and an entire trust and reliance on God.

As just one taste of the feast, consider what Edwards says about Jesus’s humility:

Humility is not properly predicable of God the Father, and the Holy Ghost, that exist only in the divine nature; because it is a proper excellency only of a created nature; for it consists radically in a sense of a comparative lowness and littleness before God, or the great distance between God and the subject of this virtue; but it would be a contradiction to suppose any such thing in God.

Yet in becoming man, Christ, without losing his highness or deity (as if that were possible), gained humanity and the ability to humble himself (Philippians 2:8). Jesus, the God-man, is “above all” as God, “yet lowest of all in humility.” Edwards continues,

There never was so great an instance of this virtue among either men or angels, as Jesus. None ever was so sensible of the distance between God and him, or had a heart so lowly before God, as the man Christ Jesus.

Precise, Extensive Glories

God the Father means for his people to treasure his Son, Jesus, not as a general concept, but through his particular, Scripture-revealed contours. God made us to know his Son in his precise and meticulous and extensive glories, not in mere generalities and nondescript statements. He made us to go further up and further in to the glories of Christ in all their detail and brilliance for all eternity.

If our knowledge of Jesus consists in mere generalities and nondescript statements, then we will be prone to embrace a misguided vision of Jesus. Unless we know him specifically, and in greater detail over time, we will come to know him wrongly. And we will not love the true Jesus deeply and fervently.

Which leads to one final truth about Jesus’s “admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.” Jesus is not just the right answer to the problem of sin, but in his diverse excellencies, he satisfies the complex longings of the human soul.

He Satisfies the Complex Soul

Paul prays in Ephesians 3:16–19 that God’s people would “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

“Jesus is not just the right answer to the problem of sin, but he satisfies the complex longings of the human soul.”

All the fullness of God is found in this man Jesus. Full humanity and the fullness of deity. We marvel at his bigness and might and omni-relevance, and we melt at his grace and mercy and meekness, and all that comes together in one spectacular person — all the fullness of God in this God-man — whom we will one day see face to face, where we will more fully know and enjoy him without obstruction for all eternity.

So, I finish, then, with one more quote from Seeing and Savoring, and the prayer that God might do for you what he did for me twenty years ago:

This glorious conjunction [of diverse excellencies in Christ] shines all the brighter because it corresponds perfectly with our personal weariness and our longing for greatness. . . . The lamblike gentleness and humility of this Lion woos us in our weariness. And we love him for it. . . . But this quality of meekness alone would not be glorious. The gentleness and humility of the lamblike Lion becomes brilliant alongside the limitless and everlasting authority of the lionlike Lamb. Only this fits our longing for greatness. . . .

We mere mortals are not simple either. We are pitiful, yet we have mighty passions. We are weak, yet we dream of doing wonders. We are transient, but eternity is written on our hearts. The glory of Christ shines all the brighter because the conjunction of his diverse excellencies corresponds perfectly to our complexity. (31–32)