daily devotional

“Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: 
therefore God hath blessed thee for ever,” Psalm 45:2.   
 
 
The purpose of Christ working in our souls is that His joy may be fulfilled in 
us. His joy will be fulfilled in us when His yoke becomes our chief delight, 
when His burden becomes so light that it is our chief delight to seek and to do 
His will.  
 
 
This joy shall be ultimately fulfilled when we are able to partake of His 
dainties as we see in Luke 22:28-30: “Ye are they which have continued with me 
in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed 
unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones 
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” 
 
 
He is speaking of those who fellowship in His sufferings. The Lord Jesus Christ 
is talking about having the pleasure of feasting upon the dainties of the King’s 
table. 
 
 
Jesus instituted the foretaste of this in Matthew 26:26-29: “And as they were 
eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the 
disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave 
thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of 
the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say 
unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day 
when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”  
 
 
Notice that it will be “with you” in His Father’s kingdom. He is giving them to 
feast upon His broken body, which died for us. He poured the wine, which is the 
symbol of His blood. Wine is made by putting grape juice in a bottle, and as the 
dregs settle out, the wine is poured from vessel to vessel, and the dregs remain 
behind, and sweet wine is left. He took the dregs of the wrath of God, that the 
sweet wine, which is a type of sanctification, would remain, and that is what He 
served to remind us what it will be to eat at His Father’s table.
 
While we are in this life there will always remain so much of our old nature to 
separate us from Christ, which needs to be removed as we see from John 20:17: 
“Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but 
go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; 
and to my God, and your God.”
 
He told Mary of the impurities that separate us, but when He ascends to our 
Father, He atones for these things and takes away our impurities.  
 
 
As we struggle against the powers of sin and Satan, our blessed Redeemer’s 
invitations in the gospel give us to realize why the psalmist cried out in the 
words of our text: “Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured 
into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.” 
 
 
The entire psalm in which our text is found tells of the spiritual marriage and 
unity between Christ and His bride and her adoration for Him in a prophetic way. 
We read in Psalm 45:3-6: “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy 
glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and 
meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. 
Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby the people 
fall under thee. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy 
kingdom is a right sceptre.”  
 
 
This beauty is not that outward beauty of the natural eye as we can see in 
Isaiah 53:3: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and 
acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was 
despised, and we esteemed him not.”
 
The natural eye does not see this beauty. The natural eye has no concept of that 
beauty. That beauty is only seen with the spiritual eye as we can see in the 
next verses. We read in verse 4: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried 
our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”  
Now we understand why He was despised, why He was rejected.
 
Continuing in verses 5 and 6 we read: “But he was wounded for our 
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace 
was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone 
astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him 
the iniquity of us all.”
 
We have forfeited the least of His blessings, and it is in that perfect 
righteousness of Christ that we have an Advocate with the Father.  
 
 
Verse 7 says: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his 
mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her 
shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”  
 
 
The beauty seen in our Beloved by the eye of faith is that beauty in His 
character of meekness spoken of here. It is in that condescending character, 
where He, the King of kings, stooped so low that He was despised, He was 
rejected, He was spit upon. He wore that crown of thorns, which was our sins. 
Our sins were upon His head. He took the shame to take away our filthiness.
 
To do the will of His Father was the meat that maintained His very existence. We 
are invited to eat and drink with Him at His table in His kingdom as we saw in 
Luke 22:30. We will eat and drink of His dainties, and those dainties are to do 
the will of the Father. Amen.
 
At the Lamb’s high feast we sing
Praise to our victorious King,
Who hath washed us in the tide
Flowing from His pierced side;
Praise we Him whose love divine
Gives His sacred blood for wine,
Gives His body for the feast,
Christ the Victim, Christ the Priest.
Anon., Latin 6th century
Tr. By Robert Campbell, 1849, alt.