For the greater part of church history, Christians have viewed the Psalms through the lens of fulfillment in Jesus Christ. In particular, they have read the Psalms as the songs of Jesus — songs sung by Jesus in his life on earth, and songs in which the risen and ascended Jesus still leads his church in singing on earth.

Imagine you are sitting in a grand concert hall. On the stage is a vast choir, and in the center, one man conducts and leads the choir in song. You listen for a while as they sing psalms. Then the conductor looks at you and invites you to leave your seat, come on stage, and join the choir. And you do. You are converted from a mere listener to a singer. But you do not take the microphone.

Jesus Christ is the lead singer and conductor of the choir, which is his church through the ages. Jesus has the microphone. When you come to Jesus, you join his choir. You sing and say all your prayers and praises under his lead. You learn to sing the Psalms led by him.

Rather than just being an attractive fancy, this picture conveys something wonderfully true. The Psalter (the five books of psalms) centers on the figure of the Davidic king and is incomplete without the presence of “great David’s greater son,” the Lord Jesus, the Messiah. Moreover, Jesus the Messiah speaks not only the psalms of David, but — in one way or another — all the Psalms. The New Testament quotes and echoes the Psalms in such a way as to encourage this conclusion.

I have examined the reasons for reading the Psalms like this in the introductory volume of my recent Psalms commentary. Simply put, however, a proper theology of prayer and praise grasps that we can speak to God only in and through Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest who brings us to God.

Songs to Savor

Consider, then, some of the great benefits of reading the Psalms as the songs of Jesus. I paint these blessings with a broad brush, and not without acknowledging that there are puzzles to wrestle with. Some psalms, for example, pray for God to punish the wicked (the so-called imprecatory psalms), and sometimes psalmists confess their sins (notably Psalm 51). There are other complexities as well, for the Psalms are like a jewel with many beautiful facets. I have tried to address the puzzles in detail in my commentary, but here I offer some broad-brush blessings to savor as you sing the Psalms in and through Christ.

1. You can sing in tune with the gospel.

A Christ-centered reading of the Psalms grasps that these songs are saturated with the gospel of Christ. Without Christ, I read Psalm 1 and think, “I must try harder to be like this admirable man if I am to hope for his blessing.” Without Christ, Psalm 15 tells me that only if I perfectly do what is right can I hope to dwell in the presence of God. So, I must pray and try harder. Psalm 24 tells me that only when I have a pure heart will I ascend the hill of the Lord to stand in the presence of his holiness. So, I must pray and work harder to purify my heart.

Because I want these blessings, I must bend my zeal with unflagging effort to attain them (even though I can never succeed), just as the troubled Martin Luther did before his rediscovery of justification by faith alone through grace alone. (Incidentally, it seems likely that Luther rediscovered this ancient truth in the Psalms before he found it in Galatians, Romans, Hebrews, and elsewhere.)

“The Psalms set before us unnumbered blessings. Each one of them is yours and mine in Christ.”

But with Christ, I rejoice that, first and fundamentally, Christ himself is the blessed man of Psalm 1; Christ is the righteous man of Psalm 15; Christ has the pure heart called for in Psalm 24. It is Christ who fulfills the high calling of the Psalms, Christ who can sing them with perfect assurance, Christ who ascends to the Father, and Christ alone who brings me there. The Psalms set before us unnumbered blessings. Each one of them is yours and mine in Christ.

The same is true of my praises. “Every day I will bless you,” says Psalm 145:2. But I don’t. So — without Christ — I must try harder to raise my life of praise to a higher level. And of course, it will never be good enough. But when I grasp that Christ speaks these words to the Father and did exactly this every day of his life on earth, then I rejoice that I can praise in and through Christ, who leads the choir.

2. You can sing every line of every song.

A Christ-centered reading of the Psalms rescues me from having to pick and choose which parts of the Psalms I will make my own. When someone says, “I love the Psalms,” I want to ask, “Which psalms?” and “Which sections from those psalms?” It is all too easy to isolate the parts that resonate with my experience and the parts that bring me comfort, and then quickly skim over the other parts (of which there are many).

But God did not give us the Psalms mainly to resonate with us, but rather to shape us — to shape our desires, our delights, our affections, our hearts, our minds, our wills, our emotions. In Christ, I can read every verse of every psalm and discover its true and full meaning as Jesus Christ sings it and gives it to me to sing as part of his choir.

A closely related blessing is that a Christ-centered reading encourages me to sing the Psalms as a member of Christ’s worldwide church. When I try to make each psalm speak directly to me, I struggle. But when I read a psalm as speaking for the whole church — what Augustine often spoke of as “the whole Christ, Head and members” — time and again, it comes into clear focus and makes sense. I no longer sing as a solitary individual but as a member of Christ’s body, his universal choir.

3. You can sing for joy in Jesus.

Another blessing is that the Psalms settle me into an assured faith in Christ and a glad enjoyment of his benefits. For example, the wonderful promises of Psalm 91 are given supremely to Christ, which is why the devil prefaces his quotation of this psalm by saying, “If you are the Son of God . . .” (Matthew 4:6). “If you are the Son of God, then this is promised to you.” Jesus declines to do what the devil says, but he implicitly agrees that these promises are his by right and he could act on them if he so chose.

So, I cannot delight in Psalm 91 as if it were written simply for me, because it wasn’t. And yet, mysteriously, in Christ these blessings are all mine.

4. You can sing centered on Christ.

Perhaps the greatest blessing of a Christ-centered reading is that it frees me from being imprisoned into thinking that the Psalms are all about me. No, they are not all about me! They are all about Jesus Christ in his flawless human nature and his incomparable divine nature. They revolve around Jesus, who sang the Psalms as a significant part of his life of faith and prayer and praise on earth.

I remember seeing on the wall of a church the words of Psalm 20:4: “May [the Lord] grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans!” How wonderful, you might think. The Bible promises me all that my heart desires. Until you read the psalm and realize that Psalm 20 is a prayer for the king in David’s line. Ultimately, it is a prayer that Jesus will have his heart’s desire granted and that his plans will be fulfilled. And they will!

The Psalms are not all about me. If I think they are, I will end up disillusioned. But when I grasp that they are all about Christ, my heart lifts in joy that he is the blessed Man and I belong to him.