ultimate goal and meaning, and the Holy Spirit enables Christians to read the OT as a comprehensive witness to the gospel of Christ.
Does this also apply to so-called “non-messianic” passages? It is fairly obvious that the NT writers have applied christological interpretation when they quote an OT passage as referring in some way to the person and work of Christ. What about OT passages not cited in the NT, or those that do not make the traditional “messianic” lists? Are they messianic too? Patrick Reardon observes:
The correct interpretation of certain psalms comes more readily than others, and the task is rendered easier still if a psalm’s meaning has already been made plain in the New Testament. The New Testament is, after all, the key to the full (that is to say, Christian) understanding of the Old. When the New Testament tells us the meaning of some passage in the Old Testament, then the matter of authentic interpretation, for us Christians, is settled.11
For example, Psalms12 is quoted more often than any other OT book in the NT.13 Reardon sees the Psalter as so perfused with Christology that “Christ walks within the psalms.”14 Psalms citations in the NT vary where some are directly related to Christ (Ps 22:1 quoted in Matt 27:46), while others are indirectly related to him (Pss 69:25 and 109:8 quoted in Acts 1: 20 as being fulfilled in Judas). It is worth noting that nowhere does the OT speak of “the Messiah” per se; the definite article “the” is always omitted.15 Therefore, identifications of “messianic psalms” vary considerably because the scholarly community lacks objective criteria for what makes a psalm messianic. Nevertheless, a basic assumption is that messianic psalms are, in one way or another, related to the Messiah’s person and work within the establishment of God’s kingdom in Israel and the world.16 But this depends on whether one is looking at it from a strictly OT perspective, NT perspective, or a combination of both as the unfolding of God’s plan throughout redemptive history.
From an OT perspective, for example, royal psalms (2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 89, 101, 110, 132, 144)17 are often understood in a messianic sense because they relate to Israel’s earthly king, and anticipate God’s end-times king—the Messiah, the son of David. While these psalms do not refer to “the Messiah” in an absolute sense, the noun Messiah (“anointed one”) occurs nine times in these eleven psalms, and twice in verbal form (“to anoint”).18 Given that the royal psalms were retained during the Babylonian exile, when Israel had no king, their existence must point beyond the immediate situation to keep alive the hope that the Davidic dynasty would rise again.19
There is a scholarly consensus that the postexilic community shaped the Psalter into five books, including the royal psalms, in a world that the community did not control, in eager expectation of a new order of its national identity under a future Davidic king.20 As C. Hassell Bullock notes, “The royal psalms, once the Davidic dynasty had fallen, helped to keep alive the hope that it would rise again, although that was not likely their original purpose. And when that hope did not materialize in its historical form, it turned into a hope for the appearance of the Messiah, the Anointed One.”21 The royal psalms were therefore “reinterpreted in the expectation of a time when a new Davidic ruler would appear.”22 Brevard Childs echoes this general outlook on the messianic function of the royal psalms: “Although the royal psalms arose originally in a peculiar historical setting . . . they were treasured in the Psalter for a different reason, namely as a witness to the messianic hope which looked for the consummation of God’s kingship through his Anointed One.”23 To be clear, such messianic import was most likely not clear to the original authors of the royal psalms. But again, God is the ultimate author of Scripture, and biblical texts should be understood within his larger redemptive plan. As Tesh and Zorn remind us, “This messianic significance in the Psalms may not have been understood by the psalmists, nor those who heard them, but it was in the mind of the Spirit who inspired them.”24
In addition to the royal psalms, many have understood the psalms “of David”25 as de facto messianic based on their connection to King David, not because they speak of the Messiah per se, but because David is an illustration of one who lived his life in the hope of the reign of God.26 Due to many disappointments in Israel’s history following King David—not least of which were the eventual deportations of the northern and southern kingdoms into Assyria and Babylon, respectively—a messianic hope emerged whenever the Psalter mentioned Israel’s second and greatest king. Many years of exile and a dissolved Davidic monarchy provided the catalyst for interpreting the royal psalms in an end-times fashion. Doug Green notes that a growing number of scholars now agree that the Psalter was edited in such a way that encouraged readers to interpret it no longer simply as prayers and hymns rooted in the experience of ancient Israelites, but as prophecies of events at the climax of Israel’s history (i.e., eschatologically).27 The “David” of the Psalter, then, evokes hopes for an end-times “anointed one” reminiscent of historical King David. Therefore, a christological reading of Psalms sees the “David” of the Psalter as a figure of Christ; David’s kingship offers us an Old Testament image or figure of Jesus Christ’s kingship.28 Bullock observes along the same lines that the royal psalms readily lend themselves to the NT messianic view.29 However, this is only partially true because from a NT perspective, messianic psalms extend beyond the royal and Davidic psalms to find their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ. The royal psalms have not been transmitted within a specific collection but are instead scattered throughout the Psalter,30 and this weighs against isolating them too narrowly from other psalms in a hyper-messianic sense to the exclusion of non-royal psalms. Belcher’s observation is well taken: “A psalm can be considered Messianic if it deals with the person of the king. However, if only psalms that deal with the person of the king are Messianic, then the number of Messianic psalms is limited severely.”31
The NT does not solely connect royal or Davidic psalms to Jesus (e.g., Ps 78:2 quoted in Matt 13:35); as we will see later, the entire Psalter speaks of him. I appreciate Green’s reservation with the traditional “messianic” category, which limits it to psalms quoted in the NT as direct prophecies of Christ: “Instead of treating the small group of psalms that the NT ‘applies’ to Jesus as a special group of direct prophecies of the Messiah, I regard these psalms as the tip of a prophetic and messianic iceberg. It is not that the NT quotes all of a small group of messianic psalms. Rather, it quotes from a few of a very large group of messianic psalms.”32 Put differently, the whole Psalter is messianic, anticipating God’s eternal reign through the long-awaited Messiah.33
The traditional list of messianic psalms is as follows: Pss 2, 8, 16, 22, 40, 45, 68, 69, 89, 109, 110,
