Richard P. Belcher Jr. The Messiah And The Psalms. Ross-shire, Scotland: Mentor Imprint, September 20th, 2014. 288 pp.
4 out of 5
Purchase: Westminster | Amazon
This book is on the topic of a Christ and the Psalms by an Old Testament professor at Reformed Theological Seminary. The author Richard Belcher takes a Christocentric approach towards the Psalms. If you are interested in the Psalms, Messianic prophecies, hermeneutics and preaching Christ this book might be for you even if you don’t necessarily agree with everything the author has to say.
The opening chapter starts out with an exploration of how Luther and Calvin approached the Psalms. That definitely got me interested with the book since it made me curious to think of how Christians in history before our time wrestled with the topic of Christ in the Old Testament. Then in the second chapter Belcher gives readers a survey of the different approaches towards Messianic Psalms and then in chapter three Belcher gives us his Christological approach. The bulk of the book is Belcher’s look at the Psalms and how it relates to Christ which is presented in chapters four through eight. These can be further divided into indirect Messianic Psalms (chapter four through six) and direct Messianic Psalms (chapter eight). The Psalms that are harder to categorize would be the Royal Psalms (chapter seven) since they are in some sense more direct than the other Psalms but sometimes they aren’t as direct such as the Royal Psalm of Psalm 45 given that it is a description of a royal marriage.
I benefited from seeing how Belcher outlined the structure of various Psalms. I also appreciated the book’s exploration of the various genres of the Psalms and examples that Belcher went through. I learned a lot about different individual Psalms as I read this book even though it seems that a significant portion of the time I am not necessarily learning about the Psalms and the Messiah per se but just about the Psalms in general. For instance the book has a good discussion about imprecatory Psalms such as Psalm 109. It really stood out to me Belcher’s argument that imprecatory Palms are not meant to be understood as the writer seeking personal revenge since we see instances of “self-imprecatory passages” such as in Psalm 137 in which the writer is making imprecatory petitions upon himself if he were to forget God (Psalm 137:5-6). Belcher also made a good point that some of these imprecatory Psalms were authored by King David who have a history of practicing self-restraint from taking revenge against his enemies as seen in 1 Samuel 24:26 and 2 Samuel 16:5-14. Elsewhere in the Old Testament it speaks very clearly against personal revenge in places such as Leviticus 19:18 and Proverbs 25:21-22.
By far my favorite chapter was the one on direct Messianic Psalms. Here I learned various insights from Scripture. For instance Belcher’s study on Psalm 110 was helpful. He points out that Psalm 110 is similar to Zechariah 6:12-13 in that both mentioned the Messiah as being both priest and king. As a further observation Psalm 110 in light of Zechariah 6:12-13 reveal that there’s still a future aspect to the priesthood of Christ. I also like Belcher’s treatment on Psalm 118:22. The book points out that in interpreting Psalm 118:22 in light of Isaiah 28:16 it shows us that the Messiah’s title include “Stone,” and that one of the characteristics of the Messiah is that He would be “tested.” Moreover the Messiah would be rejected according to Psalm 118:22.
The book is not without some legitimate criticisms. There were times I felt Belcher was quoting a lot of scholars and what they have to say without him landing on a conclusion. As much as I feel it is important to know what others are saying nevertheless there were times I wondered what was Belcher’s own conclusion or position. Still I appreciated the author’s interaction with scholarships on the Psalms and the amount of endnotes the book has is amazing. I think it might have been helpful to have them as footnotes instead of endnotes to make it easier for the readers. There were times I wonder if Belcher’s method works as smoothly in pointing us towards Christ. For instance I thought his discussion about Psalm 51 was a bit of a stretch in making it “Messianic.” I certainly do believe we must preach Christ through the Psalms be it through direct historical grammatical approach or biblical theology, themes and applications that points to Christ and the Gospel. But sometimes in passages like Psalm 51 where there’s confession of sins we can say that it is not Christ speaking there. Still we point to the need of Christ to be the source of our atonement, forgiveness and redemption, etc.
Good book and definitely worth having in one’s library for preachers, pastors, elders, teachers and those who want to grow beyond the milk and into the “meat” of Scripture.
The Domain for Truth 
Thanks for the review, Jim. I love the Psalms and speaking of Messianic Psalms, Roman Catholics will argue that Jesus had no siblings because Mary’s perpetual virginity is extremely important to them. They claim that verses in the NT that speak about Jesus’s brothers and sisters actually reference His cousins. But Messianic Psalm 69, verse 8 makes it very clear,” I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons” in prophecy of John 7:5, “For not even his brothers believed in him.” But Catholicism naturally claims “mother” in Psalm 69:8 refers to Israel not Mary.
Wow that’s a good point from Psalm 69:8. The next verse, verse 9, is clearly used by the New Testament authors to refer to Christ which has implications that the “brothers” of Jesus in verse 8 is not just “cousins” but Jesus’ biological brothers in light of the phrase “mother’s sons.” Great point from that verse, that’s something new I learned today and one that I’m writing down in my daily devotional journal recording what I learned and meditated upon!
I’m very glad you found that useful.
Thanks for the review SlimJim, glad you found another book on Messianic Psalms 😊.
Take my money!