Psalms 104:5

On the first day there was light (v. 2). Then, on the second day, God formed the expanse of sky (v. 2). On the third day He divided the waters (v. 3) and laid the earth on its foundations (v. 5). The waters were gathered together, so that the dry land appeared (vv. 6-9).

These verses confirm the Genesis record: God prepared the earth for man's welfare. We may wonder how the earth can have foundations, since we understand it to be a great ball speeding through space. But God knows what He is doing, and He establishes what we cannot. The foundations are so solid that nothing can change it "forever and ever" (v. 5).

This verse declares that the dry land is completely secure for ever. It uses the strongest expression for eternity that the Old Testament has (le-olam va-ed). The flood, which geology is beginning to teach us about, changed nothing essential in the structure of the earth in this way. The purification by fire that awaits the earth, before it reaches the eternal condition of the "new earth," need not change it either, though there will then be "no more sea" (Rev. 21:1). Whatever the changes may be, God keeps to His first plan all the way through, and He builds for eternity.

The Old Testament has a way of expressing absolute eternity, which shows that olam by itself cannot say it clearly. It adds to olam a word that may be taken as "and yet": "for the olam and yet." So beyond the olam a further stretch of time is possible and real. This phrase occurs about fourteen times in the Old Testament. In only one of them may it have a more limited meaning: Psalm 104:5. And there its limit comes from the nature of the thing it describes.

The new earth, let us remember, is new in the same sense that the man in Christ is a new man — not a new individual. It is the same person who was the sinner and is now the saint, but there is a completely new condition. The earth's renewal is not the prelude to its mere destruction. On the contrary, it is the first step towards lasting blessing and the change of the heavens and the earth.

Psalm 104 celebrates the creation glory that Psalm 102 showed belongs to Messiah. I take these words to be the expressions of Messiah's soul. He alone has the fulness of the Spirit to voice them. Yet they are the testimony of the Spirit for us, for Messiah is also Jehovah, the Creator.

Only gladness in the Lord Himself qualifies a believer to truly enjoy His works. In this Psalm the Spirit of promise is declaring the majesty and glory that belong to Christ (Col. 1:16). The Psalm is a most beautiful description of the harmonious blessing of creation, held in power by the God of the whole earth.

God's providence rules over all even now. But in the end He will apply His resurrection strength to creation. Creation will then become again, as of old, the object of divine delight. It now groans and suffers pain, but it will then be delivered.