Learning to Fix Your Hope
Psalm 110, the Priest-King, and the Nature of Salvation
Let’s roll back the clock to 2012. The first Avengers movie has just come out, and you’re listening to Loki Odinson—the original big bad of the marvel cinematic universe—deliver his climactic villain speech to a crowd of terrified civilians in Germany. Forcing them to their knees, he says,
“Is not this simpler? …It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled… you will always kneel.”
The crowd is temporarily silenced, as are you in your seat. The terrifying thing about Loki’s speech isn’t just his malice (only slightly mediated by Tom Hiddleston’s charming accent); it’s the fragment of truth buried within it. In times of cultural or economic instability, widespread anxiety, and deep personal insecurity, our natural human instinct is to search for someone powerful with a solution. We look for a strongman, an institution, a political movement, or an ideology to take the wheel. We crave an authority that can relieve or rescue us. It is exhausting to bear the full weight of responsibility for our own choices, let alone the world around us.
Maybe life under Loki wouldn’t be so bad?
Maybe he’d be able to make a real difference?
But just as Loki basks in his apparent triumph, an elderly German man, implied to be a Holocaust survivor, stands up and says “Not to men like you.” Loki sneers: “There are no men like me.” To which the old man quietly replies: “There are always men like you.”
History bears out the old man’s wisdom. Every time humanity yields to the temptation to find safety in finite, human rulers, we end up under the boot of tyrants. Human kings are inevitably petty, insecure, and given to oppression. Their rule is subjective, self-serving, and strictly limited by time. Even the occasional “good” human ruler can only do so much before he (or she) dies and is replaced by someone lesser.
We do sense our collective need for wise, good, and even powerful leadership. But tragically, humanity continually fails to produce men (or systems made up of men) worth trusting. Loki, of course, would have been no exception.
So how are we to receive the Psalms of David, when they also tell us to put our hope in a coming king?
The Enigma of Psalm 110
At first glance, Psalm 110 reads like a standard ancient “Royal” Psalm. It is written by David and saturated with imagery of war and conquest. It speaks of shattered enemies, heaps of dead bodies, and military dominance. For modern readers, it can easily feel primitive or outdated.
But look closer. We are dealing in this text with something much deeper than a political puff piece of praise for an ancient ruler. Consider the opening words:
“The Lord says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” (Psalm 110:1)
In the original Hebrew, the distinction is vital: Yahweh (the covenant name of God) says to Adoni (my lord). David, the king of Israel, is writing a song where he looks up to someone else as his master. He is eavesdropping on a conversation within the Trinity, watching God the Father address another person who is completely superior to David.
As the Psalm unfolds, the profile of this mysterious figure continues to expand:
He is a Great King ruling from Zion: “The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying, ‘Rule in the midst of your enemies!’” (v. 2)
He is followed willingly by His people: “Your troops will be willing on your day of battle. Arrayed in holy splendor, your young men will come to you like dew from the morning’s womb.” (v. 3)
He conquers the entire world: “He will crush kings on the day of his wrath. He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.” (v. 5-6)
And somehow, He is also a Priest: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.’” (v. 4)
To grasp the theological implications of verse 4, you have to understand ancient Israel. In the Old Testament, the offices of king and priest were strictly separated. Kings came from the tribe of Judah; priests came from the tribe of Levi. If a king tried to perform priestly duties, God struck him down (just look at King Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26, or consider the conditions under which King Saul was deposed). Yet here, David predicts a coming figure who fuses both offices into one identity.
Messianic Prophecy
Psalm 110 holds a unique distinction as the most cited Old Testament chapter in the entire New Testament. The early church saw it as a key passage for unlocking and explaining the identity of Jesus.
To understand why, it helps to realize how Messianic prophecy actually works. Broadly speaking, these fall into three distinct categories:
Repeated escalating patterns (typology): Where an institution, place, or person sets up a pattern that is gradually “ratcheted up” over time until it meets its ultimate fulfillment in Christ.
Explicit predictions: Direct, historic signposts pointing to the future (such as Daniel 9 which predicts the timing of the Messiah’s arrival).
Descriptions: Vivid breakdowns of the Messiah’s specific identity and mission.
The renowned New Testament theologian D.A. Carson notes that while many messianic psalms work through Davidic typology (meaning they use David as a foreshadowing of what the Messiah will someday be), Psalm 110 breaks the mold. Carson writes:
“But now, this is not just a typology; this is not all about David… now it’s David himself writing, and he says, ‘The Lord [Yahweh] says to my Lord …’ An explicit reference to someone who is not David.”1
Jesus Himself used this exact text to corner the religious elite of His day. In Matthew 22, the Pharisees gathered to test Him, and Jesus turned the tables with a question:
“‘What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?’ ‘The son of David,’ they replied. He said to them, ‘How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him “Lord”? For he says, “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” If then David calls him “Lord,” how can he be his son?’” (Matthew 22:41-45)
The Pharisees were paralyzed. Their theology allowed for a Messiah who was a human descendant of David and a political king who would overthrow Rome. But they had no category for a Messiah who existed before David, who was David’s Lord, and who was invited to sit at the right hand of Yahweh Himself.
Jesus was laying claim to Psalm 110. He was declaring that the search for the ultimate authority was over. If we want to learn to fix our hope securely, we must learn to see Jesus as He is: the True King and the Perfect Priest.
1. Jesus: The True King
When we look at the political landscape and the power dynamics of our world, we are confronted by the deep failures of human leadership. Human leaders are finite, limited, and inherently fragile.
Jesus subverts this paradigm entirely. He is the only King who is fully humble and utterly secure. He doesn’t assert His authority through exploitation or coercion. As the prophet Zechariah predicted: “Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9).
Furthermore, His rule isn’t subjective or partial. He is the King who brings cosmic-scale justice. Isaiah 42:1 promises: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.” And unlike the political rulers who fade away, Jesus is alive now and reigns forever. Paul writes in Ephesians that God “raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion... God placed all things under his feet” (Ephesians 1:20-22).
Fascinatingly, Jesus is also a King who delegates elements of His authority to us.
The Christian philosopher Dallas Willard offers this profound definition of the Kingdom of God, and what it means for us to operate as regents within His greater Kingdom:
“Now God’s own ‘kingdom,’ or ‘rule,’ is the range of his effective will, where what he wants done is done. The person of God himself and the action of his will are the organizing principles of his kingdom… Whatever we genuinely have the say over is in our kingdom. And our having the say over something is precisely what places it within our kingdom. In creating human beings God made them… to have dominion in a limited sphere.”2
This is a powerful antidote to our own tendency to become petty, insecure, and oppressive rulers in our own right. We often abuse or neglect what is ours. But once we see all we have as a stewardship from Him, we begin to understand and value the boundaries of what he has allotted us. We cease competing for territory with others, and instead operate with humility and deference to Him, even as we eagerly cultivate our own legitimate sphere of influence.
2. Jesus: The Perfect Priest
But a king who only rules with absolute power can still feel distant, intimidating, or terrifying to a broken, sinful human being. That is why the Messiah cannot merely be a King; He must also be a Priest.
Human priests have always been problematic. Historically, they were separate, elite, and frequently unrelatable. They had their own glaring sins and personal dysfunctions to contend with. Most of all, the religious systems they managed could only offer symbolic, temporary cleansing. As the author of Hebrews points out, “those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:3-4).
Jesus, however, is the Perfect Priest. He does not operate under the flawed, temporary Levitical priesthood. Instead, He fulfills David’s prophecy by stepping into the mysterious lineage of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4, Genesis 14).
The book of Hebrews beautifully unpacks how God used Jesus to redefine priesthood:
He introduces a better hope: Because the old Levitical system was weak and unable to bring perfection, it was set aside. “A better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God… Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant.” (Hebrews 7:18-20).
He intercedes for us forever: Earthly leaders and pastors die, but because Jesus lives forever, He holds a permanent priesthood. “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” (Hebrews 7:24-25). He is in the presence of God right now, actively advocating for you and I.
He is holy, blameless, and self-sacrificing: He didn’t offer up animals to cover His own tracks. “Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners... He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.” (Hebrews 7:26-27).
He empathizes deeply with your weakness: He is the great and holy King with unimaginable power, yet He is also entirely tender toward our brokenness. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Hebrews 4:15).
How to Fix Your Hope
When we pull all of this together, Psalm 110 ceases to be merely an ancient war song and becomes instead a blueprint for hope, and yet another lesson how we are supposed to related with God. If our hope is anchored in our own performance, our political structures, or our cultural stability, we will constantly find ourselves falling into anxiety, despair, or the temptation to kneel to modern-day “Lokis.”
To live as a people of genuine hope, we must integrate the following actions into our lives:
1. Practice True Surrender Loki was right about one thing: we find no joy in the mad scramble to invent our own identity and rule our own lives. True peace is found when we yield to the rule of Christ. Real surrender happens in three clear stages:
Accept His Rule: Acknowledge intellectually and spiritually that He is Lord.
Cease Rebellion: Stop fighting for control over the areas of your life you are actively withholding from Him (your finances, your relationships, your private habits).
Pledge Your Sword: Surrender means more than neutrality. We ought to join the fight for good. Ask Him, “Jesus, how do you want to use my life, my time, and my micro-sphere of dominion to build Your kingdom?”
2. Intentionally Draw Near Because Jesus is the Perfect Priest, you no longer have to live at a distance from God. You don’t need a professional human mediator to access the presence of the Father. We must learn to relate to Jesus daily as both our authoritative King and our comforting Priest. As Hebrews 4:16 exhorts us: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
3. Appreciate the Intricacy of God’s Plan Take time to stand in awe of the sheer consistency of Scripture. When you see a thread spun by David in a poem 1,000 years before Christ, picked up by Jesus in the temple courts, and then traced back to Genesis by the author of Hebrews, it reminds us that God’s plan is incredibly intricate. If He holds the grand arc of salvation history so perfectly across millennia, He can certainly be trusted with the messy, unresolved details of your life this week.
4. Fix Your Hope on God’s Salvation! Our ultimate victory isn’t contingent on worldly systems getting better or human institutions suddenly finding their integrity. Our hope is fixed on an unshakeable reality (Hebrews 12): the True King has already conquered sin and death, the Perfect Priest has already made the definitive sacrifice, and He is currently seated at the right hand of God until evil is someday fully overthrown.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/sermon/psalm-110/
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 25.