One throne, and the King upon it
Thy Throne, O God, Is For Ever
Among the songs of Israel there is a wedding psalm, a bright and courtly poem written for the marriage of a king. Its lines praise a handsome ruler, gird him with a sword, crown his bride, and promise his house enduring honor. Yet in the middle of these festal verses stands a sentence so weighty that later readers could scarcely believe it addressed a mortal groom. The king is addressed as God, and told that his throne endures forever. Psalm 45 is the seed, and the letter to the Hebrews is where the harvest is gathered. Hebrews takes these words and lays them directly upon the Son, as proof that he is greater than the angels, greater than any creature, God enthroned and anointed above his companions. Here we ask what the psalm meant on the wedding day and how it became one of Scripture's boldest confessions that the Son shares the eternal throne of God.
“Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.”Psalm 45:6
“But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.”Hebrews 1:8
The throne in Scripture
Psalm 45 is titled a song of loves, a poem overflowing with admiration for a royal bridegroom on the day he takes his bride. The singer begins with a heart stirred to write, the tongue like the pen of a ready scribe, and turns at once to praise the king as the fairest of men, gracious in speech, blessed by God. He is urged to ride out in majesty for the sake of truth and righteousness, his arrows sharp, the nations falling before him. It is coronation and battle and marriage woven together. Into this stream of praise comes the line that stops the reader. The king is addressed directly, and told that his throne, O God, endures forever and ever, that the scepter of his kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. The next line speaks of his loving righteousness and hating wickedness, and says that therefore God, his God, has anointed him with the oil of gladness above his companions. Two persons appear in the space of a breath, the one called God and enthroned, and the God who anoints him. The psalm then moves to the wedding itself, the robes fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia, the ivory palaces, the daughter of the king in gold from Ophir. The bride is summoned to forget her own people and her father's house, to bow to her lord, and to come with gladness into the palace of the king. Nations bring their gifts, and the sons of the king are promised places as princes across the earth. It closes with a vow of remembrance, that the king's name will be honored in all generations and the peoples will praise him forever. On its surface this is court poetry for a Davidic wedding, perhaps for Solomon in his glory. But the surface cannot contain the middle. A poem for a passing king has called that king God and given him an everlasting throne, and no earthly reign has ever matched the promise.
What it comes to mean
Scholars have long wrestled with how to read the pivotal line. Some render it as a wish, may your throne be like God's throne forever, softening the address. Others read it as the psalm's Greek translators did and as Hebrews plainly does, a direct naming of the king as God. The grammar allows the bolder reading, and the flow of the psalm supports it, for the very next line distinguishes this enthroned one from the God who anoints him. The text holds a mystery it does not resolve, a king who is somehow addressed as God. On the wedding day this language would have functioned as the exalted idiom of the royal court, where kings were spoken of in the highest terms as God's chosen representatives, bearers of a rule meant to reflect heaven's own justice. But Israel's kings were never divine, and the psalm knows it, for it names the king's God in the same sentence. The words reach higher than any Davidic ruler could climb. They describe a throne that time cannot end and a righteousness perfect and unmixed, and no son of David ever wore that description without shame. The tension is deliberate and fruitful. The psalm gives Israel a picture of the ideal king, and then makes that picture so large that only a coming one could fill it. The everlasting throne, the flawless love of right and hatred of wrong, the anointing above all companions, the name praised through every generation, these are not the epitaph of a dead monarch but a promise waiting for its person. The wedding song becomes a prophecy in spite of itself. We should not pretend the psalm teaches the fullness of later doctrine. It is a poem, not a creed, and it leaves its boldest words unexplained. Yet honesty about what the words say leads somewhere. A king is addressed as God and given an eternal throne, and then distinguished from the God who anoints him. Two persons, one called God, sharing the language of deity. The psalm plants a question the rest of Scripture will answer.
How it points to Christ, seated on the throne
The writer of Hebrews takes Psalm 45 and applies it without hesitation to the Son. Having argued that Jesus is greater than the angels, he asks which angel God ever addressed as God with an eternal throne, and then quotes the psalm as the Father's own word to the Son. Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. In Hebrews the enthroned king of the wedding song is Jesus, and the psalm becomes proof that the Son is divine, seated on a throne no creature could occupy. Hebrews reads the next line just as carefully. God, your God, has anointed you above your companions. The Son is called God, and yet has a God who anoints him with the oil of gladness. Far from an embarrassment, this is the very shape of the Gospel, for the same letter has already set Psalm 110 upon Christ, seating him at God's right hand. The Son shares the Father's throne and yet is anointed by the Father, distinct in person and one in glory. This is why the ancient poem could never rest on Solomon or any earthly groom. The everlasting throne belongs to the one who was crucified and raised, whose kingdom has no end, whose love of righteousness was perfect to the point of the cross. The wedding song finds its bridegroom at last in Christ, who loved his bride and gave himself for her, and who reigns as God over a kingdom that time cannot dissolve.
Questions people ask
Does Psalm 45:6 really call the king God?
The Hebrew can be read as a direct address, and that is how its ancient Greek translators and the letter to the Hebrews understood it. Some render it as a comparison instead. Hebrews 1:8 settles the matter for Christian reading by applying the words straight to the Son as the Father's own address.
If the Son is called God, why does the psalm also mention his God?
The same verses that name the king God also speak of the God who anoints him. Rather than a contradiction, this reflects the distinction of persons within the one God. The Son is fully divine and yet, as the anointed one, honors the Father, a pattern the New Testament makes central to who Christ is.