The Royal Garments of God Text: Psalm 104:1-4
Introduction: A Flight from Glory
We are living in an age that has dedicated itself to a frantic, headlong flight from glory. Our naturalistic, Darwinian establishment has spent enormous sums of intellectual and financial capital to construct a universe that has no need for a Creator. They want a cosmos that is self-generating, a world that is self-explanatory. And the reason for this is quite simple. If the world is just a cosmic accident, a great swirling collection of purposeless matter, then no one is in charge. And if no one is in charge, then no one is owed anything. No one is owed worship. No one is owed obedience. No one is owed glory.
But the Scriptures will have none of this. The Bible teaches that the world is not silent; it is shouting. It is not neutral; it is saturated with the glory of God. And Psalm 104 is one of the great anthems of this created glory. This psalm is a detailed meditation on the doctrine of creation. It follows the pattern of Genesis 1, but it is not a dry, systematic treatise. It is poetry. It is worship. It is a summons for the soul to bless the Lord for the sheer majesty of His handiwork.
The modern materialist looks at the world and sees a series of mechanical processes. The ancient pagan looked at the world and saw a host of warring, capricious deities. The sun was a god, the wind was a god, the sea was a monster. Psalm 104 confronts both of these errors with the same glorious truth. The world is not a machine, and it is not a pantheon of gods. It is God's royal palace. It is His temple. And everything in it, from the light of dawn to the wings of the wind, are the royal garments and regal chariots of the one true King, Yahweh our God. This psalm teaches us how to see the world aright. It is a lesson in applied theology, showing us that the glory of God is not an abstract concept, but a tangible, visible, breathtaking reality all around us.
The Text
Bless Yahweh, O my soul!
O Yahweh my God, You are very great;
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
Wrapping Yourself with light as with a cloak,
Stretching out the heavens like a tent curtain.
He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters;
He sets up the clouds to be His chariot;
He walks upon the wings of the wind;
He makes His angels the winds,
His ministers flaming fire.
(Psalm 104:1-4 LSB)
The Internal Summons (v. 1)
The psalm begins not with an observation about the world, but with a command to the self.
"Bless Yahweh, O my soul! O Yahweh my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty," (Psalm 104:1)
Worship is not a passive activity. It is not something that just happens to you. The psalmist must summon up all his internal resources to bless the Lord. "Bless Yahweh, O my soul!" This is a man talking to himself, commanding himself to do the most important thing a man can do. Your soul, with all its moods and distractions and anxieties, must be brought to attention. It must be directed. You must preach to your own soul. You must tell it to look up and bless God.
And the reason for this blessing is immediately given: "O Yahweh my God, You are very great." This is the foundational confession. God is not slightly impressive. He is not just a bigger version of us. He is "very great." The greatness of God is the central theme of this psalm, and the rest of the psalm is simply an unpacking of what that greatness looks like in the created order.
The psalmist then begins to describe this greatness using the language of royalty. God is "clothed with splendor and majesty." These are terms for a king's royal robes. The universe is not God's workshop, filled with grease and spare parts. It is His throne room. When we look at creation, we are seeing the royal vestments of the King of kings. This is a direct assault on all forms of Gnosticism, ancient and modern, that would denigrate the material world. God did not make junk. He made glory, and He wears it.
The Garment of Light and the Tent of Heaven (v. 2)
The psalmist now elaborates on what these royal robes are made of.
"Wrapping Yourself with light as with a cloak, Stretching out the heavens like a tent curtain." (Psalm 104:2)
God's first act in Genesis 1 was "Let there be light." Here, the psalmist tells us that God wears that light. He wraps Himself in it as a man would put on a cloak. This is a profound statement. Light is the fastest thing in the universe. It is pure energy. It is the very condition of sight and life. And for God, it is a piece of clothing. He is the source of all light, all truth, all life. As John tells us, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). He does not just create the light; He embodies it. He is robed in it.
Then, He stretches out the heavens like a tent curtain. Think of the vastness of space, the billions of galaxies, the uncounted stars. To our modern scientific mind, this is an almost incomprehensible reality. But to God, it is as simple as an ancient patriarch pitching his tent for the night. He unfurls the cosmos with casual, absolute power. This imagery does two things. First, it emphasizes God's transcendence. The heavens, which are so immense to us, are merely His dwelling place, His tent. He is not contained by them. Second, it emphasizes His proximity. A tent is a place of dwelling, of nearness. God is not a distant, deistic clockmaker. He has pitched His tent among us, and the heavens declare His glory right above our heads.
The Architecture of the Cosmos (v. 3)
The poetic description of God's creative power continues, moving from His tent to the structure of His palace and His mode of transportation.
"He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters; He sets up the clouds to be His chariot; He walks upon the wings of the wind;" (Psalm 104:3)
The "waters" here refer to the waters above the firmament, as described in Genesis 1. God uses this celestial ocean as the foundation for His upper chambers. This is architectural language. God is building His house, and He does so with effortless mastery, using materials that would be impossible for any human builder. He is the great Architect, and the laws of physics are simply His building code.
Then we see Him as the King on the move. The clouds are not random meteorological phenomena; they are His chariot. The pagan Canaanites worshipped Baal as the "rider on the clouds." This psalm is a direct polemic against such idolatry. The clouds do not carry a petty storm god; they are the royal chariot of Yahweh, the Creator of all things. He is sovereign over the weather. He is in complete control.
And He "walks upon the wings of the wind." The wind, which is to us an invisible and uncontrollable force, is for God a sidewalk. He strolls upon it. This is a picture of absolute, untroubled sovereignty. There is nothing in all creation that is not beneath His feet. There is no force of nature that can resist Him. He is not struggling against chaos; He is reigning over His kingdom.
The King's Messengers (v. 4)
Finally, the psalmist describes the King's court and His royal ministers.
"He makes His angels the winds, His ministers flaming fire." (Psalm 104:4)
This verse can be translated in two ways, and both are true. It can mean that God makes the winds His messengers and the flaming fire His ministers. Or it can mean, as the author of Hebrews tells us, that He makes His angelic messengers like the wind, and His ministering servants like flaming fire (Hebrews 1:7). The point is the same in either case: the entire created order, both the material and the spiritual, serves His purposes. There is no division between the "natural" and the "supernatural" in the way our modern world thinks of it. It is all one unified kingdom under one King.
The winds are not just air pressure gradients; they are God's errand boys. A lightning strike is not just an electrical discharge; it is a servant of fire carrying out a royal commission. The angels themselves, those mighty spiritual beings, are characterized by the swiftness of the wind and the intensity of fire. They are His ministers, His servants, dispatched at His command to do His will.
This is a world that is alive with divine purpose. It is not a dead machine. It is a kingdom, filled with heralds and chariots and ministers, all attending to the glory of the great King. And this is the world we actually live in. The choice before us is whether we will see it for what it is and join the psalmist in blessing the Lord, or whether we will continue in the foolish flight from glory, pretending that the King is not there and that His robes are just random bits of matter.
Conclusion: Seeing and Singing
This psalm is a cure for spiritual blindness. We are so often dull and unseeing. We look at a sunset and think of atmospheric particulates. We feel the wind and think of weather patterns. The psalmist teaches us to see through the material to the reality that upholds it. He teaches us to see the King in His splendor.
The world is God's self-portrait. He has clothed Himself with light and majesty, and He has stretched out the heavens as the canvas. The clouds are His brushstrokes, and the wind is the sound of His movement. To deny the Creator while living in His creation is the height of absurdity. It is like admiring the literary genius of Hamlet while insisting that Shakespeare never existed.
Therefore, our task is to cultivate this kind of vision. We are to look at the world with sanctified imaginations and see the glory of God everywhere. And when we see it, we are to do what the psalmist does. We are to command our souls to bless Him. We are to sing. The creation is already singing its bass and tenor parts. The oceans roar His praise, and the mountains declare His strength. It is our privilege, as those made in His image and redeemed by His Son, to provide the lyrics.