Psalm 18:8

unspotted laws

The law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls: the testimony of the Lord is faithful, giving wisdom to little ones. (Psalm 18:8 DR)

St. Augustine sees in the verse an image of Christ, for he as the Word made flesh is indeed the fulfillment of the Law:

The law of the Lord, therefore, is Himself who came to fulfil the law, not to destroy it; [Matthew 5:17] an undefiled law, Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, [1 Peter 2:22] not oppressing souls with the yoke of bondage, but converting them to imitate Him in liberty. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 18, 8)

Whereas the Old Covenant was unable to break the bondage of sin, Christ is able to do so. St. Paul reflects on this in his epistle to the Galatians:

Was the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given which could give life, verily justice should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise, by the faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to them that believe. But before the faith came, we were kept under the law shut up, unto that faith which was to be revealed.
(Galatians 3:21-23)

Under the law the sacrifice for sin was to be an unblemished or unspotted lamb, and even the high priests of the Old Covenant were still bound under sin. But Jesus, the high priest of the New Covenant, is sinless, the fulfillment of the unspotted law the Psalmist here speaks of, which is ultimately a type of the revelation of the faith of Jesus Christ of which St. Paul speaks.

St. John in his Apocalypse keenly notices how everything is brought to consummation when he witnesses a book with seven seals that no one is able or worthy to open. However, he eventually sees

…a Lamb standing as it were slain, having seven horns and seven eyes: which are the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth. And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne. And when he had opened the book, the four living creatures, and the four and twenty ancients fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints:

And they sung a new canticle, saying: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; because thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God, in thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation. (Apocalypse 5:6-9)

The Psalmist’s words about the unspotted Law are brought to fruition in the unspotted Lamb who has been slain, the perfect sacrifice for sins that breaks the bondage of sin and makes men adopted sons of God.

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This very simple animation is mostly about the central image of the Lamb, which was extracted from an anonymous Beatus Commentary, which are some of the (in my opinion) most fascinating works of medieval illumination. This image (seen below) is part of a montage of images, some of which I’ve used elsewhere.

For this animation I simply cutout the Lamb in Photoshop and brought it into After Effects and added some simple wiggle hold animation to it. I then composited some textures matted inside of ellipses with some slight Turbulent Displace. I wanted to keep the imagery front and center, and so intentionally kept the animation pretty minimal.

Enjoy.

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View a higher quality version of this gif here: