Disf'd,
You wrote:
However, based on everything I've read in the Bible, I do not believe Psalm 45 is directed toward a human king. I believe it had exclusive reference to the Messiah.
Please note that the NAB writes “god” with a lower case in Psalm 45:6.
Additionally, a portion of a footnote under Psalm 45:6 in the NIV Study Bible states:
O God. Possibly the king's throne is called God's throne because he is God's appointed regent. But it is also possible that the king himself is addressed as "god."
I don't know why anyone would choose Psalm 45 to try proving that Jesus is Almighty God. Verse 7 says the Messiah God of verse 6 has a God. Almighty God does not have a God above him whom he worships. The very thought is blasphemous. Verse 7 also says the Messiah God of verse 6 has been anointed by the God he worships. God anoints persons to have them serve as his spokespersons, representatives or agents. Scores of times the Bible refers to the act of anointing, and in every case the anointing is of someone lesser than God, never of Almighty God himself. Even the title "Christ" (Anointed One) is an obvious identification of someone who is inferior to God.
Additionally, verse 7 speaks of the "companions" or "partners" of the God of verse 6, and it tells how he got to be "set above" them. He was not always above them. He got to be so because God, his God, anointed him. Almighty God has never had companions or partners as equals.
This is easy to understand if we are open-minded enough to the reasonableness of the insight offered by the NIV footnote. When Psalm 45 was written under inspiration, it was addressed to the then existing king upon David's throne. The Psalm applied also to his faithful descendants upon that throne, for every good king was to be obeyed in the same way one should obey God. The king spoke for God. When he spoke, it was as official as if God himself had spoken. He sat, after all, upon “the throne of the Lord.” And this applied even more forcefully with regard to Jesus. Not only was he a descendant of David, but he was God's own genetic Son (as was Adam). He was not anointed with oil but with God's spirit, and his anointing was to the office of prophet and high priest as well as the office of king.
I think it's arbitrary and capricious to insist that Almighty God is the "God" of both verse 6 and verse 7. To do so is to close one's mind to this very Jewish use of titles, a use that originated not with men but with God, as Jesus pointed out in John 10:34 with reference to Psalm 82:6. It is God himself who spoke of the ancient Davidic king as “God.”
It is also very misleading to insist that the God of verse 6 is Almighty God. For then we end up with Almighty God and Almighty God, which amounts to two Almighty Gods, and that is polytheism. In that way we reduce the sacred text to nonsense.
The fact needs to be stated clearly that there are two definitions for God in the Bible. The words for “God” in both Hebrew and Greek applied to people as well as to God. One definition refers to God himself, and the other definition refers to special individuals appointed by him to speak in his name. Jesus in Psalm 45:6 and Hebrews 1:8 is obviously the latter. His Father is the Great Anointer, and Jesus is the lesser Anointed One, the Christ. The Jews read this Psalm for centuries and, knowing the flexibility of the word “God,” they never concluded that the Messiah would somehow be part of a Triune God.
Frank