STUDIES IN THE PSALMS No. 3

“Psalm 2”

January 18, 2004

Review

Two Lord’s Day evenings past we noted that Psalms 1 and 2 together form an introduction to the Psalter as a whole. We also talked about what the Bible means when it says that God’s people are “blessed.” Often the Bible seems primarily to mean that God’s people are blessed in the prospective sense that someday, at the consummation, when they enjoy God’s salvation in its fullness, they will live as human beings were intended to live, with the most complete measure of peace, joy, and prosperity imaginable and all experienced in immediate communion with God. In that sense the “blessedness” of God’s people is the certain prospect of heaven and eternal life. But also in the Bible the blessedness of God’s people is a characteristic of believers lives already in this world. Both aspects of our blessing are found in the first psalm, with v. 3 referring to the blessing that is already ours in this world and vv. 5-6 at least suggesting the blessing of the world to come. Then, last week, we considered the fact that just as in the Lord’s beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, so in Psalm 1, this blessing, this blessedness is related to and is the Lord’s reward for the faithfulness of his people. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are they who mourn; blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the peacemakers, and the like.” It is to those who are faithful and holy, in other words, that this blessedness of life is promised. In Psalm 1, the character of God’s people is presented in a more summary way with the accent falling on two aspects of the believer’s faithfulness to God: first, their repudiation of the world and, what one scholar calls, their radical symbolization as the people of God – that is, they make it known in very public ways that they belong to God and intend to live for him – and, second, their giving great place to the Word of God, the Bible, in their daily living.

A young man goes off to boot camp. He now finds himself, perhaps for the first time, among many peers who are contemptuous of his beliefs and values. He has always said his prayers by his bed at night. Will he do it now, knowing full well that the fellows in the barracks if they see him will scoff at him, call him preacher or deacon, and poke fun at his piety? Of course he will. And when he does, what will sustain him and his faith in the face of such an unwelcoming and spiritually unhelpful environment? The Word of God which he continues to read avidly and ponder as he tries faithfully to apply its doctrine and its commandments in a new and difficult situation. The Lord will bless that young man! And he will bear his fruit now and forever! The mouth of the Lord has spoken!

Now we move on to the second half of the introduction, Psalm 2.

Read Psalm 2

v.1 The “why” is not a real inquiry but an expression of frustration, like a person exasperated by the behavior of a loved one: “Why do you do that?” He’s not expecting an explanation.

“Peoples” refers to the unbelieving world, whether in the church or outside of it. This is an important insight, that the nations conspiring against the Lord are often Christian people in the institutional sense of the word. There is one sense in which the population of mankind is divided in two – the church and the world. There is another sense, a more fundamental sense still, in which the population of the world is divided in two – true believers in Christ and everyone else. The proof of this, by the way, is that this text, Psalm 2:1-2 is cited in Acts 4:25-26 and used to explain what happened when Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and the Jews conspired to murder Jesus. There “the nations conspiring against the Lord” include the Jews, who were, of course, the church of that day. In other words, the NT sees Calvary prophesied in vv. 2-3. Remember, in Greek, “anointed one” is “Christ.”

v.3 Psalm 2 is a poem of four stanzas: 1-3; 4-6; 7-9; and 10-13. In vv. 1-3 we have the resolve of the unbelieving nations to throw off the rule of the King.

v.4 Now vv. 4-6 provide the answer to the plans of the nations. These verses describe God’s intention to install his king on Mt. Zion to rule over all.

God “laughs.” In all the uses of this term, this is the laughter of victory. For example, in Ps. 37:13 we read: “…but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.” In Ps. 52:6, after hearing that the Lord will bring down the wicked man, who takes pride in his evil, we read “The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at him, saying, ‘Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold…” In other words, the Lord’s victory is so lopsided, there is an almost comical element to it. [Waltke]

v.6 Verse 6 is cited in Acts 13:32 as having been fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

v.7 In the third stanza, vv. 7-10, we have the faith of the king proclaimed in his own words. Here is the resolve the king, his declaration of the right by which he will rule over all the nations of the earth.

It is widely thought that Psalm 2 is a coronation psalm, part of a coronation liturgy. That would make sense of the word “Today.” Now in 2 Kings 11:12 we have a cameo, a very brief account of a service of coronation for an Israelite king.

“Jehoiada brought out the king’s son and put the crown on him; he presented him with a copy of the covenant and proclaimed him king. They anointed him, and the people clapped their hands and shouted, ‘Long live the king!’”

Well, what we have in vv. 7-9 is the covenant that God made with his king, what is called “the decree of the Lord” in v. 7. And here in Psalm 2 we have the decree from the king’s own lips – that is, what the Lord said to him.

The language of Father and Son to describe the relationship between God and his King is common in the material about the covenant God made with the house of David. In the original covenant made between God and David and his house, we read, in 2 Sam. 7:14, “I will be his father and he shall be my son.” Then, in the poetic reflection on that covenant in Psalm 89:26, God says of his King, “He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my god, the Rock, my Savior.” Here in Psalm 2 the Father calls the king his Son; there the king calls God his Father.

Remember, this same language is used at the Lord’s baptism when his Father speaks from heaven. “This is my son…” [e.g. Matt. 3:17]

v.8 The king, as God’s son, is his heir. The nations are his by right, they are his inheritance. But, it is a right that still must be claimed: “Ask of me…” It is claimed by faith and prayer and, in a way, the rest of the Psalms are this “asking.”

“The nations” are mentioned 175x in the Psalter. We often don’t think of this, but the Psalter is a “missionary” book! Remember, when the Lord was declared King and God’s son at the resurrection, he immediately took to telling his disciples about the nations and of their being the instruments of his extending his rule to the nations.

v.9 In all the Bible’s presentation of the rule of God’s king there is this emphasis. He will not only be a Savior and bring justice to the oppressed. He will punish the wicked and destroy the enemies of God. Interestingly, v.9 is cited in Rev. 2:27 with reference to Christians exercising God’s rule over the nations. We too will judge the earth as the Bible says in several places. We will reign as the King’s vice-regents and will exercise authority over the nations. But the same verse is cited two more times in Revelation (12:5 and 19:15) regarding the rule and reign of Christ himself. Our rule is with his and a manifestation of his rule.

v.10 The final stanza is the appeal of the psalmist to the nations, his urging them to submit to the rule of the king. There is but one hope for them, submission to the king, but it is more an invitation than an ultimatum, as is indicated by the last line of the psalm. There is no refuge from him, only in him! [Kidner]

v.11 “Serve with fear…rejoice with trembling.” This was the text that J. Gresham Machen preached at his ordination to the Presbyterian ministry on June 23, 1914. His theme was that the joy of which this text spoke was not the happiness that then widely prevailed in American Protestantism. Many Christians were happy, he admitted, but theirs was a joy stemming almost entirely from their membership in the prosperous classes. It was the happiness of social adjustment and material comfort. It was not, however, the joy of which the Bible spoke. And the problem with the happiness of so many Christians was that it was founded on a defective view of God. God as simply a gentle and loving father produced the bare optimism of Protestant Christianity in those days. Men and women needed only to look with clear eye at human suffering and the catastrophes of life – what they would soon see, of course, in World War I – to see that the merely humane God of modern Christianity was not the real and living God. Only the God of classical Christian theology, only the ‘horrors of the old theology’ could restore the mystery, the sense of guilt that modern preaching lacked and thus proclaim forgiveness and salvation that would cause Christians to “rejoice with trembling.” [Hart, Defending the Faith, 32]

v.12 “Kiss the Son” means “Do homage.” In 1 Sam. 10:1, for example, Samuel kissed Saul when he anointed him king of Israel. And in 1 Kings 19:18, the Lord speaks of the 7000 in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal or kissed him.

Remember we noted that the “Blessed are all…” is an inclusio with the “Blessed is the man” with which Psalm 1 begins.

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Psalm 2 is ascribed to David in Acts 4:25 but that probably means nothing more than that it is one of the psalms of the Psalter. In any case, as we said, it may well be a recollection of the coronation of David or some subsequent king. It is often quoted in the New Testament, both for the claims it makes for the Lord’s anointed one and for its vision of his universal kingdom. [Kidner]

Now Psalm 2 is an introduction to the Psalter as a whole, as we have already pointed out. And I want this evening to indicate to you how important a fact that is for all your reading of and understanding of the Psalms. The Psalter loses little time in introducing us to the figure, the king, who will play such a large role in it. Psalm 2 introduces us not only to the king, but to his kingdom or rule, and the Psalter’s philosophy of history. It envisions, very clearly, a universal rule of God over all the earth and all its peoples through his king. God’s throne is in heaven, as we read in v. 4, but he rules on earth through his king. We are reminded of Ephesians 1:21-22 where we read that God placed Jesus far above every power and authority and placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.

Now the obvious question is: who is this king? Who is the anointed one of v. 2 and the Son of God of vv. 7 and 12. Obviously, any careful reader of the OT would know that on one level “king” and even “son of God” would refer to David and his lineage, the OT kings of Israel and Judah. As we said, the language of God as Father and king as Son is found in the Davidic covenant material from 2 Samuel 7 onward. That Davidic covenant, in which God promised a ruler on the throne of David in perpetuity, is fundamental to the interpretation of the Psalter. In the sense of the kings from David onward, “king” and “son” should be printed in the lower case.

However, it is also clear that the vision is too great to be fulfilled by these kings – David, Solomon, Uzziah, Hezekiah, and the like. As Dr. Waltke puts it, “What we have in the Psalms is a wardrobe of purple robes waiting for one worthy to wear them.” No Israelite king ever began to rule over all the nations of the earth. We are looking for a greater anointing, a greater kingship, a greater sonship but, at the same time, real continuity with the Davidic lineage and the promises God made to David and his house. In this sense it is entirely faithful to the Bible to capitalize “King” and “Son” because the Psalter has this ideal king in view. And, as we know, the NT often identifies Jesus with that king who is spoken of and who speaks in the Psalms. He is clearly identified as the fulfillment of all the promises made to David about a king who would sit forever on his throne and the prospect of his universal rule is a major emphasis in all the NT’s teaching about the Lord Jesus as it was an emphasis of his own teaching about himself and his kingdom. Psalm 2 offers this king the entire earth and all the nations of the earth as his inheritance. The impression is that this is no ordinary son of David and that is confirmed, for example, in Psalm 110 where, as our Lord pointed out, you remember, David himself acknowledges his sovereign, who is the son of God. That king is God’s son, but David acknowledges him as his Lord.

The king mentioned in the Psalms was anointed, at his coronation with oil, but in the case of the faithful kings, also by the Holy Spirit, as, for example, in David’s case as we read in 1 Sam. 16:13 and Psalm 89:20. That same anointing is promised for the Servant of the Lord in Isa. 61 and, of course, provided Jesus at his baptism.

What is important about all of this, and about the large presence of the king in the Psalms in the first place, is that the king was to be and, in the case of the faithful kings, those represented in the Psalter, was the servant and the minister and even the representative of God. That is why Israelite kingship is so important in the Bible as a manifestation of the coming king, who would, of course, be God literally. In typology – the kind of enacted prophecy of which the Bible is full and according to which David or other kings were prophesies of Jesus Christ, one has to notice the differences as well as the similarities. There are ways in which the king is like Christ the King and there are ways in which he very definitely was not. But there is no doubt that the king is everywhere in the Psalter. The early church was right to see Christ everywhere in the Psalms for the NT does as well. He is the Lord’s anointed and speaks and prays often in the psalms as God’s king.

But, at the same time, in the second place the king represents the people. They stand or fall with him. That was the way of it in the ancient world and in Israel. As the king went, so went the people. He was the tree and they were the leaves; they stood or fell with him. In this way too, the king is Jesus Christ in the Psalms.

At any rate, the human subject, the speaker in many of the psalms is the king. The psalms are, by and large, royal psalms. It used to be thought that only those psalms that made specific mention of the king were to be classified as royal psalms, just as only those psalms that made some specific prediction of the messiah that the NT later indicated was fulfilled in Christ should be classified as messianic psalms. In other words, the Christology of the Psalter was confined to those psalms that were prophetic in the narrow sense, forecasting or predicting some aspect or part of the Messiah’s ministry. But this led to many problems. For example, Psalm 69:9 was regarded to be such a messianic prophecy because the text is later applied directly to Jesus Christ during his ministry in John 2:17.

“…zeal for your house consumes me…”

But, what then are we to do with 69:5, a verse in the same messianic psalm.

“You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you.”

We would not apply that statement to the Lord Jesus. But, then, how do we pluck v. 9 out of the psalm and apply it to the Lord when the rest does not apply to him? Another problem was what to do with all the praying about enemies in the psalms; how to understand the relevance of those expressions to believing life? The fact of the matter is that through the centuries Christians have tended to pick and choose expressions from the psalms. Taking this verse or that and applying it directly to their own spiritual circumstances or life situation and leaving behind verses that sit right by them in the same psalms. Clearly the NT regards the Psalter as full of statements that concern Jesus Christ however much those statements stand cheek to jowl with statements that obviously do not apply to the Lord Jesus. How are we, therefore, to read the psalms?

Well, the answer to such questions is found in the realization that the Psalter as a whole is messianic in its very nature. We don’t have to pick out a few psalms and call them messianic as if the rest of the Psalter is not also about the king. It is all about the king though, of course, in that typological way that requires us to note dissimilarities as well as similarities.

Nowadays it is more widely understood that the psalms are shot through with kingship and the person of the king. The psalms are generally concerned with the kingdom of God and with the struggle with the enemies of God. In most all of the lament psalms (one enumeration has 47 out of 50 such psalms) – or psalms of petition in the midst of some crisis – there is mention of the enemy and an appeal to God to punish or judge the enemy. Evangelicals typically have a problem with all of that talk about the enemy because they individualize the psalms and make them simply the sentiment of some private believer. What then are we to do with all these prayers concerning our enemies? How can Christians pray for judgment to befall their own personal enemies. Can we pray that the Lord would break the teeth in the mouth of someone who is giving us a hard time at work? No, surely not. So we do something else. We can turn these prayers against our enemies into prayers against Satan; or perhaps we use the actual enemies of the Psalter as metaphors for our own flesh as it tempts us to sin. Alexander Whyte did just that in any number of his great sermons. But, fact is, that isn’t what the Psalter is actually talking about. The king had enemies. Real enemies. Enemies of his kingdom and of his rule. Enemies that sought to prevent him from establishing his kingdom. They were the enemies of God’s people because they were represented by the king. They are our enemies because they are his enemies.

What you have in the psalms, then, very often is “the king at prayer.” And his prayer is “O Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” Next time we will look at Psalm 3 and I think you will see what a difference it makes to both the understanding of the psalm and its application to our lives to hear the king at prayer in that psalm. And, once read in that way, it becomes immediately obvious how redolent of Jesus Christ and his kingdom these prayers really are. If they are the prayer of a king; on his lips, necessary changes being made, they are the prayer of the King.

This is how to understand in the first place the Psalms relevance to us today. We can pray these prayers because Jesus Christ is our king: we are his people, we are in fellowship with him, his cause is our cause, his kingdom our kingdom, his rule our hope! And, even more than this, his experience is our experience. As Jesus so often taught, as it was for him, necessary changes being made, so it would be for us. Our lives, our crises, our difficulties, our struggles, even our doubts would be in imitation of his own. If they hated him, he told his disciples, they would hate us too. As he faced opposition, so would we. As the devil tempted and assaulted him, so he would his followers. As the difficulties and burdens and mysteries of life mounted up against him, so they would against us as well. And so on.

Reading the psalms this way is a powerful antidote to the highly individualized faith of American evangelicals such as ourselves. We think of our faith very largely almost exclusively in terms of our own private experience. We tend not to think nearly so much of Christendom, of the kingdom of God, of the reign of our Lord and Savior, of our belonging to the community that he has called together in the world, of his advancing into the kingdoms and peoples of the world. There is a highly individual, even private aspect or dimension of Christian faith and experience, to be sure. There is the life of the heart and faith in the secret part of life that must be offered to God in Christ. But there is also this very corporate, communal, international, world-embracing character to our faith and life. There is that in which we are Christians because of our relationship to the King of Kings and there is a great deal in our lives that takes its character and meaning from his worldwide kingdom and its advance through human history.

Let me illustrate the importance of this in one small way as we conclude. Someone comes to me as his or her pastor. The problem is an unhappy marriage or deep frustration and sorrow at being unmarried, or perhaps the matter to be discussed is something else: the question of whether one should take a new job that has been offered. You don’t know what to do and are worried about doing the wrong thing. It is very easy, of course, to see issues such as these in highly individualized and subjective terms. The situation is painful, oppressive, or worrying to us. We are not sure what to do. We want to be happy and don’t seem to see our way forward to that happiness.

You will understand that there are many things that your pastor might well tell you in such circumstances. Such problems and challenges can be approached from different direction. But the Psalms especially teach us to see our individual problems, our crises, our challenges in larger terms. We are Christians, followers of the King of Kings. What happens to us – in a way everything that happens to us – even those things that have the most deeply personal consequences, are part and parcel of our unity with the king who is engaged in a great battle to establish his kingdom on earth. Every part of our lives is related to him and to his kingly work in the world. Our ups and our downs are all finally related to his struggle with the enemies of God and his divine calling to establish his kingdom. We should never, never, never – this is the immensely practical implication of the Psalter and its Christology – see our lives in simply or strictly private and personal terms. We are related to the King, we belong to his kingdom, we are – in every part and parcel of our lives – being taken up into his cause and his reign, everything in our lives is pointed toward the eventual consummation of his kingdom in the world. In our most private prayers to God, so often taken from the Psalms or given inspiration by the Psalms, we are over and over again praying the king’s prayers after him. Whether it is “why are you cast down, O my soul” or “do not fret when evil men succeed” or “my feet had well nigh slipped when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” or “cast all your cares upon the Lord for he cares for you” or a thousand other statements like those so precious to Christian souls, you are praying over again his prayers, you are taking up his life into your own, you are following him, you are identifying with his cause and his history in the world.

There are no private struggles in a Christian’s life. There are no simply personal and individual problems. Every problem is a kingdom problem, every problem is the king’s problem, every struggle is part of that struggle by which the king, leading and representing his people, is bringing slowly but surely, inexorably to fulfillment the promise of his reign over all the nations of the world.

This dignifies our troubles tremendously. It adds nobility to our personal life that, we all admit, are not the lives of world-beaters, considered in themselves. But, we are with Christ! We are his kingdom. We share his cause in the world.

I love this illustration.

“Joseph Conrad in The Mirror of the Sea quotes from a letter of Sir Robert Stopford, who commanded one of the ships with which Nelson chased to the West Indies an enemy fleet nearly double in number. Describing the desperate hardships of that daring adventure, Stopford wrote: ‘We are half-starved, and otherwise inconvenienced by being so long out of port. But our reward is – we are with Nelson!’ ” [J.S. Stewart, Heralds of God, 144]

Well, the great theme, the practical encouragement of the psalms is precisely that: in all our lives and all our struggles, our reward is: “we are with Christ!”