Somebody Else’s Mail (4)

Some day soon a Jew is going to rule this world, and he’s going to do it from the throne of David, making beleaguered Jerusalem the capital city of our planet.

There may be notions more offensive to modern sensibilities, but I can’t think of any at the moment. Let’s just say the nation of Israel is not currently in vogue. But that’s what the Bible teaches. It’s called the Second Coming of Christ, the hope of Israel, and the literal fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. It’s an idea so audacious that it even riles up a significant segment of Christendom.

Guess what? The Gentile nations of that coming day will not be thrilled about it either.

That’s what Psalm 2 is about, and there’s a lot more in it besides, including quite a bit for believers of this present era. Brace yourselves, here we go.

Psalm 2 has no superscription to tell us its author. In Acts 4, the early church in prayer attributed it to David, and ultimately to God himself. “Sovereign Lord, who through the mouth of David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit …” That’s our starting point. David the prophet-king, writing about things he only dimly understood but believed with all his heart.

Messiah Ben David

David was not without considerable information about Messiah. Proposing to build a house for the Lord in Jerusalem, David almost immediately received a word from the Lord through the prophet Nathan directing him to desist, but promising him that God would build David a house instead. “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. Your throne shall be established forever.” The initial fulfillment of this promise was in the person of David’s son Solomon (“When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men”), but we can immediately see that someone much greater than Solomon is required for David’s earthly throne to be established in perpetuity. Hence, Messiah.

Later OT passages amplify and expand on this hope. In 2 Samuel 23, David’s last prayer includes the words, “He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.” In Psalm 89, Ethan writes, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’ ” Again, he says, “He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.”

The Prophets Agree

Next, the Major Prophets take up the theme. Isaiah spoke of a child who would become king, saying, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom … from this time forth and forevermore.”

Jeremiah proclaimed, “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.” Again, he promises, “I will burst your bonds, and foreigners shall no more make a servant of him [Israel]. But they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.”

Perhaps the most powerful and explicit passage is found in Ezekiel:

“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”

Finally, the angel Gabriel’s prophecy to Mary makes it abundantly clear that the child she was to carry would fulfill all Israel’s hopes. It is in the person Jesus of Nazareth, a lowly, crucified Jew, that God intends to realize all these glorious and long-awaited promises.

Setting the Table

We must interpret Psalm 2 in this very literal, earthly context. It is not about the glorified Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, observing his Church on earth from heaven. Neither is it some kind of reference to the eternal state, for “I will set them in their land and multiply them.” There won’t be any multiplying going on in eternity; our Lord was quite unambiguous about that.

No, Psalm 2 is about a physical descendant of David sitting on David’s throne in Israel, with the whole world subject to him. It’s a national hope, a hope that exalts Israel above all the empires of our world. We are reading about the future millennial reign of Christ. When devout Israelites sang Psalm 2, they looked forward to a day when God would make them the head and not the tail. But note, unlike that promise in Deuteronomy, which was part of a conditional covenant requiring national obedience, this promise is unconditional and unilateral. Israel will be exalted as a nation because Christ cannot be denied his throne, and his earthly people benefit from his exaltation.

Please note, you cannot abrogate a promise with no conditions. The Davidic Covenant requires nothing of Israel. Moreover, it was made in absolute anticipation of every foible, failing and act of rebellion Israel ever displayed.

No, we’re definitely not getting through the Psalm today. But my point is this. Taken literally, it is impossible to find the Church in these verses. It’s not our hope, it’s Israel’s. We too have a hope, but it’s not tied to Middle Eastern geography or associated with the subjugation of disgruntled and rebellious Gentiles. Still, we delight in seeing our Savior exalted and given his rightful place. Finally!

Psalm 2:1-3 — The Raging Nations

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’ ”

A literal millennial reign need not come with every perfection characteristic of eternity. Careful attention to the words of the prophets about Christ’s return to earth to rule will not give us that impression. Christ will reign. Satan will be bound. Creation will be transformed in some measure. People will live longer. The wolf will lie down with the lamb, and swords will be beaten into plowshares. But the first few verses of our psalm plainly tell us the surviving Gentile rulers of our planet will be profoundly unhappy about being displaced.

This is not a new attitude. I referred earlier to the Church in Acts 4. In fact, the gathered disciples quoted these first two verses of the psalm in a prayer so powerful it shook the room and filled them with the Holy Spirit. How then can I say that Psalm 2 is not about the Church?

Psalm 2 in Acts

We must remember that after the Lord Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead, the disciples testified to the nation of Israel concerning the coming kingdom for almost forty years, until Jerusalem was destroyed by Rome in fulfillment of the Lord’s prophecy at Herod’s temple. The offer of the kingdom was not a cheat. It was genuine. Had Israel repented nationally and believed the teaching of the apostles, the kingdom could have been theirs. But God had a better plan, through which he would bless the whole world through the preaching of the gospel, as Romans 11 tells us. Israel, hardened, refused to repent as a nation, though many thousands believed and became Christians.

In the Acts 4 passage, the early Jewish Christians take the words of Psalm 2 and repurpose them to describe the opposition to Messiah in his first advent. “For truly in this city,” they prayed, “there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed [‘his Anointed’], both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles [‘the nations rage’] and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” The words of Psalm 2 aptly describe the attitude of the heathen nations to the kingdom of God and its king. It is always rejection and hostility, then, now and in the future. Nevertheless, God is at work. The sovereignty David ascribes to God in the psalm (“Sovereign Lord”, “He who sits in the heavens laughs”) was impeccably displayed in the first century in the face of all opposition. In their rebellion, the raging nations did exactly what God’s hand and plan had predestined to take place.

A Partial Fulfillment

However, we should be clear that the partial fulfillment the early church identified in David’s words in no way exhausts the promises of Psalm 2.

For one thing, the disciples grouped “the peoples of Israel” right in there with the raging nations in opposition to the Lord’s Anointed. That was true in the first century, but it will not be the case in a future day, and it’s not the state in which we find Israel in the psalm. The nation will be spiritually restored and purified. Zechariah 12 promises they will look on the one they have pierced, repenting with weeping and mourning, and will be fully restored.

Moreover, Psalm 2 tells us the plotting Gentiles will say to one another, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” Fulfilling that requires they first be subjugated to the Anointed One. You can’t burst bonds and cast away cords unless you are already bound.

That’s something we have yet to see. Plenty remains to be fulfilled. More next week.