Psalms Lesson 37
Psalm 2
Tonight we are going to be on a new category of Psalms, the Royal Psalms. This will be the next to last category of Psalms we will be working with. The last category will be the Enthronement Psalms or the Psalms of the final end. Now the Royal Psalms are important for us as Christians because it is the Royal Psalms that picture the Lord Jesus Christ. The Royal Psalms have in common the reign of Israel’s king under the terms of the Davidic Covenant. So all the Royal Psalms have to do with Israel’s king, at least in its historical sense; the first meaning, therefore, of these Psalms, it deals with a literal king functioning under the Davidic Covenant which is given in 2 Samuel 7 and these Psalms develop the theology of the King.
However, they’re not just Israel’s king, but these Psalms move forward to the ideal King. And therefore form a model for the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, all these Royal Psalms depict some part of the life and ministry and the person of Jesus Christ. Now this is why these Psalms are so important, because when you just read the New Testament you can’t understand what it really means to say that” Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ.” After you understand the royal Psalms you understand what C-h-r-i-s-t means, what His title means, and then when you say “Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ,” then you really say that with understanding. It’s not just a phony religious thing that you just repeat because everybody repeats it. Even when you say Jesus Christ you’ll become conscious of the fact you’re not saying His last name when you say “Christ,” you’re saying His title. You’re calling Him something and it’s not really His name, “Christ” is not Jesus’ name, “Christ” is His title, title to His office, title to His functions.
Now in Psalm 2 I’m going to follow an outline that we dealt with in seminary, Dr. Waltke, and the Psalm is divided into four parts; verses 1-3, and based on how we have divided these Psalms up how would you divide, where do you see a major break in the Psalm; I’ve already given you one at the end of verse 3, that’s one major break. Can you see where the other breaks are? [Someone answers] After 9, all right, one after 9; that’d be 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, you notice the break between verses 3 and 4 and the break between verses 9 and 10 are breaks based on what criteria? What are you looking at when you see that break there. What do you see shifts in the Psalm? What’s the difference between verses 3 and 4 and verses 9 and 10? [someone answers] What way they’re written? [something else said] All right, beginning in 10 you see the verbs, all the verbs, what are all the verbs, verse 10, 11, 12, every one of those verbs is an imperative, do this, do this, do this, do this. They’re instructional in other words, so obviously 10-12 are closely knit together. Verses 1-3 describe what the kings are thinking, the kings of the earth.
There is one more break in the Psalm, where is it? [someone answers] Between 5 and 6, all right, you may be misled, watch it on verse 6 and 7, be careful. Verses 6 and 7, is the same speaker speaking in verses 6 and 7? No, okay, see the break, the other break is between verses 6 and 7 because the speaker shifts. Now that’s the breakdown of the Psalm; it has four parts and four speakers. This suggests that when it was performed it was performed with four different groups singing or four speakers doing the speaking. You might have a group sing, say verses 1-3; and then you have verses 4-6, the Lord, verse 7-9 the king; verses 10-12 telling about the king.
Notice something else about this Psalm. Verses 4-6 speak of the Lord; verses 7-9 speak of His Messiah; you can make a little analogy here; verses 4-6 is the Father, verses 7-9 the Son, who is the King, and in verses 10-12 who is it that glorifies the Son? The Holy Spirit. Notice He doesn’t glorify Himself which is what neo-Pentecostalism always does, it winds up the Holy Spirit glorifies the Holy Spirit, that’s not Biblical, that’s not correct. You can always tell somebody that’s fouled up in this area by counting the number of times they mention the Lord Jesus Christ and count the number of times they mention the Holy Spirit. And if they’re wrapped up in this thing they’ll say the Holy Spirit on a ratio of about 1 to 100 over the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s one little quick way of finding out what frequency they’re tuned in on. The Holy Spirit does not glorify the Holy Spirit.
Now let’s summarize the thought of these four sections and then work with them verse by verse, word by word. First, verses 1-3 you can summarize the thought that it’s foolish to rebel against God’s king. This is what the Psalm is essentially telling us here. Verses 4-6 we could summarize that thought: God establishes His King on Mount Zion. And then in verses 7-9: the King resolves to exercise His authority over all the earth. And then the fourth section, verses 10-12: the exhortation to the people to be wise and submit to the King.
Now if you pay attention to this Psalm closely it will open up to you some more understanding about the Trinity. And this very touchy situation of how do I say God is three and yet He’s one, three in persons and one in essence. And how is this felt in the Old Testament; this Psalm is going to show you how it was felt. Verses 1-3, let’s look at this thought. We’re coming into the first section of the Psalm now, and we’re dealing with: it is foolish to rebel against God’s king.
Notice verse 1, “Why do the heathen rage, and the peoples imagine a vain thing?” Actually the word “vain thing” is a noun but it’s used as an adverb, it’s an adverbial accusative and it means the people are imagining vainly. So the two things to notice immediately about verse 1 is it starts out, “for what purpose” and ends up “vainly.” Now since the verse starts out with “for what purpose” and end ups with “vain,” what do you think the emphasis of verse 1 is? It’s addressed, it’s sort of the Psalm is sitting there, he’s looking at all this rebellion that’s going on; what’s his attitude toward the rebellion? What nuance does verse 1 kind of carry with it? Do you think it’s going to come off, yes. [someone says something] The simple man rebels, well, he’s basically saying they’re not going to make it. It’s more of an amazement, you really think you’re going to do something huh? You really think you’re going to rebel against the Lord Jesus Christ and it’s really going to get you somewhere, we’ll see about it. And so it expresses, the way verse 1 is designed, both the heading and the summary at the end of verse 1 stress the futility, the utter futility of trying to pull something off like this.
So “Why do the heathen rage, and the peoples imagine a vain thing?” These are continual actions occurring in front of the eyes of the psalmist, he visualizes this is happening and the word for “rage” and the word for “imagine” are both words that connote group action. It’s not a bunch of individuals get together, it’s more sinister than just a few individuals rebelling against the Lord. This is a whole group of people that are on negative volition and therefore who are locked in mass, and out of this mass of negative volition comes a plot. So this is not just a few individuals, this is a wholesale political plot to undermine the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. But remember, looking it first historically, to undermine the king of Israel. The “heathen” and the “people” do not necessarily mean the Gentile, just Israel and Gentile, it can be applied also to Jews, unregenerate Jews, as for example, turn to Acts 4:25. The Christians after they faced the first persecution applied the principles of Psalm 2 in a prayer meeting.
By the way, Acts 4:25 also establishes the author of Psalm 2, notice what it says: “Who by the mouth of thy servant, David, hath said,” what’s the subject of the verb “speak” in verse 25? God or man? See, “Who by the mouth of thy servant, David, hath said,” who’s the subject of the verb “hath said?” God. All right, now that is a verse that teaches inspiration of Scripture. Some of you read Newsweek and Time Magazine last week and the media has really been having a ball attacking the fact the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church elected a man who stood for the absolute inerrancy of Scripture, so now they call him the Lutheran Pope because they can’t stand to have a man who holds to the fundamentals of the faith. And Dr. Prues, while we would disagree with him on certain points, hold in common with all of us the doctrine of inerrant Scripture. And Time Magazine and Newsweek both ridiculed it, in the 20th century, think of it, a bunch of stupid Lutherans that still hold to inerrancy. And then later on, as only time can do, put it as Dr. Prues holds to the domino theory of theology, that is if you disbelieve one doctrine everything else goes. I thought that was very clever. So do we. We believe in the domino theory also, that if you deny one doctrine everything goes. And Time Magazine, you can tell the reporter is just utterly amazed that somebody in the 20th century holds such an absurd position; he even says the man is too scholarly to be a fundamentalist but he’s too fundamentalist to get along with the scholars. This is interesting to see the attitude of the culture toward these questions.
In Acts 4:25, “Who by the mouth of thy servant, David, hath said” God is the subject of inspiration in the sense that He is doing the work; it’s actually the Holy Spirit that’s doing the work, so the Holy Spirit is saying, and then the next clause is a quote. Now what does that teach us, therefore, about Psalm 2 as well as the rest of Scripture? That when you read the words of your Bible, those words are not just the words of your Bible, they are the words of the Holy Spirit to you, because who is the subject of the verb “say?” The Holy Spirit is the subject, therefore the words of the Bible are identical with the words of the Holy Spirit. Now this is the answer to everyone that’s going around seeking some sort of an emotional ecstatic experience; I need something extra, I’ve got to have some extra experience. Now what more extra experience would you like than to have God talk to you? What finer experience can you have than have God Himself speak words to you? Every time you study your Bible, God the Holy Spirit is speaking His words to you. Every time you read it, every time you think it, every time you memorize it, now what finer experience can you have than that? But not content with that we have people who want to go on to the “deeper” things.
So the Holy Spirit, but He uses an instrument, and the instrumentality of inspiration is a human author, here the servant David. That means when the Holy Spirit inspires He uses the authors own vocabulary. David hasn’t got some special vocabulary, he’s using the Hebrew of his own day in writing this. So God the Holy Spirit is big enough to work in history in such a way that He can inerrantly reveal His words through the minds of men who use their own words. So we don’t hold to what the liberals always love to say, you Christians, you have the idea that David sat there and God wrote it on the ceiling in neon light or something. That’s not what we’re saying. We’re saying David wrote it, if you were there with a camera you could have photographed it, David sat there and wrote the thing. There were no spooky lights or sounds in the room while he wrote it either. But nevertheless, the result of it is just as though it were dictated. God did not dictate the Scripture but the result is as though He did dictate the Scripture. So important to make this distinction.
Now in Acts 4 watch how they use Psalm 2 in their situation. The Christians are being persecuted and so now they have to go back and think of some principle they can apply to their life situation. So they say, “Who, by the mouth of Thy servant, David, hast said, Why do the heathen rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? [26] The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ.” That’s the quotation of verses 1-2. Now watch verse 27, this shows you how the Christians of the first century applied and used the Old Testament. They didn’t use the New Testament because it wasn’t written yet. There were no pocket testament Christians around in Acts 4. There were big thick Old Testament Christians all over the place.
So they used Psalm 2:1-2 and then they applied it. “For of a truth, against thy holy child, Jesus, whom thou hast anointed,” now do you catch the connotation? What’s in verse 26? What does “Christ” mean? Anointed, Christos; and what is the word, the very word they repeat right in the next verse? “Thy holy child,” whom you have christened “you have anointed.” So they catch it immediately, that Psalm 2 speak of an anointed one, and therefore Jesus picked Psalm 2 because Jesus, like the kings of old, was an anointed man; He was christened. He was anointed by a prophet. “…whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together.” See what they’re doing? They’re taking the very verse of the Old Testament and plugging in to their present day situation. Who are the Gentiles, there’s the Gentiles, Herod and Pontius Pilate, real historical people. And who were the people? Israel.
And then in verse 28, remember I said Psalm 2 begins with the futility of it all, the futility of trying to rebel against God’s plan. The early Christians believed the same way about Psalm 2 as I just showed you, here in verse 28 how do they finally gear it up? “To do whatever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. [29] And now, Lord, behold their threatenings; and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak the word.” Now look at that, see, they understood the content of Psalm 2, they had studied Psalm 2 and when the crisis came they applied Psalm 2. They understood the whole thing; Psalm 2 is basically a Psalm about the futility of rebelling against the King and so when the early Christians quote it they say, yeah, how stupid of Herod, how stupid of Pilate, how stupid of the rulers of the Jews to rebel against the Christos, they’re not going to make it. And so Lord, we just sit here and let them rebel and let them do in their negative volition what your sovereignty has already ordained. See, that’s the thing about living in a sovereign universe, God doesn’t twist your volition but He works it out so that it’s He wings, tails you lose. And so negative volition always cuts it’s own throat.
Let’s go back to Psalm 2; verse 2, amplifies verse 1, “The kings of the earth,” see the subject in verse 1 are the heathen and the people, the masses; the subject in verse 2 deal with the masses’ leaders. And it’s interesting to note here that the Bible makes little difference in such context between the people and their rulers. As I’ve often said from this pulpit, a nation gets the leaders its deserve; don’t blame the leaders, the leaders just reflect the mentality of the mass of people. And so in verse 1 he condemns the people, the masses; verse 2 he condemns the leaders, no difference, it’s all the same.
“The kings of the earth set themselves,” this means take up a position, it was a military term, “take up a position, and take counsel together, against the LORD, and against His anointed,” the word “anointed,” Mashiyach, this is the word from which we get Messiah; when you say the word “Messiah” you are actually saying the Hebrew, that’s what the Hebrew word looks like, Mashach. So they gather together, and notice in both verse 2 and verse 3 that you have Yahweh, this is the Tetragrammaton, this is the word for Messiah, both those Hebrew words are tied together and they’re going to be for the rest of Psalm 2. This is a study in how close the ideal king… keep in mind now, we can read Psalm 2 looking back into history, we’ve got 30 centuries perspective on the thing; let’s try to flush that perspective out of our heads just a little bit and try to recreate what you would have thought had you been a Jew living in David’s day. Now if you do that mental exercise as you go through Psalm 2, try to read it like a man in David’s day would have read it. Don’t try to read it with your New Testament experience. Try to get that out of the way for a minute and just look at it from the ancient man’s point of view. Now if you do that exercise with me as we work through it will slowly dawn on you how great their ideal king was. Remember, it’s a monotheistic people; monotheism—one God, you couldn’t worship anybody but God. But look at how close Mashach is to Yahweh. He’s getting awfully, awfully close for a monotheistic society. You see, you’re getting the trend to see that that ideal King is not just a man, he’s something more than a man, he’s awfully close to Jehovah.
Then in verse 3 what happens? What is it that the people say, and their leaders, “Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” Notice “their bands,” “their cords,” not just Yahweh’s, not just Jehovah’s cords, but both of their cords. In other words the cords of Messiah and the cords of Yahweh are one and the same thing. What are the cords; what are the bands of verse 3? They’re authority, political authority. And if that’s the case, then the authority of Mashach and the authority of Jehovah coincide, and that’s the key to the rest of the Psalm, that Mashach, the ideal King, He rules with the authority of Yahweh. He’s distinct from Jehovah and yet He rules as one with Him. That’s verses 1-3.
Now verses 4-6, God establishes His King on Mount Zion. Here you have, as it were, the Father speaking about the Son. Verse 4, “He that sits in the heavens,” the word “sits” is the Hebrew participle, the participle when used as a noun refers to abiding character, it means that this person did something at one time and that abides in His character. So you have “He that sits,” or the sitter “in the heavens, shall laugh.” This is one of the places when God laughs in the Bible, except here it’s not laughing in the sense of 1 Samuel 4 and 5. This is not a joke, this is a sarcastic laugh, this is a mocking laugh. That’s why it actually says “The Lord shall have them in derision” at the end of verse 4, The Hebrew word, “to mock,” laugh at them.
Now this is an anthropomorphism in Scripture and anthropomorphism are usually ridiculed today, oh that primitive God of the Bible, expresses Himself anthropomorphically. We’ve been over this but why is it in the Bible that God expresses Himself anthropomorphically? Why is it really not a primitive way and why is it very important that God expresses Himself this way. Part of the answer is He expresses Himself anthropomorphically like man, anthro, in the form of man… let me start all over again. Sigmund Freud and 19th century atheist had a fond little saying and every once in a while you’ll run across this in somebody’s line of thinking. It goes like this: you see, what men is do is they project their own image of God out from them, and so God appears as a man because man is a man and we just visualize God as a man; but if we were a Martian we’d visualize God as a Martian, and if a dog visualized God they’d visualize Him as a dog. There’s two things wrong with that proposal. Number one, men throughout history have not always pictured God anthropomorphically. It’s only in comparatively recent times and only with the Greeks and the Jews. In the ancient world the gods were not picture anthropomorphically, so there’s something wrong with it right away, it doesn’t fit history.
The second thing about it is, an alternate answer could be this: that God appears anthropomorphically because that’s what He is, and He is because we are made in His image. So let’s reverse it around, and this is one of those little tricks that takes skill to develop and you’ve got to have your ears pinned back a couple of times before you learn how to do this, but when you are in discussions and somebody pulls off a fast one like that on you, usually if you can get far enough away from the thing you can think through and reverse it a 180 you’ve got them. In other words, you take the same thing that they’ve done to you and turn it right around and do it back to them; they say man is making God in man’s image and we say God has made man in God’s image. And so we both agree that God and man are the same kind of form. Of course they are, it just goes the other way, God made us in His image so if He appears to us why shouldn’t He look a little bit like us. Why shouldn’t He act a little bit like us. What does it mean that we are made in His image. If every time God spoke He barked, we would have a problem. But He doesn’t and He doesn’t talk in Martian language either, if there is a language like that. He talks in human language. How strange? It’s not strange at all if He made us in His image; isn’t that what the Bible said to start with; so why is it a big problem.
Anthropomorphisms are very fine ways of having a personal God. Why do we have anthropomorphisms? Because God is personal. Think of it for a moment: He that sits in the heavens is going to laugh, the Lord mocks them. Does it communicate to you God’s attitude; can you visualize some man sitting on a throne mocking and laughing? Yes you can. All right, then that visualization you’ve got of a man laughing and mocking is exactly God’s mood. So the anthropomorphism in verse 4 conveys perfectly to you what God’s attitude is. This is something that I hope many of you who have stayed with it during the Psalm series will recognize, the latitude of the expressions of God. Don’t feel like God just mumbles, He’s not a machine, He reacts, He laughs, He gets angry, and he mocks. There’s a whole range, everything that you do that is not sin, that is just part of your creature being as a person God does. God mocked, and so when you see something like verse 4, rejoice that you’ve God a God that is so personal He does mock. That’s how personal God is; He mocks and He laughs at this.
“…the Lord shall have them in derision.” I often think that one of the greatest things that’s going to happen when Christ returns and the whole world is stripped, and it visualizes, there He is, the Son of Man, there He is, everybody sees the Son of Man, I think one of the greatest shocks that all men will have as we face God face to face is the fact that He is going to seem so much like us, so very much, so much powerful and yet He’s going to be so much like us that it will be just very, very shocking experience, that He acts with emotions. It will be almost unbelievable, it’ll be I see it but I don’t believe it. Well, that’s exactly the way it’s going to be, that God is that personal.
Now in verse 5, “Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure.” “Then” introduces a specific point of time, in other words, the rebellion is visualized as going on and God lets it go on and then boom; at a certain specific point He speaks unto them in His wrath and He vexes. The word “vex” means terrify, which indicates how God does this. How does God speak, how does God terrify? God speaks obviously the way you speak, the way I speak, with words. How does He terrify? With His works. [tape turns] …judgment of God comes down both as words and as works. God lowers the boom right here, “He shall speak unto them in His wrath,” notice it is not Mashach that does this; the judgment is seen as coming from God the Father. “…and vex them in His sore displeasure.”
The words in verse 6, these are the words that the earth hears, and there should be quotation marks around verse 6 because that is God the Father speaking, and He says “Yet,” this is a Hebrew… strong way in Hebrew syntax of constructing something, those of you who are familiar with grammar recognize this kind of a thing, a protasis and an apodosis, these are parts of a sentence and the protasis is what comes before, it’s a condition, “if.” Apodosis, “apo” from, “then.” And so you have the protasis of a sentence that gives you the conditions of the clause and the apodosis gives you the conclusion of the clause. This clause in verse 6 lacks a protasis, it lacks the condition, it’s just an apodosis, it’s an incomplete sentence. Something went before the word “yet,” and it’s done for poetic reasons. The psalmist when he’s writing here is trying to stress the “if” clause and he stresses it in a funny way, he stresses it by leaving it out because as you read it, if you read this in the Hebrew you’d say wait a minute, where’s the protasis of this sentence, it’s missing. And it would force you to think about it, wouldn’t it. All right, forcing you to think about it emphasize the point.
Can you fill in what you think the “if” clause is in this sentence; what would be a logical “if” clause to verse 6, “if something, but I have set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.” Can you use your creative imagination a little bit to think what the “if” might be. Visualize what’s happening here, there’s a big rebellion and God comes down, “But, I have set My King on Mount Zion,” what would be preface to that do you think, if God were to say the whole sentence out. [someone answers] All right, it would refer to something to do with the rebellion, without even getting too specific, wouldn’t it be something like this, “you think you’re going to revolt against Me,” see it goes along with the same mood of verses 1-3, “you little yellow [can’t understand word] down there, do you really think you’re going to rebel against Me, I’ve got My King down there.” Now that’s the mood of verse 6, you really think you’re going to pull something off; hun-uh, I’ve got my King down on My hill.
So verses 4-6 introduce the King, this is the God in back of the King, the Father in back of the Son, Jehovah in back of the King of Israel. This is the authority of the King. The King doesn’t just come out of the clear blue, the King doesn’t have authority in Himself. The King gets his authority from God, all functionaries in the 4th and 5th divine institution obtain their authority from God. There is no authority of the creature, the authority we have only comes because we derive it from God Himself.
Now verses 7-9, a very logical Psalm here, verses 4-6 deal with God or the
Jehovah, now we move to verses 7-9, the King Himself. Already we’ve had the
authoritative grounding of the King, there shouldn’t be any question in your
mind what the Psalm is saying, everything authoritative has been
established. Now the King Himself comes
forward, and the speaker in verse 7 is not the speaker in verse 6. Verse 6 is the Father speaking, or Jehovah.
Verse 7 is the Son speaking or Mashach,
the King.
“I will declare the decree:” he says, the “decree” means His authority. “I will declare the authority: The LORD has said unto Me,” now this authority, “the LORD has said” is the basis of the authority for Mashach, the authority of the King, in fact, the authority of the Son. Then he says at the end of verse 7 a very important phrase, “Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee.” Now let’s take this apart, it’s got a lot in it. You, my Son; today I have begotten You. Now this is the location in the Old Testament why we call the Second Personality of the Trinity God the Son; this and 1 Samuel 7. This is why we call the Second Personality, not usually the Word, we could call Him God the Word, the Spirit, or we could say the Father, Son and Spirit, we could use a different set of labels but generally it’s Son.
Now we have to understand, why is the King called Son? Remember what I told you, be careful here and keep your head looking at Psalm 2 as a Jew would have looked at it before Christ came. Forget everything of history, go back in time 30 centuries and think, try to imagine, you’ve got a human king on the throne, but the human king is called Yahweh’s Son; why is the human king called Jehovah’s Son? Can anybody think of some reasons? Why do you think the king was called the Son of God? [someone answers] Who was really the king of Israel, between the time of Moses and the time of Saul, did Israel have a king? Careful, between Moses and Saul did Israel have a king? Yes. Who was the King? God Himself was. How do we know that? Because in 1 Samuel, God says to Samuel they have rejected Me from being King. So we know that the King of Israel was Jehovah. So when they went to institute a human king, sitting on a literal physical throne before them, the King, if He ruled in God’s place had to have a character that would be similar to God, wouldn’t He. There had to be an analogy of character, so he would have to take after God Himself. It turns out historically He takes after God Himself so much He is God. But the human king was called the Son.
Let me show you another reason why he’s called this. Turn to 2 Samuel 7. Psalm 2 should be read together with 2 Samuel 7. Notice verse 14, talking about the king and what does he say, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men. [15] But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before thee,” speaking of the Davidic dynasty and here you have an eternally secure covenant. But the point is that there will be a personal relationship between the king and Jehovah. Here’s Yahweh, God, and here’s the king; there’s going to be a personal relationship of a Father-son sort. The Father, Jehovah, is going to guide His Son, His King. So exercised this way He guides and He teaches, like a father guides and teaches his son. Looked at the other way, the son reflects his father’s character. The son inherits his father’s character. So the relationship between the Jewish king and Jehovah, God of the nations, would be of this sort. Jehovah would guide and teach him and on the other hand the king would reflect Jehovah’s character.
So now going back to Psalm 2, “Thou art my Son.” Now we have to come with a very, very troublesome phrase, the end of verse 4, “this day have I begotten thee.” It refers to a point in time; “this day have I begotten thee,” today. Now verse 7 is introduced by the phrase, here’s the decree. Visualize the rebellion, you have all these Gentile kings, they’re challenging the authority of the king of Israel. The king of Israel, then, after he is challenged he responds and he says, as it were, he pulls out something and he says this is my authority, this is the decree that was given to me, “this day I have begotten thee.” So that he’s showing his authority in the face of the challenge to that authority. Now the authority says “this day have I begotten thee.” When was the king of Israel given his authority? [someone answers] When he was anointed, okay but the king was anointed several times, we haven’t got to this in Samuel, he was anointed twice.
Generally speaking in most countries even to this day, you have a great ceremony called the coronation and the king assumes the throne. If Queen Elizabeth dies, right now Prince Charles has no authority to rule, he’s the Prince but he hasn’t been installed; but if something happens to Queen Elizabeth, then Prince Charles will be undergoing a coronation and he’ll become King Charles. Now when he becomes King he is given the crown and that gives the authority to him. So therefore “this day have I begotten thee” doesn’t refer to the physical birth of the king; it refers to the time the king takes his position on his throne. Why is it “begotten?” Because it follows the same imagery. When does the father-son relationship start? When the king is in position; so therefore when is he begotten? When the king is in position.
So “this day have I begotten thee” in the original Old Testament referred to when the King sat down. And so from that point on he had the decree. We don’t know in history how this actually worked out; we suspect that the prophet would be there, the prophet who had picked the king would be there and that he would speak the Word of God to the king, if the king would sit down, we can imagine him sitting down at a crucial point in the ceremony and when he sat down in Solomon’s great throne with the lions, the ivory lions, it must have been a magnificent ceremony. I read a verse in Chronicles today that David had an orchestra, 4,000 musical instruments. And it shows you the tremendous size; when they played you didn’t need a PA system. So you can image a 4,000 piece orchestra playing during this tremendous coronation and as the king sat on his throne, Gad or Nathan or one of the prophets would probably declare from God, God’s word, “this day I have begotten thee.” And at that point the king sitting on the throne would be the son of God in the terminology of this Psalm.
Now we have to apply this to Jesus Christ. Turn to Matthew 3:17, first visualize the fact that God speaks from heaven, remember in Psalm 2 God speaks from heaven and what does He say: He said “I set My king on Mount Zion.” Notice at critical points in the ministry of Jesus Christ, like Matthew 3:17 what is it that happens? Jesus arises from being anointed. John the Baptist is the king-maker; he is the prophet; he anoints the king at this point, though he is not actually sitting on His throne, and what happens. “And behold, a voice from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Turn to Matthew 17:5, the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus Christ has appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration showing His true glory to the disciples, what happens: “A bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” See, at critical points in the ministry of Christ He is authenticated by a literal voice from heaven. This is heard, it’s not some spooky thing that’s worked up; an actual literal voice from heaven is heard speaking in a recognizable language. He speaks words that you can hear.
Turn to Hebrews 1; in verse 2, God the Father speaking, God the Father “has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things; by Him also He made the world. [3] Who, being the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person, upholding all things by the word of His power,” now notice this carefully, the end of verse 3, what does it say, “when He had by Himself purged our sins” what did he do? He “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High.” Isn’t that the king sitting on His throne? Now look at what follows, verse 4, “Being so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name” or position than they, [5] “For to which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee.” Look at the context, verse 3 and 5, the begetting of the Son is when? When He sits on His throne.
So therefore Psalm 2, going back to Psalm 2, Psalm 2 pictures Christ, as it were, sitting in the throne room; He walks in and that’s where He gets the decree; that’s where He gets the decree! There are going to be two places where Psalm 2 applies. Let’s look at the first one. Jesus Christ dies on the cross, He goes to hell, He makes certain pronouncements there in 1 Peter 3, He rises again from the dead, He ascends and He sits at the Father’s right hand. At that point the doctrine of the session of Christ, at that point Jesus Christ receives His authority. And that is why the Holy Spirit was not sent until Christ received the proper authority because until Christ received the proper authority He could not dispatch the Holy Spirit. He had no authority whatever over the Holy Spirit. But when He sits on that throne, from that point forward Christ now has authority over the Holy Spirit. And He sends the Holy Spirit to the Church and begins the body of Christ. “The Holy Spirit was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified” John says, meaning He never sat on His throne. That’s the first fulfillment of Psalm 2.
The second fulfillment of Psalm 2 occurs when Christ comes again to the earth and He is installed on an earthly throne, besides His heavenly throne. The earthly throne, which is the earthly throne of David, and Jesus Christ now in history reigns, politically, whereas now He is reigning over an invisible realm. At this point, for 1,000 years He will reign over the earth. At the end of the 1,000 years, what is going to happen to challenge His authority? Satan is loosed for a short time; as Satan is loosed you have the revolt prophesied in Psalm 2 and it’s going to be a challenge to the authority of Jesus Christ. This also foretells how Satan is going to do it, he’s going to gather the nations together to undermine Christ’s right to rule over them, and when he does, Christ is going to respond as per Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is how He responds. So Psalm 2 has two fulfillments, it is being fulfilled now in the invisible realm, and will be fulfilled later on in the visible realm. There are two fulfillments. “This day have I begotten thee,” Christ now has His authority.
Verse 8, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen [nations] for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” You see verse 8, verse 8 teaches that God the Son has to do something of His own volition, and then the Father gives it to Him. In other words, it is not automatic. Jesus Christ does not secure His kingdom in history automatically. Jesus Christ secures His kingdom in history because He asks the Father for it. And look what He got? Us, during the Church Age. God the Son asked God the Father for you; if you are here and you have personally trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ one of the many, many things that happened to you at the point of salvation is that you are a personal gift from the Father to the Son. You a gift inside the Trinity; you have personally been given to the Son by God the Father in answer to this prayer. He asked the heathen for His inheritance and God the Father gave you to Jesus Christ.
Verse 9, those who reject and who fight the authority of Christ, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” This is that imprecatory nature of the Psalms coming to the surface again. You dash the enemy’s heads in pieces, go ahead, smash them, and here it is, the King has the right to smash. Does Jesus Christ literally smash people’s heads? You bet He does, Revelation chapters 19 and 20. So Jesus Christ at both times fulfills certain things. Let’s look at it again. The first fulfillment of Psalm 2 which is in operation today during the Church Age, Jesus Christ is at the Father’s right hand, He is asking, in this case “the heavenlies,” to be His inheritance, and so the battle goes on throughout the Church Age to secure the kingdom in the area of the invisible world. And who is it that Christ is smashing in pieces today? The spiritual enemies that would block the gospel; unseen all around us is a titanic spiritual battle; we only every once in a while get the outcroppings of that battle, but it’s going on continually in the air around us as gigantic forces try, one force to illuminate men’s hearts to the gospel and the good news and the other to make them sleep, to make them feel that there’s something wrong, to make them feel oh, you don’t have to bother with that, etc. Anything to get men to not pay attention to the gospel. They have these two titanic spiritual forces; Christ today us exercising verse 9 toward the demonic powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world. And He will one day in the future do the same thing to men who dare to align themselves with the powers of darkness; it’s a fierce, fierce picture of Christ given in verse 9, but it’s a true and valid one.
Now we come to the last part of the Psalm, verses 10-12, the exhortation to the people to be wise and to submit to the king. By the way, the word “rod” here is a little different than the shepherd’s crook, this is used to call a rod in Psalm 23, but it’s different than this one. The rod that’s used here is a scepter, and the scepter was held by the king; and it was a symbol of his authority, so the word scepter basically means his political authority, “you shalt break them with an authority of iron,” “iron” refers to the power behind the authority. No government can exercise its authority without power, therefore a military and a police force are always required.
Now verses 10-12 the concluding, this is what the Holy Spirit would have us… and please notice verses 10-12, do they emphasize the Spirit of Jehovah or do they emphasize the King of Jehovah. The emphasis was always on the Second, not the Third Person. The emphasis is not on the feelings in verse 10-12; anywhere in verses 10-12 does it say how you should feel about the king. Oh, I look at the king of Israel and I get butterflies in my heart, flutter, flutter, flutter. Do you read that? There’s nothing subjective there, in verses 10-12. It refers to an objective response to some historical king, just like today where the Holy Spirit is really working, where the Holy Spirit is REALLY working you will always have the historic basis of the faith, the objective basis of the faith made clear. Where the Holy Spirit is not working you will have the emphasis on subjective emotion, always.
“Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth.” It’s a reference to all those from verse 2, giving them grace before judgment, they have an opportunity to get straightened out before the rod of iron descends. Verse 11, “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling, and kiss the Son,” verses 11 and 12 go together. Again please notice in this how in a monotheistic society you have Yahweh and the king brought so close together. And that’s the lesson to learn from these Royal Psalms; the nature of the king becomes the nature of God, they become closer and closer and closer and closer until the two faces merge. That’s what’s happening in these Royal Psalms. The ideal king becomes so ideal He becomes deity.
“Serve the Lord with fear” means to respect His authority. “Rejoice with trembling,” again emphasis on authority. Verse 12, “Kiss the Son,” that meant to do homage, this is an idiom for homage and again it is respect the authority, and interestingly in this word, the word “Son” here is Aramaic, it’s bar, by the way, that’s where some of you that have Jewish friends, that’s where they get the Bar Mitzvah from. “Mitzvah” means the covenant or the Law, “the son of the covenant,” and the Bar Mitzvah is when the Jewish boy becomes a man who is spiritually responsible, he has his Bar Mitzvah, it means now he is the son of the covenant.
Now the “bar” actually isn’t a Hebrew word, “bar” is an Aramaic word. Now in the day in which this Psalm was written and used, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the ancient world. In other words, it was the words, that was the international language. So to get the point across in Psalm 2 they don’t use ben, here’s what ben looks like, that’s the Hebrew for son. Bar is the Aramaic word for son. It uses Hebrew characters but a little different vowel system. So you have bar meaning that this is addressed to the nation in the lingua franca of the ancient world, the commercial language.
“Kiss the Son,” Kiss the bar, lest he be angry,” you see again, it’s not a joyful submission here. There may be joy associated with it but that’s not the key emphasis. The emphasis is always on His authority first, and you can rejoice about it later but you get the authority down first. “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.” See the tremendous warning emphasis here. “Blessed are all they who put their…” and this word means refuge, it’s not the word to believe, it is the word to make refuge, in other words, you fear judgment, there’s one bomb shelter to hide in, that’s the bar, the King of Israel.
To conclude and summarize Psalm 2, we can get many, many things out of it. One lesson I think we ought to get out of it, as a Royal Psalm, is that Psalm 2 presents us with God’s priorities of how we view Jesus Christ. You first learn to respect Jesus before you learn to love Him. You don’t love Jesus when you become a Christian. You can’t love Jesus, no way you can love Jesus when you become a Christian, you don’t know enough, you don’t know Him that well, how can you love Him. You do not love Jesus when you become a Christian; you respect Him and His work done for you and after you gain respect for Him, and as your learn more about Him, then you can love Him. But all these glowing testimonies that you hear, oh how I love Jesus, it’s just somebody emoting but they do not love Jesus. You love Jesus only after years and years and years of experience with Him, then you love Jesus.
It’s not how I love Jesus, it’s how I respect Him; that comes first, then the love. And in Psalm 2 the love is completely missing, there’s no tender emotion whatever to this king. None of it; find it in Psalm 2, you can’t. There’s not one ounce of tender emotions. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be eventually but in the priority of God’s design there is no tender emotions involved here at all; there’s just a simple question, are you going to bow your knee or aren’t you; are you going to respect His authority or are you going to get your knee busted. Now that’s the way Psalm 2 puts it and that’s the kind of Jesus Christ with whom we have to deal. Never forget this, don’t get gooed up in the emotionalism of our day; it is something to love Jesus Christ and you can do this in the power of the filling of the Holy Spirit and with Christian maturity, but don’t get to it too fast; learn to respect Him and the authority of His Word first, then we can talk about loving Him.