Psalm 2

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.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

I will tell of the decree:

The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Introduction

Why do the nations rage?

In North Africa, it is illegal to convert to Christianity, and sharing your faith is considered corruption and punishable by fines and imprisonment up to six months. In Pakistan, Christian women and girls are routinely forced into marriages with Muslim men, often kidnapped at young ages. In North Korea, if it becomes known that you are a Christian, or that there are any familial connections to Christianity, you will almost certainly be sent to a prison camp, likely tortured, and if you are released, the government will ensure that you are marginalized, excluded from any opportunity for influence or success.

Why do the nations rage?

In western countries like the US, this type of state-sponsored persecution is rare, but this rage often takes the form of ideological rebellion. Consider Jesus’ own claim that no one comes to the Father except through him. Start a Twitter thread with that and see how that goes. And of course we are all aware of how much energy goes into dismantling the Bible’s moral commands, for example on marriage and sexuality.

Why do the nations rage?

This passage provides God’s perspective on this raging and suggests a response from us. But first we need to have a conversation about the tone of this Psalm. This passage—and you may have picked up on this as we were reading through—is couched in a vision of God using language which many of us may find uncomfortable. You and I live in a culture—I would say both outside and inside the church—that much prefers to emphasize what I’ll call the “respectable” attributes of God; the things you can bring up in polite society: his patience, his kindness, his love. And those are all key themes, to be sure. But if we get used to hearing about God only in those terms, ignoring other ways that God has revealed himself, we end up with a sentimental view of God. What I call “My Buddy Jesus.” And then we come to psalms like the one before us, where God presents himself as a warrior-king, who scoffs in total derision at his enemies, who responds in anger and wrath, who promises his anointed one the ability to dash the nations to pieces like pottery … and we aren’t quite sure what to do with it. And if we’re honest, judging by what we talk about, the songs we sing, and the books that are best-sellers … we’re a little embarrassed.

So my appeal, for the next 20 minutes or so, is that we allow the psalmist’s words to bear their weight as written. Make a conscious effort to avoid, as best as you can, trying to justify these words—apologizing on behalf of God—by filtering them through the cultural sensibilities of our time.

The psalm rather neatly divides up into four sections; most of your Bibles probably have paragraph breaks at each of these:

The nations rage (v.1-3)
God responds (v. 4-6)
God’s decree to the king (v. 7-9)
The surprising opportunity for forgiveness (v.10-12)

The nations rage

So first, in verses 1-3, the nations rage. “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?” In one sense, this is not a question that really needs an answer. It’s mostly there to highlight how pointless it is, as seen in verse 4 … “Why do the nations rage?” How silly, we’re supposed to answer, because (verse 4), “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.” And we’ll get to that in a moment. But take the question at face-value for a minute: Why do the nations rage? What is it about the Bible, about Christianity, that gets people all rankled up?

And there can be a variety of reasons. In a Muslim nation, Christianity is a threat to the religious power structure. In a nation like North Korea, it’s a threat to the political power. But if we think about a nation like ours, I think the answer is often very similar to what we find in this passage. Look at their primary motivation in verse 3: “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”

As I read that, I thought, is there anything new under the sun? That’s pretty much the clarion call of our cultural moment. Probably not put so poetically as the psalm does here, but more like, “No one has the right to tell me what I can and cannot do, or who I can and cannot be.” But yeah, actually, someone does have that right: the absolute sovereign of the universe, the one who created us. But that just doesn’t sit well, does it? And so instead of embracing obedience (that would lead to joy) we cast things in terms of bondage. We’re shackled and need to escape, and so we rage, as it were.

And that’s just at an individual level. But this takes on a collective tone as well. The collaboration in rebellion in verse 2 really stood out to me. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed.” In any other context, these kings would be at war with one another. But with a common enemy, they unite together in their rebellion.

This is a good reminder—again, swimming against our modern culture—that unity isn’t unquestionably a good thing. Yes, it is beautiful when brothers and sisters live in unity, as another psalm reminded us a few weeks ago. But humans united together in rebellion are capable of inflicting unbelievable harm and destruction, as the events of the last century should remind us. Recall the tower of babel in the early chapters of Genesis. There the people united together in their rebellion, and God intervened by bringing division among them to have his purposes accomplished. Unity is a good thing only if it’s a unity oriented around truth.

We see this unity for evil most dramatically in the trial and execution of Jesus. As Jesus is passed from Pilate to Herod, a friendship is formed around their evil plans. We read this in Luke 23:

“Then Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies.”

It’s been said that religion doesn’t require a god, only a devil. Now certainly, that’s not an accurate statement if we’re talking about true religion. But the meaning of the saying is that—in worldly terms, when you think about the things that we humans get most excited, passionate, yea even religious about—we are often more energized to band together, to be vocal, and to take action against someone or something else that we perceive as evil or unfair, as opposed to being for someone or something.

This is the dynamic that we see here in this passage, and that I believe we see in many cases around the world and in our culture today. Not everywhere, and not in every way—we can quickly jump into conspiracy theory land here. But it’s a reflection of the human heart in rebellion against God, and our sin nature hasn’t changed since these words were written.

God responds

So what is God’s response to this conspiracy (verses 4-6)? He laughs. He scoffs. He holds them in derision. God replies with the eye-rolling emoji. This is the local pee-wee football team conspiring to rout the Steelers. It’s a joke.

It’s an interesting depiction of God, right? And of course this isn’t the only depiction of God’s response to rebellion. Certainly, elsewhere in Scripture he is grieved by it. But let’s let this passage bear its weight.

He laughs back into their faces, taunting them. The point here is that our rebellion cannot in any way threaten the purpose of God or take away from who he is. If every human being on the planet suddenly became God-fearing believers and worshiped continually in sincerity and truth, God wouldn’t be any “more God,” nor his plans more likely to succeed. If every human on the planet started acting out on their most violent and evil rebellion, God wouldn’t be any “less God.” In fact, if we were all completely annihilated, cease to exist, every last one of us, God isn’t diminished in any way. He doesn’t need us. Our rebellion, in this sense, at the end of the day, only hurts ourselves and others. It’s not going to overthrow God—that’s just silly.

And then in verse 5 God responds in—yes—anger and wrath. That doesn’t preach today, but that’s what the psalm says. Is God also slow to anger, quick to forgive, abounding in love? Yes, yes, and Amen. And we’ll see how that plays out at the end of the psalm. But it’s not a momentary lapse of character for him to rebuke his enemies in anger and wrath. That is his just and proper response, completely in line with his holiness.

Specifically, God’s purposes will be accomplished through the king that he has installed on Zion.

God’s decree to the king

Now, a few preliminary comments about verses 7–9 are necessary. In verse 6 God mentions the king that he has installed, and verses 7–9 are spoken by that king in the first person. Originally, this was King David himself. But we know the rest of the story, that in reality, this is a psalm about King Jesus. So Jesus is speaking in verses 7–9. And then to make it really confusing, these words by the king—by Jesus—are telling us what his father (The Lord, Yahweh) said to him. So it’s like a quote in a quote. It’s probably more confusing trying to explain rather than just reading it. So hear the words again, and I’ll fill in the pronouns here and there to clarify.

[Jesus says:] I will proclaim [Yahweh’s] decree:
[Yahweh] said to me, “You [Jesus] are my son; today I have become your father.
Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.
You [Jesus] will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

Here we see the majesty and power of Christ, given to him by the Father. In verse 6 we are told that a king has been installed by God. In verse 12 the rebellious nations are commanded to “kiss his son”. Here we see that the son is the king. “You are my son; today I have become your father.”

And again, let the depiction here weigh on you. Is Jesus gentle and lowly in heart? Yes. Absolutely. AND … he is the rightful owner of all the nations on the earth, and will break them with a rod of iron.

The surprising opportunity for forgiveness

Now that is the understanding of God and Christ that we need to bring into verses 10–12 as we conclude, or else we miss the punchline. If we just have our “polite society Jesus” in mind, we can read these final verses and be like, “yeah, of course, that makes sense.” But if you have the actual flow of the psalm in mind, the ending should come as a bit of a twist.

The nations rage against God, rebelling against his rule. In response God laughs and in his anger and wrath reminds them that he has installed his king, and that king will dash them to pieces.

And then the same kings and rulers who in verse 2 are conspiring together against the Lord are addressed here and … what? Offered a chance to repent. Record scratch. We would expect, based on the intense language that just preceded this, that their fate is sealed. But there’s a way out, we see here. Serve Yahweh with fear. Rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son—that is, humble yourself before Jesus—lest you perish. If you, even now, take refuge in him, you will (verse 12) be … blessed. Blessed! From an object of God’s wrath to an object of God’s blessing. That’s the offer.

And of course, that’s the gospel.

We know the rest of the story. Ultimately God’s wrath was poured out on the very son that this passage talks about, the son who is established as king is also the son who became the object of God’s wrath on our behalf.

Modern response

And it’s that final section, I think, that sets the stage for our response to the rage around us. Rage is sort of the social currency right now, in case you hadn’t noticed. And the reasoning is pretty simple: we like rage. Rage allows us to feel morally superior to others. Rage captures our attention, therefore rage enables people to build their brand and. In the basest sense, in the context of what happens on TV and news and social media, rage makes money. Good grief, I have a career in technology so I know (in my head) that there are rage-baiting algorithms that determine what shows up on my news feed, and I still find myself scrolling through.

I’m going to make a wild prediction here and say that, as we move into another election cycle, the rage around us is going to ratchet up. Just spit-balling here. And for sure, a lot of that rage will be about things that don’t matter, he-said-she-said, conspiracy theories, and so on. But some of it will hit on issues that we should be passionate about if we’re concerned about obedience to Christ and the glory of God.

And our natural response—my natural response—is to join the rage. To wish in my heart for the humiliation and defeat of my ideological enemies. To repeat the carefully curated talking points that have gone through research groups to identify which half-truths will maximize rage and buy-in. And this psalm demands a realignment of my heart in that regard.

For sure, in verses 1–9 we see that God will ultimately not be unseated from his rule. There is a day coming when justice will be done and will be seen to be done, when all his enemies are defeated and Christ rules over the nations. But that’s God’s business, and the Psalm doesn’t stop at verse 9. We live in the era where forgiveness is possible. Today is the day of salvation. Our desire must be to see our enemies go from being objects of wrath to being blessed, just as has happened to us.

And this happens through Jesus Christ. Jesus the King that Psalm 2 talks about. The same king that rules the nations is the one who became obedient to death on a cross to pay the penalty for our rebellion.

We just finished a study through Romans. I’ll end with this passage in Romans chapter 12, which I think is a solid summary of our proper response. A response that both affirms that God’s absolute sovereign purposes will stand (justice will be done), and aligns our hearts with his heart to offer forgiveness as long as salvation is possible.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.