*This sermon was preached at Gethsemane Baptist Church during Lord’s Day worship on June 25, 2023.
Introduction:
Well, for the past few summers we’ve spent some time in the Psalms. In the past, we’ve preached mostly thematically through portions of the Psalter, but this year we decided to start at the very beginning and work our way through this book each summer for however many summers it takes to get through 150 Psalms.
So, Pastor Donnie kicked off our Summer in the Psalms by walking us through Psalm 1 in which we see the Blessed Man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, or sits in the seat of scoffers. Now, there’s not a person here or that’s ever lived who has not been wicked, a sinner, or a scoffer. The only One who has ever refrained from all that is the Lord Jesus, which makes him the Blessed Man, as we heard last week.
And so we can actually say, the Psalms are all about Jesus. He’s the Blessed Man, he’s the Lord’s Anointed King, he’s the perfect sufferer, he’s the faithful prayer warrior, he’s the righteous worshipper, and so on. The Psalms are all about Christ.[1]
And because of this, the first two Psalms really set the stage for where the entire book is heading – toward the exaltation and adoration of Christ in his person and his work. This is why we see so much commonality between these two Psalms. A fruitful tree is planted near the water, a king is set up on a holy hill. There is the wicked and sinners and scoffers, and nations raging against the Lord and his Anointed. Blessed is the man who delights in God and his law, who is full of the fruit of righteousness, and as if to close one big thought that spans over two psalms, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” The Psalms are about the exaltation of the person and work of Jesus Christ, and blessed are all those who take refuge in him.
So, what we see here in Psalm 2 is this contrast between the nations and the Son. Or to put it in the language of Psalm 1, the wicked stand in direct contrast to the Blessed Man. When we look at this Psalm we see the Resolve of the Nations and the Resolve of the Son.
I. The Resolve of the Nations
Well, you see their resolve right in the first three verses: The ESV asks the rhetorical question, “Why do the nations rage?” Or as the NASB puts it, “Why are the nations in an uproar?” Again, “Why do the peoples plot in vain?” Their attempts to throw off the sovereignty of God over them is completely ludicrous, and yet they’re constantly plotting against God. So why are they so wicked? He goes on…
“The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed…” They’ve drawn a line in the sand, is what the Psalmist is saying. We’re not for God, we’re for us. It’s us against God. Look at what they actually say: “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” Now, you’ve got to get what they’re saying. “God doesn’t get to tell us what to do, we get to decide.” God doesn’t get to tell us what gender we are, we get to decide that. I’m going to live my life the way I want to live my life. I am captain of my soul; I am the master of my fate.
And they’re saying that against the Lord and against his Anointed One (his Messiah), in whom we live and move and have our being, the apostle later says. These words are spoken in vain.
These words come to their fulfillment in the person and work of Christ, and we know that from the prayer that the first century believers prayed in Acts 4 when they received threats from the civil authorities. Listen to their prayer, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, ‘Why did the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’ – for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” (Acts 4:24-29).
These nations raged against Christ, the Lord’s Anointed One. They plotted against him, they spat upon him, they mocked him, they placed a crown of thorns on his head, they nailed him to a cross, and they dared him to come down from the cross and prove what they thought he couldn’t prove. And then they put guards outside his tomb. To keep the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth contained in it. That’s vanity. Do you see why this is rhetorical? Why do the nations rage? I’ll tell you why: They don’t want a King, they want to be king. The resolve of these nations is to rule themselves. And it’s utter vanity to do so.
Now, in a certain sense, it’s no problem preaching this sermon here in Central Ohio. Because everybody believes in God here. It doesn’t really feel like the nations are raging here and rising up in rebellion against the Lord. But that’s not how Psalm 2 is teaching us to think. Those who rage against God are not just the ones who believe he doesn’t exist; those who rage against God are more often the ones who believe in God but refuse to do what he says. People around here say, “I believe in God but I don’t have to do what he tells me to do.” “I believe in God, but he makes no demands of me and I can live my life the way I want to.” “I believe in God, but I’ll rule my own life, thank you.”
And let me tell you: If that’s you, you are raging against God. You are wicked. You are a sinner. You are a scoffer. And your resolve that you can believe in God but not obey what he says is utter vanity.
Non-Christian, at the end of this age, the Lord Jesus will return in power and glory and shatter his enemies with the word of his power. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. And when he returns, he will transform and bring into his kingdom those who say to him as King, thy will be done. And he will say to those who refuse to honor him as king, thy will be done. In other words, Christ will finally give those who want to rule themselves what they truly want, which is part of what makes hell such a hellish reality. And you were never made for that, non-Christian. Your original design was to glorify God and enjoy him forever, not throw off his authority over you and despise him. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners just like you and just like me. Repent and believe in the gospel.
II. The Response of the Son
Well, look at what God does in response to the defiance of the wicked: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.” It says next that “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.’” Well, the holy hill is where the temple sat, where God dwells with his people, and what does Jesus say when he comes to the temple? He says, “Something greater than the temple is here” (Matt. 12:6). He was the true and better temple in whom all the fullness of God dwelt bodily (Col. 2:9).
And then we see the coronation of this king in vv. 7-8… The King tells us what the Lord said to him: “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.’ Now, does this mean that the Son of God had a beginning? Absolutely not. Now, in this text God is promising a future Davidic king who will rule in righteousness over the people of God as God’s Son. In this way, we can say that the Lord established David as his son when he enthroned him as king. But when we get to the New Testament, especially Acts 13 and Romans 1, we see Psalm 2 quoted and applied to the man Christ Jesus, Son of God in his human nature, who by his resurrection is enthroned as king over his people! But then when you get to Hebrews 1, Psalm 2 is quoted again to show what’s been called the eternal generation of the Son. That is, from eternity, Jesus is the divine Son of God who is eternally begotten by the Father. So, when Yahweh says, “today I have begotten you,” there is a historical today in redemptive history that a Davidic king was promised. And what the NT unfolds for us gloriously is that there was, as the church fathers put it, an eternal today in which the Son was eternally begotten by the Father. This future Davidic king is the Lord of Glory, the Word made flesh, the Messiah, who was the eternal and only Begotten Son who has always been.[2]
And it’s to this Anointed One, his eternally begotten Son, that he says, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” And it’s to these rebellious nations referred to at the beginning that he will turn his wrath and destroy. He’ll dash them to pieces like a rod of iron would do to a clay pot.
The Son is the King, and the response of the Son to these rebellious nations is to respond with wrath and fury, which will absolutely happen at the end of this age. Jesus will return, and he will return with fire and glory and splendor to prove to all these nations that he is Lord, God, and King.
And so naturally the warning to these nations mentioned at the beginning: Be wise, be warned, serve the Lord, rejoice with trembling, kiss the Son – or, do homage to the Son (NASB). Why? Because he is the rightful king of the universe, and you best obey him lest he be angry and you perish because his wrath is kindled against those who rage against the Lord and his anointed.
How are you living like these nations that rage against Christ? If Christ is King, then Christ has ultimate authority. That ultimate authority sounds like this: “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me,” said Jesus in Matthew 28. He gets to command; we get to obey. If Christ is your king, and if this king has ultimate authority, there is nothing he cannot ask of you. So, in your heart, what can he not ask of you? What’s off limits?
Now, that sounds like the thunder of Mount Sinai coming down, right? It sounds like, you’ve got a king and you better obey him lest his anger be kindled! But isn’t there something pure and holy and good in the fear of the Lord? Isaiah saw the Lord seated on the throne and he was filled with holy fear. John saw a lamb, but he also saw a lion. Church, let’s kiss the Son! Let’s give him the homage he is rightfully due, because he is a terrible God, ruling and reigning in power and majesty in the heavens!
But there’s another sense in which, for the Christian, these bonds and cords that the nations are throwing off are now his refuge in v. 12. That is, Christ’s commands are not burdensome to the Christian. It is a delight to be under the rule and reign of this King, because he is righteous and good and perfect and altogether lovely. His yoke is easy, his burden is light.
Some of you are disobeying the king, you’re throwing off his bonds and his cords, because you’ve still got a lot of your sinful nature at work within you. You’re proud, so you won’t do what he’s told you to do in a specific area of your life. You’re stiff-necked, and you won’t listen when people tell you about it because you want to hold on to your sin and be your own authority. You’ve forgotten who the King is. You’ve forgotten that what he commands is not burdensome but good for you.
But others of you think you’re obeying when you’re actually not. Others of you are disobeying the king because you don’t know what he’s commanded you to do. He gets to command, we get to obey. Okay, how do you know what he commands? Well, we have his word. How are you ever going obey what he commands if you don’t know what he commands? Here’s what I think a lot of immature Christians don’t ask: What does Christ expect of me? What has he told me to do in this particular situation? I’ll give you an example: I think a lot of Christians disobey what the King has commanded when he said in Hebrews 10:25, “Do not forsake the assembly of the saints on the Lord’s Day.” And what do I see in so many immature Christians? Coming up with plans that involve skipping church. Listen, the point is not skipping church, the point is not asking the question, “What does King Jesus require of me?” What has he said about how to live this life he’s so graciously given me? Here’s what you need to do: You need to get in the habit of asking that question in every area of your life. What does King Jesus require of me? What does he require of you in your parenthood, your marriage, your job, your church life, your temper tantrums, whether you go to college, what church you choose, what spouse you choose, and every area of life. If there’s anything Psalm 2 should cause us to ask ourselves, it is this: What does this King require of me?
Now, look at how Psalm 2 ends: “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” We said that it is the Blessed Man who delights in God’s law, who is planted by streams of water, who is the King set up on Zion, the holy hill. And all those who take refuge in the Son are blessed. Now, again, that word does mean happy. But it’s so much more than that, as Pastor Donnie mentioned last week. It’s covenant language – God has caused his unmerited kindness, his undeserved favor, to shower down upon you.
I asked you this question earlier: Are you living enough in light of the reality that Christ is king? And let me just answer that for you; no, you’re not. And you know this: You’re not different than these nations who rage against the Lord and his Anointed; you are these nations that rage. Or better to say, you were once those who raged against the Lord and his Anointed. Here’s the Apostle Paul: “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). That sounds like Psalm 2:1-3. But listen to what Paul says next: “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy…”
Why would the Father invite the Son to ask for these nations? These nations rage and plot in vain, and yet the Father says, “I’ll give them to you, all you have to do is ask.” What kind of an offer is that?
Listen, if God looked through the corridors of time and saw you, here’s what he saw: He saw a wicked person, a sinful person, and the scoffer of Psalm 1 in you. He saw rebellion and plotting of the nations in you. And seeing your debt because of your trespasses, the response of not just the Son but also the Father was, “I want that one; I love that one.” The Father presented you to the Son in eternity past, Christian, and said to the Son, “Ask of me, and they’re yours.” And the Son said, “Gladly.” But the path to this heritage, the path to his inheritance, was the suffering of the cross. On the cross, the King suffered the wrath and fury of Yahweh for nations that raged against him.
What was the response of the Son to the response of the nations in the gospel? The Son assumed a human nature and endured all our suffering in our place so that we might be his treasured possession, a peculiar people, a holy nation. For the joy set before him in the covenant of redemption, for the heritage and the possession set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame. Why? So that all who take refuge in him might be blessed in the Son.
Conclusion:
Isn’t it amazing that it doesn’t say, “Blessed are all who obey him as King?” It says, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” It’s almost as if the Lord and his Anointed knew that we could never obey enough, we could never be moral enough, we could never be righteous enough to be counted among the blessed. The state of being blessed doesn’t come from our obedience. Our blessedness comes from Christ’s obedience, his perfect righteousness. Those who look to Christ and say, “He is my refuge, he is my righteousness, he is my only hope to be reconciled to God, he is the object of my faith” – they are those who are blessed.
[1] I want to commend Samuel Pierce’s 2-volume commentary on the Psalms. His exposition is the most Christ-centered I’ve ever read, rivaling Spurgeon’s The Treasury of David.
[2] “In Psalm 2:7 YHWH says to Zion’s anointed king: ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you.’ On the day the Lord anointed and appointed him as king, he ‘generated’ (LXX: γεγεννηκα σε) him as Son and gave him the right to rule the world. With a view to David this refers back to God’s decree in 2 Samuel 7; and with a view to the Messiah whom David foreshadowed, it is interpreted as referring to the eternity (Heb. 1:5; 5:5; cf. 1:2-3) in which Christ as the Son is generated by the Father, that is, in which he is brought forth as the effulgence of God’s glory and the express image of his nature.” Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2.274-5.
See also Stephen Wellum who helpfully postulates three textual horizons that show the different ways Psalm 2 is understood Christologically. Stephen Wellum, God the Son Incarnate, 99-101; 173n61.
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