Raging nations against a mighty king

Exegeting and applying Psalm 2

In 1933, Raymond Bragg and Roy Wood Sellars penned the first Humanist Manifesto.¹ Their goal was a new religion for a new world—one centered on subjective, human experience rather than objective, divine revelation.

Of course, replacing the “superstitions” of the past was no small feat and would require upending many of the basic truths informing the way people had lived their lives for thousands of years.

First and foremost, the new humanists rejected any notion of a transcendent, personal Creator God. The universe is “self-existing,” and humans—once believed to be the crown jewel of God’s creation—had merely emerged by the natural process of evolution.

According to the humanists, man’s religious impulse was nothing more than a product of evolutionary biology. Always seeking a better life, he had directed that energy into worship of a god (or gods) who promised divine blessing but didn’t really exist. The goal was to channel that religious energy into the secular quest for Progress while maintaining a sacred veneer. Freed from the bondage of theistic religion, man could charge head on in “the quest for the good life” and “the realization of the world of his dreams.”

If this sounds all too utopian, that’s because it was. Only a few months before the Manifesto was published, Adolf Hitler was appointed the new chancellor of Germany. Within years, another war would engulf the world leaving millions dead.

Later updates to the Manifesto promised a more realistic view of the world, but its vision only grew more repugnant. What promised to be the path to “the fulfillment of human life” soon demanded legal rights to unrestricted contraception, no-fault divorce, abortion, and euthanasia. All the things once believed to make human life complete—marriage, family, and faith—were instead rejected as tools of oppression and barriers to maximum self-expression.

Today, most of the Western world remains committed to the humanist agenda. Like the nations in Psalm 2, they rage against God’s created order and the citizens of his kingdom. What should Christians do?

Perhaps through further study of Psalm 2, Christians may arrive a better understanding of how to respond and seek God’s will in our present moment.

God, the law, and the king

Psalm 2 has no superscript but we learn in Acts 4:25 that it’s David who wrote these words. Considering David’s royal office and the numerous references to kingship in the psalm, most commentators have comfortably categorized it as a royal psalm. Some have even suggested that it was used in Ancient Israel’s coronation ceremonies.

But it’s where the psalm is positioned in Israel’s hymnal, not its authorship, that is more instructive. As Bruce Waltke has argued, “the editor of the Book of Psalms intended Psalms 1 and 2, though distinct psalms, to function together as the introduction to his hymn book.”² In other words, we cannot read one without the other.

Indeed, the two psalms share many semantic and thematic markers. Psalm 1:1 and Psalm 2:12b each begin with the Hebrew word אשׁרי (“blessedness”) forming what scholars often call an inclusio. Think of them as verbal bookends. Moreover, says Waltke, “the two psalms expound a uniform message: the pious and righteous are fully rewarded.”³

But how exactly? Again, reading the two psalms together is helpful. In Psalm 1, blessedness belongs to the man who “delights in the law of the LORD” (v. 2). He is so overwhelmed by the majesty of God’s law that he meditates on it all the day.

The description in Psalm 1 echoes a royal custom prescribed in Deuteronomy 17:18-20. One of the first duties of a new Israelite king was to write out the Levitical law, both for his own edification and for the good of the nation. God’s Word is powerful, regulating the sinful inclinations of the king and the people he represents as well as securing justice for the nation who obeys it.

Now we have a better sense of what exactly the kings of the earth have set themselves against in Psalm 2:1-3. The “bonds” and “cords” are none other than God’s laws. Rather than submit to Israel’s anointed king who upholds the law, the pagan nations “are intent on practicing their false worship that demands no moral rectitude and panders to their selfish interests.”⁴

To God in Heaven, their defiance is so futile it prompts laughter and “derision” (2:4). But the nations’ arrogance is no laughing matter, at least not for them. In their lawlessness, they draw God’s wrath and fury which he will pour out on them in judgement unless they repent (2:12).

For Christians, vv. 7-9 are obvious promises attached to the Messianic expectations fulfilled in Jesus Christ.⁵ In v. 7, The LORD “adopts his chosen Davidic king as his son” indicating God and the king “are inseparably united by the immutable Davidic covenant.”⁶ Of course, Israel’s history of exile and subjugation meant the people looked forward to the day when God would raise up a more perfect king to fulfill the covenant obligations and extend his kingdom’s boundaries across the whole earth. As Matthew 1:1 tells us, Jesus Christ is that greater son of David—God’s only begotten Son who fulfilled the law’s demands and reigns now over all of creation (Acts 13:32-37).

Therefore it is Jesus Christ whom the kings of the world are obliged to “serve with fear” and “rejoice with trembling” (2:11). Christ is the one who they must worship lest they invite his judgment when he returns (2:12).

Applying Psalm 2

Knowing that Psalm 2 is fulfilled in Christ, but still relevant for his followers today, how might we apply it?⁷

First, we may note with Waltke that the psalm has a “dual fulfillment.”⁸ Positively, Christ’s authority over the world is manifest in the Great Commission. As new believers come to put their faith in Jesus, are baptized, and serve him in churches across the globe, Christ’s universal kingship is on display. On a more negative note, Psalm 2 is fulfilled in so much as many rulers, nations, and governments continue to challenge Christ’s divine authority.

Still, we are not without hope. The message of Psalm 2 is that our Triune God calls all tongues, tribes, and nations to serve him, keep his laws, and observe his ways. As scandalous as it might be to the modern ear, the testimony of Psalm 2 is that every nation is called to be a Christian nation in some form or fashion.⁹ The New Testament expresses this ideal in passages like Romans 13 while also tempering expectations on this side of glory (cf. 1 Timothy 2:1-2). At the very least, Christians may rest knowing that those kings and authorities who pervert God’s justice—punishing what is good and praising what is evil—will be held to account.

Looking at America today, it is hard to deny its place among the nations who plot against God. Following the humanist agenda has made us entirely anti-human. Since 1973, roughly 63 million babies have been aborted in our country. Our marriage laws scorn the clear commandments of Scripture. We have ordered our economic life to esteem short-term profits for the few over long-term stability and dignity for all. Deaths of despair—suicides and overdoses—are at record highs and many of our most vulnerable communities live under the constant threat of violent crime. Do we think God is unaware, or do we believe the words of Psalm 2: “You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (v. 9).

In such morally confusing times as ours, it is imperative that the church quicken the conscience of the nation and call her to repent. The king is on his throne. He is just, but he is also kind. May we petition his grace for ourselves, our rulers, and for all people everywhere that we may submit to his rule in all that we do.

1. You can read the original Humanist Manifesto along with its later iterations at americanhumanist.org.

2. Bruce K. Waltke, “Ask of Me, My Son: Exposition of Psalm 2,” Crux 43, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 2.

3. Waltke, 3.

4. Waltke, 4.

5. The Hebrew word for “Anointed” in v. 2 is משׁיח which Greek translators would later render christos. For more on messianic and sonship language in the Psalms, see Derek Kidner, Psalms 1-72 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 32-34.

6. Waltke, 4.

7. Waltke, 16.

8. Waltke, 17

9. Here, I’m not uncritically endorsing the Christian Nationalist movement popular among some American Protestants and epitomized in Stephen Wolfe’s book The Case for Christian Nationalism. I only mean to say that the idea of a nation’s laws and customs aligning with the Christian moral framework as summarized in the Decalogue is biblically warranted, theologically justified, and historically acknowledged. As much as modern liberal pundits and sociologists want to suggest passing biblically informed laws is akin to ushering in a new American Theocracy, pastors and theologians have long believed it was possible to call a nation to faithfulness without confusing old and new covenant realities. See Robert Hasler, “Politics from the Pulpit?” American Reformer, July 11, 2023, https://americanreformer.org/2023/07/politics-pulpit/.