Note: There is some conflict over the translation of this verse. It seems the main split would come from modern translations and the Septuagint. In most modern translations it says, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry” and in the Septuagint it says “Embrace (or lay hold) of discipline, lest the Lord be angry.” It seems the main cause for this comes from the word we are using as “kiss” which is nashaq (Strong’s 5401) and can be both used as kiss or to handle or be equipped with. In my New Geneva Study Bible it does note that the phrase “kiss the Son” was not a Hebrew term but rather an “unexpected Aramaic term”; this, then, may be why we see the two differences. The exception in the modern translations can be found in both the NASB and the RSV which seem to be aiming more at the message of the passage than the actual translation of it. Both focus on the idea of paying homage with one saying it directly and one saying kiss His feet. Of course the RSV doesn’t use 2:12 anyway being that they have included it in 2:11. Both the Septuagint and modern translations basically convey the same idea; but, perhaps, at least in my opinion, the modern texts promote the spirit of this verse more capably than does the Septuagint. Especially if we consider the next word which is bar and is translated as son or heir. In some of the older commentaries they relied on the Septuagint and formed their studies accordingly.
“Kiss the Son”
• The term kiss refers to the solemn token or sign of honor which subjects were wont to yield to their sovereigns. The sum is, that God is defrauded of His honor if He is not served in Christ. Christ was truly chosen of the Father, who has given Him all power, that He alone should stand preeminent above both men and angels. Some interpreters expound it, kiss or embrace what is pure (or instruction; discipline), which is a strange and rather forced interpretation. For my part, I willingly retain the name of Son, which answers well to a former sentence, where it was said, “Thou art my Son, this day I have begotten thee.” JC
• To make peace with the Father, kiss the Son. Let us kiss Him – that be our endeavor. Indeed, the Son must first kiss us by His mercy, before we can kiss Him by our piety. Lord grant in these mutual kisses and interchangeable embraces now, that we may come to the plenary wedding supper hereafter; when the choir of heaven, even the voices of angels, shall sing… nuptial songs, at the bridal of the spouse and the Lamb. Thomas Adams.
• Our duty to Christ is here expressed figuratively: Kiss the Son, not with a betraying kiss, as Judas kissed Him, and as all hypocrites, who pretend to honor Him, but really affront Him; but with a believing kiss. (1) With a kiss of agreement and reconciliation. (2) With a kiss of adoration and religious worship. (3) With a kiss of affection and sincere love. (4) With a kiss of allegiance and loyalty. MH
“lest He be angry”
• [There is a] certain ruin we run upon if we refuse and reject Christ. (1) It will be a great provocation to Him. Do it, lest He be angry. The Father is angry already; the Son is the Mediator that undertakes to make peace; if we slight Him, the Father’s wrath abides upon us (Jn. 3:36), and not only so but there is an addition of the Son’s wrath too, to whom nothing is more displeasing than to have the offers of His grace slighted and the designs of it frustrated. Unbelief is a Sin against the remedy. MH
• Though He is a Lamb, He has wrath in Him, and when the great day of His wrath comes in any form on earth, there is no standing before Him; and how much less when He shall appear as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire; then kings and freemen will call to the rocks to fall upon them, and hide them from Him. JG
• “Lest at any time the Lord be angry,” is expressed with a doubt, not as regards the vision of the prophet to whom it is certain, but as regards those who are warned; for they, to whom it is not openly revealed, are wont to think with doubt of the anger of God. This then they ought to say to themselves, let us “lay hold of discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and we perish from the righteous way.” Augustine
“and you perish in the way”
• [This] is a warning to those who despise Christ, that their pride shall not go unpunished; as if He had said, As Christ is not despised without indignity being done to the Father, who hath adorned Him with His own glory, so the Father Himself will not allow such an invasion of His sacred rights to pass unpunished. JC
• [The] way of righteousness, salvation and eternal life by Jesus Christ, which being missed by persons, they are eternally lost and undone. […] because of their sinful course of life; for the way of the ungodly shall perish itself, and therefore they that pursue it shall perish also. Lest they perish in the midst of their course of sin, in their own evil way, they have chosen and delighted in, or, to use the words of Christ, "die in their sins", (John 8:21; John 8:24) , and everlastingly perish; for this perishing is to be understood not of corporeal death, in which sense righteous men perish, but of everlasting destruction: or the word which is rendered "from the way" may be translated "suddenly", "immediately", or "straightway", and our English word "directly" is almost the same; and so may design the swift and sudden destruction of such persons who provoke the Son to wrath and anger. JG
• Now, how “the Lord be angry” is to be taken, has been said above. And “ye perish from the righteous way.” This is a great punishment, and dreaded by those who have had any perception of the sweetness of righteousness; for he who perisheth from the way of righteousness, in much misery will wander through the ways of unrighteousness. Augustine
• It will be utter destruction to yourselves: Lest you perish in the way; or in the way so some, in the way of your sins, and from the way of your vain hopes; lest your way perish (Ps. 1:6), lest you prove to have missed the way to happiness. Christ is the way; take heed lest you be cut off from Him as your way to God. MH
Note: There is yet another point of contention here in regards to the translation of this verse. Most translations say something in regards to a moment using terms like quickly kindled, soon be kindled, suddenly burn, or even moment itself. These all denote time. The others, namely the KJV and NKJV, use little which denotes a measure. Even among the commentaries they are split. Calvin is adamantly in favor of time and Augustine would agree with him. Henry and Gill are in favor of measure, although Gill leaves room for both as he does with most of this verse’s disputed meanings. Once again the original word in the Hebrew is the cause for the debate. The word used is me’at which can be used in both contexts as little; few or soon (Strong’s 4592). I will share what the different commentaries say and you may decide for yourself which is appropriate and keeping in context with the rest of the Psalm.
"His wrath is kindled in a moment”
• To teach them to beware of vainly deceiving themselves with the hope of a lengthened delay, and from their present ease indulging themselves in vain pleasures, they are plainly told that His wrath is kindled in a moment. For we see, when God for a time connives at the wicked, and nears with them, how they abuse His forbearance, by growing more presumptuous, because they do not think of His judgments otherwise, than according to sight and feeling. Some interpreters, I know, explain the Hebrew word, Camoat, which we have rendered, in a moment, in a different way, namely, that as soon as God’s wrath is kindled in even a small degree, it will be all over with the reprobate. But it is more suitable to apply it to time, and to view it as a warning to the proud not to harden themselves in their stupidity and indifference, nor flatter themselves from the patience of God, with the hope of escaping unpunished. The prophet, therefore, with great propriety, threatens that when they shall say, Peace and safety, reckoning themselves at a great distance from their end, they shall be cut off by a sudden destruction. JC
• Now the meaning of “shortly” I suppose to be this, that it will be something sudden, whilst sinners will deem it far off and long to come. Augustine
“His wrath is kindled but a little”
• When his wrath is kindled, though but a little, the least spark of that fire is enough to make the proudest sinner miserable if it fasten upon his conscience; for it will burn to the lowest hell: one would think it should therefore follow, “When His wrath is kindled, woe be to those that despise Him.” MH
• Either to a small degree, or but for a little while; for the least degree and duration of it are intolerable, and who then can dwell in everlasting burnings, or abide the devouring flames? or when it is kindled "suddenly", in a moment, as Jarchi interprets it; and so sudden wrath brings sudden destruction. JG
The benediction: “Blessed are all those that put their trust in Him”
• The concluding sentence of the psalm qualifies what was formerly said concerning the severity of Christ; for His iron rod and the fiery wrath of God would strike terror into all men without distinction, unless this comfort had been added. Having, therefore, discoursed concerning the terrible judgment that hangs over the unbelieving, he now encourages God’s faithful and devout servants to entertain good hope, by setting forth the sweetness of grace. As believers might have applied to themselves the severity of which he makes mention, he opens to them a sanctuary of hope, whither they may flee, in order not to be overwhelmed by the terror of God’s wrath. JC
• Not in horses and chariots, in riches and honors, in their own wisdom, strength, and righteousness; but in the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and who is truly and properly God; or otherwise faith and trust would not be required to be put in Him: and happy are those who betake themselves to Him as to their strong hold and place of defense; who look to Him and believe in Him for pardon, peace, righteousness, every supply of grace and eternal life; these are safe and secure in Him, nor shall they want any good thing needful for them; and they have much peace, joy, and comfort here, and shall have more grace as they want it, and hereafter eternal glory and happiness. JG
• […] when the vengeance shall come which is prepared for the ungodly and for sinners, not only will it not light on those “who put their trust in” the Lord, but it will even avail for the foundation and exaltation of a kingdom for them. For he said not, “When His anger shall be shortly kindled,” safe “are all they who put their trust in Him,” as though they should have this only thereby, to be exempt from punishment; but he said, “blessed;” in which there is the sum and accumulation of all good things. Augustine
• Blessed will be those in the day of wrath, who, by trusting in Christ, have made Him their refuge and patron; when the hearts of others fail them for fear they shall lift up their heads with joy; and then those who now despise Christ and His followers will be forced to say, to their own greater confusion, “Now we see that blessed are all those, and those only, that trust in Him.” In singing this, and praying it over, we should have our hearts filled with a holy awe of God, but at the same time borne up with a cheerful confidence in Christ, in whose mediation we may comfort and encourage ourselves and one another. We are the circumcision, that rejoice in Christ Jesus (Php 3:3). MH
Personal Summary:
This verse is quite wonderful to study. We have the carry over from vs. 11 which tells us how we are to repent (perhaps why the RSV combines the two). The verse opens with such beautiful language, Kiss the Son. It reminds me of the great love we, the church, have in Christ; for Him and from Him. The great affection He displays for us as His bride. Re. 19:7 says it well, “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.” As Thomas Adams put it, “the Son… first kisses us by His mercy, [and we] kiss Him by our piety.” Through this we repent, we worship Him, we are reconciled to Him, and He is the focus of our greatest affection. What a beautiful love story Christ has given to us; doubly so because we are chief characters in the plot.
Those that have refused Him will only be successful in doing so for a very short time. We know that Christ Himself has said. “As I live… every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” (Ro. 14:11) They may in vain think that God’s wrath will never reach them and that their obstinacy will go unnoticed. They may have ignored the warnings that the ungodly will perish and that He will break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces. But in the end they will perish because of the great offense of their sin and in but a moment His longsuffering will end. Oh! The fear they will feel in that day! The bravado will melt away like snow on a summer street. They had been told to fear and tremble; now they will have no choice. Even the most pious men crumbled in the sight of God, and they were righteous men, godly men, justified saints awaiting glory. If Isaiah and John could not stand before God how will the wicked fair? God’s mighty hand brandishing a full measure of His wrath will, in the end, be their reward. I cannot fathom the pain and suffering they will endure for having rejected God. Thanks be to Him for having saved His children from their ranks.
Once again, the Lord does not leave us quaking with fear. The threat is tempered with His love for those that are His elect children. Lest we be saved with a spirit of bondage again to fear, He reassures us with this beautiful blessing. We are blessed; we are saved with a Spirit of adoption, whereby, we cry Abba, Father. We are true sons and we are blessed as such. We have total comfort and blessing in our lives because He has adopted us, engrafted us, secured us with the seal of the Spirit of God that we are His, never to be forsaken again! Our God is so great that He saves us even though we have sinned against Him; plotted against Him, hated Him, murdered and spat on Him, we have loathed the sound of His name in our ears, yet He has loved us from eternity, He has called us from the same and has always known that in spite of all of this we are HIS!
The Son asked for us! I cannot fathom something more beautiful than this. The more I contemplate this from vs. 8 the more heartbreaking it is to me that mankind treated Him as we did and do. What He did for us was not forced upon Him. He knew full well what He would have to do for us and asked for us anyway. He knew full well that we would revile Him, yet He asked for us anyway. Oh! The pain my sin has caused! But not just physical pain, for He also suffered spiritual pain. Christ hung on the cross for me, after being beaten and tortured and spit on; He then cried out to God, in the most poignant moment in all of history, My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me. He loved me so much that He was willing to be separated from God the Father for the only time in eternity, a pain far beyond anything else He endured for us… and He did so willingly, asking that the Father would grant us to Him. This blessing is more than incomprehensible, it is baffling. We don’t deserve it; we know that. But by the grace and mercy of God it is ours just the same. It is to be cherished more than anything we have ever gotten in our lives and over anything we are yet to receive. It is more secure than anything mankind has ever dreamed of. Thanks be to God “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:38-39)
“This psalm flows from the first commandment, in which God promises to be our God, who will help us in every trouble and will work all good for us – just as He has, through Christ, delivered us from sin, death, and hell and brought us to eternal life. This blessing is what we pray for in the second petition of the Our Father: that His kingdom come.” (With thanks to Vaughn Hathaway for giving me this quote from “Psalms, With Introductions” by Martin Luther translated, edited and compiled by Bruce A. Cameron. [Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 1993.]) What more can I say about this beautiful verse and indeed this entire psalm? God is so beautiful and how blessed we are that He has left His Word to reveal Himself to us as He has done so wonderfully during this study. Praise His holy name! Amen.
Showing posts with label Psalm 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psalm 2. Show all posts
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Psalm 2:11
Amongst my commentaries there was one small difference of opinion as to what trembling actually entails in the latter part of this verse. All were in agreement save John Gill. I have not included his commentary on this part simply because I think he is wrong and doesn’t do the text justice on that part of this verse. He says in regards to trembling, “not with a fearful looking for of judgment, but with modesty and humility.” As you will see this stands in opposition to what the other commentators say here. Furthermore, the word used here in the Hebrew is ra’ad (דער) which is “shuddering or to tremble with fear”. This is why you will see some of the other commentaries using “fear and trembling” or as Calvin says “with fear”.
“Serve the Lord with fear”
• [The Psalmist] declares the manner in which they are to be wise (from vs. 10), by commanding them to serve the Lord with fear. By trusting to their elevated station, they flatter themselves that they are loosed from the laws which bind the rest of mankind; and the pride of this so greatly blinds them as to make them think it beneath them to submit even to God. The Psalmist, therefore, tells them, that until they have learned to fear Him, they are destitute of all right understanding. JC
• Not the creature, neither more, nor besides, nor with the Creator; God and mammon cannot both be served; nor any fictitious and nominal deities, the idols of the Gentiles, who are not gods by nature; but the true Jehovah, the one and only Lord God, He only is to be worshipped and served, even Father, Son, and Spirit. This is to be done "with fear", not with fear of man, nor with servile fear of God, but with a godly and filial fear, with a reverential affection for Him, and in a way agreeable to His mind and will; with reverence and awe of Him, without levity, carelessness, and negligence. JG
• We must serve God in all ordinances of worship, and all instances of godly conversation, but with a holy fear, a jealousy over ourselves, and a reverence of Him. Even kings themselves, whom others serve and fear, must serve and fear God, there is the same indefinite distance between them and God that there is between the meanest of their subjects and Him. MH
• Let reverence and humility be mingled with your service. He is a great God, and ye are but puny creatures; bend ye, therefore, in lowly worship, and let a filial fear mingle with all your obedience to the great Father of the Ages. CHS
• The fear of God promotes spiritual joy; it is the morning star which ushers in the sunlight of comfort. “Walking in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” God mingles joy with fear, that fear may not be slavish. Thomas Watson
“Rejoice with trembling”
• To prevent them from supposing that that the service to which He calls them is grievous, He teaches them by the word rejoice how pleasant and desirable it is, since it furnishes matter of true gladness. But lest they should, according to their usual way, wax wanton, and, intoxicated with vain pleasures, imagine themselves happy while they are enemies to God, He exhorts them farther by the words with fear to a humble and dutiful submission. The… prophet… implies that so long as the proud profligately rejoice in the gratification of the lusts of the flesh, they sport with their own destruction, while, on the contrary, the only true and salutary joy is that which arises from resting in the fear and reverence of God. JC
• Very excellently is “rejoice” added, lest “serve the Lord with fear” should seem to tend to misery. But again, lest this same rejoicing should run on to unrestrained inconsiderateness, there is added “with trembling,” that it might avail for a warning, and for the careful guarding of holiness. It can also be taken thus, “And now ye kings understand;” that is, And now that I am set as King, be ye not sad, kings of the earth, as if your excellency were taken from you, but rather “understand and be instructed.” For it is expedient for you, that ye should be under Him, by whom understanding and instruction are given you. And this is expedient for you, that ye lord it not with rashness, but that ye “serve the Lord” of all “with fear,” and “rejoice” in bliss most sure and most pure, with all caution and carefulness, lest ye fall therefrom into pride. Augustine
• To reverence God and to stand in awe of Him… this is the great duty of natural religion. God is great, and infinitely above us, just and holy, and provoked against us, therefore we ought to fear Him and tremble before him; yet He is our Lord and Master, and we are bound to serve Him, our friend and benefactor, and we have reason to rejoice in Him; and these are very well consistent with each other. We must rejoice in God, and, in subordination to Him, we may rejoice in other things, but still with a holy trembling. We ought to rejoice in the setting up of the kingdom of Christ, but to rejoice with trembling, with a holy awe of Him, a holy fear for ourselves, lest we come short, and a tender concern for the many precious souls to whom His gospel and kingdom are a savor of death unto death. MH
• There must ever be a holy fear mixed with the Christian’s joy. This is a sacred compound, yielding a sweet smell, and we must see to it that we burn no other upon the altar. Fear, without joy, is torment; and joy, without holy fear, would be presumption. CHS
Personal Summary:
We are here coming out of verse 10 which gives us an exhortation to repent. Here we are told how to repent. We must come in fear and serve Him. We must prostrate ourselves before Him and beg of Him to forgive us our sins. In all lowliness and humility knowing that we have been arrogant in opposing Him, arrogant in breaking His laws, knowing we have offended God to His very core and that a holy God cannot look down upon us, seeing that we are so contrary to His nature, and sit idly by forever. We must confess our sins and fear knowing that our very nature, our entire being, has sinned against Him and that wrath will undoubtedly follow. But, when we repent,
But God doesn’t leave us quivering masses of fear either. He could, it would be well within His right to do so. Perhaps more quivering heaps of men overwhelmed and disgusted by their sin would do this world some good. But the fact is He does not. There is a beautiful lead up through all of this. Remember in vs. 8 that Christ asked for us as His inheritance? That is the precursor to all of the rest that follows; the call to repent, the fear and trembling as we approach God and ask for forgiveness, all of it. And this was accomplished by His death on the cross. So, then, the fear is only a part of the picture and the rest is accomplished by Christ both in asking for us and paying the price for our sins. Because of this we can approach this throne not merely fearful but confident. And when we do we are given yet another beautiful piece to the puzzle, and that is the joy we receive when we do this. Yes, joy is tempered with fear; that is true. But joy it is and joy it will remain. We are refreshed by Him and nourished by His Word. We grow in love and obedience to His will. We are no longer enemies of God but true sons! Fear keeps our eyes focused on God in dependence on Him, it gives us a healthy reverence of who He is and the infinite distance that lies between His holiness and our sinfulness, it makes us loathe the idea of sinning against Him, and it rightfully causes us to cherish Him and to dread the thought of ever being separated from Him again. All of this leads back to joy. For when we walk with God we find true happiness. The two elements of our walk compliment each other in godly harmony; glorifying Him, yet still allowing our souls to feast at the table of grace, forever gorging ourselves on His love.
What a wonderful God we serve and how wondrously incomprehensible is the salvation He has given to us. It is perfect in every way, every element is perfectly fit to glorify God and edify His people; until He, according to the hope we have been given, calls us home and the work is finally and fully completed in true perfection.
“Serve the Lord with fear”
• [The Psalmist] declares the manner in which they are to be wise (from vs. 10), by commanding them to serve the Lord with fear. By trusting to their elevated station, they flatter themselves that they are loosed from the laws which bind the rest of mankind; and the pride of this so greatly blinds them as to make them think it beneath them to submit even to God. The Psalmist, therefore, tells them, that until they have learned to fear Him, they are destitute of all right understanding. JC
• Not the creature, neither more, nor besides, nor with the Creator; God and mammon cannot both be served; nor any fictitious and nominal deities, the idols of the Gentiles, who are not gods by nature; but the true Jehovah, the one and only Lord God, He only is to be worshipped and served, even Father, Son, and Spirit. This is to be done "with fear", not with fear of man, nor with servile fear of God, but with a godly and filial fear, with a reverential affection for Him, and in a way agreeable to His mind and will; with reverence and awe of Him, without levity, carelessness, and negligence. JG
• We must serve God in all ordinances of worship, and all instances of godly conversation, but with a holy fear, a jealousy over ourselves, and a reverence of Him. Even kings themselves, whom others serve and fear, must serve and fear God, there is the same indefinite distance between them and God that there is between the meanest of their subjects and Him. MH
• Let reverence and humility be mingled with your service. He is a great God, and ye are but puny creatures; bend ye, therefore, in lowly worship, and let a filial fear mingle with all your obedience to the great Father of the Ages. CHS
• The fear of God promotes spiritual joy; it is the morning star which ushers in the sunlight of comfort. “Walking in the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” God mingles joy with fear, that fear may not be slavish. Thomas Watson
“Rejoice with trembling”
• To prevent them from supposing that that the service to which He calls them is grievous, He teaches them by the word rejoice how pleasant and desirable it is, since it furnishes matter of true gladness. But lest they should, according to their usual way, wax wanton, and, intoxicated with vain pleasures, imagine themselves happy while they are enemies to God, He exhorts them farther by the words with fear to a humble and dutiful submission. The… prophet… implies that so long as the proud profligately rejoice in the gratification of the lusts of the flesh, they sport with their own destruction, while, on the contrary, the only true and salutary joy is that which arises from resting in the fear and reverence of God. JC
• Very excellently is “rejoice” added, lest “serve the Lord with fear” should seem to tend to misery. But again, lest this same rejoicing should run on to unrestrained inconsiderateness, there is added “with trembling,” that it might avail for a warning, and for the careful guarding of holiness. It can also be taken thus, “And now ye kings understand;” that is, And now that I am set as King, be ye not sad, kings of the earth, as if your excellency were taken from you, but rather “understand and be instructed.” For it is expedient for you, that ye should be under Him, by whom understanding and instruction are given you. And this is expedient for you, that ye lord it not with rashness, but that ye “serve the Lord” of all “with fear,” and “rejoice” in bliss most sure and most pure, with all caution and carefulness, lest ye fall therefrom into pride. Augustine
• To reverence God and to stand in awe of Him… this is the great duty of natural religion. God is great, and infinitely above us, just and holy, and provoked against us, therefore we ought to fear Him and tremble before him; yet He is our Lord and Master, and we are bound to serve Him, our friend and benefactor, and we have reason to rejoice in Him; and these are very well consistent with each other. We must rejoice in God, and, in subordination to Him, we may rejoice in other things, but still with a holy trembling. We ought to rejoice in the setting up of the kingdom of Christ, but to rejoice with trembling, with a holy awe of Him, a holy fear for ourselves, lest we come short, and a tender concern for the many precious souls to whom His gospel and kingdom are a savor of death unto death. MH
• There must ever be a holy fear mixed with the Christian’s joy. This is a sacred compound, yielding a sweet smell, and we must see to it that we burn no other upon the altar. Fear, without joy, is torment; and joy, without holy fear, would be presumption. CHS
Personal Summary:
We are here coming out of verse 10 which gives us an exhortation to repent. Here we are told how to repent. We must come in fear and serve Him. We must prostrate ourselves before Him and beg of Him to forgive us our sins. In all lowliness and humility knowing that we have been arrogant in opposing Him, arrogant in breaking His laws, knowing we have offended God to His very core and that a holy God cannot look down upon us, seeing that we are so contrary to His nature, and sit idly by forever. We must confess our sins and fear knowing that our very nature, our entire being, has sinned against Him and that wrath will undoubtedly follow. But, when we repent,
“He will not only pardon, but subdue your sins. If you will hear Him, hear then, that your soul may live. Hear the call of Christ Jesus, behold He calleth thee, “Come to me, ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). All who were in debt and distress came to David; you are such an one, come to this David, for so Christ is called, take His counsel and you will do well. You shall live, and sin shall die.” Ralph Venning, “The Sinfulness of Sin”, pg. 217Christ is calling you to Him and in full recognition of your sin you must come before Him, repent, and serve Him; which is His due.
But God doesn’t leave us quivering masses of fear either. He could, it would be well within His right to do so. Perhaps more quivering heaps of men overwhelmed and disgusted by their sin would do this world some good. But the fact is He does not. There is a beautiful lead up through all of this. Remember in vs. 8 that Christ asked for us as His inheritance? That is the precursor to all of the rest that follows; the call to repent, the fear and trembling as we approach God and ask for forgiveness, all of it. And this was accomplished by His death on the cross. So, then, the fear is only a part of the picture and the rest is accomplished by Christ both in asking for us and paying the price for our sins. Because of this we can approach this throne not merely fearful but confident. And when we do we are given yet another beautiful piece to the puzzle, and that is the joy we receive when we do this. Yes, joy is tempered with fear; that is true. But joy it is and joy it will remain. We are refreshed by Him and nourished by His Word. We grow in love and obedience to His will. We are no longer enemies of God but true sons! Fear keeps our eyes focused on God in dependence on Him, it gives us a healthy reverence of who He is and the infinite distance that lies between His holiness and our sinfulness, it makes us loathe the idea of sinning against Him, and it rightfully causes us to cherish Him and to dread the thought of ever being separated from Him again. All of this leads back to joy. For when we walk with God we find true happiness. The two elements of our walk compliment each other in godly harmony; glorifying Him, yet still allowing our souls to feast at the table of grace, forever gorging ourselves on His love.
What a wonderful God we serve and how wondrously incomprehensible is the salvation He has given to us. It is perfect in every way, every element is perfectly fit to glorify God and edify His people; until He, according to the hope we have been given, calls us home and the work is finally and fully completed in true perfection.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Psalm 2:10
“Now”
• David… [as] a prophet and teacher… exhorts the unbelieving to repentance, that they may not, when it is too late, be compelled to acknowledge, from dire experience, that the divine threatenings are neither idle nor ineffectual. By the adverb now, he signifies the necessity of their speedy repentance, since they will not always be favored with the like opportunity. JC
• Delay no longer, but let good reason weigh with you. Your warfare cannot succeed, therefore desist and yield cheerfully to Him who will make you bow if you refuse His yoke. CHS
• Wherefore "now", under the Gospel dispensation, while it is today, and now is the accepted time and day of salvation, before the blow is given; act the wise part and leave off opposing, and become subject to so great and powerful a King. JG
“Be wise, O kings; be instructed you judges of the earth”
• He addresses by names kings and rulers, who are not very easily brought to a submissive state of mind; and who are, besides, prevented from learning what is right by the foolish conceit of their own wisdom with which they are puffed up. And if David spare not even kings themselves… much more does his exhortation apply to the common class of men, in order that all, from the highest to the lowest, may humble themselves before God. When he enjoins them to be wise, he directly condemns their false confidence in their own wisdom, as if he had said, the beginning of true wisdom is when a man lays aside his pride, and submits himself to the authority of Christ. JC
• O how wise, how infinitely wise is obedience to Jesus, and how dreadful is the folly of those who continue to be His enemies. CHS
• This address is made not so much to the kings of the earth in David's time, as to those who would be under the Gospel dispensation, and times of the Messiah; and particularly who would rise up, and set themselves against the Lord and his Anointed, and with these are to be understood their subjects: for if they are to serve the Lord, and be subject to Christ, then much more those that are under them; and they are rather spoken to particularly, because their examples have great influence on those over whom they rule, whether for good or evil these are exhorted to be wise, or to act the wise part; for great men are not always wise; wisdom, riches, and honor, do not always go together; men may be in high places, and yet be of low understandings; however, they do not always act wisely, and particularly those kings did not, when they rose up and set themselves against the Lord and His Messiah; since such opposition must be fruitless, nor is there any counsel against the Lord. And we learn, from the connection of these words with the following, that the truest wisdom in kings and people is to fear God, be subject to Christ, and trust in Him. JG
• We have here the practical application of this gospel doctrine concerning the kingdom of the Messiah, by way of exhortation to the kings and judges of the earth. They hear that it is in vain to oppose Christ’s government; let them therefore be so wise for themselves to submit to it. Those that would be wise must be instructed; and those are truly wise that receive instruction from the Word of God. Kings and judges stand upon a level with common persons before God; and it is as necessary for them to be religious as for any others. Those that give law and judgment to others must receive law from Christ, and it will be their wisdom to do so. What is said to them is said to all, and is required of every one of us. MH
Personal Summary:
So we see here the beginning of another contrast, which is God’s power and the divine threat which will mean man’s ruin vs. the call to repentance. In 2:9 we are told that the ungodly will be broken with a rod of iron and dashed into pieces. There we see the utter insignificance of the creature when held against the creator. A.W. Pink says this about it, “The supremacy of the true and living God might well be argued from the infinite distance which separates the mightiest creatures from the almighty Creator. He is the potter, they are but the clay in His hands, to be molded into vessels of honor, or to be dashed in pieces (Ps. 2:9) as He pleases. Were all the denizens of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth to combine in revolt against Him, it would occasion Him no uneasiness… Scripture itself tells us that when the Gentile heads unite with the apostate Israel to defy Jehovah and His Christ, “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” (Ps. 2:4).” A.W. Pink, “The Attributes of God”, pg. 29
Yet, in spite of this great contrast in power, in spite of the fact that God is well within His rights to crush us like pots and break us with a rod of iron for our sin and our plotting against Him; even still, the offer of salvation is still given to mankind. We know that men still rejected this offer then and that they still perished in their sin. We also know that men are still doing it today. Even within proclaimed Christianity itself it happens. That is how sinful we are! J. Gresham Machen says this, “It is unnecessary, we are told, to have a “conception” of God; theology… it is said, is the death of religion; we should not seek to know God, but should merely feel His presence. With regard to this objection, it ought to be observed that if religion consists merely in feeling the presence of God, it is devoid of any moral quality whatever. Pure feeling, if there is such a thing, is non-moral. If human affection is… dependent upon knowledge, why should it be otherwise with that supreme personal relationship which is at the basis of religion? Certainly it does make the greatest possible difference what we think about God; the knowledge of God is the very basis of religion.” J. Gresham Machen, “Christianity and Liberalism”, pg. 54-55. Even within the church that proclaims itself to be a part of Christ; there are those that would seek to derail wisdom, and would thus plot in vain against God. Certainly, under this mode of operation, the church itself is not living up to or even in agreement with Matthew Henry’s comment that, “Those that would be wise must be instructed; and those are truly wise that receive instruction from the Word of God.” How do we live up to the exhortation to be wise if we do not even seek to truly know God? What good is the Word of God if it does not reveal Him to us? It is the primary reason for the bible!
So God offers repentance to mankind. He says we must do it now, do not delay, this is emphatically declared in the beginning of this verse. We have pitted ourselves against Him in every way, yet the offer still stands. Yet wisdom, because of sin, escapes us. Even in the church we set a horrible example for the world. What is the incentive for coming to Christ when the church acts as they do? Then to make matters worse, we justify our behavior by claiming that watered down Christianity is less offensive and more apt to fill the pews! And this, to the detriment of souls! People are jumping headfirst into the lake of fire, perishing in their sin, and this, after having spent a lifetime in these garbage churches. In all fairness, this is not the case in every church in America. Thankfully the promise still stands true that the Lord has reserved for Himself a remnant. But it is the case in far too many churches; and, if I might be so bold, in the vast majority of churches. We are being offered salvation and being told to repent now, to seek the wisdom of the Lord now; rulers, judges, all the people of the earth. Yet, the church is failing man because at its core it is failing God and, most importantly, fails to even truly recognize God which is the epitome of foolishness, not wisdom.
Thomas Watson says in his book “The Doctrine of Repentance” that, “Repentance is a grace of God’s Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed.” May the church, indeed all of mankind, repent now as we have been exhorted by David to do. May we turn to the Lord, trust in Him, submit to His divine governance, and glorify Him. This is true reformation: when it is done in the individual, and in society as a whole, with a contrite heart that has been convicted to love God and seeks to live according to His will. Let us not delay, the promise and the offer itself stand true, but so do the divine warnings of His wrath. The same God who says of the saints, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (Jo 10:27-28) also said, “God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies” (Nah 1:2).
Oh to be preserved by Him and to never feel the sting of His wrath! What love He has displayed for mankind that we are allowed to exist even one more day. Let us not waste the gift we have been given. We must let go of our ignorant sense of autonomy, abandon the clutch of sin, relish the offer we have been given and seek “the truest wisdom [which] is to fear God, be subject to Christ, and trust in Him.”
• David… [as] a prophet and teacher… exhorts the unbelieving to repentance, that they may not, when it is too late, be compelled to acknowledge, from dire experience, that the divine threatenings are neither idle nor ineffectual. By the adverb now, he signifies the necessity of their speedy repentance, since they will not always be favored with the like opportunity. JC
• Delay no longer, but let good reason weigh with you. Your warfare cannot succeed, therefore desist and yield cheerfully to Him who will make you bow if you refuse His yoke. CHS
• Wherefore "now", under the Gospel dispensation, while it is today, and now is the accepted time and day of salvation, before the blow is given; act the wise part and leave off opposing, and become subject to so great and powerful a King. JG
“Be wise, O kings; be instructed you judges of the earth”
• He addresses by names kings and rulers, who are not very easily brought to a submissive state of mind; and who are, besides, prevented from learning what is right by the foolish conceit of their own wisdom with which they are puffed up. And if David spare not even kings themselves… much more does his exhortation apply to the common class of men, in order that all, from the highest to the lowest, may humble themselves before God. When he enjoins them to be wise, he directly condemns their false confidence in their own wisdom, as if he had said, the beginning of true wisdom is when a man lays aside his pride, and submits himself to the authority of Christ. JC
• O how wise, how infinitely wise is obedience to Jesus, and how dreadful is the folly of those who continue to be His enemies. CHS
• This address is made not so much to the kings of the earth in David's time, as to those who would be under the Gospel dispensation, and times of the Messiah; and particularly who would rise up, and set themselves against the Lord and his Anointed, and with these are to be understood their subjects: for if they are to serve the Lord, and be subject to Christ, then much more those that are under them; and they are rather spoken to particularly, because their examples have great influence on those over whom they rule, whether for good or evil these are exhorted to be wise, or to act the wise part; for great men are not always wise; wisdom, riches, and honor, do not always go together; men may be in high places, and yet be of low understandings; however, they do not always act wisely, and particularly those kings did not, when they rose up and set themselves against the Lord and His Messiah; since such opposition must be fruitless, nor is there any counsel against the Lord. And we learn, from the connection of these words with the following, that the truest wisdom in kings and people is to fear God, be subject to Christ, and trust in Him. JG
• We have here the practical application of this gospel doctrine concerning the kingdom of the Messiah, by way of exhortation to the kings and judges of the earth. They hear that it is in vain to oppose Christ’s government; let them therefore be so wise for themselves to submit to it. Those that would be wise must be instructed; and those are truly wise that receive instruction from the Word of God. Kings and judges stand upon a level with common persons before God; and it is as necessary for them to be religious as for any others. Those that give law and judgment to others must receive law from Christ, and it will be their wisdom to do so. What is said to them is said to all, and is required of every one of us. MH
Personal Summary:
So we see here the beginning of another contrast, which is God’s power and the divine threat which will mean man’s ruin vs. the call to repentance. In 2:9 we are told that the ungodly will be broken with a rod of iron and dashed into pieces. There we see the utter insignificance of the creature when held against the creator. A.W. Pink says this about it, “The supremacy of the true and living God might well be argued from the infinite distance which separates the mightiest creatures from the almighty Creator. He is the potter, they are but the clay in His hands, to be molded into vessels of honor, or to be dashed in pieces (Ps. 2:9) as He pleases. Were all the denizens of heaven and all the inhabitants of the earth to combine in revolt against Him, it would occasion Him no uneasiness… Scripture itself tells us that when the Gentile heads unite with the apostate Israel to defy Jehovah and His Christ, “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” (Ps. 2:4).” A.W. Pink, “The Attributes of God”, pg. 29
Yet, in spite of this great contrast in power, in spite of the fact that God is well within His rights to crush us like pots and break us with a rod of iron for our sin and our plotting against Him; even still, the offer of salvation is still given to mankind. We know that men still rejected this offer then and that they still perished in their sin. We also know that men are still doing it today. Even within proclaimed Christianity itself it happens. That is how sinful we are! J. Gresham Machen says this, “It is unnecessary, we are told, to have a “conception” of God; theology… it is said, is the death of religion; we should not seek to know God, but should merely feel His presence. With regard to this objection, it ought to be observed that if religion consists merely in feeling the presence of God, it is devoid of any moral quality whatever. Pure feeling, if there is such a thing, is non-moral. If human affection is… dependent upon knowledge, why should it be otherwise with that supreme personal relationship which is at the basis of religion? Certainly it does make the greatest possible difference what we think about God; the knowledge of God is the very basis of religion.” J. Gresham Machen, “Christianity and Liberalism”, pg. 54-55. Even within the church that proclaims itself to be a part of Christ; there are those that would seek to derail wisdom, and would thus plot in vain against God. Certainly, under this mode of operation, the church itself is not living up to or even in agreement with Matthew Henry’s comment that, “Those that would be wise must be instructed; and those are truly wise that receive instruction from the Word of God.” How do we live up to the exhortation to be wise if we do not even seek to truly know God? What good is the Word of God if it does not reveal Him to us? It is the primary reason for the bible!
So God offers repentance to mankind. He says we must do it now, do not delay, this is emphatically declared in the beginning of this verse. We have pitted ourselves against Him in every way, yet the offer still stands. Yet wisdom, because of sin, escapes us. Even in the church we set a horrible example for the world. What is the incentive for coming to Christ when the church acts as they do? Then to make matters worse, we justify our behavior by claiming that watered down Christianity is less offensive and more apt to fill the pews! And this, to the detriment of souls! People are jumping headfirst into the lake of fire, perishing in their sin, and this, after having spent a lifetime in these garbage churches. In all fairness, this is not the case in every church in America. Thankfully the promise still stands true that the Lord has reserved for Himself a remnant. But it is the case in far too many churches; and, if I might be so bold, in the vast majority of churches. We are being offered salvation and being told to repent now, to seek the wisdom of the Lord now; rulers, judges, all the people of the earth. Yet, the church is failing man because at its core it is failing God and, most importantly, fails to even truly recognize God which is the epitome of foolishness, not wisdom.
Thomas Watson says in his book “The Doctrine of Repentance” that, “Repentance is a grace of God’s Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed.” May the church, indeed all of mankind, repent now as we have been exhorted by David to do. May we turn to the Lord, trust in Him, submit to His divine governance, and glorify Him. This is true reformation: when it is done in the individual, and in society as a whole, with a contrite heart that has been convicted to love God and seeks to live according to His will. Let us not delay, the promise and the offer itself stand true, but so do the divine warnings of His wrath. The same God who says of the saints, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (Jo 10:27-28) also said, “God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies” (Nah 1:2).
Oh to be preserved by Him and to never feel the sting of His wrath! What love He has displayed for mankind that we are allowed to exist even one more day. Let us not waste the gift we have been given. We must let go of our ignorant sense of autonomy, abandon the clutch of sin, relish the offer we have been given and seek “the truest wisdom [which] is to fear God, be subject to Christ, and trust in Him.”
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Psalm 2:9
As I began my study of this verse I ran across some opposing points of view as to what is meant here and to whom it is applied. One commentary thinks this verse applies to the believers just spoken of in vs. 8; one thinks it has application to both believers and the lost; and the others were all in agreement that it is to be applied to the lost, the obstinate. I will present it to you in that manner and then we can look at who we believe to be correct.
“Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
Applied to Believers Only
• That is, “Thou shalt break” in them earthly lusts, and the filthy doings of the old man, and whatsoever hath been derived and inured from the sinful clay. Augustin
Applied to Both Believers and the Lost Alike
• How precious again is this promise, both as it concerns the haters of our God and Savior, whose knees are never brought to bend to the sovereignty of His grace, and which must be broken before Him; and as it concerns those whose stubborn hearts shall be conquered, and made willing in the day of power, and are brought over to the interests of His kingdom. RH
Applied to the Lost Alone
• The language of David implies that all will not voluntarily receive His yoke, but that many will be stiff-necked and rebellious, whom notwithstanding He shall subdue by force, and compel to submit to Him. I allow that even the faithful themselves may be offered in sacrifice to God, that He may quicken them by His grace, for it is meet that we should be humbled in the dust, before Christ stretch forth His hand to save us. But Christ trains His disciples to repentance in such a way as not to appear terrible to them; on the contrary, by showing them His shepherd’s rod, He quickly turns their sorrow into joy; and so far is He from using His iron rod to break them in pieces, that He rather protects them under the healing shadow of His hand, and upholds them by His power. When David speaks, therefore, of breaking and bruising, this applies only to the rebellious and unbelieving who submit to Christ, not because they have been subdued by repentance, but because they are overwhelmed with despair. As [Christ] denounces in His Word whatever judgments He executes upon them, He may be truly said to slay the ungodly man with the breath of His mouth (2 Thess. 2:8). The Psalmist exposes to shame their foolish pride by a beautiful similitude; teaching us, that although their obstinacy is harder than the stones, they are yet more fragile than earthen vessels. JC
• Yes! Jehovah hath given to His Anointed a rod of iron with which He shall break rebellious nations in pieces, and, despite their imperial strength, they shall be but as potters’ vessels, easily dashed into shivers, when the rod of iron is in the hand of the omnipotent Son of God. Those who will not bend must break. Potters’ vessels are not to be restored if dashed in pieces, and the ruin of sinners will be hopeless if Jesus shall smite them. CHS
• Not His inheritance and possession among the Gentiles, the chosen ones given Him by the Father; these He delights in, takes care of, protects, and preserves: but the stubborn and rebellious ones among the Heathen, and in each of the parts of the world, who will not have Him to reign over them; who treat His person with contempt, reject His government, disobey His Gospel, and despise His commands; towards these Christ will use severity, and will exert His power and break them in pieces. JG
• [This] will not be completely fulfilled till all the opposing rule, principality, and power, shall be finally put down. Observe how powerful Christ is and how weak the enemies of His kingdom are before Him; He has a rod of iron wherewith to crush those that will not submit to His golden scepter; they are but like a potter’s vessel before Him, suddenly, easily, and irreparably dashed in pieces by Him. MH
Now that we have seen what the views on this are let us determine which is correct. It would seem to me that if we cross reference this with Rev. 2:26-27 which says, “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.” At least in context it seems fairly obvious that this is not discussing the redeemed but the lost and their eventual destruction which the saints will rule over with Christ.
“By and by the tables are going to be turned. At present the world oppresses the church member who desires to keep a clear conscience. By and by the church member who has remained loyal to his Lord is going to rule over the world and, being associated with Christ in the final judgment, is going to condemn the sinner. He is going to share in Christ’s dominion over the nations – which Christ, in turn, had received from the Father (Ps. 2:8,9); and on the day of the final judgment the wicked will be ‘broken to shivers’.” William Hendriksen, “More Than Conquerors”, pg. 72
So, I think it is obvious that perhaps Augustin and Hawker had it wrong, whether in full or in part. Taken in context and referenced elsewhere in the bible this can only be referring to the wicked where Christ will break them to pieces and utterly destroy them. I love how David represents this idea later on in Ps. 18:42 which says, “Then I beat them as fine as the dust before the wind; I cast them out like dirt in the streets.” The idea is not only that Christ will be victorious and defeat them, we know this; but, that He will utterly annihilate them. He will crush them beyond repair and once and for all end the plans of the wicked and reign with the righteous. In this we must longingly persevere, for the wicked will not reign forever, and we will be with our Lord in glory!
“Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
Applied to Believers Only
• That is, “Thou shalt break” in them earthly lusts, and the filthy doings of the old man, and whatsoever hath been derived and inured from the sinful clay. Augustin
Applied to Both Believers and the Lost Alike
• How precious again is this promise, both as it concerns the haters of our God and Savior, whose knees are never brought to bend to the sovereignty of His grace, and which must be broken before Him; and as it concerns those whose stubborn hearts shall be conquered, and made willing in the day of power, and are brought over to the interests of His kingdom. RH
Applied to the Lost Alone
• The language of David implies that all will not voluntarily receive His yoke, but that many will be stiff-necked and rebellious, whom notwithstanding He shall subdue by force, and compel to submit to Him. I allow that even the faithful themselves may be offered in sacrifice to God, that He may quicken them by His grace, for it is meet that we should be humbled in the dust, before Christ stretch forth His hand to save us. But Christ trains His disciples to repentance in such a way as not to appear terrible to them; on the contrary, by showing them His shepherd’s rod, He quickly turns their sorrow into joy; and so far is He from using His iron rod to break them in pieces, that He rather protects them under the healing shadow of His hand, and upholds them by His power. When David speaks, therefore, of breaking and bruising, this applies only to the rebellious and unbelieving who submit to Christ, not because they have been subdued by repentance, but because they are overwhelmed with despair. As [Christ] denounces in His Word whatever judgments He executes upon them, He may be truly said to slay the ungodly man with the breath of His mouth (2 Thess. 2:8). The Psalmist exposes to shame their foolish pride by a beautiful similitude; teaching us, that although their obstinacy is harder than the stones, they are yet more fragile than earthen vessels. JC
• Yes! Jehovah hath given to His Anointed a rod of iron with which He shall break rebellious nations in pieces, and, despite their imperial strength, they shall be but as potters’ vessels, easily dashed into shivers, when the rod of iron is in the hand of the omnipotent Son of God. Those who will not bend must break. Potters’ vessels are not to be restored if dashed in pieces, and the ruin of sinners will be hopeless if Jesus shall smite them. CHS
• Not His inheritance and possession among the Gentiles, the chosen ones given Him by the Father; these He delights in, takes care of, protects, and preserves: but the stubborn and rebellious ones among the Heathen, and in each of the parts of the world, who will not have Him to reign over them; who treat His person with contempt, reject His government, disobey His Gospel, and despise His commands; towards these Christ will use severity, and will exert His power and break them in pieces. JG
• [This] will not be completely fulfilled till all the opposing rule, principality, and power, shall be finally put down. Observe how powerful Christ is and how weak the enemies of His kingdom are before Him; He has a rod of iron wherewith to crush those that will not submit to His golden scepter; they are but like a potter’s vessel before Him, suddenly, easily, and irreparably dashed in pieces by Him. MH
Now that we have seen what the views on this are let us determine which is correct. It would seem to me that if we cross reference this with Rev. 2:26-27 which says, “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.” At least in context it seems fairly obvious that this is not discussing the redeemed but the lost and their eventual destruction which the saints will rule over with Christ.
“By and by the tables are going to be turned. At present the world oppresses the church member who desires to keep a clear conscience. By and by the church member who has remained loyal to his Lord is going to rule over the world and, being associated with Christ in the final judgment, is going to condemn the sinner. He is going to share in Christ’s dominion over the nations – which Christ, in turn, had received from the Father (Ps. 2:8,9); and on the day of the final judgment the wicked will be ‘broken to shivers’.” William Hendriksen, “More Than Conquerors”, pg. 72
So, I think it is obvious that perhaps Augustin and Hawker had it wrong, whether in full or in part. Taken in context and referenced elsewhere in the bible this can only be referring to the wicked where Christ will break them to pieces and utterly destroy them. I love how David represents this idea later on in Ps. 18:42 which says, “Then I beat them as fine as the dust before the wind; I cast them out like dirt in the streets.” The idea is not only that Christ will be victorious and defeat them, we know this; but, that He will utterly annihilate them. He will crush them beyond repair and once and for all end the plans of the wicked and reign with the righteous. In this we must longingly persevere, for the wicked will not reign forever, and we will be with our Lord in glory!
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Psalm 2:8
To start with we have part of an ongoing declaration that begins in 2:7 with the statement “Thou art My Son” and ends at the end of 2:9. Various versions accomplish recognition of this by using quotation marks which bring the entire statement together (NKJV, ESV, RSV, NASB, and NIV). As was well established in our study of 2:7 the one speaking is none other than Christ Himself for these three verses. That this is a continuation from 2:7 is a fact which most of my commentaries are in agreement with. John Gill does leave room for the idea that this is a new declaration from Jehovah but says, “Jehovah is either here again introduced speaking, or these words are a continuation of the Son's account of what His Father said unto Him.” I will proceed with the understanding that this is still Christ speaking.
“Ask of me”
Note: I think Gill’s comment regarding the superior/inferior relationship of the Father and Son here is good and right but incomplete nonetheless. In order to fully digest the thought we need to look at Matthew Henry who conveys the same idea but completes it, or at the very least fully contemplates it.
• The Father will deny nothing to His Son which relates to the extension of His kingdom to the uttermost ends of the earth. But, in this wonderful matter, Christ is introduced by presenting Himself before the Father with prayers, in order to illustrate the free liberality of God in conferring upon men the honor of constituting His own Son governor over the whole world. As the eternal Word of God, Christ, it is true, has always had in His hands by right sovereign authority and majesty, and as such can receive no accessions thereto; but still He is exalted in human nature, in which He took upon Him the form of a servant. This title, therefore, is not applied to Him only as God, but is extended to the whole person of the Mediator; for after Christ had emptied Himself, there was given to Him a name which is above every name, that before Him every knee shall bow (Php. 2:9). JC
• [This does] not suppose any superiority in the one, or inferiority in the other; but [is] only expressive of the Father's great respect and affection for His Son… and of the great interest the Son had in His Father, who could ask nothing but He had it; and shows the perfect harmony, agreement, and unity between them (1 Kings 3:5). JG
• Jesus hath but to ask and have. CHS
• The Son must ask. This supposes His putting Himself voluntarily into a state of inferiority to the Father, by taking upon Him the human nature; for, as God, He was equal in power and glory with the Father and had nothing to ask. MH
• The office of asking is grounded upon the same authority as the honor of King. Ruling belonged to His royal office, asking to His priestly. After His resurrection, the Father gives Him a power and command of asking. Stephen Charnock
“I will give you the nations (heathen)”
• Christ… alone has subdued the whole world to Himself, and embraced all lands and nations under His dominion. Accordingly, here, as in many other places, the calling of the Gentiles is foretold, to prevent all from imagining that the Redeemer who was to be sent of God was king of one nation only. And if we see His kingdom divided, diminished, and broken down, this proceeds from the wickedness of men, which renders them unworthy of being under a reign so happy and so desirable. But although the ingratitude of men hinders the kingdom of Christ from prospering, it does not render this prediction of none effect, inasmuch as Christ collects the dispersed remnants of His people from all quarters, and in the midst of this wretched desolation, keeps them joined together by the sacred bond of faith, so that not one corner only, but the whole world, is subjected to His authority. JC
• By "the Heathen", and "the uttermost parts of the earth", are meant God's elect among the Gentiles, and who live in the distant parts of the world; which are Christ's other sheep, the Father has given to Him as His portion, and whom He has made His care and charge: as if it was not enough that He should be King of Zion, or have the government over His chosen ones among the Jews, He commits into His hands the Gentiles also (Isa. 49:6); and these are given Him as His inheritance and possession, as His portion, to be enjoyed by Him; and who esteems them as such, and reckons them a goodly heritage… These words respect the calling of the Gentiles under the Gospel dispensation; and the amplitude of Christ's kingdom in all the earth, which shall be from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. JG
• Not only the Jews but the Gentiles also. 1599 GB
• Here He declares that His very enemies are His inheritance. CHS
• A seed is promised to Him, and victory over His enemies, yet for both these He prays. Christ towards us acts as King, but towards His Father as a priest. All He speaks to God is by prayer and intercession. So the Saints, the promise makes them kings over their lusts, conquerors over their enemies; but it makes them priests towards God, by prayer humbly to sue out those great things given in the promise. William Gurnall
• It is here promised Him… that His government shall be universal: He shall have the heathen for His inheritance, not the Jews only, to whose nation the church had been long confined, but the Gentiles also. MH
Having now considered what the promise entails, let us look at Matt. 4:8-9; Luke 4:5-6. For here we see the working of the devil. What does he try and tempt Christ with here? Let us go to the commentaries and see what they say.
• What was intended to appeal to [Christ] was the rule over the kingdoms, and this… is not ipso facto sinful; on the contrary, it is something explicitly promised to the Messiah. The plan of temptation followed by Satan evinces, though not equal subtlety in all its parts, nevertheless a certain profundity into the issues at stake, and a certain strategic eagerness to conquer Jesus, not at some subordinate point, but at the central, pivotal position, on which the successful outcome of the plan of redemption depended. It gave him, no doubt, a sinister satisfaction to attempt to overthrow the work of God and Christ at its very center. Geerhardus Vos, “Biblical Theology”, pgs. 341-342
• The kind of temptation here described was, that Christ should seek, in another manner than from God, the inheritance which He has promised to his children. And here the daring insolence of the devil is manifested, in robbing God of the government of the world, and claiming it for himself. All these things, says he, are mine, and it is only through me that they are obtained. JC
• All this wealth is by Satan offered to Christ, all for the price of just one [bowing of the knee in worship]! If Jesus will but cast Himself to the ground and worship the devil, He can have it all. He can have it in His possession and under His authority. The question [is] whether Satan was really the possessor of all these things, and whether he was actually in control of all them, to such an extent that he could offer them to anyone he wished. [But] as to Satan’s boast, it is too absurd to merit an answer. But if an answer of sort be demanded, let it be Jn. 8:44, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” Jesus knew the devil was lying; that is, that the prince of evil had no enchanting kingdoms to give away. No doubt the Lord also knew that even if Satan had possessed them, he would not have fulfilled his promise. Nevertheless, the implied suggestion [was] to try to obtain the crown without enduring the cross. William Hendriksen, NT Commentary on Matthew
• As Mediator, the glorious Head of His Church, the kingdom is given to Him as the reward for His sufferings, obedience, and death (Ps. 2:8). RH
So we see some common ploys of the devil exercised against our Lord in two ways. (1) He offers to Christ what wasn’t his to give and what was already given to Christ to begin with. It was Christ’s! How can the devil give to Him what belongs to Him already? Yet Satan assumes that he can tempt our Lord into believing that He needs him in order to get what is already promised Him from the Father. (2) Satan attempts to use what Christ will have to bear in order to fulfill His purpose against Him. In other words he says to Him, “I can save you the pain you must endure if you will but come to me and bow your knee in worship.” He attempts to use against Him the coming pain which caused our Lord to say in Mt. 26:39, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”
And does not Satan do the same thing with us? The promise is not just to Christ, it is to us as well, just as William Gurnall has already testified to in this study. And we too must be willing to resist him for he cannot offer what only comes from the Lord. Calvin speaking of what a great sin we commit when we fall into this trap says, “True, indeed, with the mouth they ask that God will give them daily bread, but it is only with the mouth; for they make Satan the distributor of all the riches in the world.” And this we do through lack of trust in God and because our sinful natures are apt to believe the lie. And oh how many sins we have committed in search of ease! Satan would have us believe that we must lie, cheat, steal, murder, rob, belittle and crush those around us in order to get ahead; in order to alleviate some pain or difficulty in our lives. Yet it is not so! Neither of these lies is so. We must trust and persevere to see the promise fulfilled, this is clear. And when we face troubles we must trust in the Lord and allow His will to be fulfilled in our lives. Beware! If the devil is brazen enough to try and use this against our sovereign and holy Lord, he is doubly so against us.
Personal Summary:
One of the most invaluable tools we have at our disposal in our walk with God is prayer. Christ Himself prayed to the Father as we have discussed. It is also one of the things most neglected in many Christians lives. I can myself attest to the fact that at times it is a most difficult thing to spend time in prayer. I don’t know even why this is. I love the Lord and I gobble up His word and I devour book after book teaching me about Him. But I have to be disciplined and purposeful in my prayer or I tend to neglect it. For far too many it is the same. Let us learn from our Lord and be steadfast in prayer. It is a gift from God. And it is a beautiful thing! Think of how this works: Christ died on the cross and brought salvation to His elect, this allows us the right to pray; we pray imperfect prayers and the Spirit sanctifies them as they reach the throne and makes them acceptable, He in effect cleans them, takes the taint of sin off of them; Christ sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us continuously according to the will of God, not our faulty will, but according to His perfect will (Rom. 8:26-27). Be diligent to take advantage of the opportunity to pray and to make good use of the communion with God that was restored to you in Christ. For that was lost in the fall and for much of history mankind needed mediators between them and God and could not do what we take for granted.
Rejoice! The promise that our Lord will conquer the earth is before us. And you and I are a part of the promise. Christ, out of love for you and I, asked that we be given to Him as an inheritance. Robert Hawker says, “[He asked for] the heathen for His inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for His possession.” Amen! You are a reward for Christ! You are the gift He requested! What privilege and splendor are ours! Please don’t take this lightly either. Christ went to great lengths to secure His reward, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor. 6:20)
Live securely in the promise of God to His children, pray diligently in your daily walk, and live lives that glorify God and stand as an example to the rest of the world as to what has been accomplished in you by God.
“Ask of me”
Note: I think Gill’s comment regarding the superior/inferior relationship of the Father and Son here is good and right but incomplete nonetheless. In order to fully digest the thought we need to look at Matthew Henry who conveys the same idea but completes it, or at the very least fully contemplates it.
• The Father will deny nothing to His Son which relates to the extension of His kingdom to the uttermost ends of the earth. But, in this wonderful matter, Christ is introduced by presenting Himself before the Father with prayers, in order to illustrate the free liberality of God in conferring upon men the honor of constituting His own Son governor over the whole world. As the eternal Word of God, Christ, it is true, has always had in His hands by right sovereign authority and majesty, and as such can receive no accessions thereto; but still He is exalted in human nature, in which He took upon Him the form of a servant. This title, therefore, is not applied to Him only as God, but is extended to the whole person of the Mediator; for after Christ had emptied Himself, there was given to Him a name which is above every name, that before Him every knee shall bow (Php. 2:9). JC
• [This does] not suppose any superiority in the one, or inferiority in the other; but [is] only expressive of the Father's great respect and affection for His Son… and of the great interest the Son had in His Father, who could ask nothing but He had it; and shows the perfect harmony, agreement, and unity between them (1 Kings 3:5). JG
• Jesus hath but to ask and have. CHS
• The Son must ask. This supposes His putting Himself voluntarily into a state of inferiority to the Father, by taking upon Him the human nature; for, as God, He was equal in power and glory with the Father and had nothing to ask. MH
• The office of asking is grounded upon the same authority as the honor of King. Ruling belonged to His royal office, asking to His priestly. After His resurrection, the Father gives Him a power and command of asking. Stephen Charnock
“I will give you the nations (heathen)”
• Christ… alone has subdued the whole world to Himself, and embraced all lands and nations under His dominion. Accordingly, here, as in many other places, the calling of the Gentiles is foretold, to prevent all from imagining that the Redeemer who was to be sent of God was king of one nation only. And if we see His kingdom divided, diminished, and broken down, this proceeds from the wickedness of men, which renders them unworthy of being under a reign so happy and so desirable. But although the ingratitude of men hinders the kingdom of Christ from prospering, it does not render this prediction of none effect, inasmuch as Christ collects the dispersed remnants of His people from all quarters, and in the midst of this wretched desolation, keeps them joined together by the sacred bond of faith, so that not one corner only, but the whole world, is subjected to His authority. JC
• By "the Heathen", and "the uttermost parts of the earth", are meant God's elect among the Gentiles, and who live in the distant parts of the world; which are Christ's other sheep, the Father has given to Him as His portion, and whom He has made His care and charge: as if it was not enough that He should be King of Zion, or have the government over His chosen ones among the Jews, He commits into His hands the Gentiles also (Isa. 49:6); and these are given Him as His inheritance and possession, as His portion, to be enjoyed by Him; and who esteems them as such, and reckons them a goodly heritage… These words respect the calling of the Gentiles under the Gospel dispensation; and the amplitude of Christ's kingdom in all the earth, which shall be from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. JG
• Not only the Jews but the Gentiles also. 1599 GB
• Here He declares that His very enemies are His inheritance. CHS
• A seed is promised to Him, and victory over His enemies, yet for both these He prays. Christ towards us acts as King, but towards His Father as a priest. All He speaks to God is by prayer and intercession. So the Saints, the promise makes them kings over their lusts, conquerors over their enemies; but it makes them priests towards God, by prayer humbly to sue out those great things given in the promise. William Gurnall
• It is here promised Him… that His government shall be universal: He shall have the heathen for His inheritance, not the Jews only, to whose nation the church had been long confined, but the Gentiles also. MH
Having now considered what the promise entails, let us look at Matt. 4:8-9; Luke 4:5-6. For here we see the working of the devil. What does he try and tempt Christ with here? Let us go to the commentaries and see what they say.
• What was intended to appeal to [Christ] was the rule over the kingdoms, and this… is not ipso facto sinful; on the contrary, it is something explicitly promised to the Messiah. The plan of temptation followed by Satan evinces, though not equal subtlety in all its parts, nevertheless a certain profundity into the issues at stake, and a certain strategic eagerness to conquer Jesus, not at some subordinate point, but at the central, pivotal position, on which the successful outcome of the plan of redemption depended. It gave him, no doubt, a sinister satisfaction to attempt to overthrow the work of God and Christ at its very center. Geerhardus Vos, “Biblical Theology”, pgs. 341-342
• The kind of temptation here described was, that Christ should seek, in another manner than from God, the inheritance which He has promised to his children. And here the daring insolence of the devil is manifested, in robbing God of the government of the world, and claiming it for himself. All these things, says he, are mine, and it is only through me that they are obtained. JC
• All this wealth is by Satan offered to Christ, all for the price of just one [bowing of the knee in worship]! If Jesus will but cast Himself to the ground and worship the devil, He can have it all. He can have it in His possession and under His authority. The question [is] whether Satan was really the possessor of all these things, and whether he was actually in control of all them, to such an extent that he could offer them to anyone he wished. [But] as to Satan’s boast, it is too absurd to merit an answer. But if an answer of sort be demanded, let it be Jn. 8:44, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” Jesus knew the devil was lying; that is, that the prince of evil had no enchanting kingdoms to give away. No doubt the Lord also knew that even if Satan had possessed them, he would not have fulfilled his promise. Nevertheless, the implied suggestion [was] to try to obtain the crown without enduring the cross. William Hendriksen, NT Commentary on Matthew
• As Mediator, the glorious Head of His Church, the kingdom is given to Him as the reward for His sufferings, obedience, and death (Ps. 2:8). RH
So we see some common ploys of the devil exercised against our Lord in two ways. (1) He offers to Christ what wasn’t his to give and what was already given to Christ to begin with. It was Christ’s! How can the devil give to Him what belongs to Him already? Yet Satan assumes that he can tempt our Lord into believing that He needs him in order to get what is already promised Him from the Father. (2) Satan attempts to use what Christ will have to bear in order to fulfill His purpose against Him. In other words he says to Him, “I can save you the pain you must endure if you will but come to me and bow your knee in worship.” He attempts to use against Him the coming pain which caused our Lord to say in Mt. 26:39, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”
And does not Satan do the same thing with us? The promise is not just to Christ, it is to us as well, just as William Gurnall has already testified to in this study. And we too must be willing to resist him for he cannot offer what only comes from the Lord. Calvin speaking of what a great sin we commit when we fall into this trap says, “True, indeed, with the mouth they ask that God will give them daily bread, but it is only with the mouth; for they make Satan the distributor of all the riches in the world.” And this we do through lack of trust in God and because our sinful natures are apt to believe the lie. And oh how many sins we have committed in search of ease! Satan would have us believe that we must lie, cheat, steal, murder, rob, belittle and crush those around us in order to get ahead; in order to alleviate some pain or difficulty in our lives. Yet it is not so! Neither of these lies is so. We must trust and persevere to see the promise fulfilled, this is clear. And when we face troubles we must trust in the Lord and allow His will to be fulfilled in our lives. Beware! If the devil is brazen enough to try and use this against our sovereign and holy Lord, he is doubly so against us.
Personal Summary:
One of the most invaluable tools we have at our disposal in our walk with God is prayer. Christ Himself prayed to the Father as we have discussed. It is also one of the things most neglected in many Christians lives. I can myself attest to the fact that at times it is a most difficult thing to spend time in prayer. I don’t know even why this is. I love the Lord and I gobble up His word and I devour book after book teaching me about Him. But I have to be disciplined and purposeful in my prayer or I tend to neglect it. For far too many it is the same. Let us learn from our Lord and be steadfast in prayer. It is a gift from God. And it is a beautiful thing! Think of how this works: Christ died on the cross and brought salvation to His elect, this allows us the right to pray; we pray imperfect prayers and the Spirit sanctifies them as they reach the throne and makes them acceptable, He in effect cleans them, takes the taint of sin off of them; Christ sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us continuously according to the will of God, not our faulty will, but according to His perfect will (Rom. 8:26-27). Be diligent to take advantage of the opportunity to pray and to make good use of the communion with God that was restored to you in Christ. For that was lost in the fall and for much of history mankind needed mediators between them and God and could not do what we take for granted.
Rejoice! The promise that our Lord will conquer the earth is before us. And you and I are a part of the promise. Christ, out of love for you and I, asked that we be given to Him as an inheritance. Robert Hawker says, “[He asked for] the heathen for His inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for His possession.” Amen! You are a reward for Christ! You are the gift He requested! What privilege and splendor are ours! Please don’t take this lightly either. Christ went to great lengths to secure His reward, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor. 6:20)
Live securely in the promise of God to His children, pray diligently in your daily walk, and live lives that glorify God and stand as an example to the rest of the world as to what has been accomplished in you by God.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Psalms 2:7
Just as in 2:6 we began with a look at Christ in His office as king; we must now begin 2:7 by looking at His place as the Son of God. As before, I trust that it is a worthwhile and necessary consideration prior to venturing into the verse itself, even if it adds length to our study.
The Son or the Second Person in the Trinity
The second person in the Trinity is called “Son” or “Son of God” in more than one sense of the word. (1) In a metaphysical sense. It is quite evident that Jesus Christ is represented as the Son of God in Scripture, irrespective of His work as Mediator. (a) He is spoken of as the Son of God from a pre-incarnation standpoint, for instance in John 1:14, 18; Gal. 4:4. (b) He is called the “only-begotten” Son of God or of the Father, a term that would not apply to Him, if He were the Son of God only in an official or in an ethical sense, John 1:14,18; 3:16,18; 1 John 4:9 (compare with Ps. 2:7) (c) In some passages it is abundantly evident from the context that the name is indicative of the deity of Christ, John 5:18-25; Heb. 1. (d) While Jesus teaches His disciples to speak of God, and to address Him as “our Father,” He Himself speaks of Him, and addresses Him, simply as “Father” or “my Father,” and thereby shows that He was conscious of a unique relationship with the Father, Matt. 6:9; 7:21; John 20:17. (e) According to Matt. 11:27, Jesus as the Son of God claims unique knowledge of God, a knowledge such as no one else can possess. (f) The Jews certainly understood Jesus to claim that He was the Son of God in a metaphysical sense, for they regarded the manner in which He spoke of Himself as the Son of God as blasphemy, Matt. 26:63; John 5:18; 10:36. (2) In an official or Messianic sense. In some passages this meaning of the name is combined with the one previously mentioned, Matt. 27:40; John 1:49; 11:27. This Messiah-Sonship reflects the eternal Sonship of Christ. It is from the point of view of this Messiah-Sonship that God is even called the God of the Son, 2 Cor. 11:31, Eph. 1:3, and is sometimes mentioned as God in distinction from the Lord, john 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:5,6. (3) In a nativistic sense. The name “Son of God” is given to Jesus also in view of the fact that He owed His birth to the paternity of God. He was begotten, according to His human nature, by the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit, and is in that sense the Son of God.
The Eternal Generation of the Son
The personal property of the Son is that he is eternally begotten of the Father, and shares with the Father in the spiration [to breathe or send forth] of the Spirit. The doctrine of the generation of the Son is suggested by the biblical representation of the first and second persons of the trinity as standing in relation of Father and Son to each other. Not only do the names “Father” and “Son” suggest the generation of the latter by the former, but the Son is also repeatedly called “the only-begotten,” John 1:14,18; 3:16,18; Heb. 11:17; 1 john 4:9. The generation of the Son must be regarded as a necessary act of the Father… [but] this does not mean… that it is an act that was accomplished in the far distant past, but rather that it is a timeless act, the act of an eternal present, an act always continuing and yet ever completed. Its eternity follows not only from the eternity of God, but also from the divine immutability and from the true deity of the Son.
The Deity of the Son
[There are many who deny the deity of Christ. From the Ebionites; Alogi; dynamic Monarchians; Arians; Socinians; Unitarians; Modernists and Humanists of this present day.] This denial is possible only for those who disregard the teachings of Scripture, for the Bible contains an abundance of evidence for the deity of Christ. We find that Scripture (1) explicitly asserts the deity of the Son, John 1:1; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Phil 2:6; (2) applies divine names to Him, Isa. 9:6; 40:3; Jer. 23:5,6; Joel 2:32; 1 Tim. 3:16; (3) ascribes to Him divine attributes such as eternal existence, Isa. 9:6; John 1:1-2, omnipresence, matt. 18:20; John 3:13, omniscience, John 2:24-25; 21:17, omnipotence, Phil. 3:21; Rev. 1:8, immutability, Heb. 1:10-12; 13:8, and in general every attribute belonging to the Father, Col. 2:9; (4) speaks of Him doing divine works, as creation, John 1:3,10; Col. 1:16, providence, Luke 10:22; Heb. 1:3, the forgiveness of sins, Matt. 9:2-7; Mark 2:7-10, resurrection and judgment, Matt. 25: 31,32, Acts 10:42, the final dissolution and renewal of all things, Heb. 1:10-12; Phil. 3:21, Rev. 21:5, and (5) accords Him divine honor, John 5:22,23; 14:1; Heb. 1:6.
The Place of the Son in the Economic Trinity
The Son occupies the second place in the opera ad extra. If all things are out of the Father, they are through the Son, 1 Cor. 8:6. If the former is represented as the absolute cause for all things, the latter stands out clearly as the mediating cause. This applies in the natural sphere, where all things are created and maintained through the Son, John 1:3,10; Heb. 1:2,3. He is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, John 1:9. It applies also to the work of redemption. In the Counsel of Redemption He takes upon Himself to be Surety for His people, and to execute the Father’s plan of redemption, Ps. 40:7,8. He works this out more particularly in His incarnation, sufferings, and death, Eph. 1:3-14. Louis Berkhof, “Systematic Theology”, pgs. 91-95
Our Reformed Catechisms also deal with Christ as the Son of God; for instance, in the Westminster Shorter Catechism #21 and #22 and in the Heidelberg Catechism #33.
The Only Begotten
Christ is the only begotten, the natural, proper and eternal Son of God; but we are the sons of God, adopted of the Father by grace for the sake of Christ. [Christ has] the divine essence communicated from the Father to Christ wholly according to His divinity. As we are… the natural sons of our parents, so Christ is according to His divine nature the natural and only Son of God, of the same essence and nature with the Father, out of whose substance He was begotten from everlasting, in a manner altogether beyond our comprehension. John 5:26, “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” The Father has, therefore, communicated to Him the life by which He Himself lives by Himself, and by which He quickens all creatures, which life is that one and eternal Deity by whom all things are. Christ alone according to His human nature is the Son of God, by the grace of conception by the Holy Spirit, and of union with the Word; because, according to this, He was the Son of God by grace, even from the very moment in which He began to be man and to be born; and that because, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, He alone was from the substance of the Virgin, pure from all stain or corruption, and was personally united with the Word.
The First Begotten
1. According to His divinity in respect both to time and dignity. 2. According to His humanity, in respect to dignity alone, and that on account of the miraculous and peculiar manner of His conception, and on account of the gifts by which He excels all others, angels and men. It was the right of the first begotten to have a double portion of the inheritance, whilst each of the rest had only a single portion. The reason of this was on account of the office which He, as the first-begotten, filled; for He was placed over the rest and ruled them, Col. 1:15,18. Zacharias Ursinus, “Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism”, pgs. 181-184
Lastly, we also see this testified to and we proclaim our belief in it in our churches when we recite the Apostles’ Creed. We do this when we say, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty… and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.”
The creed explains why Jesus is of such central importance to the Christian faith. The first reason it identifies is that Jesus is the “Son of God.” In John’s Gospel (John 5:16-27; 17:1-26)… we find a remarkable emphasis on the identity of will and purpose of the Father and Son, indicating how close is the relationship between Jesus and God. In the words of Jesus Himself, as in the impression that was created among the first Christians, Jesus is clearly understood to have a unique and intimate relationship to God, which the resurrection demonstrated publicly (Rom. 1:3-4). In the creed, stating that Jesus is the “Son of God” amounts to saying that Jesus is God. The New Testament states that Jesus saves His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21); He is the Savior born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:11); in His name alone there is salvation (Acts 4:12). Yet the Old Testament insists that it is God, and God alone, who can save and redeem His people. Unless Jesus is God, it is impossible for Jesus to save us. [Also,] as every reader of the Old Testament knows, it is God and God alone who is to be worshipped (Ex. 20:3-7). The insight that Jesus is the Son of God [tells us]… Jesus ought to be worshipped and adored – precisely because He is God. Alister McGrath, “I Believe – Exploring the Apostles’ Creed”, pgs. 39-41
With specific reference to this verse being in Heb. 1:5 and 5:5; I wanted to take a look at the commentary on those verses as well to examine that which seems abundantly clear is used as a proof text testifying to the fact that Christ is the Son of God.
• 1:5 “For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son?” The Jewish people understood Psalm 2 to be messianic, and their use of the Psalm in the synagogue reflected that understanding. The individual writers of the New Testament also interpreted messianically all the quotations and references from the second Psalm (Acts 13:32-33, 4:25-26; Rev. 2:26-27, 19:15). Allusions to verse 2, 7, 8, and 9 can be discerned in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, 2 Peter, and Revelation. The answer to this rhetorical question obviously is negative. The status described in this verse has never been conferred upon the angels, and no angel has ever been given the title Son of God anywhere in the Scriptures. Obviously the earthly king, called son, was unable to fulfill the words of Psalm 2, for the passage referred to the Messiah who in the fullness of time gave the Psalm its ultimate significance. The words of Psalm 2 apply ultimately to the Son of God. His appointment to the office of Son – specifically, His appearance in the flesh – is reflected in the clause “today I have become your Father”. The words I have become indicate that God the Father from eternity has begotten and continues to beget the Messiah, His Son. The words of Psalm 2:7 could have been fulfilled by neither David nor Solomon but only by Jesus Christ. Simon J Kistemaker NT Commentary on Hebrews
• 5:5 “So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee.” Note… that the author does not use the name of Jesus but uses Christ, the name that describes the office and duty of the Son of God. The first time the author uses the quotation to identify the Son with angels. Now the psalm citation indirectly contrasts Christ and Aaron. Jesus is the Son of God, and yet He is called and appointed by God to serve as high priest. In Heb. 4:14, the writer combines the two concepts of sonship and high priesthood. Says Geerhardus Vos, “He gives exceptionally high value to the high priesthood of Christ, and derives its eminence from the Sonship.” Simon J Kistemaker NT Commentary on Hebrews
• It is quite clear… that the writers of the New Testament and Christ Himself understood the Old Testament to recognize and to teach that the Messiah was to be of divine nature. For example, they without hesitation support their own assertions of the Deity of Christ by appeals to the Old Testament passages in which they find the Deity of the Messiah afore-proclaimed. This habit may be observed… in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. There, the author, after having announced the exalted nature of the Son, as the effulgence of the glory and the very image of the substance of God, illustrates His superiority to the angels, the highest of creatures, by appealing to a series of Old Testament passages, in which a “more excellent name” than is given to angels is shown to belong of right to Him. The “more excellent name” which he cites from the Old Testament is in the first instance none other than that of Son itself, whence we learn that when the Old Testament gives to the Messiah the designation of the Son of God – or we would better say, when it ascribes Sonship to God to Him (for it is after this broader fashion that the author develops his theme) – it ascribes to Him, in the view of the author of this Epistle, a super-angelic dignity of person. Of this Son… in contrast with the names of mere ministry given to the angels, there are ascribed to Him the supreme names of “God” and “Lord”; and with the names all the dignities and functions which they naturally connote. These great names of “God” and “Lord” are apparently not adduced as new names, additional to that of “Son,” but as explications of the contents of that one “more excellent name”; and thus we are advised of the loftiness of the name of “Son” in the mind of this writer. B.B. Warfield, “The Works of B.B. Warfield”, vol. 3, pgs. 4-5
“I will declare the decree”
Note: In Calvin’s commentary on this part of the verse he proclaims that David is justifying his position over Israel and confirming he was indeed placed there by God. This carries over into his commentary on “You are my Son” and slightly into “Today I have begotten You”. He does say that it is more appropriately fulfilled by Christ and has a “spirit of prophecy” in the declaration. But when compared with all my other commentaries they all unequivocally would say that this is Christ speaking and/or a new speaker that we have not seen to this point in the Psalm. It is also important to remember how Kistemaker pointed out to us the generally accepted view that this entire Psalm is considered messianic with specific reference to 2:7 appearing in the NT in relation to that understanding.
• We have heard what the kings of the earth have to say against Christ’s kingdom, and have heard it gainsaid by Him that sits in heaven; let us now hear what the Messiah Himself has to say for His kingdom, to make good His claims, and it is what all the powers on earth cannot gainsay. MH
• This Psalm wears something of a dramatic form, for now another person is introduced as speaking. We have looked into the counsel-chamber of the wicked, and to the throne of God, and now we behold the Anointed declaring His rights of sovereignty, and warning the traitors of their doom. God has laughed at the counsel and ravings of the wicked, and now Christ the Anointed Himself comes forward, as the Risen Redeemer, “And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” Rom. 1:4. Looking into the angry faces of the rebellious kings, the Anointed One seems to say, “If this sufficeth not to make you silent, ‘I will declare the decree.’ “ Now this decree is directly in conflict with the device of man, for its tenor is the establishment of the very dominion against which the nations are raving. CHS
• Is not this Jesus speaking in answer to what Jehovah the Father had said before? As soon as God had declared that He had set His king upon His holy hill of Zion, the Son of God comes forward to declare the decree. What decree? Certainly no other than what was from everlasting decreed upon, in the council of peace which was between them both, Zech. 6:13. And is not this the same decree which the lamb was alone found worthy to make known? Rev. 5:1-10. Oh! Precious Lord Jesus! Thou hast indeed declared the decree! Hail, though Son of God, declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead! Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever and ever! RH
• These are the words of Jehovah's Anointed and King, exercising His kingly office, according to the decree and commandment of the Father. "The decree" [is] the purpose of God concerning Christ as Mediator, and the salvation of His people by Him; and who so fit to declare this as He who lay in the bosom of the Father, and was privy to all His secret thoughts and designs, and in [whom] the eternal purpose was purposed. "I will declare"… according to the order and rule prescribed by Jehovah, without adding to it or taking from it: agreeably to which He executed His office as King, and Prophet also. The doctrine was not His own, but His Father's He preached; He spake not of Himself, but as He taught and enjoined Him; the Father gave Him commandment what He should say and speak, and He kept close to it, as He here says He would: and He ruled in His name, and by His authority, according to the law of His office; and which might be depended upon from the dignity of His person, which qualified Him both for His kingly and prophetic offices. JG
“You are my Son”
• He is the Son of God, not by adoption, but His begotten Son, the only begotten of the Father, John 1:14. And the Father owns Him, and will have this declared to the world as the reason why He is constituted King upon the holy hill of Zion; He is therefore unquestionably entitled to, and perfectly qualified for, that great trust, He is the Son of God, and therefore of the same nature with the Father, has in Him all the fullness of the godhead, infinite wisdom, power, and holiness. The supreme government of the church is too high an honor and too hard an undertaking for any mere creature; none can be fit for it but He who is one with the Father and was from eternity by Him as one brought up with Him, thoroughly apprised of all His counsels, Pr. 8:30. He is the Son of God, and therefore dear to Him, His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased; and upon this account we are to receive Him as a King; for because the Father loveth the Son he hath given all things into His hand, John 3:35; 5:20. Being a Son, He is heir of all things, and, the Father having made the worlds by Him; it is easy thence to infer that by Him also He governs them; for He is the eternal Wisdom and the eternal Word. If God has said unto Him, “Thou art my Son,” it becomes each of us to say to Him, “Thou art my Lord, my Sovereign.” MH
• Here is a noble proof of the glorious Divinity of our Immanuel. CHS
• Not by creation, as angels and men; nor by adoption, as saints; nor by office, as civil magistrates; nor on account of His incarnation or resurrection; nor because of the great love of God unto Him; but in such a way of filiation as cannot be said of any creature nor of any other; He is the true, proper, natural, and eternal Son of God, and as such declared, owned, and acknowledged by Jehovah the Father. JG
“Today I have begotten You”
• This expression, to be begotten, does not therefore imply that He then began to be the Son of God, but that his being so was then made manifest to the world. This begetting ought not to be understood of the mutual love which exists between the Father and the Son; it only signifies that He who had been hidden from the beginning in the sacred bosom of the Father, and who afterwards had been obscurely shadowed forth under the law, was known to be the Son of God from the time when He came forth with authentic and evident marks of Sonship, according to what is said in Jn. 1:14, We have seen his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father.” JC
• To satisfy us that His kingdom is well-grounded upon His Sonship, we are told what His Sonship is grounded on: This day I have begotten thee, which refers to His eternal generation itself, and to the evidence and demonstration given of it by His resurrection from the dead. MH
Personal Summary:
We covered a lot of information in this study and you will have to forgive me for its length which I try to avoid being too liberal with. Sometimes the hardest part of these studies is deciding what needs to be whittled down and what is necessary. But I trust that you will find that, while lengthy for sure, what remains has been well thought out and came under heavy study and consideration, so that what is left has been worthy of your time and energy and has, hopefully, the Lord willing, imparted a better understanding of Christ as the Son of God and as it relates to this verse under review.
That said, what a wonderful declaration we have of Christ as the Son of God! Can you imagine that there are those out there that would deny that He is the Son of God? It is so clearly attested to in our bibles and definitively so in this verse. I had a Jewish friend that I worked with years ago that one day was relating to me his fondness of Isaiah. I asked him, how then, based on Isa 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” he could not believe in Christ? When we read these things we are so firmly convinced that it is so that it baffles us to think that anyone could miss it. Why is that? Why did my Jewish friend read the book of Isaiah and not grasp that it is definitively speaking of Christ? Or how could he spend so much time in the Psalms and not see that Ps. 2 has been fulfilled in Christ? It is most certainly not because of us and some intellectual brilliance found in us yet not evident in them. Certainly there are some extremely intelligent men that will deny Christ for as long as they live. The answer is twofold. They do not see because they are reprobates, justly condemned for their sin, and the Lord has hardened their hearts that, “By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive,” Matt. 13:14, just as in Ex 10:20, “the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” The other side is that the Lord has given His elect understanding just as it says in Eph. 1:17-19, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.” It is by grace that we perceive Him and see Him and digest the knowledge of Him in our hearts; not because of us or anything we do in and of ourselves. Ro 9:16, “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” So we must be thankful that we know Him and understand Him. Apart from the knowledge He Himself gives us we would be like the lost man denying Him every step of the way.
But now we have this beautiful knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we perceive that He is the Son of God. We may confidently and accurately assert that He is the second person of the Trinity, eternally begotten of the Father, that with the Father He sends forth the Spirit; that He is fully God, equal and fully endowed with every attribute of the Father; that through Him everything created was made and is sustained; that He is the true and only-begotten Son of God the Father. We may know all of this and appreciate more fully, that unlike Isaac being spared as a sacrifice by the Lord, the Son of God was not spared but was sacrificed in our place. That God the Son took on the wrath of God in our place and became the propitiation for our sins. Is it not more beautiful what He did for us in obedience to the Father and in love for us when we see how clearly the bible reveals who He is? RC Sproul in his book “The Holiness of God” defines what Christ did for us on the cross, acting as the propitiation for our sins; please as you read this keep in mind all that you have learned in this study and allow it to guide your thought as you contemplate what He has done. He says, “The most violent expression of God’s wrath and justice is seen in the Cross. If ever a person had room to complain of injustice, it was Jesus. He was the only innocent man ever to be punished by God. If we stagger at the wrath of God, let us stagger at the Cross. Here is where our astonishment should be focused. If we have cause for moral outrage, let it be directed at Golgotha. The cross was at once the most horrible and most beautiful example of God’s wrath. It was the most just and the most gracious act in history. God would have been more than unjust; He would have been diabolical to punish Jesus if Jesus had not first willingly taken on Himself the sins of the world. Once Christ had done that, once He volunteered to be the Lamb of God, laden with our sin, then He became the most grotesque and vile thing on this planet. With the concentrated load of sin He carried, He became utterly repugnant to the Father. God poured out His wrath on this obscene thing. God made Christ accursed for the sin He bore. Herein was God’s holy justice perfectly manifest. Yet it was done for us. He took what justice demanded from us. This “for us” aspect of the Cross is what displays the majesty of its grace. At the same time justice and grace, wrath and mercy. It is too astonishing to fathom.”
And with that I end this study hoping that we more fully recognize who He is and what He has done for us. Let us draw ever nearer to Him who has loved us in the scope of eternity and has always been the answer to the problem of our deserved condemnation because of the sin that is in us. Only the Son of God could overcome sin’s disastrous effects and yet God so loved His elect “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Amen.
The Son or the Second Person in the Trinity
The second person in the Trinity is called “Son” or “Son of God” in more than one sense of the word. (1) In a metaphysical sense. It is quite evident that Jesus Christ is represented as the Son of God in Scripture, irrespective of His work as Mediator. (a) He is spoken of as the Son of God from a pre-incarnation standpoint, for instance in John 1:14, 18; Gal. 4:4. (b) He is called the “only-begotten” Son of God or of the Father, a term that would not apply to Him, if He were the Son of God only in an official or in an ethical sense, John 1:14,18; 3:16,18; 1 John 4:9 (compare with Ps. 2:7) (c) In some passages it is abundantly evident from the context that the name is indicative of the deity of Christ, John 5:18-25; Heb. 1. (d) While Jesus teaches His disciples to speak of God, and to address Him as “our Father,” He Himself speaks of Him, and addresses Him, simply as “Father” or “my Father,” and thereby shows that He was conscious of a unique relationship with the Father, Matt. 6:9; 7:21; John 20:17. (e) According to Matt. 11:27, Jesus as the Son of God claims unique knowledge of God, a knowledge such as no one else can possess. (f) The Jews certainly understood Jesus to claim that He was the Son of God in a metaphysical sense, for they regarded the manner in which He spoke of Himself as the Son of God as blasphemy, Matt. 26:63; John 5:18; 10:36. (2) In an official or Messianic sense. In some passages this meaning of the name is combined with the one previously mentioned, Matt. 27:40; John 1:49; 11:27. This Messiah-Sonship reflects the eternal Sonship of Christ. It is from the point of view of this Messiah-Sonship that God is even called the God of the Son, 2 Cor. 11:31, Eph. 1:3, and is sometimes mentioned as God in distinction from the Lord, john 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Eph. 4:5,6. (3) In a nativistic sense. The name “Son of God” is given to Jesus also in view of the fact that He owed His birth to the paternity of God. He was begotten, according to His human nature, by the supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit, and is in that sense the Son of God.
The Eternal Generation of the Son
The personal property of the Son is that he is eternally begotten of the Father, and shares with the Father in the spiration [to breathe or send forth] of the Spirit. The doctrine of the generation of the Son is suggested by the biblical representation of the first and second persons of the trinity as standing in relation of Father and Son to each other. Not only do the names “Father” and “Son” suggest the generation of the latter by the former, but the Son is also repeatedly called “the only-begotten,” John 1:14,18; 3:16,18; Heb. 11:17; 1 john 4:9. The generation of the Son must be regarded as a necessary act of the Father… [but] this does not mean… that it is an act that was accomplished in the far distant past, but rather that it is a timeless act, the act of an eternal present, an act always continuing and yet ever completed. Its eternity follows not only from the eternity of God, but also from the divine immutability and from the true deity of the Son.
The Deity of the Son
[There are many who deny the deity of Christ. From the Ebionites; Alogi; dynamic Monarchians; Arians; Socinians; Unitarians; Modernists and Humanists of this present day.] This denial is possible only for those who disregard the teachings of Scripture, for the Bible contains an abundance of evidence for the deity of Christ. We find that Scripture (1) explicitly asserts the deity of the Son, John 1:1; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Phil 2:6; (2) applies divine names to Him, Isa. 9:6; 40:3; Jer. 23:5,6; Joel 2:32; 1 Tim. 3:16; (3) ascribes to Him divine attributes such as eternal existence, Isa. 9:6; John 1:1-2, omnipresence, matt. 18:20; John 3:13, omniscience, John 2:24-25; 21:17, omnipotence, Phil. 3:21; Rev. 1:8, immutability, Heb. 1:10-12; 13:8, and in general every attribute belonging to the Father, Col. 2:9; (4) speaks of Him doing divine works, as creation, John 1:3,10; Col. 1:16, providence, Luke 10:22; Heb. 1:3, the forgiveness of sins, Matt. 9:2-7; Mark 2:7-10, resurrection and judgment, Matt. 25: 31,32, Acts 10:42, the final dissolution and renewal of all things, Heb. 1:10-12; Phil. 3:21, Rev. 21:5, and (5) accords Him divine honor, John 5:22,23; 14:1; Heb. 1:6.
The Place of the Son in the Economic Trinity
The Son occupies the second place in the opera ad extra. If all things are out of the Father, they are through the Son, 1 Cor. 8:6. If the former is represented as the absolute cause for all things, the latter stands out clearly as the mediating cause. This applies in the natural sphere, where all things are created and maintained through the Son, John 1:3,10; Heb. 1:2,3. He is the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, John 1:9. It applies also to the work of redemption. In the Counsel of Redemption He takes upon Himself to be Surety for His people, and to execute the Father’s plan of redemption, Ps. 40:7,8. He works this out more particularly in His incarnation, sufferings, and death, Eph. 1:3-14. Louis Berkhof, “Systematic Theology”, pgs. 91-95
Our Reformed Catechisms also deal with Christ as the Son of God; for instance, in the Westminster Shorter Catechism #21 and #22 and in the Heidelberg Catechism #33.
The Only Begotten
Christ is the only begotten, the natural, proper and eternal Son of God; but we are the sons of God, adopted of the Father by grace for the sake of Christ. [Christ has] the divine essence communicated from the Father to Christ wholly according to His divinity. As we are… the natural sons of our parents, so Christ is according to His divine nature the natural and only Son of God, of the same essence and nature with the Father, out of whose substance He was begotten from everlasting, in a manner altogether beyond our comprehension. John 5:26, “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” The Father has, therefore, communicated to Him the life by which He Himself lives by Himself, and by which He quickens all creatures, which life is that one and eternal Deity by whom all things are. Christ alone according to His human nature is the Son of God, by the grace of conception by the Holy Spirit, and of union with the Word; because, according to this, He was the Son of God by grace, even from the very moment in which He began to be man and to be born; and that because, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, He alone was from the substance of the Virgin, pure from all stain or corruption, and was personally united with the Word.
The First Begotten
1. According to His divinity in respect both to time and dignity. 2. According to His humanity, in respect to dignity alone, and that on account of the miraculous and peculiar manner of His conception, and on account of the gifts by which He excels all others, angels and men. It was the right of the first begotten to have a double portion of the inheritance, whilst each of the rest had only a single portion. The reason of this was on account of the office which He, as the first-begotten, filled; for He was placed over the rest and ruled them, Col. 1:15,18. Zacharias Ursinus, “Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism”, pgs. 181-184
Lastly, we also see this testified to and we proclaim our belief in it in our churches when we recite the Apostles’ Creed. We do this when we say, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty… and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.”
The creed explains why Jesus is of such central importance to the Christian faith. The first reason it identifies is that Jesus is the “Son of God.” In John’s Gospel (John 5:16-27; 17:1-26)… we find a remarkable emphasis on the identity of will and purpose of the Father and Son, indicating how close is the relationship between Jesus and God. In the words of Jesus Himself, as in the impression that was created among the first Christians, Jesus is clearly understood to have a unique and intimate relationship to God, which the resurrection demonstrated publicly (Rom. 1:3-4). In the creed, stating that Jesus is the “Son of God” amounts to saying that Jesus is God. The New Testament states that Jesus saves His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21); He is the Savior born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:11); in His name alone there is salvation (Acts 4:12). Yet the Old Testament insists that it is God, and God alone, who can save and redeem His people. Unless Jesus is God, it is impossible for Jesus to save us. [Also,] as every reader of the Old Testament knows, it is God and God alone who is to be worshipped (Ex. 20:3-7). The insight that Jesus is the Son of God [tells us]… Jesus ought to be worshipped and adored – precisely because He is God. Alister McGrath, “I Believe – Exploring the Apostles’ Creed”, pgs. 39-41
With specific reference to this verse being in Heb. 1:5 and 5:5; I wanted to take a look at the commentary on those verses as well to examine that which seems abundantly clear is used as a proof text testifying to the fact that Christ is the Son of God.
• 1:5 “For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to me a Son?” The Jewish people understood Psalm 2 to be messianic, and their use of the Psalm in the synagogue reflected that understanding. The individual writers of the New Testament also interpreted messianically all the quotations and references from the second Psalm (Acts 13:32-33, 4:25-26; Rev. 2:26-27, 19:15). Allusions to verse 2, 7, 8, and 9 can be discerned in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Hebrews, 2 Peter, and Revelation. The answer to this rhetorical question obviously is negative. The status described in this verse has never been conferred upon the angels, and no angel has ever been given the title Son of God anywhere in the Scriptures. Obviously the earthly king, called son, was unable to fulfill the words of Psalm 2, for the passage referred to the Messiah who in the fullness of time gave the Psalm its ultimate significance. The words of Psalm 2 apply ultimately to the Son of God. His appointment to the office of Son – specifically, His appearance in the flesh – is reflected in the clause “today I have become your Father”. The words I have become indicate that God the Father from eternity has begotten and continues to beget the Messiah, His Son. The words of Psalm 2:7 could have been fulfilled by neither David nor Solomon but only by Jesus Christ. Simon J Kistemaker NT Commentary on Hebrews
• 5:5 “So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, today have I begotten thee.” Note… that the author does not use the name of Jesus but uses Christ, the name that describes the office and duty of the Son of God. The first time the author uses the quotation to identify the Son with angels. Now the psalm citation indirectly contrasts Christ and Aaron. Jesus is the Son of God, and yet He is called and appointed by God to serve as high priest. In Heb. 4:14, the writer combines the two concepts of sonship and high priesthood. Says Geerhardus Vos, “He gives exceptionally high value to the high priesthood of Christ, and derives its eminence from the Sonship.” Simon J Kistemaker NT Commentary on Hebrews
• It is quite clear… that the writers of the New Testament and Christ Himself understood the Old Testament to recognize and to teach that the Messiah was to be of divine nature. For example, they without hesitation support their own assertions of the Deity of Christ by appeals to the Old Testament passages in which they find the Deity of the Messiah afore-proclaimed. This habit may be observed… in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. There, the author, after having announced the exalted nature of the Son, as the effulgence of the glory and the very image of the substance of God, illustrates His superiority to the angels, the highest of creatures, by appealing to a series of Old Testament passages, in which a “more excellent name” than is given to angels is shown to belong of right to Him. The “more excellent name” which he cites from the Old Testament is in the first instance none other than that of Son itself, whence we learn that when the Old Testament gives to the Messiah the designation of the Son of God – or we would better say, when it ascribes Sonship to God to Him (for it is after this broader fashion that the author develops his theme) – it ascribes to Him, in the view of the author of this Epistle, a super-angelic dignity of person. Of this Son… in contrast with the names of mere ministry given to the angels, there are ascribed to Him the supreme names of “God” and “Lord”; and with the names all the dignities and functions which they naturally connote. These great names of “God” and “Lord” are apparently not adduced as new names, additional to that of “Son,” but as explications of the contents of that one “more excellent name”; and thus we are advised of the loftiness of the name of “Son” in the mind of this writer. B.B. Warfield, “The Works of B.B. Warfield”, vol. 3, pgs. 4-5
“I will declare the decree”
Note: In Calvin’s commentary on this part of the verse he proclaims that David is justifying his position over Israel and confirming he was indeed placed there by God. This carries over into his commentary on “You are my Son” and slightly into “Today I have begotten You”. He does say that it is more appropriately fulfilled by Christ and has a “spirit of prophecy” in the declaration. But when compared with all my other commentaries they all unequivocally would say that this is Christ speaking and/or a new speaker that we have not seen to this point in the Psalm. It is also important to remember how Kistemaker pointed out to us the generally accepted view that this entire Psalm is considered messianic with specific reference to 2:7 appearing in the NT in relation to that understanding.
• We have heard what the kings of the earth have to say against Christ’s kingdom, and have heard it gainsaid by Him that sits in heaven; let us now hear what the Messiah Himself has to say for His kingdom, to make good His claims, and it is what all the powers on earth cannot gainsay. MH
• This Psalm wears something of a dramatic form, for now another person is introduced as speaking. We have looked into the counsel-chamber of the wicked, and to the throne of God, and now we behold the Anointed declaring His rights of sovereignty, and warning the traitors of their doom. God has laughed at the counsel and ravings of the wicked, and now Christ the Anointed Himself comes forward, as the Risen Redeemer, “And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” Rom. 1:4. Looking into the angry faces of the rebellious kings, the Anointed One seems to say, “If this sufficeth not to make you silent, ‘I will declare the decree.’ “ Now this decree is directly in conflict with the device of man, for its tenor is the establishment of the very dominion against which the nations are raving. CHS
• Is not this Jesus speaking in answer to what Jehovah the Father had said before? As soon as God had declared that He had set His king upon His holy hill of Zion, the Son of God comes forward to declare the decree. What decree? Certainly no other than what was from everlasting decreed upon, in the council of peace which was between them both, Zech. 6:13. And is not this the same decree which the lamb was alone found worthy to make known? Rev. 5:1-10. Oh! Precious Lord Jesus! Thou hast indeed declared the decree! Hail, though Son of God, declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead! Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever and ever! RH
• These are the words of Jehovah's Anointed and King, exercising His kingly office, according to the decree and commandment of the Father. "The decree" [is] the purpose of God concerning Christ as Mediator, and the salvation of His people by Him; and who so fit to declare this as He who lay in the bosom of the Father, and was privy to all His secret thoughts and designs, and in [whom] the eternal purpose was purposed. "I will declare"… according to the order and rule prescribed by Jehovah, without adding to it or taking from it: agreeably to which He executed His office as King, and Prophet also. The doctrine was not His own, but His Father's He preached; He spake not of Himself, but as He taught and enjoined Him; the Father gave Him commandment what He should say and speak, and He kept close to it, as He here says He would: and He ruled in His name, and by His authority, according to the law of His office; and which might be depended upon from the dignity of His person, which qualified Him both for His kingly and prophetic offices. JG
“You are my Son”
• He is the Son of God, not by adoption, but His begotten Son, the only begotten of the Father, John 1:14. And the Father owns Him, and will have this declared to the world as the reason why He is constituted King upon the holy hill of Zion; He is therefore unquestionably entitled to, and perfectly qualified for, that great trust, He is the Son of God, and therefore of the same nature with the Father, has in Him all the fullness of the godhead, infinite wisdom, power, and holiness. The supreme government of the church is too high an honor and too hard an undertaking for any mere creature; none can be fit for it but He who is one with the Father and was from eternity by Him as one brought up with Him, thoroughly apprised of all His counsels, Pr. 8:30. He is the Son of God, and therefore dear to Him, His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased; and upon this account we are to receive Him as a King; for because the Father loveth the Son he hath given all things into His hand, John 3:35; 5:20. Being a Son, He is heir of all things, and, the Father having made the worlds by Him; it is easy thence to infer that by Him also He governs them; for He is the eternal Wisdom and the eternal Word. If God has said unto Him, “Thou art my Son,” it becomes each of us to say to Him, “Thou art my Lord, my Sovereign.” MH
• Here is a noble proof of the glorious Divinity of our Immanuel. CHS
• Not by creation, as angels and men; nor by adoption, as saints; nor by office, as civil magistrates; nor on account of His incarnation or resurrection; nor because of the great love of God unto Him; but in such a way of filiation as cannot be said of any creature nor of any other; He is the true, proper, natural, and eternal Son of God, and as such declared, owned, and acknowledged by Jehovah the Father. JG
“Today I have begotten You”
• This expression, to be begotten, does not therefore imply that He then began to be the Son of God, but that his being so was then made manifest to the world. This begetting ought not to be understood of the mutual love which exists between the Father and the Son; it only signifies that He who had been hidden from the beginning in the sacred bosom of the Father, and who afterwards had been obscurely shadowed forth under the law, was known to be the Son of God from the time when He came forth with authentic and evident marks of Sonship, according to what is said in Jn. 1:14, We have seen his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father.” JC
• To satisfy us that His kingdom is well-grounded upon His Sonship, we are told what His Sonship is grounded on: This day I have begotten thee, which refers to His eternal generation itself, and to the evidence and demonstration given of it by His resurrection from the dead. MH
Personal Summary:
We covered a lot of information in this study and you will have to forgive me for its length which I try to avoid being too liberal with. Sometimes the hardest part of these studies is deciding what needs to be whittled down and what is necessary. But I trust that you will find that, while lengthy for sure, what remains has been well thought out and came under heavy study and consideration, so that what is left has been worthy of your time and energy and has, hopefully, the Lord willing, imparted a better understanding of Christ as the Son of God and as it relates to this verse under review.
That said, what a wonderful declaration we have of Christ as the Son of God! Can you imagine that there are those out there that would deny that He is the Son of God? It is so clearly attested to in our bibles and definitively so in this verse. I had a Jewish friend that I worked with years ago that one day was relating to me his fondness of Isaiah. I asked him, how then, based on Isa 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” he could not believe in Christ? When we read these things we are so firmly convinced that it is so that it baffles us to think that anyone could miss it. Why is that? Why did my Jewish friend read the book of Isaiah and not grasp that it is definitively speaking of Christ? Or how could he spend so much time in the Psalms and not see that Ps. 2 has been fulfilled in Christ? It is most certainly not because of us and some intellectual brilliance found in us yet not evident in them. Certainly there are some extremely intelligent men that will deny Christ for as long as they live. The answer is twofold. They do not see because they are reprobates, justly condemned for their sin, and the Lord has hardened their hearts that, “By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive,” Matt. 13:14, just as in Ex 10:20, “the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” The other side is that the Lord has given His elect understanding just as it says in Eph. 1:17-19, “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.” It is by grace that we perceive Him and see Him and digest the knowledge of Him in our hearts; not because of us or anything we do in and of ourselves. Ro 9:16, “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” So we must be thankful that we know Him and understand Him. Apart from the knowledge He Himself gives us we would be like the lost man denying Him every step of the way.
But now we have this beautiful knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now we perceive that He is the Son of God. We may confidently and accurately assert that He is the second person of the Trinity, eternally begotten of the Father, that with the Father He sends forth the Spirit; that He is fully God, equal and fully endowed with every attribute of the Father; that through Him everything created was made and is sustained; that He is the true and only-begotten Son of God the Father. We may know all of this and appreciate more fully, that unlike Isaac being spared as a sacrifice by the Lord, the Son of God was not spared but was sacrificed in our place. That God the Son took on the wrath of God in our place and became the propitiation for our sins. Is it not more beautiful what He did for us in obedience to the Father and in love for us when we see how clearly the bible reveals who He is? RC Sproul in his book “The Holiness of God” defines what Christ did for us on the cross, acting as the propitiation for our sins; please as you read this keep in mind all that you have learned in this study and allow it to guide your thought as you contemplate what He has done. He says, “The most violent expression of God’s wrath and justice is seen in the Cross. If ever a person had room to complain of injustice, it was Jesus. He was the only innocent man ever to be punished by God. If we stagger at the wrath of God, let us stagger at the Cross. Here is where our astonishment should be focused. If we have cause for moral outrage, let it be directed at Golgotha. The cross was at once the most horrible and most beautiful example of God’s wrath. It was the most just and the most gracious act in history. God would have been more than unjust; He would have been diabolical to punish Jesus if Jesus had not first willingly taken on Himself the sins of the world. Once Christ had done that, once He volunteered to be the Lamb of God, laden with our sin, then He became the most grotesque and vile thing on this planet. With the concentrated load of sin He carried, He became utterly repugnant to the Father. God poured out His wrath on this obscene thing. God made Christ accursed for the sin He bore. Herein was God’s holy justice perfectly manifest. Yet it was done for us. He took what justice demanded from us. This “for us” aspect of the Cross is what displays the majesty of its grace. At the same time justice and grace, wrath and mercy. It is too astonishing to fathom.”
And with that I end this study hoping that we more fully recognize who He is and what He has done for us. Let us draw ever nearer to Him who has loved us in the scope of eternity and has always been the answer to the problem of our deserved condemnation because of the sin that is in us. Only the Son of God could overcome sin’s disastrous effects and yet God so loved His elect “that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Amen.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Psalms 2:6
I felt obliged to include some study on Christ as king before we ventured into the verse itself. I have tried to condense it down as much as possible but admittedly found most of it to be profitable and included most of it verbatim. It is a worthwhile consideration before looking at 2:6 which speaks of the office of king and the setting or anointing of the king by God.
The Name of Christ:
If Jesus is the personal, Christ is the official, name of the Messiah. It is the equivalent of the OT Mashiach (from mashach, to anoint –which is Strong’s 4886–), and thus means “the anointed one.” Kings and priests were regularly anointed in the old dispensation, Ex. 29:7; Lev. 4:3; Jgs. 9:8; 1 Sam. 9:16; 10:1; 2 Sam. 19:10. The King is called “the anointed of Jehovah,” 1 Sam. 24:10.The oil is used in anointing these officers symbolized the Spirit of God, Isa. 61:1; Zech. 4:1-6, and the anointing represented the transfer of the Spirit to the consecrated person, 1 Sam. 10:1,6,10; 16:13,14. The anointing was a visible sign of (a) an appointment to office; (b) the establishment of a sacred relationship and the consequent sacrosanctness of the person anointed, 1 Sam. 24:6; 26:9; 2 Sam. 1:14; and (c) a communication of the Spirit to the anointed one, 1 Sam. 16:13. The OT refers to the anointing of the Lord in Ps. 2:2… and formerly references were found in Ps. 2:6… but today Hebraists assert that the word nasak [Strong’s 5258 which is still listed as to pour out; to anoint; but is translated “I have set” in the KJV and the NKJV], used in these passages, means “to set up” rather than “to anoint”. But even so the word points to the reality of the first thing symbolized in the anointing. Christ was set up or appointed to His offices from eternity.
The Spiritual Kingship of Christ:
The spiritual kingship of Christ is His royal rule over the regnum gratiae, that is over His people or the Church. It is a spiritual kingship, because it relates to the spiritual realm. It is the mediatorial rule as it is established in the hearts and lives of believers. Moreover, it is spiritual, because it bears directly and immediately on a spiritual end, the salvation of His people. And, finally, it is spiritual, because it is administered, not by force or external means, but by the Word and the Spirit, which is the Spirit of truth and wisdom, of justice and holiness, of grace and mercy. This kingship reveals itself in the gathering of the church, and in its government, protection and perfection. The Bible speaks of it in many places, such as Ps. 2:6; 45:6,7; (cf. Heb. 1:8,9); 132:11; Isa. 9:6,7; Jer. 23:5,6; Acts 2:30-36, and other places.
The Duration of This Kingship:
The generally accepted position of the Church is that Christ received His appointment as mediatorial King in the depths of eternity, and that He began to function as such immediately after the fall, Prov. 8:23; Ps. 2:6. During the old dispensation He carried on His work as King partly through the judges of Israel, and partly through the typical kings. But though He was permitted to rule as Mediator even before His incarnation, He did not publicly and formally assume His throne and inaugurate His spiritual kingdom until the time of His ascension and elevation at the right hand of God, Acts 2:29-36; Phil. 2:5-11. – Louis Berkhof, “Systematic Theology”, pgs. 312, 406, 410
Christ is truly a King:
Although the kingdom of God had existed from the beginning, yet as everything therewith connected before the Advent was merely preparatory, the Scriptures constantly speak of the Messiah as a king who was to set up a kingdom into which in the end all other kingdoms were to be merged. The most familiar designation applied to Him in the Scriptures is Lord. But Lord means proprietor and ruler; and when used of God or Christ, it means absolute proprietor and sovereign ruler. Apart from Christ’s right in us and sovereignty over us as God, He as the God-man is our Lord. We belong to Him by the purchase of His blood, and God has set Him as King on His holy hill of Zion. In the second Psalm God declares in reference to the Messiah, I have “set my king upon my holy hill of Zion… Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” As the priesthood, and sacrifices, and prophets of the former dispensation were typical of the prophetic and priestly offices of Christ, so the kings of Israel were typical of His kingly office, so the national theocracy of the Mosaic economy was typical of the spiritual theocracy of the Messianic period. In the NT Christ is set forth as a king, in harmony with the predictions that foretold His advent, Luke 1:31-33; Matt. 3:2; Mark 1:14. Nothing, therefore, is more certain, according to the Scriptures, than that Christ is a king; and consequently, if we would retain the truth concerning Him and His work, He must be so regarded in our theology and religion. – Charles Hodge, “Systematic Theology”, vol. 2, pgs. 597-599
“I have set my King”
• The pronoun I is also emphatical, by which God signifies that He is so far exalted above the men of this world, that the whole mass of them could not possibly obscure His glory in the least degree. As often, then, as the power of man appears formidable to us, let us remember how much it is transcended by the power of God. In these words there is set before us the unchangeable and eternal purpose of God effectually to defend, even to the end, the kingdom of His Son, of which He is the founder; and this may well support our faith amidst the troublous storms of the world. JC
• Notice – 1. The royal office and character of our glorious Redeemer: He is a King. 2. The authority by which He reigns; He is “my King,” says God the Father, and I have set Him up from everlasting: “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:” (John 5:22). The world disowns His authority, but I own it; I have set Him, I have “given Him to be head over all things to the church” (Eph 1:22). Stephen Charnock
“On my holy hill of Zion”
• Mention is here made of mount Zion in express terms, not because David was first anointed there, but because at length, in God’s own time, the truth of the prophecy was manifested and actually established by the solemn rite of His consecration. And although David in these words had a regard to the promise of God… he meant to signify that his own reign is holy and inseparably connected with the temple of God. But this is applied more appropriately to the kingdom of Christ, which we know to be both spiritual and joined to the priesthood, and this is the principle part of the worship of God. JC
• He is set upon Zion, the hill of God’s holiness, a type of the gospel church, for on that the temple was built, for the sake of which the whole mount was called holy. Christ’s throne is set up in His church, that is, in the hearts of all believers and in the societies they form. The evangelical law of Christ is said to go forth from Zion (Isa. 2:3, Mic. 4:2), and therefore that is spoken of as the headquarters of this general, the royal seat of this prince, in whom the children of men shall be joyful. We are to sing these verses (vs. 1-6) with holy exultation, triumphing over all the enemies of Christ’s kingdom (not doubting but they will all of them be quickly made His footstool), and triumphing in Jesus Christ as the great trustee of power, and we are to pray, in firm belief of the assurance here given, “Father in heaven, Thy kingdom come, let thy Son’s kingdom come.” MH
• Although in the first sense these words may be said of David as a type of Christ, when the Lord set David upon the throne of Zion, (which is also typical of the church of Christ, which is called Zion), yet we must look beyond David, and all earthly kings, to behold Jesus as God’s king; for it is the peculiar character of Christ, that He did not, uncalled, assume the spiritual kingdom in this world, nor the eternal kingdom in the world above, but was called of God as was Aaron (Heb. 5:4-5). And it is the peculiar joy of God’s people, that their king is their lawful Sovereign, Redeemer, and Mediator, being so appointed and constituted by Jehovah. Always keep this view of Jesus, as the head and king of the church and people, in remembrance; for it will give confidence in all your approaches to God in Christ. RH
Summary:
Christ is our all in all. He is our Prophet, Priest, and King. His majesty and glory has been established in all the ages, even in eternity. He is the Christ! He is the great Jehovah saves! We are not laden with a faulty king but we have THE king, the king that cannot be matched or surpassed. His kingdom is a blessed kingdom that endures forever. Man cannot overcome Him and we cannot be separated from Him (Rom. 8:38-39). He is the purchaser of our souls and all reverence and glory are due Him by His lowly creatures that can but humbly and thankfully come to Him in praise. For without Him we would be waiting for a different sentence to be exacted in which “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12).
David was established as an ectype of what Christ is; merely a copy of the original, regardless of how great he was among men. He was blessed and flourished, he was placed in his office by God, and he pointed us to Christ. Yet, in all of that, he was still a fallible man, mired in sin, and laden with temptation just like we are. Yet the king that all of mankind had been waiting for is now here. He is revealed to us and came among us in the flesh. We are not waiting for Him to come; He already came; now we wait on His return to fully institute His promised kingdom once and for all. If men take comfort in their kings then how much more so can we take comfort in our divine king? Let us be confident in our walk for we are triumphant and God has placed His king over all the earth and we know that in time “every knee shall bow to [Christ], and every tongue shall confess to God” (Rom. 14:11). Praise God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Amen!
The Name of Christ:
If Jesus is the personal, Christ is the official, name of the Messiah. It is the equivalent of the OT Mashiach (from mashach, to anoint –which is Strong’s 4886–), and thus means “the anointed one.” Kings and priests were regularly anointed in the old dispensation, Ex. 29:7; Lev. 4:3; Jgs. 9:8; 1 Sam. 9:16; 10:1; 2 Sam. 19:10. The King is called “the anointed of Jehovah,” 1 Sam. 24:10.The oil is used in anointing these officers symbolized the Spirit of God, Isa. 61:1; Zech. 4:1-6, and the anointing represented the transfer of the Spirit to the consecrated person, 1 Sam. 10:1,6,10; 16:13,14. The anointing was a visible sign of (a) an appointment to office; (b) the establishment of a sacred relationship and the consequent sacrosanctness of the person anointed, 1 Sam. 24:6; 26:9; 2 Sam. 1:14; and (c) a communication of the Spirit to the anointed one, 1 Sam. 16:13. The OT refers to the anointing of the Lord in Ps. 2:2… and formerly references were found in Ps. 2:6… but today Hebraists assert that the word nasak [Strong’s 5258 which is still listed as to pour out; to anoint; but is translated “I have set” in the KJV and the NKJV], used in these passages, means “to set up” rather than “to anoint”. But even so the word points to the reality of the first thing symbolized in the anointing. Christ was set up or appointed to His offices from eternity.
The Spiritual Kingship of Christ:
The spiritual kingship of Christ is His royal rule over the regnum gratiae, that is over His people or the Church. It is a spiritual kingship, because it relates to the spiritual realm. It is the mediatorial rule as it is established in the hearts and lives of believers. Moreover, it is spiritual, because it bears directly and immediately on a spiritual end, the salvation of His people. And, finally, it is spiritual, because it is administered, not by force or external means, but by the Word and the Spirit, which is the Spirit of truth and wisdom, of justice and holiness, of grace and mercy. This kingship reveals itself in the gathering of the church, and in its government, protection and perfection. The Bible speaks of it in many places, such as Ps. 2:6; 45:6,7; (cf. Heb. 1:8,9); 132:11; Isa. 9:6,7; Jer. 23:5,6; Acts 2:30-36, and other places.
The Duration of This Kingship:
The generally accepted position of the Church is that Christ received His appointment as mediatorial King in the depths of eternity, and that He began to function as such immediately after the fall, Prov. 8:23; Ps. 2:6. During the old dispensation He carried on His work as King partly through the judges of Israel, and partly through the typical kings. But though He was permitted to rule as Mediator even before His incarnation, He did not publicly and formally assume His throne and inaugurate His spiritual kingdom until the time of His ascension and elevation at the right hand of God, Acts 2:29-36; Phil. 2:5-11. – Louis Berkhof, “Systematic Theology”, pgs. 312, 406, 410
Christ is truly a King:
Although the kingdom of God had existed from the beginning, yet as everything therewith connected before the Advent was merely preparatory, the Scriptures constantly speak of the Messiah as a king who was to set up a kingdom into which in the end all other kingdoms were to be merged. The most familiar designation applied to Him in the Scriptures is Lord. But Lord means proprietor and ruler; and when used of God or Christ, it means absolute proprietor and sovereign ruler. Apart from Christ’s right in us and sovereignty over us as God, He as the God-man is our Lord. We belong to Him by the purchase of His blood, and God has set Him as King on His holy hill of Zion. In the second Psalm God declares in reference to the Messiah, I have “set my king upon my holy hill of Zion… Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” As the priesthood, and sacrifices, and prophets of the former dispensation were typical of the prophetic and priestly offices of Christ, so the kings of Israel were typical of His kingly office, so the national theocracy of the Mosaic economy was typical of the spiritual theocracy of the Messianic period. In the NT Christ is set forth as a king, in harmony with the predictions that foretold His advent, Luke 1:31-33; Matt. 3:2; Mark 1:14. Nothing, therefore, is more certain, according to the Scriptures, than that Christ is a king; and consequently, if we would retain the truth concerning Him and His work, He must be so regarded in our theology and religion. – Charles Hodge, “Systematic Theology”, vol. 2, pgs. 597-599
“I have set my King”
• The pronoun I is also emphatical, by which God signifies that He is so far exalted above the men of this world, that the whole mass of them could not possibly obscure His glory in the least degree. As often, then, as the power of man appears formidable to us, let us remember how much it is transcended by the power of God. In these words there is set before us the unchangeable and eternal purpose of God effectually to defend, even to the end, the kingdom of His Son, of which He is the founder; and this may well support our faith amidst the troublous storms of the world. JC
• Notice – 1. The royal office and character of our glorious Redeemer: He is a King. 2. The authority by which He reigns; He is “my King,” says God the Father, and I have set Him up from everlasting: “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:” (John 5:22). The world disowns His authority, but I own it; I have set Him, I have “given Him to be head over all things to the church” (Eph 1:22). Stephen Charnock
“On my holy hill of Zion”
• Mention is here made of mount Zion in express terms, not because David was first anointed there, but because at length, in God’s own time, the truth of the prophecy was manifested and actually established by the solemn rite of His consecration. And although David in these words had a regard to the promise of God… he meant to signify that his own reign is holy and inseparably connected with the temple of God. But this is applied more appropriately to the kingdom of Christ, which we know to be both spiritual and joined to the priesthood, and this is the principle part of the worship of God. JC
• He is set upon Zion, the hill of God’s holiness, a type of the gospel church, for on that the temple was built, for the sake of which the whole mount was called holy. Christ’s throne is set up in His church, that is, in the hearts of all believers and in the societies they form. The evangelical law of Christ is said to go forth from Zion (Isa. 2:3, Mic. 4:2), and therefore that is spoken of as the headquarters of this general, the royal seat of this prince, in whom the children of men shall be joyful. We are to sing these verses (vs. 1-6) with holy exultation, triumphing over all the enemies of Christ’s kingdom (not doubting but they will all of them be quickly made His footstool), and triumphing in Jesus Christ as the great trustee of power, and we are to pray, in firm belief of the assurance here given, “Father in heaven, Thy kingdom come, let thy Son’s kingdom come.” MH
• Although in the first sense these words may be said of David as a type of Christ, when the Lord set David upon the throne of Zion, (which is also typical of the church of Christ, which is called Zion), yet we must look beyond David, and all earthly kings, to behold Jesus as God’s king; for it is the peculiar character of Christ, that He did not, uncalled, assume the spiritual kingdom in this world, nor the eternal kingdom in the world above, but was called of God as was Aaron (Heb. 5:4-5). And it is the peculiar joy of God’s people, that their king is their lawful Sovereign, Redeemer, and Mediator, being so appointed and constituted by Jehovah. Always keep this view of Jesus, as the head and king of the church and people, in remembrance; for it will give confidence in all your approaches to God in Christ. RH
Summary:
Christ is our all in all. He is our Prophet, Priest, and King. His majesty and glory has been established in all the ages, even in eternity. He is the Christ! He is the great Jehovah saves! We are not laden with a faulty king but we have THE king, the king that cannot be matched or surpassed. His kingdom is a blessed kingdom that endures forever. Man cannot overcome Him and we cannot be separated from Him (Rom. 8:38-39). He is the purchaser of our souls and all reverence and glory are due Him by His lowly creatures that can but humbly and thankfully come to Him in praise. For without Him we would be waiting for a different sentence to be exacted in which “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12).
David was established as an ectype of what Christ is; merely a copy of the original, regardless of how great he was among men. He was blessed and flourished, he was placed in his office by God, and he pointed us to Christ. Yet, in all of that, he was still a fallible man, mired in sin, and laden with temptation just like we are. Yet the king that all of mankind had been waiting for is now here. He is revealed to us and came among us in the flesh. We are not waiting for Him to come; He already came; now we wait on His return to fully institute His promised kingdom once and for all. If men take comfort in their kings then how much more so can we take comfort in our divine king? Let us be confident in our walk for we are triumphant and God has placed His king over all the earth and we know that in time “every knee shall bow to [Christ], and every tongue shall confess to God” (Rom. 14:11). Praise God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Amen!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Psalm 2
This is a choir singing Psalm 2. It is in German unfortunately. But, if you know the Psalm the beauty of it can still make it worthwhile to listen to.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Psalms 2:5
To start with I have to make a correction. I have, in the introduction to each Psalm, been calling them chapters, which they are not. They are not one continuous book but a collected volume of individual Psalms. Interestingly enough Calvin hypothesizes it might have been Ezra that collected them together although we do not know for sure who did so and he concedes as much. I call them chapters from habit because of the rest of the books of the bible and will correct that going forward.
In vs. 5 we see a break from what has been happening to this point. Specifically we see the word “then”. So that in 1-3 we see their plans and conspiracy against the Lord; in vs. 4 we are assured the Lord has noticed and scoffs at them; and now, in vs. 5, we see the Lord begin His judgment upon them for their wicked inclinations and plans and the revealing of His own will and plans. We see a comparison between the wicked’s plans which they are ultimately unable to accomplish and the Lord’s plans which are sure to be accomplished. Once again the two are held in a balance one against the other. The bible uses this idea of comparison and balance often. It did it in Psalm 1. The righteous were defined and blessed and then the wicked were defined and cursed. The balance tips in favor of God and the righteous He has set aside for Himself.
I looked up, as an example, the word “better” in my KJV. And it is used 116 times, 20 of them in Proverbs alone; which, the whole book of Proverbs is written as a series of comparisons. And if you were to search other words such as “compare” and “compares” and the like you would find even more instances such as in Ro 8:18 “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” It is not a tool that is employed in vain but brings our attention to what the opposite of God actually is. What the reality of sin produces, the bleak outlook of those that are not of God, wicked desires versus godly desires, etc. So, here too, we have seen what their opposition has failed to accomplish against what God’s plans will undoubtedly accomplish. This is the pivot verse for this Psalm.
Note: John Gill seems to view this on the micro level with specific application to the Jews and their treatment of Christ and that is reflected in what he writes. I don’t believe he is wrong in his application but perhaps too narrow and this should have a larger application to all who have ever set themselves against the Lord. So, what he says is right; but, can and should be applied to a much, much larger crowd as well as the Jews specifically.
“then”
• By the adverb then, he points to the fit time for exercising judgment, as if he had said, after the Lord shall have for a time apparently taken no notice of the malpractices of those who oppose the rule of His Son, He will suddenly change His course, and show that He regards nothing with greater abhorrence than such presumption. JC
• After He has laughed He shall speak; He needs not smite; the breath of His lips is enough. At the moment when their power is at its height, and their fury most violent, then shall His word go forth against them. CHS
“He speaks”
• Moreover, he ascribes speech to God, not for the purpose of instructing His enemies, but only to convict them of their madness; indeed, by the term speak, he means nothing else than a manifestation of God’s wrath, which the ungodly do not perceive until they feel it. The Psalmist here, then, refers to speaking by actions, by which the Lord, without uttering a single word, makes manifest His purpose. In like manner, whenever He defends the kingdom of His Son against the ungodly, by the tokens and inflictions of His wrath, although he does not speak a single word, yet in effect He speaks enough to make Himself understood. JC
• What is it that He says? – it is a very galling sentence – “Yet despite your malice, despite your tumultuous gatherings, despite the wisdoms of your counsels, despite the craft of your lawgivers, “yet I have set My King upon my holy hill of Zion” (Ps 2:6). Is not that a grand exclamation! He has already done that which the enemy seeks to prevent. While they are proposing, He has disposed the matter. Jehovah’s will is done, and man’s will frets and raves in vain. God’s anointed is appointed, and shall not be disappointed. CHS
• [He] shall not only silently despise their furious and concerted opposition to him and his Messiah, but shall at last speak out unto them, not in His word, but in His providences; and not in love, as to His own people, when He chastises them, but in great wrath, inflicting severe and just punishment. John Gill
• They are justly punished. Though God despises them as impotent, yet He does not therefore wink at them, but is justly displeased with them as impudent and impious, and will make the most daring sinners to know that He is so and to tremble before Him. Their sin is a provocation to Him. He is wroth; He is sorely displeased. If He but speaks to them in His wrath, even the breath of His mouth will be their confusion, slaughter, and consumption (Isa. 11:4; 2 Th. 2:8). MH
• “Breath of His mouth”. There will not be a long drawn out conflict, with victory now apparently with the lawless one, then with the Christ, this “round” going to Satan, that to the Christ. The issue will be settled in a moment. The Lord Jesus will summarily and decisively put an end to antichrist and his program. The Lord will merely blow on him, so swift will be his destruction. William Hendriiksen on 2 Th. 2:8
“And distress (vexes) them in His deep displeasure”
• The sum is this: wicked men may now conduct themselves as wickedly as they please, but they shall at length feel what it is to make war against heaven. JC
• [As with the Jews] destruction by the Romans; then it was they howled for vexation of spirit, the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost; they were filled with trouble and confusion, with terror and consternation, as the word used signifies; they were vexed to see themselves straitened and pent in on every side by the Roman armies, oppressed with famine and internal divisions, rapine and murder; to see their temple profaned and burnt, their city plundered and destroyed, and themselves taken and carried captive: and what most of all vexed them was, that their attempts against Jesus of Nazareth, the true Messiah, were fruitless; and that, notwithstanding all their opposition to Him, His name was famous, His interest increased, His kingdom was enlarged, through the spread of His Gospel among the Gentiles; and what Jehovah says, though it is to the comfort of his people, was to their terror and vexation. John Gill
• The enemies rage, but cannot vex God. God sits still, and yet vexes them, puts them into a consternation, and brings them to their wits’ end: His setting up this kingdom of His Son, in spite of them, is the greatest vexation to them that can be. They were vexatious to Christ’s good subjects; but the day is coming when vexation will be recompensed to them. MH
Personal Summary:
How amazing God is! When we think all is lost He knows what will come to past. But more than that, it is a thing already accomplished in the mind of God! Futurity is a purely human condition. Waiting for something to happen is an exclusive chore given to those that are bound by time. Not an eternal God that knows no limits and sees all things at once. As Herman Bavinck says, “[In] God there is no difference of time with Him. He calls the things that are not as if they were, and sees what is not as if it already existed. Can anything be future to God, who is exalted by every measure of time? For if God’s knowledge comprehends these very events, then they are not future but present to Him. However much the times may roll along, with Him is an eternal present.” So, that the end of evil is assured and an accomplished fact in the eyes of God.
And how mighty God is! With a word He takes vengeance on the wicked, with the breath of His mouth He destroys their mighty fortresses and brings them to ruin. Who can stand against God? The answer is no-one… ever! What an assurance and comfort this is for us as believers. As Paul tells us in Rom 8:31, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” We should give praise that God is omnipotent; that nothing more powerful exists than God Himself. Recently I watched a video clip that made me ill. It was so intensely evil that I felt my heart literally move within me. I was scared for having heard it; I was scared for him having said it. It was a man that called Himself a Christian pastor proclaiming proudly that man’s will was more powerful than God. I am glad he was wrong. I am glad that we all sit under an incomprehensibly powerful God. His power is so great that we cannot adequately compare it to anything else. I am glad that this life does not depend on you and me but that all things are within His power and control. What chaos would ensue if God removed His power and control from creation for even one second of time! Even the Greek philosophers understood this and led by Heraclites gave us the idea of “logos” (which we see in John 1 as “Word”), although they did not accurately ascribe it to THE God as they should have. But they understood that the world would be in ruin if there was not an all powerful God controlling everything. No, I do not need to overcome my Lord’s power, I blissfully sit under it and relish that it is there.
In vs. 5 we see a break from what has been happening to this point. Specifically we see the word “then”. So that in 1-3 we see their plans and conspiracy against the Lord; in vs. 4 we are assured the Lord has noticed and scoffs at them; and now, in vs. 5, we see the Lord begin His judgment upon them for their wicked inclinations and plans and the revealing of His own will and plans. We see a comparison between the wicked’s plans which they are ultimately unable to accomplish and the Lord’s plans which are sure to be accomplished. Once again the two are held in a balance one against the other. The bible uses this idea of comparison and balance often. It did it in Psalm 1. The righteous were defined and blessed and then the wicked were defined and cursed. The balance tips in favor of God and the righteous He has set aside for Himself.
I looked up, as an example, the word “better” in my KJV. And it is used 116 times, 20 of them in Proverbs alone; which, the whole book of Proverbs is written as a series of comparisons. And if you were to search other words such as “compare” and “compares” and the like you would find even more instances such as in Ro 8:18 “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” It is not a tool that is employed in vain but brings our attention to what the opposite of God actually is. What the reality of sin produces, the bleak outlook of those that are not of God, wicked desires versus godly desires, etc. So, here too, we have seen what their opposition has failed to accomplish against what God’s plans will undoubtedly accomplish. This is the pivot verse for this Psalm.
Note: John Gill seems to view this on the micro level with specific application to the Jews and their treatment of Christ and that is reflected in what he writes. I don’t believe he is wrong in his application but perhaps too narrow and this should have a larger application to all who have ever set themselves against the Lord. So, what he says is right; but, can and should be applied to a much, much larger crowd as well as the Jews specifically.
“then”
• By the adverb then, he points to the fit time for exercising judgment, as if he had said, after the Lord shall have for a time apparently taken no notice of the malpractices of those who oppose the rule of His Son, He will suddenly change His course, and show that He regards nothing with greater abhorrence than such presumption. JC
• After He has laughed He shall speak; He needs not smite; the breath of His lips is enough. At the moment when their power is at its height, and their fury most violent, then shall His word go forth against them. CHS
“He speaks”
• Moreover, he ascribes speech to God, not for the purpose of instructing His enemies, but only to convict them of their madness; indeed, by the term speak, he means nothing else than a manifestation of God’s wrath, which the ungodly do not perceive until they feel it. The Psalmist here, then, refers to speaking by actions, by which the Lord, without uttering a single word, makes manifest His purpose. In like manner, whenever He defends the kingdom of His Son against the ungodly, by the tokens and inflictions of His wrath, although he does not speak a single word, yet in effect He speaks enough to make Himself understood. JC
• What is it that He says? – it is a very galling sentence – “Yet despite your malice, despite your tumultuous gatherings, despite the wisdoms of your counsels, despite the craft of your lawgivers, “yet I have set My King upon my holy hill of Zion” (Ps 2:6). Is not that a grand exclamation! He has already done that which the enemy seeks to prevent. While they are proposing, He has disposed the matter. Jehovah’s will is done, and man’s will frets and raves in vain. God’s anointed is appointed, and shall not be disappointed. CHS
• [He] shall not only silently despise their furious and concerted opposition to him and his Messiah, but shall at last speak out unto them, not in His word, but in His providences; and not in love, as to His own people, when He chastises them, but in great wrath, inflicting severe and just punishment. John Gill
• They are justly punished. Though God despises them as impotent, yet He does not therefore wink at them, but is justly displeased with them as impudent and impious, and will make the most daring sinners to know that He is so and to tremble before Him. Their sin is a provocation to Him. He is wroth; He is sorely displeased. If He but speaks to them in His wrath, even the breath of His mouth will be their confusion, slaughter, and consumption (Isa. 11:4; 2 Th. 2:8). MH
• “Breath of His mouth”. There will not be a long drawn out conflict, with victory now apparently with the lawless one, then with the Christ, this “round” going to Satan, that to the Christ. The issue will be settled in a moment. The Lord Jesus will summarily and decisively put an end to antichrist and his program. The Lord will merely blow on him, so swift will be his destruction. William Hendriiksen on 2 Th. 2:8
“And distress (vexes) them in His deep displeasure”
• The sum is this: wicked men may now conduct themselves as wickedly as they please, but they shall at length feel what it is to make war against heaven. JC
• [As with the Jews] destruction by the Romans; then it was they howled for vexation of spirit, the wrath of God came upon them to the uttermost; they were filled with trouble and confusion, with terror and consternation, as the word used signifies; they were vexed to see themselves straitened and pent in on every side by the Roman armies, oppressed with famine and internal divisions, rapine and murder; to see their temple profaned and burnt, their city plundered and destroyed, and themselves taken and carried captive: and what most of all vexed them was, that their attempts against Jesus of Nazareth, the true Messiah, were fruitless; and that, notwithstanding all their opposition to Him, His name was famous, His interest increased, His kingdom was enlarged, through the spread of His Gospel among the Gentiles; and what Jehovah says, though it is to the comfort of his people, was to their terror and vexation. John Gill
• The enemies rage, but cannot vex God. God sits still, and yet vexes them, puts them into a consternation, and brings them to their wits’ end: His setting up this kingdom of His Son, in spite of them, is the greatest vexation to them that can be. They were vexatious to Christ’s good subjects; but the day is coming when vexation will be recompensed to them. MH
Personal Summary:
How amazing God is! When we think all is lost He knows what will come to past. But more than that, it is a thing already accomplished in the mind of God! Futurity is a purely human condition. Waiting for something to happen is an exclusive chore given to those that are bound by time. Not an eternal God that knows no limits and sees all things at once. As Herman Bavinck says, “[In] God there is no difference of time with Him. He calls the things that are not as if they were, and sees what is not as if it already existed. Can anything be future to God, who is exalted by every measure of time? For if God’s knowledge comprehends these very events, then they are not future but present to Him. However much the times may roll along, with Him is an eternal present.” So, that the end of evil is assured and an accomplished fact in the eyes of God.
And how mighty God is! With a word He takes vengeance on the wicked, with the breath of His mouth He destroys their mighty fortresses and brings them to ruin. Who can stand against God? The answer is no-one… ever! What an assurance and comfort this is for us as believers. As Paul tells us in Rom 8:31, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” We should give praise that God is omnipotent; that nothing more powerful exists than God Himself. Recently I watched a video clip that made me ill. It was so intensely evil that I felt my heart literally move within me. I was scared for having heard it; I was scared for him having said it. It was a man that called Himself a Christian pastor proclaiming proudly that man’s will was more powerful than God. I am glad he was wrong. I am glad that we all sit under an incomprehensibly powerful God. His power is so great that we cannot adequately compare it to anything else. I am glad that this life does not depend on you and me but that all things are within His power and control. What chaos would ensue if God removed His power and control from creation for even one second of time! Even the Greek philosophers understood this and led by Heraclites gave us the idea of “logos” (which we see in John 1 as “Word”), although they did not accurately ascribe it to THE God as they should have. But they understood that the world would be in ruin if there was not an all powerful God controlling everything. No, I do not need to overcome my Lord’s power, I blissfully sit under it and relish that it is there.
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