Psa 2:6-9 | KingComments | STEP | It is ridiculous to defy and reject God’s authority, to rebel against Him and to try to be independent of Him. The response of “the Lord” – that is, Adonai or the Commander, the Ruler – to this is a mocking laughter ( ; cf. ; ). God does not laugh at people who bow down to Him, but at people who rebel against Him. He cannot take their attempts seriously. After all, He sits, or is enthroned, in heaven, untouchable from the rebellion of the nations. That He cannot be affected by it does not mean that He is indifferent to it. That which He is far exalted above does not mean that He is indifferent to it. He knows exactly what people want and do. He will respond to that in His time in an appropriate, completely righteous way. His throne is in heaven, which means that He has supreme authority over the universe. He rules and not the kings and rulers. Then He acts by speaking ( ). When He speaks, He acts. God acts through His Word. He only has to speak a word, and it happens. He will therefore wage war with the sword that comes from His mouth: His Word. He announces what He is going to do. The tone in which He speaks is terrifying. The content of what He says means the end of all rebellion. God does not look lovingly on people who ball their fist at Him in conscious rebellion against Him and who roar at Him with muscular language. He speaks to them in His anger about what He intends. “His fury” indicates a consuming judgment. The anger of Adonai is like a fire that consumes everything. His fury will be executed by His King, His Anointed, His Messiah ( ). The Messiah is Adonai Himself. He is none other than the Lord Jesus, the glorified Lord. Almost every word of this verse indicates why the resistance of the nations is so foolish and the installing or appointment of God’s King is so obvious. God says: “But as for Me, I have.” If God has done something, what will any man do to change it? The very idea is ridiculous, utter madness. And what has God done? He says: “I have installed [or: consecrated, or: anointed] My King.” With that, everything is determined and the future is fixed. Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. His authority is fixed, as is the submission to it of everyone and everything, whether voluntarily or forced. Before Him every knee will bow ( ). No one escapes this. When God has installed or anointed His King, that is the end of all rebellion. Now we don’t see that yet, but we see Him to Whom all things are submitted, and He is the guarantee that it will happen ( ). That it is about the government of God’s Messiah – “Anointed” is the translation of the Hebrew word Messiah and of the Greek word Christ – is evident from the center of His government: Zion, which is Jerusalem, and the holy mountain, which is the temple-mountain. This also makes it obvious that that government is yet to come, for His throne is not yet in Jerusalem.

‏ Psalms 2:6-9

God’s Response

It is ridiculous to defy and reject God’s authority, to rebel against Him and to try to be independent of Him. The response of “the Lord” – that is, Adonai or the Commander, the Ruler – to this is a mocking laughter (Psa 2:4; cf. Psa 37:12-13 ; Psa 59:7-8; Pro 1:24-27). God does not laugh at people who bow down to Him, but at people who rebel against Him. He cannot take their attempts seriously. After all, He sits, or is enthroned, in heaven, untouchable from the rebellion of the nations.

That He cannot be affected by it does not mean that He is indifferent to it. That which He is far exalted above does not mean that He is indifferent to it. He knows exactly what people want and do. He will respond to that in His time in an appropriate, completely righteous way. His throne is in heaven, which means that He has supreme authority over the universe. He rules and not the kings and rulers.

Then He acts by speaking (Psa 2:5). When He speaks, He acts. God acts through His Word. He only has to speak a word, and it happens. He will therefore wage war with the sword that comes from His mouth: His Word. He announces what He is going to do.

The tone in which He speaks is terrifying. The content of what He says means the end of all rebellion. God does not look lovingly on people who ball their fist at Him in conscious rebellion against Him and who roar at Him with muscular language. He speaks to them in His anger about what He intends. “His fury” indicates a consuming judgment. The anger of Adonai is like a fire that consumes everything.

His fury will be executed by His King, His Anointed, His Messiah (Psa 2:6). The Messiah is Adonai Himself. He is none other than the Lord Jesus, the glorified Lord. Almost every word of this verse indicates why the resistance of the nations is so foolish and the installing or appointment of God’s King is so obvious. God says: “But as for Me, I have.” If God has done something, what will any man do to change it? The very idea is ridiculous, utter madness.

And what has God done? He says: “I have installed [or: consecrated, or: anointed] My King.” With that, everything is determined and the future is fixed. Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. His authority is fixed, as is the submission to it of everyone and everything, whether voluntarily or forced. Before Him every knee will bow (Phil 2:10). No one escapes this. When God has installed or anointed His King, that is the end of all rebellion. Now we don’t see that yet, but we see Him to Whom all things are submitted, and He is the guarantee that it will happen (Heb 2:8b-9).

That it is about the government of God’s Messiah – “Anointed” is the translation of the Hebrew word Messiah and of the Greek word Christ – is evident from the center of His government: Zion, which is Jerusalem, and the holy mountain, which is the temple-mountain. This also makes it obvious that that government is yet to come, for His throne is not yet in Jerusalem.

God’s Son, the Messiah

In Psa 2:7, the Lord Jesus is speaking. He tells of the decree that God made known in the previous verse. This means that no man is excusable if he does not know this decree. He who does not know it has to blame himself. He could have known, but he did not want to know. It is a conscious and therefore culpable ignorance.

The Lord Jesus says what the LORD said to Him. First of all, there is that personal relationship: “You are My Son.” Here we hear God’s personal pleasure expressed in Him, a pleasure of which the Son is fully aware (Lk 3:22; cf. Heb 1:5 ; Heb 5:5).

The LORD promised David that the King Messiah, the Son of David, will be at the same time the Son of God: “I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me” (2Sam 7:14). This means that the King will reign as the representative of His Father. Israel’s hope is inextricably linked to the Person of the King.

The purpose of the entire history of the world is God’s plan with Him. The fact that people have seen the world as their property since the Fall and have treated it as such does not change that. On the contrary, it increases their responsibility toward God. They misuse what God has intended for His Son by using everything for themselves without any recognition of Christ as the rightful Owner.

Christ as Creator is the Owner of creation. Through the sin of man, creation has come under the authority of satan. But the Lord Jesus as Redeemer has retaken the right to creation through His work on the cross. He does not yet exercise that right publicly, but He has it. In order to do the necessary work of redeeming creation, He, Who is the eternal Son, became Man. This happened because God the Holy Spirit conceived Him in Mary (Lk 1:35).

This means that the Lord Jesus is Son of God in two respects. First, He is the eternal Son. He is eternal, just like the Father (Jn 1:1 ; Jn 16:28 ; Jn 17:4 ; 24; Heb 7:1-3). It is clear that the Father is eternally Father because the Son is eternally Son. He is, in the second place, Son of God as Man. He has not been that eternally, but He has become that and will remain that forever. He, Who has always been and always remains the eternal Son, came in the flesh. He was not begotten by a sinful father, but by God the Holy Spirit. This means that He is also the Son of God as Man.

Reference has already been made to Paul’s speech in Pisidian Antioch, in which Paul quotes this psalm, and specifically this Psa 2:7 (Acts 13:32-33). It is clear from the quote that the Lord Jesus is more than just the Son of David. He is also, by His birth, the Son of God; it points to the origin of His life as Man on earth. After the quotation indicating His conception, Paul goes directly to His rising from the dead (Acts 13:34-35).

Christ, as the risen Lord, has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (Mt 28:18). God says to Him here that He may ask to actually exercise that authority (Psa 2:8). He doesn’t do that on His own either. The despised, rejected and dead, but now risen and glorified Messiah waits for the time of the Father. He remains the dependent Man, Who will only act when the Father commissions him to do so. Then He will actually appropriate His rightful property and possession.

In His prayer to the Father the Lord Jesus says that He asks not for the world, but for those whom the Father has given Him (Jn 17:9). Then He will ask for the ends of the earth. He will do that when the church is complete. Therefore, He is not yet claiming His property and possession. After the church is caught up, He will do so and begin to reign.

The nations of the whole earth will notice this. When He rules “with a rod of iron”, He will shatter all the enemies of God and His people (Rev 19:15b). What He does to them is like smashing “earthenware”. This symbolizes the frailty of man. He is no more than easily broken pottery (cf. Jer 19:11). After all, man is made of dust of the earth (Gen 2:7), to which the word “earthenware” refers.

The exercise of judgment is here attributed to the Lord Jesus. This exercise of judgment is also declared applicable to the overcomers in the church in Thyatira. They are allowed to reign with Christ as a reward for their faithfulness (Rev 2:27). Any grant of power by the Lord Jesus to others is the grant of a power which He Himself received from His Father (cf. Mt 11:27a ; Mt 28:18; Jn 3:35 ; Jn 5:22 ; 27 ; Jn 13:3).