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This article is part of Stephen Paulson’s series on the Psalms.
1 Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain?
Why indeed! Why all this rage and vanity? King David knew a thing or two about how countries are run by savage rage and never-ending wars. That description of the world's condition is apt for any day in any country. We can read the news for one minute and come away shaking our heads in disgust: “Nations and people! Rage and vanity! Where is this world going? Why is everyone so angry? Why can we have no peace? My nation is going to hell!”
2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed…
There it is! The kings of this earth are not only greedy and selfish––plotting against one another to gain the upper hand, seeking to control another nation and ultimately rule over all––they are angry and fighting because they stand against the Lord and his Anointed! David himself was a warrior king, so he was under constant assault. Yet, he wrote this Psalm not for his own sake as God’s anointed but so that everyone would know the eternal truth that the source of all anger, the source of all rage, and the reason the world is in such an uproar is that everyone stands dead-set against the Lord’s Messiah. Why does the world rage? It hates Christ. David knew the promise given to him was not fulfilled in himself but rather in his Seed: “my hesed will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:16).
Why does the world rage? It hates Christ.
Luther said it this way: “This Psalm was written by David but by the authority of the primitive church; we are compelled to conclude that it speaks of Christ.” Not only did the early church preach this psalm of Christ, but we know David is teaching Christ to us because there is no other rage so great and anger so deep than that which killed Christ. When Luther lectured on Psalm 2 later in his life, he made it the greatest single confession of Christ’s person and work ever written—a masterpiece of Christology. Through this Psalm, Luther became the greatest Christian teacher of Christ that the world has ever been given. So it was that David recognized that the upheaval, confusion, mayhem, and turmoil (that is constant in world affairs) come from one evil place. All evil, all rage, all anger comes from the desire of Satan and his world to kill the Anointed—to kill Jesus Christ. This single truth is the beginning of our “theology of cross” rather than a theology of glory. Glory imagines evil in the world arises merely from greed; the cross recognizes that Jesus is the world’s constant enemy, and the rage will not stop until Christ is destroyed once and for all.
3 Saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.”
Why such hostility to this duo: The Lord and his Anointed? Because the world thinks God has placed us in prison—under bonds that tie us down with cords like Gulliver and the Lilliputians. Why has God given us the law? Why would he do that unless he wanted to keep all power and authority to himself (just as the serpent had whispered into Eve’s ear)? So, Psalm 108 and Mark 12:7 says, “Come let us kill him and the inheritance will be ours!” and Caiaphas added, “it is expedient that one man die for all” (John 11, 49-50). To sinners, God is nothing but a lawyer, and his Anointed is his judge who comes to condemn us—if we rid ourselves of this judge, we can also free ourselves from this master. Killing the Messiah seems to be our path to freedom.
4 He who sits in the heaven laughs; the Lord holds them in derision
Meanwhile, up in heaven, what does God do with all this rage, anger, and hostility aimed at his own Anointed Son? He laughs. It is not a funny laugh either, but one of derision at the foolish, feckless idiocy of this raging world. It would be horrible to know that God is making light of our murderous lives, were it not that our Lord is laughing at our world for our sake. We actually need this knowledge of God and his Christ sitting in heaven and laughing at all the plans to kill the Son; otherwise, we would melt and die under the terrible trouble of this world. We get weary of the world’s endless wars and trouble. The news at night never improves; it only gets worse.
Nations don’t get better; they fall apart. Even our great experiment in America is collapsing before our eyes. We live day-to-day under the cross, laboring, suffering, and fearing what comes next. Conspiracy theorists are found to be truthful! Yet, Christians know something the rest of the world does not know: God sits in the heavens and laughs! Man makes his plans, and God laughs. David said the same in Psalm 147: “The Lord takes pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy” (vs. 11). You do not need to fear your nation or any other nation—fear only God and then you will find that you can laugh with him. You will know that the best-laid plans of mice and men not only go astray—they are utterly defeated. God even laughs at the killing of Christ! It cannot rule the day. All your plans are dross.
5-6 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, “Yet am I set by him as king upon his holy hill of Zion.”
While the world plots the Messiah’s death, God laughs. Moreover, God does not just sit up in heaven laughing at our folly, but he speaks! When he speaks, the world hears it like Israel did Moses’ ten commandments: in wrath and fury—terrifying his hearers. But to you, Christians, he speaks the new language of the cross. These words are not a new set of laws but a promise: “I am set by him as king upon his holy hill, Zion.” That translation comes from the Greek LXX of the original Hebrew and has the change of the person (Jesus saying “I am set”) and the passive voice—God doing this to his Son. The Hebrew original moves from David to God—so that the Father speaks of what he has done with the Son. In either case, we have a divine promise rather than a command, and it is no less than the great promise of the incarnation of our Lord. God’s laughing plan is to send his Son, who is not only David’s Son (Seed) but God’s own Son (Incarnate), into the breach of this world. When Jesus is sent, he is set up on the holy hill of Zion! What, exactly, is the Son going to do from that vantage point? Will he take over from David as King? Will he take over from Aaron as priest of the temple? No.
7-8 I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”
Even the heathen, pagan Gentiles are his! How is this king/Messiah set upon the mountain of Zion, and how is he holy? Christ himself will tell us the “decree” (command) of God to him: he is holy not because he is in a holy place nor even because he comes from the Holy One, but because he makes others holy—he is a holy-maker. But how? If the law could not make the world holy, how will Christ do it? Strange upon strange: the world will kill him, but the Lord will make him King over the nations! How can he make others holy by dying? Because he is holy himself—begotten of God from eternity—not made: God of God, light of light, very God of very God. And yet, as amazing as it is that Jesus is God and man, it means he is both Son of God and born of a woman—born under the law (Gal. 4:4). How does one like that make the nations his heritage? By what means does he possess the whole earth? As amazing as his incarnation is, what the God-man does with us is even more shocking. He does not make anyone holy or take charge of nations by defeating the enemy but by being defeated. It is not by killing but by being killed that he succeeds. It is not by perfecting the law but by coming under the law’s complete and total condemnation that he rules. He wins by losing! Who could have anticipated that? Who could ever want a crucified God? How can Christ possess sinners and yet be holy? The law separates holy and unholy—yet Christ joins them! How can he who is holy become unholy—in order to make the unholy holy? Christ owes nothing to the law and does not manufacture holiness from it; Christ only has to ask his Father, and it is already done!
How can he make others holy by dying? Because he is holy himself—begotten of God from eternity—not made: God of God, light of light, very God of very God.
9 “You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
How does this gospel work? Like a smashing rod! In the old teaching, we heard only of the law that works wrath and increases sin; now, in Christ, we are taught faith that works remission of sins and justifies the ungodly. Before, we had Moses; now, we have Christ. Yet, when we kill Christ, we are not rewarded somehow, nor does Jesus dying somehow mean we do not have to die. His death breaks us with a rod of iron and dashes us to pieces: “The Lord kills and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and brings up” (1 Sam. 2:6-7). The law ends with a mighty, total destruction. Therefore, the path to his righteousness is not around but through our own deaths. Because he died, we die: “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Rom. 14:9). Faith, and so spirit, relishes the “sweet command” of God to Christ: “You are my Son! Go down and make the nations your heritage,” but our flesh rebels against this word of God, and so receives the rod once and for all. Christ’s saving cross first crosses us who want to be saved by the law. God’s son will not even let us join him to God’s holy law—it is him alone on the holy mountain of Zion.
The path to his righteousness is not around but through our own deaths.
10 Be Wise, now therefore, O kings, be warned you judges of the earth
Previously, kings and judges ruled this old world by the law, and loved carrying out the law’s judgment. But that was before Christ. “Now, therefore!” means that Christ has arrived. When he does—now––the world is uprooted. These old kings and judges believed that when they judged others by the law, they were above the law and immune to any charge. Puffed up in this way, they spread mayhem and rage over the whole world. This worldly “wisdom” reaches its height of foolishness when Christ comes. Judges resent him, hate him, and are threatened by him since he judges not by the law but by his word of gospel. He has not come to rage in condemnation of sin but to forgive it. Who can stand this? So, the wise man of this world will have a harsh lesson in the cross, and when he does, he will become “warned” and “wise”—in an entirely contrary way.
Prior to “now” there was the law of the land—but now, even the king himself must learn to die to that law. Under this new Messiah, all of the judges must die—the cross must be endured, and the law have its final, total say in giving you the death penalty. No wonder Christ’s cross endangers fear.
11 Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling
How can I rejoice in this cross-trembling? These two verbs are contraries! True, in the old world, if you trembled, you moaned; if you rejoiced, you conquered. Now, in Christ, these two opposites are united: rejoice in trembling! Recall that at first, at the beginning of this psalm, the whole world was in rage—we were all trembling! But now in Christ, we know that he and his Father are laughing. This comforts us! They have a plan! More yet, we know that the death we feel right now is no longer the death we must endure under the law’s accusation—the death I die now, I die in Christ on account of his baptism promise: I have died in Christ! Rejoice! That is a death that is not final but is conquered.
12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
How do I overcome all my enemies (sin, death, and the devil) at once? How do I “rejoice in trembling”? Kiss the Son! Go ahead, pucker up! Lay a wet one on him—since his death is your life, his cross is your resurrection. Kiss no other feet and have no other Lord. His righteousness is now your righteousness. The world perverts everything; it teaches you the exact opposite of Christ and his forgiveness. But Christ laughs at the world’s rage against him. Even your anger at Christ (for not recognizing your goodness and potential) is laughed off. Christ does not like you wandering around looking elsewhere for your satisfaction and trust—his anger is quickly kindled when you look for Christ + (an addition to Jesus). Instead: Solus Christus–Christ alone!
Then, in Christ and him crucified––what a great blessing! Take refuge in him, not the law! Refuge means finding a place to hide from our enemies in which you learn to trust Christ alone—no kissing anyone or anything else. In Christ you have refuge from rage—the world’s rage at you and God’s rage at sin. What is God laughing about in heaven? God’s Son became incarnate to burst your bonds, take your sin, and make Zion his holy hill—faith in him saves! That is real joy and endless blessing.
