Psalm 2 opens with a picture of the rebellion of man against God. Over and against the bid of mankind for autonomy, the psalmist affirms God’s rule. From the beginning, God chose to implement his rule on earth through a representative, an image bearer, his offspring. Initially this was Adam and Eve, but they rebelled against God and the rest of mankind after them. So now, the psalmist declares, God has established a new representative ruler, a new image bearer, his ‘Anointed One’ (Hebrew: Messiah; Greek: Christ). It then becomes evident that the speaker of the words of this psalm is the anointed King himself. This psalm takes on a prophetic aspect; it is ‘the Christ’ speaking to the rebellious world. He announces that God has set his Christ up as Judge, and by him he will judge the inhabitants of the earth. The picture given here is that the human endeavour to build our lives up autonomously is as brittle as pottery. And one day it will be seen how hollow and brittle our endeavours really were as we are dashed like pottery. But this isn’t necessary. In the light of this judgement the psalmist issues a warning, which implies that people have a chance now to get themselves right with God. The final plea of this psalm is for people to give up their rebellion and come in under the authority of the Christ. There is an urgency to this that we should always be conscious of. It is a terrible thing to live without God. Jesus Christ is always calling us to give our lives back to God.
Entrust your life to Christ again today.
Read Psalm 2
