God’s Word for You

Psalm 2:3-9 You Are My Son

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, November 20, 2022

3 “Let us snap their chains
  and throw off their ropes from us.”
4 The one sitting in heaven laughs.
  The Lord scoffs at them.
5 Then he speaks to them in his anger
  and terrifies them in his wrath.
6 “I have installed my King on Zion,
  my holy mountain.”

The raving of the sinful world continues against God. Their attitude about sin is shown with the bold claim that they might actually break apart the chains of hell, or toss aside the bonds of guilt, shame, and judgment day. They think that they can save themselves. Verse 3 stands equally well against Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians as it does against atheists and other savages. (The modern Semi-Pelagians imagine that if God gives them a start, they can complete their salvation by means of good works or by the merits of their ancestors.)

God doesn’t care about their words. He even laughs. He scoffs at them and pooh-poohs their threats. The devil rose up against him once and was cast out after a short little war (Revelation 12:7). What can mortals do if they rebel against him? “If a man sins against the Lord, who will mediate for him?” (1 Samuel 2:25). The mere opening of God’s mouth terrifies them. The first verb in verse 5 is just the ordinary word for “speaks.” But his wrath is clear in his words. His words tell the opposite story from their claims and their shouts. “I have installed my King on Zion, my holy mountain.” This is Christ Jesus our Lord, the Son of God.

7 I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me,
  “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.”

This verse stands like a herald holding a banner on a high hill. Everything about this verse deserves careful attention and, as always, a childlike faith.

“I will proclaim” is a prophetic statement and not the declaration of David. The other “me” and the two “you” references all explain this and underline it. David is writing the words spoken by the Son of God. This is perfectly clear from the statement, “You are my Son.”

“the decree of the LORD.” This is the language of God the Father, the one who does the rest of the speaking in the verse. The word hoq generally means something that is limited (such as the sea) or that is commanded by a sovereign such as a decree or ordinance. Here it is a declaration more than a law, and it refers to something remarkable and unexpected. The language commands our attention and trust rather than our obedience. This is God saying what he has done, not what we must do. The unlimited Father sets this limit in eternity: He is the Father of the Son, ever and always.

“He said to me.” Again, the “me” must refer to the Son in the following line, and therefore this is God the Father speaking to God the Son. Neither the Father nor the Son are bound by time, and so we can’t limit this statement to a moment in history.

“You are my Son.” Here is the relationship within the Trinity of the Person of the Father and the Person of the Son. There was never a moment when the Father did not have the Son, nor when the Son did not have the Father, just as there was never a moment when Father and Son did not have the Spirit proceeding from them.

“Today I have begotten you.” The Hebrew word yalad means to have a baby or to be in distress (like a woman having a baby). But the Hebrew verb has seven conjugations. Not every verb touches every conjugation, but these forms change the way a root word is to be understood. The basic meaning of yalad is “bear, have a baby.” In the causative (hifil), it would mean to conceive a baby as a father. In the passive (nifal) it means to be born, from the perspective of the baby. In another, intensive conjugation (piel) it means to act as a midwife. Other nuances are unimportant here, where the basic conjugation is used by the Father, meaning he is doing something a father cannot do, yet the Father does. He produces, begets, a Son.

Since this is entirely outside of any reference to time apart from “today,” we may ask, “When is ‘today’”? It is not the day when David wrote this, nor is it the day when Christ was conceived, nor born, nor rose from the dead. It is the Day of eternity. Solomon also preaches about this: “The Lord brought me (that is Wisdom, Christ) forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began. When there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there were no springs abounding with water; before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, before he made the earth…” (Proverbs 8:22-26). We call this the eternal generation of the Son; there has never been a moment when the Son was not the Son of God, nor when the Father was not the Father of the Son. It will also help us to remember that the whole doctrine of the Trinity is not a New Testament development of theology, but it is clearly taught in the Old Testament, and this verse is a crucial part of this teaching. Also there is Isaiah 48:16, showing the inner workings of the three Persons of the Trinity. Here in the prophecy Christ speaks, referring both to the Father as “God the Lord” and to the Holy Spirit: “Come close to me and hear this. From the beginning, I have not spoken in secret. From the time it first existed, I was there. And now God the LORD has sent me with his Spirit.”

8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance,
  the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will smash them with an iron scepter;
  you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

The Father gives everything to the Son. “All authority in heaven and on earth,” Jesus said, “has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). But we shouldn’t think that the Father making everything the Son’s possession means that all the world will suddenly be converted to faith in the end. The will of God is for all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), but we see here in verse 9 that those who reject the very thought of belonging to the Son will be dashed to pieces like pottery. The enemies of God will not only suffer miserably on Judgment Day, but they will suffer miserably and terribly forever. This verse is quoted for that reason in Revelation 2:27. It appears again in that book as a reference to the coming of the son, “a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter” (Revelation 12:5).

The coming of Christ, the work of salvation, and the resurrection of all the dead to be judged according to their faith or their unbelief (John 5:29), is all done for the glory of the Father. But God also has compassion on mankind, and in his love he has saved those who trust in him. Paul summarized the entire work of Christ in a single sentence when he was on trial before the Roman governor Festus: “Moses and the prophets said it would happen—that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:23). This was the loving work of Jesus, the eternal Son of God, for your sake.

Martin Luther brought an old hymn by Ambrose of Milan into our worship life, which we call “Savior of the Nations, Come.” In our new hymnal, it’s the first hymn:

From the Father’s throne he came
And ascended to the same,
Captive leading death and hell.
High the song of triumph swell! (Christian Worship #301:4)

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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