When the Nations Rage

God is still in charge over the nations of the world:

Many think that Christianity is only about individuals. While they are of course crucial, the truth is, the nations also get a lot of attention in the Bible. Indeed, in both Testaments the nations feature prominently. At the moment I am again reading through the Psalms, and even there we find so many references to the nations. Here I can only offer just a few of them. Consider these texts:

Psalm 9:5 You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked;
    you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.

Psalm 9:15 The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
    in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.

Psalm 45:17 I will perpetuate your memory through all generations;
    therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever.

Psalm 46:6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.

Psalm 82:8 Arise, O God, judge the earth;
    for you shall inherit all the nations!

Psalm 102:15 Nations will fear the name of the Lord,
    and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.

Psalm 113:4 The Lord is high above all nations,
    and his glory above the heavens!

But here I want to discuss just one quite famous example – Psalm 2. Its twelve verses read like this:

Why do the nations rage
    and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
    and the rulers take counsel together,
    against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart
    and cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens laughs;
    the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath,
    and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King
    on Zion, my holy hill.”

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.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
    and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Now therefore, O kings, be wise;
    be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
    and rejoice with trembling.
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.

When we see ungodly nations and arrogant rulers doing their worst, it can get to be quite discouraging at times. We can become overwhelmed just by looking around at the global situation today. But the Christian must remember that God is in charge of the nations, and they are but “a drop in the bucket” as Isaiah 40:15 proclaims.

So we need to keep in mind what God has said about the nations, and simply studying Psalm 2 is a great way to help us regain some much-needed perspective and see that God really is on top of all this. As I mentioned in one earlier article:

Psalm 2 is one of the most often quoted of the psalms in the New Testament. The theme of Christ ruling over the nations with a rod of iron as found in Rev. 2:27; 12:5; and 19:15 all refer back to Psalm 2, and verse 9. And while Jesus was on earth he often spoke of his role in the coming judgment of nations, as in Matt. 24-25; Mark 13; and Luke 10 and 21. Thus the concern of Psalm 2 finds its final fulfilment in King Jesus. It is that conviction which must give all believers hope today. https://billmuehlenberg.com/2007/11/25/why-do-the-nations-rage/

Here I offer some commentary from a few writers to help me make this case for God’s supremacy over the nations. Many have noted how Psalms 1 and 2 set the stage for the whole of the Psalms. As Dale Ralph Davis puts it:

[Psalm 2] says to us, ‘You need to get the big view of things.’ That’s why Psalm 2 is Psalm 2, just as in our previous message we noted why Psalm 1 was Psalm 1. The position of these two psalms at the beginning of the Psalter is deliberate. Psalm 1 deals with the most urgent individual matter, you must know where you are going and must be sure you belong to the congregation of the righteous. Psalm 2 says that you must know where history is going; you must see the whole show; you must understand that the world has been promised to the Messiah.

That is reassuring news indeed. Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman offers these remarks:

Psalm 2 celebrates God’s power over the wicked plots of the kings of the world. Even more, it celebrates God’s human agent, the anointed king, whom God had appointed as an agent of order in a disordered world. The psalm sites the Davidic covenant of 2 Samuel 7, in which God grants to David a dynasty. It is thus David in particular and his descendants ruling from Jerusalem who are in mind here, and so it is probable that this psalm functioned as an inauguration song during the period of the monarchy.

 

However, the books of Samuel and Kings indicate that the hopes of the psalm (and the Davidic covenant) for a pious and effective royal agent of God’s will on earth and the submission of the world’s kings with their evil intentions as envisioned by Psalm 2 surfaced only occasionally during the history of Israel and Judah. Indeed, the testimony of these historical books is that the kings were largely responsible for Israel’s degradation of faith, as well as the end of the monarchy and Israel’s national independence.

 

For these reasons, the New Testament authors recognised a deeper significance to the psalm that found its fulfilment in Jesus Christ, the greater son of David. Jesus is the Lord’s anointed (Messiah) and son of David, a role announced every time he is called Christ (the Greek equivalent to Messiah)….

He goes on to look at how the gospels, Acts, Paul and the author of Hebrews refer back to Psalm 2. He then says this:

The Book of Revelation utilises Psalm 2, and in particular verse 9 (You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery), in reference to Christ’s second coming in final victory over the forces of human and spiritual evil (Rev 12:5). In Revelation 19:11-16, Jesus appears riding a white horse and ‘coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron sceptre” ’ (v. 15, citing Ps. 2:9).

 

Thus, New Testament readers recognised that Jesus was their anointed King and the Warrior who would defeat the evil spiritual and human forces ranged against them.

It is knowing that Christ is the one true King and is the one who has control over the nations – be they Babylon, Assyria, Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia – that gives us hope and the ability to persevere, even in dark times. God laughs at these rogue states and evil rulers, and we can rejoice in knowing that their days are always but brief moments in the light of eternity.

C. Hassell Bullock offers a musical illustration of Psalm 2 that is worth finishing with here:

Christ’s resurrection is proof of God’s sovereign reign. While the historical sense of Psalm 2:7 seems to reference the founding of the Davidic dynasty, in Acts 13:33 Paul understands it to extend ultimately to the resurrection of Christ, proof positive of God’s sovereignty. J. S. Bach wrote a cantata titled Heaven Laughs, and Earth Rejoices. The laughter of heaven concentrated its countless decibels in the empty tomb, echoed up and down the valleys of the cosmos, and resounded through the billions of galaxies. If we could have heard the “laughter” of heaven as Jesus slipped out of the brawny arms of death, it would have deafened us forever. Christ had conquered! Death was vanquished! Christ was alive! The tomb was empty!

Indeed, Christ IS the risen King, and all the nations of the world are but dust in his presence. So we look forward to the day when Revelation 21:22-26 is fully realised:

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb^. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

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