In 1967, Paul McCartney sang, “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better, a little better all the time.” On that Beatles track, John and George sang a response: “It can’t get no worse.”1 That response was an honest lyric in the 1960s—and many may feel it’s still an apt description today.
At the end of the twentieth century, there was a cultural narrative of progress. A quarter of the way through the twenty-first, there is a narrative of disappointment. Elections don’t excite us so much as depress us. “This was all supposed to be fixed by now!” we may hear people say. “Why won’t anyone talk about the real problems? I thought things were getting better all the time!”
In the Bible, the Second Psalm helps us understand what’s going on. It challenges us to decide a very important question: In what, or in whom, are we prepared to place our ultimate trust?
Earthly Opposition
The opening stanza of the psalm puts the problem this way: There is earthly opposition to God and to His design.
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.”
On the one hand, the attitude of the world to God is hostility: People are “alienated and hostile in mind” (Col. 1:21). It is not simply an expression of apathy; it is antagonism. “Who needs the Creator?” many ask. “Religion is just a pain in the neck. If we can just elevate scientific thinking, the world will be a better place. Let’s get rid of all these rules—yokes, bonds, cords—and make our own way.” Yet in such a quest for freedom, people become enslaved. Our technological, scientific, “rational” world has brought with it a sense of futility, aloneness, frustration, and hopelessness.
Thus, on the other hand, the attitude of the world to God leads to futility—raging and plotting “in vain.” It’s a futile rebellion because, in fact, the more they rebel against Him, the more the sovereignty of God is on display. One of the many times Jesus’ disciples quote this psalm, they acknowledge in their prayer that “there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel”—to do what? “Whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:27–28). Jesus, God’s ultimate anointed King, was not destroyed by the world’s opposition. Through it, He had victory, triumphing at the cross by dying for sinners.
Heavenly Derision
God’s victory thus becomes the occasion for His derision against those who oppose Him, as verses 4–6 of the psalm show:
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.”
From the perspective of heaven, the rebellion of man against God is laughable. The Creator is undaunted by the rulers in their rebellion, because it’s actually ludicrous. He has established His victory in a person—His Anointed King, whom the Scriptures will reveal to be the Lord Jesus Christ.
When the Second Psalm was written, it would have been understood as describing the kings of Israel and God’s favor toward them. But there is no king in the history of Israel that perfectly fits the picture provided. The psalm bursts the bounds of history to find expression in the Lord Jesus.
The twenty-four-hour news cycle won’t stop God from bringing His plan to completion.
As we think of all the movers and shakers in our world—from the US Congress to the British Parliament to the Chinese Communist Party and everybody in between—the fact is that for all their power and influence, God holds their proud attempts at power in derision. In His sovereignty, He is working all things together for His own glory through His Son, Jesus. The twenty-four-hour news cycle won’t stop Him bringing His plan to completion.
Then again, neither will our own antagonism! And since, apart from knowing forgiveness through faith in Christ, we are alienated and hostile, we will do well to heed the warning, which comes to us just as it comes to the movers and shakers.
A Divine Decree
In the third stanza, the Anointed Himself speaks:
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.”
The world belongs to Jesus Christ, by the promise of God, sealed in the raising of Jesus from the dead. Jesus is not dead. He gave us a glimpse of His kingdom when He first appeared. The kingdom grows as men and women share the good news about Him. And it will come in its fullness on the day of His return: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).
The world belongs to Jesus Christ, by the promise of God, sealed in the raising of Jesus from the dead.
So where are we to put our confidence? In the Western political systems that have upheld world order in the last century? In the Eastern ones that have grown to rival them? In the power of individualism and self-expression? Or in the promised King who has defeated death and Hades?
This is why believers in Jesus understand that it is right and good to tell others about Him: because above all the powers and potentialities of world affairs sits the certainty of His judgment and rule. He sent forth His disciples to proclaim His name with the assurance that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18).
An Evangelistic Word
The Second Psalm ends with a word of hope:
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.
Having established who this King is and what He has come to do, the psalm tells us it is imperative that we would “be wise.” How? We may “serve the Lord with fear.” By nature, we curse the Son. We are invited instead to come and pay homage to Him and so be spared His anger.
The warnings of the Bible are absolutely crucial. The God revealed in the Bible grieves over sinners (2 Peter 3:9)—yet He also mocks sin’s arrogance. If God can simply shrug things off, if God can simply say, “You know what? It doesn’t really matter,” then God is not God. He will punish the arrogance of human rebellion—but not without first calling men and women to repent and walk in His will through the forgiveness offered by faith in His Son.
The final answer is in the last sentence of the psalm: “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” In other words, the only way to flee from God’s justifiable anger is to find refuge in His amazing mercy. We may flee to Jesus for mercy. Our hostility to God can only lead to God’s justified wrath against us. Yet because Christ, who was an innocent man and God’s own Son, took the wrath we deserved when He died on the cross, we may take refuge in Him and enjoy the benefits of His righteousness. There is no refuge from Him except the refuge that is in Him. And by turning to Christ, we may escape the futility of worldly arrogance and instead find the eternal righteousness and peace for which we long.
This article was adapted from the sermon “Refuge in the King” by Alistair Begg.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon, “Getting Better” (1967). ↩︎
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