by Rev. Alex. McPherson
Psalm Two
This Psalm belongs to the class usually termed Messianic Psalms seeing that they take to do with the Deliverer who had been promised at the very beginning of the history of our sinful race. (See Gen. 3: 15). It is doubtful whether David can be in any sense the subject of the Psalm because the King described here is surely too great to be a mere man, and this is confirmed by the application of the contents directly to Christ in several places in the New Testament. (Acts 4: 25-28; 13: 33; Heb. 1: 5, and Rev. 19: 15). The first of these passages informs us that David wrote the Psalm, but it is difficult to see where he figures in it. The first of the four sections pictures the ungodly world declaring their opposition to God and His Christ. An example of this is given in Acts 4: 27.
Verse 1. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?”
All men outside of the supernaturally-begotten family of God are here depicted in a rage against God and the King of his own appointment. To them it makes no difference that this King is also a Saviour. He saves from sin, and to the minds of those who love sin that is bondage. This erroneous view of the liberty brought by the gospel is only one of the vain things which they imagine. It is because they hate God that their minds are biased to imagine all kinds of foolish things. So what we have in these words is the spectacle of men in their wickedness and spiritual ignorance showing their enmity when the claims of God’s dear Son are set before them. Heathen and nominal Christians alike react adversely to the gospel, although perhaps in different ways.
Verses 2, 3. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”
The rage of the people is now seen forming into planned action as their rulers take counsel how to be free of the restraints of God and his appointed Saviour. Rulers have done this in all ages. We hear Pharaoh saying, “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go?” As we trace this antagonism down the centuries we see Amalek, and Moab, and Ammon, and Midian, and Philistia, and Edom, and Assyria, and Chaldea, to mention only some, rising against God. For it was really Him that they hated when they oppressed his people. In Christ’s day it was no different, for Herod and Pilate and the Jewish rulers conspired against the Christ of God. Later still the Roman persecution of the early Church, the Papal persecution of Protestants, and the Stewart rage against the Covenanters and Puritans were forms of the same enmity. The enmity persists. What is it all for? Just that men may be free to sin and to live without the restraints which the gospel puts upon them.
The word “anointed” requires special consideration. Both the Hebrew word “Messiah” and the Greek word “Christ” signify “anointed”, and the application of this title to the Saviour demands that we enquire into its origin. In Israel in Old Testament times, anointing with oil was employed to set apart an article or person as sacred. The anointing which was a symbol of the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit made an object used in worship fit for this holy purpose, and to a person it gave the spiritual qualifications necessary for the discharge of his office. In Exodus 30: 29, 30, we read that God commanded Moses to anoint both the furniture of the sanctuary and the priests who would minister there.
The significance of anointing with oil comes clearly to view in what we are told in 1 Samuel 10: 1, 6, regarding the appointment of Saul to be king of Israel. “Then Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him and said, Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance? . . . And the Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shalt be turned into another man.” In the course of time Saul by his disobedience forfeited this anointing of the Spirit, and it was then transferred from him to David. “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward . . . But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.” (1 Sam. 16: 13, 14).
From David’s time onwards, the promised Saviour began to be described as “God’s anointed” and later still Daniel gave to Him the title “Messiah”, and it was by this, which was taken to mean the King who would be a leader and commander to the people that the Jews, and even the Samaritans, looked for the coming Deliverer. “The woman saith unto Him, I know that Messias cometh which is called Christ: when he is come, he will teach us all things.” (John 4: 25).
In his case we again see the connection between anointing and the bestowal of the Spirit. Isaiah, giving us in prophecy, the Saviour’s declaration of his mission, says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek;” etc. Yet in his case the outward form, the symbol, fell into abeyance because Jesus was not anointed with oil into his mediatorial office of prophet, priest and king. Instead, at his baptism which was the occasion of his being formally and officially united to his sinful people as their Mediator, He received the Spirit without measure to fit Him for his work. Yet later, when the Church was celebrating a divine deliverance from the rage of rulers, they retained the language of Old Testament symbolism by quoting from this Psalm. “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together.” (Acts 4: 27). And it must also be noted that the same symbolical language is used to describe the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit given for Christ’s sake to New Testament believers; “He who hath anointed us is God.” (2 Cor. 1: 21). “Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.” (1 John 2: 20).
A more particular examination of the sense in which Jesus is the anointed of God must be held over.