The essential message of Psalm 2:1-5 is this: We enter the danger zone when we resist God’s rule and reign in our lives. How then, should people live before God? Psalm 2:6-12 provides an important answer. We will learn that rebels must recognize Christ’s right to rule and respond reverently to his kingly authority. Then and only then, will we find ourselves in the safety zone.

The opening verses of Psalm 2 unveil the rebels who resist the authority of God. This passage reveals the posture of rebels who are poised to dethrone God. These rebels rage against God and plot against him (v. 1). They oppose the LORD and his anointed (v. 2). These rebels make autonomy their ultimate goal (v. 3). They want to be free from God’s demands. They want to be free from God’s laws. And these recalcitrant rebels seek freedom from God’s reign and his rule.

Here’s the fascinating irony: Every rebel who searches for freedom apart from God is in bondage, and will, in the final analysis, be subjected to the almighty wrath of God. When you flee from Christ to be free from Christ you build a self-imposed prison around your life. Stated another way, when you submit to Christ’s lordship, you will rest securely in your newfound freedom.

The essential message of Psalm 2:1-5 is this: We enter the danger zone when we resist God’s rule and reign in our lives. How then, should people live before God? Psalm 2:6-12 provides an important answer. We will learn that rebels must recognize Christ’s right to rule and respond reverently to his kingly authority. Then and only then, will we find ourselves in the safety zone.

Recognize His Right to Rule

God possesses royal authority. He is a transcendent and majestic God who deserves our unhindered reverence and obedience. Notice several aspects of his kingly reign.

The Components of God’s Kingly Reign

First, the installation of the King (v. 6). There is a crucial distinction here between the Father and the Son: “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, on my holy hill.” Note the exalted status of his kingly reign. To set someone in a particular place suggests a unique position.

Christ is presented as his enemies’ King. C.H. Spurgeon says, “What are all the mighty men, the great, the honorable men of the earth to Jesus Christ? They are but like a little bubble in the water; for if all the nations, in comparison to God, be but as the drop in the bucket, or the dust in the balance (Isa. 40:25), how little they must be the kings of the earth!”¹ Christ is presented as his saints’ King. Christ rules “over their wills, over their affections, over their judgments and understandings, and nobody hath anything to do here but Christ,” writes Spurgeon.² Christ is presented as his Father’s King. Christ not only rules in the hearts of his people; he rules over a “providential kingdom, by which he rules the affairs of this world, and so he is the king of nations.”³

Psalm 99:1-5 emphasizes this reign. Indeed, his reign is righteous, sovereign, and omnipotent. His is a just and holy reign. This is the kind of King you would want to serve. This is the kind of King you would want to submit to. This is the kind of King you can find refuge in!

Second, we learn about the position of the King (v. 7). The Son speaks of a decree: “God’s decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby, from all eternity, he hath, for his own glory, unchangeably foreordained whatsoever comes to pass in time.”⁴

The decree tells of the eternal begetting of the Son. The Nicene Creed (revised in 381) confesses faith in “one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all time, Light from Light true God from true God, begotten not created.”

John Frame helps us understand the meaning of the term, begotten:

Among human beings, begetting normally occurs in a sexual relationship. It occurs in time so that a human being who did not exist at one time comes into existence at a later time. But eternal begetting is surely neither sexual nor temporal, nor does it bring into existence someone who otherwise would not have existed, for God is a necessary being, and all three divine persons share the attribute of necessary existence.⁵

Third, Psalm 2:8 describes the inheritance of the King: “As of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” The inheritance of Christ is absolutely comprehensive. There is nothing outside the scope of his sovereign control. That is, his kingly reign knows no bounds. He owns everything; he rules over everything and everyone. He is sovereign over the nations; he is sovereign over rulers; he is sovereign over our decisions; he is sovereign over our wills; he is sovereign over all. “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory, forever. Amen” (Rom. 12:36). Abraham Kuyper rightly observes, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’”

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