Psalm 2: The Lord's Annointed King

When finding fault with the conspiracy ... against the Savior you have Psalm 2 ... which accuses the impious and those who act contrary to law.

Athanasius, On the Interpretation of the Psalms 14, 15

Psalm 2 is interesting because there are three ways to look at it. The first is as a secondary introduction to the psalms since it has no heading or author listed, as all other psalms do, except Psalm 1. It is of a category called the royal psalms which are concerned with the kinds of Judah who felt they were authorized and empowered as God's adopted sons, his representatives on Earth as it were. Finally, after the Babylonian exile, these psalms were viewed as promises of messianic hope and expectation. What the human kings couldn't do, God would do through the Messiah, his "Anointed One."

That's a lot to lay on a liturgical song, but then again, the Bible is the place where you find layer upon layer. Let's throw in another layer — what is the Holy Spirit saying to us today using Psalm 2?

Gerard van Honthorst,
King David Playing the Harp, 1622

Remember that at the time this text was written, we "Johnny-come-lately" Christians were the nations—outside the people of God, seeking to make our own way in the world. ...

We must still count ourselves on the side of the nations when we take up their banner of "freedom" from God's rule. Even Israel—the people of God‚ could think of God's bonds as restrictive chains and seek to throw them off. ... whenever we buy into the world's way of placing self and satisfaction before all else, we become the nations once again. ...

Whenever we read this psalm, we must be careful not to reduce it to a mere messianic prediction of the ultimate submission of the unbelieving nations to the authority of God's rule and kingdom. It is that, but it remains much more than that. ... it should remain for us who name the name of Jesus a powerful caution to lay down daily our own banners of personal freedom and self-satisfaction in order to "kiss the Son." When we do so, we avoid the path of destruction that Psalm 1 warns against, and we also discover that the imagined fetters and chains are instead the "cords of human kindness" and the "ties of love" with which God leads us into "the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21).

Psalms Volume 1 (The NIV Application Commentary)

Sources are here and an index of psalm posts is here.