The 3,000-year-old Coronation truth

Come with me back 3,000 years ago. It’s Coronation Day in Israel. “Israel” was a man (alive around BC 1900) originally called “Jacob” – a grandson of Abraham. By around BC 1000 the family of Israel had become a people and a nation and had been given by the LORD God the Ten Commandments… Plus, amongst much else, national and global promises – to be received by faith in the LORD God. 

At the time when Psalm 2 was written, one of the descendants of Abraham was to be anointed King. The people referred to him as a son of the LORD God.

As the Psalm indicates (above), the nations around Israel were unimpressed. They didn’t like the idea that their own gods were regarded as subordinate to the LORD God, disclosed to Israel as creator of everything. They wanted to demonstrate that this was not so by wiping the LORD God – and his son, the new King – from the earth. They’d be far better off without the LORD and without His “son”.

 

For us, it’s impossible to laugh at Putin, just as it was impossible for Israel to laugh at the nations and, later, the empires surrounding it. Not so the LORD God. He laughs. Then He warns them and terrifies them. How does He do that? By using other powers around these evil and corrupt nations. Oh, yes, they are evil and corrupt as well, but the LORD God is over all.

The words the LORD God uses extend beyond BC 1000 to today and to beyond today. The ultimate King born into the family of Israel was Jesus. He is rightly King having willingly submitted to death on a cross in Zion (Jerusalem) in AD 0 – to provide a return route into the family of the LORD God for all who follow Jesus.

In this next section of Psalm 2 (immediately above) it is the newly-anointed King who is placing on record the promises the LORD God has personally made to him as an individual. The son has only to ask and all the nations of the earth will belong to him.

The Biblical records of Jesus Christ and his miracles and teaching (as well as the history and archives of Israel in the Old Testament of the Bile) explain that people of every nation and language will choose to follow Jesus and, in that way, belong to him and become his family. However, the nations which choose not to do so will be broken to pieces – as we see today in our twenty-first Century world.

 

In this final section (above) of this ancient Psalm 2, the Psalmist calls on all people to serve the LORD God – and have respect for Him – both with joy and with trembling. 

“Obey the son completely” is the command – or “he will be angry” and “your way of life will lead to your death.”

There is a further warning - that “his anger can blaze out at any moment.” One often wonders why sudden trauma hits our fellow human beings – and us. 

Finally, “Blessed are all those who go to him – to the son – for safety.”

That, of course, is - at this moment and for all living human beings - a matter for individual choice.