Psalms 2 and 22 and the conversion of the whole world

Richard Eric Gunby, while politely acknowledging that my heart seems to be in the right place, has taken issue with a statement that I made in the ‘NT Wright, mission, and the big red balloon’ post. In response to my assertion that ‘There is no vision of the whole earth being brought under the kingship of God’, he points out that Psalm 2 and Psalm 22:27-31 appear to speak quite unequivocally of God’s future reign over the nations and quotes Hodge, Spurgeon, Warfield, and Rushdoony to that effect.

It seems to me that we have to make a distinction between the idea that the creator God is sovereign over all nations and the idea that all nations, all peoples, will one day be brought into the ‘kingdom of God’. The statement ‘There is no vision of the whole earth being brought under the kingship of God’ is, I admit, a little misleading because the phrase ‘kingship of God’, which I took from Wright, suggests the former idea rather than the latter. The basic formula would be something like: YHWH acts sovereignly in the geo-political arena (the ‘kingship of God’?) in order to establish his reign over his people (the ‘kingdom of God’).

I argued in the post that the expectation we find in Daniel is not that all the nations will become part of the kingdom of God in the sense of being incorporated into a people which explicitly and faithfully acknowledges that YHWH is king but that God will act sovereignly as the one true God to judge the nations and deliver his people. There is in this the thought of God’s victory over the nations, but I’m not sure that we should speak, as you do, of a ‘total victory over this earth’ (emphases removed). Daniel does not foresee a final and absolute judgment of the nations and their inclusion in an enduring divine empire governed by the saints of the Most High. What is at issue is the status and security of Israel when the nation comes under pagan attack. The significance of the Son of man vision is that God will re-establish his reign over his people in such a way that they will never again face such a critical threat to the covenant or to their existence.

This is also the case in Psalm 2, usually regarded as a coronation or enthronement psalm. The nations conspire to rebel against YHWH and his anointed king. The assurance to the king is that God will give him victory over his enemies (8-9). The kings of the earth are advised to honour Israel’s God in order to avoid his wrath and the destruction by which it is expressed. There is certainly a sense that ideally the nations of the earth would acknowledge YHWH as king, but the reality is that Israel will constantly face opposition from its neighbours and will have to rely on YHWH for its security.

I should, in fairness, point out here that the qualifying adverb ‘ideally’ draws attention to the fact that, as is so often the case, it is the nature of poetic-prophetic language that is at issue. It seems to me that we are closer to the literary, historical and theological heart of the Psalm if we read verse 8, for example, as an idealized, poetic affirmation of the fact that God will deliver Israel’s king from his enemies. But the option is always open to us to insist on a more literal interpretation, such as that God will give Israel’s king sovereignty over all the nations of the earth. I don’t think that that is coherent with the rest of scripture, but as a matter of localized exegesis, it is difficult absolutely to refute.

Then, of course, there is the question of what this language might mean in the New Testament context. In my view, when Psalm 2:8-9 is used in Revelation, it carries broadly the same sort of historical meaning as it has in its original setting: the nations of the Greek-Roman world violently oppose YHWH and his anointed king, but God will give the communities of believers victory over them, will vindicate their faithful obedience. So, for example, to the one who conquers (that is, overcomes the pagan persecution) Jesus will give ‘authority over the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces’ (Rev. 2:26-27; cf. Ps. 2:8-9). In other words, the martyrs will participate in Christ’s victory through suffering and death over Rome (cf. Rev. 19:15). Naturally this presupposes a consistent historical reading of Revelation, which not everyone agrees with. But that aside, I think we can read these assertions of divine kingship with respect to the nations without taking them to mean that the kingdom of God in the New Testament sense will eventually encompass the whole earth.

Psalm 22 also conforms to this pattern. Israel’s anointed king is surrounded by enemies (12-18) and calls upon YHWH to deliver him (19-21). Confident of being rescued he says that he will praise God in the midst of the congregation and proclaim that God has saved him from this dangerous situation (22-26). More than that, he believes that this act of divine faithfulness towards his anointed king will be celebrated throughout the world (27) and in the coming generations (30-31). This is a common biblical motif: God acts historically and sovereignly to save his people and is worshipped by the nations because of that salvation. The point of verse 28 (‘For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules among the nations’) is that God is mighty enough (more powerful than the gods of the nations) to act on behalf of his people. This does not include Spurgeon’s idea that eventually the whole world will be converted. Biblical thought, in my view, is more contingent and ‘realistic’ than that.

I also don’t see any ratification in the New Testament of this expectation that all the nations will be converted to worship of the one true God before the final judgment and renewal of creation. My admittedly contentious view is that the New Testament barely looks beyond the eschatological horizon of the overthrow of an imperializing Roman paganism. It seems to me, however, that the underlying assumption is that we remain a people for God’s own possession in the midst of the nations and cultures of the earth. John foresees judgment on Rome - a victory won through the faithfulness of the saints of the Most High represented and preceded by the one whose robe is ‘dipped in blood’ (Rev. 19:13). But there is no conversion of the nations at this point. In fact, at the end of the thousand year reign of the Son of man and the martyrs, the nations are again deceived by Satan and attack the camp of the saints (20:7-9).