Psalm 2: 1 – 12
Begotten
1 Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. 5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: 6 “Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.” 7 “I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. 8 Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’?” 10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
Questions. The word is derived from the Latin word – to seek. It is the same root as the word for quest. A creative life is a continued quest, and good questions can be very useful guides. Most useful are open ended questions; they allow for fresh unanticipated answers to reveal themselves.
Today’s topic then is a word which spurs questions. In the ministry we have faced this question on the word ‘begotten’. What does it mean that the Lord Jesus Christ Is God’s only begotten Son?
Besides appearing here, we see this word also show up in the Gospel of John chapter 3 which reads, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
False teachers have latched onto this phrase to try to prove their false teaching that Jesus Christ isn’t God (He isn’t equal to God as the Second Person of the Trinity). They see the word ‘begotten’ and say that Jesus Is a created being because only someone who had a beginning in time can be ‘begotten’. What this position fails to note is that the word ‘begotten’ is an English translation of a Greek word. As such, we must look at the original meaning of the Greek word, not transfer English meanings into the text.
The Greek word is ‘monogenes’ and is translated as ‘one and only’. Two definitions are derived from this word. The first definition is pertaining to be the only one of its kind within a specific relationship. The second definition is pertaining to be the only one of its kind or class, unique in kind. This is what the apostle John was primarily concerned with in demonstrating that our Lord Jesus Is the Son of God. He highlights our Lord Jesus’s divine nature as God – as opposed to believers who are God’s sons and daughters by adoption (Ephesians 1: 5). Jesus Is God’s One and only Son.
The bottom line is that terms such as ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ speaking of God the Father and Jesus the Son are human terms that help us earthlings understand the relationship between the different Persons of the trinity. If you can understand the relationship between a human father and a human son, then you can understand, in part, the relationship between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity. The analogy breaks down if you try to take it too far and teach, as some false Christian cults that Jesus was literally ‘begotten’ as in ‘produced’ or ‘created’ by God the Father.
Now let’s get into reviewing Psalm 2.
Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”
Our Holy Father God, Adoni Yahweh is King and sole Ruler over all the earth. Since the fall of man though, it has become clear from our Holy Adoni Holy Spirit God that all people did not want to be under His yoke. They want to be free to do exactly what they want. They do not want to be accountable to any One superior to them.
So David under the inspiration of our Wonderful Holy Ghost saw the wider world also as constantly simmering in its rebellion against our Creator. He knew that not only the local nations, but all the nations of the world would one day be called to be subject to El Shaddai, God Almighty, but would plan rebellion against Him and thus would need to be brought into subjection to Him or summarily dealt with.
David spoke of Holy One’s than he knew. For unknowingly he spoke of One Who would come as God’s Anointed, Who would indeed be rejected and spurned, but Who would then lay claim to the submission of the world to His Father. David spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The nations of the world rage because they do not want to be in subjection to the One Who controls all things. The thought infuriates them. The people go on imagining ridiculous ideas by thinking that they do not have to obey the One Who holds their very breaths in His Will. It was like that then. It is the same today. Men seek to throw off His restraints; they do not want Him to rule over them.
They try every way to avoid His rule. They are at war with The Holy One Whose Throne is at the upper highest in the third Heaven and with His anointed. They are constantly setting themselves against Him, and thus take counsel together with this in mind. The world and its rulers are in it together.
Take a moment and think about how ridiculous this is? Do they or the fallen angels really believe that they can beat or outsmart Jehovah Elyon, The Lord Most High.
Look at His Characteristics;
1. Omnipresent – He Is Everywhere
2. Omnipotent – He Is All Powerful
3. Omniscience – He Is All Knowing
Come on now. Why does anyone fight The Everlasting Almighty God? Why? Boy does this point out how bad our sinfulness is, wow! Man does not want to be accountable to anyone than himself. Kings and rulers of the earth are also involved. They too seek ways of escaping from Adoni Yahweh’s authority.
Please notice again the verse ‘Against the LORD and against His anointed.’ The world would also similarly reject the greater Anointed One our Lord Jesus Christ, the greater David, when He came, even though He came as the prince of peace. Indeed, the New Testament reveals how they constantly raged against Him. How they imagined vain things against Him. The rulers came together to take counsel against Him, and ‘kings’ like Herod and Pilate set themselves against Him. All this was to be literally fulfilled. But it was a hopeless cause. They could not get rid of The LORD’s Anointed. And they rage against Him and rebel against Him still, and still try to get rid of Him. But their attempts are in vain.
This statement has some unique points, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’ The subject nations saw David’s rule as being like a yoke fitted on oxen ready for the use of the plough. The bands bound the yoke to the oxen so that they could not be rid of it. The cords may have been similar to reins. They chafed at being guided by someone else’s reins. The more David conquered, the more it would be so. And the nations did not want to see themselves as oxen.
You do not have to be a brain scientist to see that today the world still seeks to throw off God’s yoke, and to rid themselves of His reins. The world ever sees God as making demands that are too great. They do not want to submit to Him or His anointed servant. They want to be free of restraint, free to do what they like. They want to rid themselves of what they see as His chains.
4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. 5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: 6 “Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.”
It is men who deride their enemies, not God. The point is that The LORD Is being depicted as the great Overlord, Who Is not afraid of His enemies and can afford to laugh at their feeble attempts to overthrow Him. He does not draw back before their acts of hatred against Him. Rather He can, as it were, laugh because of the futility of what they are doing, and carry out His purposes without any hindrance from man. None can prevent His will.
Why? Because He can correctly state that ‘‘He who sits in the heavens’ and is totally in control of ‘all’ things. Look at these truths as other scripture bring out;
. He is enthroned in majesty. Psalm 123.1, “Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You who dwell in the heavens.”
. He Is aware of all things, and controls all that goes on the earth. Psalm 11.4, “The LORD is in His holy temple, The LORD’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.”
. He can only laugh at their wicked and foolish plans. Psalm 37: 13, “The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming.”
This will be how our Holy God will deal with all rebels, ‘Then will He speak to them in His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure.’ God is angry at those who rebel against His anointed. It was so, and it is so today. There will be greater judgment yet to come for all who reject Him still. God is still angry at those who reject the Blessed second Person of The Trinity, Adoni Yeshua, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, His Anointed.
I do not believe that David was thinking of himself when he penned these words, “Yet have I set My king, upon my holy hill of Zion”. As mentioned earlier in His Psalm, David was referring to the LORD’s Anointed, our Lord Jesus Christ.
7 “I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.
Here is a verse that some people have taken majorly out of context. Clearly, we have been talking about our Lord Jesus Christ, right? Have you ever run into some people that try to use this verse to say, that our Lord Jesus Christ Was not with God from the beginning because God is now saying that He has created the ‘Anointed’? Wrong!
An adopted son was looked on by humans, and described as, ‘begotten’. He became a full member of the family. Does this all sound weird to you? Let me show you a wonderful description how Great our God Is. Turn with me to the book of Jeremiah chapter 22 and let us pick up starting with verse 24, “24 “As I live,” says the LORD, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off; 25 and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear—the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of the Chaldeans. 26 So I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born; and there you shall die. 27 But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return. 28 “Is this man Coniah a despised, broken idol—A vessel in which is no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his descendants, and cast into a land which they do not know? 29 O earth, earth, earth, Hear the word of the LORD! 30 Thus says the LORD: ‘Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.’”
You all see the point, now right? No, okay let me walk you through the great wonder of our Majestic Holy Spirit. You see from the book of 2 Kings you read how the kings of Judah, who were direct descendants of king David, kept getting worse and worse in their obedience to follow Jehovah Elyon – The Lord Most High. You finally come to a guy by the name of Jechconiah or also referred to as Coniah. This guy was so evil that El Shaddai – Almighty God declared that no blood relative would be permitted to be the rightful heir to be king of the Jews.
I am sure Satan was having a party for he thought that he had foiled God’s plans. ‘Not so fast’, our Great God would reply. ‘I got it all figured out, a virgin birth would trump this difficulty.’
If you have time look at the genealogy of our Lord Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew and then look at the Gospel of Luke. You will find out that the genealogies do not match up, how come. In Matthews Gospel you see that the man who begets a son stops with Joseph. Our Lord Jesus is born of Mary, ‘And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.” The disciple Luke list our Lord Jesus’ genealogy from Mary line which were also descendants of David but not from Solomon but from verse 31 we see that Mary line she descended from David’s other son Nathan, “the son of Melea, the son of Menan, the son of Mattathah, the son of Nathan, the son of David.”
So, putting this altogether we find that a blood heir of David thru Solomon cannot inherit the earthly throne of David, king of Israel, yet the son must be a descendent of David. Therefore, being born of the virgin that is of Mary a descendent of David, yet not in the blood line of Joseph who comes from Solomon’s line by ‘or ‘begotten’ [adopted] into the royal family He, that Is our Lord Jesus Christ qualifies to be the legal earthly heir as king of the Jews. Wow!
8 Ask of Me, and I will give You. The nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”
Please look again at the words, ‘Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance.’ We need to remember that the nation of Israel’s original inheritance was the Promised Land, but now the inheritance is to be enlarged for Father God’s Son. He will give to Him ‘the nations’ outside Israel.
Look at the ways our Lord and Savior will have to do to keep people in obedience. ‘You will break them with a rod of iron.’ This may indicate the severity of the treatment. Beaten and broken, not with a wooden stick but with a rod of iron. Or it could equally well be translated, ‘you will rule them with an iron scepter’. Either way the idea is of stern control, with all who refuse to submit firmly dealt with. Judgment will come on the rebellious, either once they are defeated or in process of that defeat. We must ever remember that ruling also includes judgment. Those who will not submit will suffer His wrath.
Have you ever felt like you are under God’s wrath? I think we all need to do some private inventory to see if we are failing to ‘submit’ to His Rule in our lives.
10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
‘Now therefore be wise, O you kings, be instructed you judges of the earth.’ He calls on the kings and their councils, and others responsible for justice to be sensible and to accept reproof. Note the emphasis on the ‘dispensers of justice’. Unless they bow the knee, they are shortly to have justice dispensed on them. ‘Wise’ means to be understanding, prudent, sensible. The word for ‘instructed’ has within it the idea of chastening. Let them consider their ways before severe chastening comes upon them because of their proposed rebellion.
All men are similarly advised to consider their ways. Will they continue with rebellion, or will they submit to Adoni Yahweh? They should be wise, for David has already revealed that they face an invincible force
All mankind needs to ‘Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.’ Recognition of God’s Authority and a reverent fear of Him is evidenced by submission to His Anointed.
To ‘rejoice with trembling’ indicated the blessing that could be theirs in return for their acknowledgement of His Lordship. If they bow the knee in fear and awe they will prosper under His benevolent rule and it will be well with them. They will be able to rejoice and have good cause to do so.
In a way it seems somewhat strange to read ‘Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way. For his wrath will blaze forth quickly.’
We are not familiar in dealing with royalty. Most of us sometimes meet a politician but that is just about it. To ‘kiss’, means first, to get on your knees and prostrate yourself before the king. If you are allowed to creep closer to Him, you would gladly kiss His feet. Would you be willing to kiss the Son of God’s feet? I would. For you see refusal to do this is in a way of rejecting His Supreme and Complete Authority over you. The consequences is that His Wrath will come against you for rejecting His Son. Not a pretty picture.
If you humbly submit to His complete Rule over you then this is in store for you, ‘Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.’ But for those who respond positively there will be great blessing. He will watch over them and protect them and enable their ways to prosper.
So, how will you deal with God’s Holy Son? Will you be willing to cast all to Him or are you still holding back? This is an important decision to make. Your eternity is at stake. Choose well my friend!
