Tim Keller | December 12, 1993
The context of Psalm 2 is that the king has been installed in Jerusalem, but all the foreign kings are hostile and conspiring against this king. If you read it carefully, you’ll see that no earthly king can completely justify the fury of the threats, and no earthly king can completely justify the glory of the promises given. The language of the psalm, you might say, spills out over its banks.
Psalm 2 is one of the messianic psalms. In verse 2, it says, “The kings of the earth take their stand […] against the Lord and against his Anointed One.” Do you know what the word Anointed One is in Hebrew? It means Messiah.
This psalm is talking about the greater King. And it actually tells us three things: 1) we have a true King, 2) human beings hate the King, and 3) we need the King.
This Month's Featured Book
In this booklet, Tim Keller looks at how one can become a gospel-humble person who is neither too self-condemning, nor too self-loving, but instead is transformed by the gospel to be a self-forgetful person, loving our neighbors like we love ourselves.