Psalms 2:1-3

The Nations In Rebellion Against YHWH and Against His Anointed One

‘Why do the nations rage,

And the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves,

And the rulers take counsel together,

Against YHWH and against his anointed.’

Saying, Let us break their bands asunder,

And cast away their cords from us.’

In these words we have a picture of the world’s attitude towards God and towards Jesus Christ. For while they cannot agree together the nations as a whole are united in one thing, breaking the yoke of God upon them, and the result is the rejection of Jesus Christ as their Lord and King. Even among His people many may call Jesus Christ to be ‘their Saviour’ but they do not want His cords and bands to bind them, they do not want to be under His yoke (Matthew 11:29).

But these words are especially applied in Acts 4:0 to the rejection of Jesus by the Jews in what is a very important passage, for it makes clear the final rejection of the unbelieving Jewish nation, and a dismissal of them as simply being a part of the ‘nations’. They are no longer to be seen as God’s people. For the true Israel, the genuine descendant of Israel, is found in that small group of men and women through whom the Holy Spirit has begun His work, and it is to them that all the promises of God in the Old Testament now apply.

Let us consider it in more detail. In Acts 4:27-28 Luke demonstrates quite clearly that the old unbelieving Israel is no longer, after the resurrection, the true Israel. This is clearly to be inferred from the words of the infant ‘congregation’, for we read, "For in truth in this city against your holy Servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatever your hand and your council foreordained to come about." Note the four ‘items’ mentioned, the Gentiles, the peoples of Israel, ‘King’ (Tetrarch) Herod and Pontius Pilate the ruler. And note that these words follow as an explanation of a quotation from this Psalm as follows:

‘Why did the Gentiles rage,

And the peoples imagine vain things,

The kings of the earth set themselves,

And the rulers were gathered together,

Against the Lord and against His anointed --.’

The important point to note here is that ‘the peoples’ who imagined vain things, who in this Psalm were described as nations who were enemies of Israel, have now become in Acts ‘the peoples of Israel’. Thus the ‘peoples of Israel’ who were opposing the Apostles and refusing to believe are here seen as the enemy of God and His Anointed, and of His people, and as having become simply one among the nations in their opposition. It is a clear indication that old unbelieving Israel was now to be seen as ‘cast off’ and numbered by God among the nations, and that that part of Israel which had believed in Christ were seen as the true Israel. As Jesus had said to Israel, ‘the Kingly Rule of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits’ (Matthew 21:43). This is confirmed by Paul in Romans 11:13-32.

Thus the King now has a new people of Israel to guard and watch over. If it be asked, what then of the return to Israel of the Jews, is this not a fulfilment of prophecy? my reply would be, yes in so far as He is gathering them so that He might do a work of His Spirit among them in order to win many of them to Jesus Christ, with their thus becoming a part of the new Israel (compare Isaiah 32:15; Isaiah 44:1-5; Joel 2:28-29; Ezekiel 26:24-25), but no in so far as people suggest that God will deal with Israel on a separate basis. They have been brought back to Israel in order that they may again have the opportunity to respond to Him in the very place where they arranged His crucifixion, and rejected Him after His resurrection. They are being given a second chance. But that chance can only be accepted by responding to Him and becoming His disciples, not as a separate nation. Indeed Revelation 11:0 suggests the vainness of even that hope for the majority. It suggests that once again God has in mind simply a remnant prior to the Rapture of His people.