Introduction

For many years earnest members of the Western Church have been puzzled by our struggle to bear consistent witness to Jesus to our families, friends, workmates and neighbours. There is much talk of revival and community transformation, but little understanding of how these things come about. Despite the Alpha course, 40 Days of Purpose and countless other activities designed to empower the people of God for mission, the cause of the gospel is progressively retreating in our nations. In seeking the Lord about this I believe he directed me to a particular scripture, Psalm 2. This psalm opens up a quite different perspective on witnessing than the one common in the contemporary church. To bear witness is not some activity that Christians engage in; it is an integral part of our self-identity as sons of God.

“I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession.” (Ps 2:7-8)

The cited section of this messianic psalm is central to Jesus’ self understanding that he is the divine Son.[1] Whilst the utterance, “You are my Son”, is central to the psalm, it derives its impact from the preceding phrase, ““I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me””. The reign of the Messiah described in the psalm derives its authority from the appointed ruler FIRST hearing the words of God as a Father. Only when the church joins in hearing the words of sonship can we share Jesus’ witness to the Father[2] and his kingdom.

The context of Psalm 2 is indispensable to us hearing it as God’s commanding Word. This is a warfare psalm[3] and it reveals the God of the Messianic King above all as a Father who fights with his people and on their behalf. Such a struggle is the only sphere in which true sonship can be revealed, and it is this disclosure which is the remedy for the fearful and witness-weak state of the Western Church.

The Battle in the Garden

In Genesis 1:26-28, the Lord commands humanity to bless the earth by multiplication and migration[4]. Through their numerous ancestors, Adam and Eve were called to pass on the testimony of God’s faithfulness to all the earth. Importantly, all the nations of the earth were organically contained in the relationship between the first couple[5]. Within this arrangement Adam had a special responsibility.

God issues a direct command to Adam prior to the creation of the woman, ““of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” (Gen 2:17). This is a directive to God’s firstborn “son” (Luke 3:38) and the basic content of the testimony that he has to pass on first to Eve and then to any other intelligent creature that enters Eden. The future state of all humanity “in Adam” (1 Cor 15:22) will be decided by his faithfulness to this testimony. The narrative goes on to make it plain that Adam did in fact relay God’s Word to Eve (Gen 3:2-3) but it is his response to the devil that is crucial.

The entry of Satan into Eden presented Adam[6] with an opportunity to confirm the Word which God spoke to him as the sword of the Spirit (Eph 6:17) and instantly defeat the power of evil. God’s kingdom rule over sin, Satan and death would have been immediately established through a victorious son, and humanity would have gone on to rule all things as god planned. All future generations would have grown up in the knowledge that those who conquer by the Word of God are the sons of God.

Tragically, Adam remained speechless and fell under the power of death and the accusation of the devil (1 Cor 15:55; Heb 2:15). Having rejected God’s glorious Word the first couple were now filled with shame and a sense of lost sonship. Empty of the Spirit’s presence, they had no testimony. Things however became worse as humanity spread across the earth. No longer able or willing to exalt the Word and works of the true God, they began to venerate the false gods and their idols[7]. Since idols are false witnesses whose service cannot deliver from sin and death their worshippers are led into ever deeper shame[8]. As such “the nations” of the world are full of idols[9] and have become the enemies of God and his kingdom (Ps 110:1-2). Unless God himself acts with power to establish true testimony to himself all is lost. This testimony is bound up in the history of Israel.

Fighting for the Covenant People

The Old Testament contains two paradigmatic figures that were used by God to establish and sustain his testimony amongst the nations who oppose his kingdom. These are the foundational prophet and law giver, Moses, and the foundational dynastic king, David.

God commands Moses to bear specific testimony to Pharaoh concerning the status of his people, “‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, 23 and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.”” (Ex 4:22-23). The humiliation of the superpower of that age, Egypt[10], with public shaming of its idol gods (Ex 12:12; Num 33:4) is central to the witness of Israel as God’s son. The destruction of Pharaoh’s armies is the foundational Old Testament manifestation of the truth that the God of the covenant fights for the good of his people. Such saving acts are woven into a continuous testimony of the faithfulness of the LORD. With God in her midst, Israel was called and empowered to testify to the unique Lordship of Yahweh in the midst of the nations[11]. With time, the success of this vocation came to rest on a more concentrated form of sonship that was to be manifested in the messianic descendant of David.

A central dimension of David’s consciousness is God’s warrior presence, “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle” (Ps 144:1). The Davidic psalms are unintelligible outside of the sphere of mortal combat[12]. Through David’s military ordeals with God a fresh covenant of love is forged in the history of Israel where sonship is intensified from the national to the individual plane. God declares of the future Davidic monarch, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.” (2 Sam 7:14). The expectation of that this son will be a universal ruler in God’s kingdom climaxes in the second psalm, “I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you.8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” (Ps 2:7-8). The king has gone through a kind of rebirth and the sign of his adoptive sonship is sovereignty over all peoples, ““You shall rule them (the nations) with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”” (2:9). God identifies himself as the father of his son by pledging to fight “the kings of the earth” (2:2) until all resistance is stilled. The prophets however radically reconstruct the manner of the divine triumph in history.

The coming “witness to the nations” (55:4-6) that the LORD alone is God will perform this role as a servant (43:10-12; 44:6-7). Isaiah foretells that he shall “sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him” (52:15)[13]. In context (52:13-53:12), this prophesies that the hostile rulers will be converted through the sacrificial suffering of the servant on their behalf. This servant and witness is Jesus Christ.

Born to Rule

The baptism of Jesus is an intensification of his consciousness as a Son. “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” ” (Luke 3:21-22). The gift of the Spirit identifies Jesus as the anointed world ruler of the Psalms[14], and the voice from heaven draws on Psalm 2:7 and the suffering servant passages of Isaiah[15]. For the first time in revelation history it becomes plain that the messianic king will conquer the hostile and idol bound nations of the earth through the witness of suffering. God is made known as a Father who will fight evil to the death by the sacrifice of Jesus. To die for the Father in the cause of the kingdom of God is the supreme expression of Sonship.

From his baptism on Jesus proclaims the decree of the LORD, “You are my Son”, by all his saving words and deeds, this is his personal testimony. The promise of the Father, ““I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession”” (Ps 2:8), compels Christ to see the kingdom of God come with power. For this purpose he is filled with the Spirit. The Spirit is given to Jesus “without measure” for the Father “has given all things into his hand.” (John 3:34-35)[16]. The interpenetration between the power of the Spirit, the kingly reign of messiah, and witness to Jesus as the Son of God is indissoluble (John 1:32-34).

The ancient enemy of God’s kingdom, Satan, understands these things. His first temptation to Jesus begins with the same spirit of doubt that led to the Fall, “If you are the Son of God…” (Matt 4:3, 6). He goes on to offer Jesus, “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” (4:8), which are indeed his as the messianic Son. Their inheritance however will only be achieved through the struggle between the nations, the Father and himself on the cross.

Peter sees Psalm 2 as a prophecy of the crucifixion, “25 who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain?26 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’ —27 for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.” (Acts 4:25-28) The fierce rage of the nations[17] and Israel against the Son of God is an outworking of the plan of salvation. Yet the spiritual and saving dimension of the cross is more hidden.

Since Jesus identifies with all levels of human sin (John 1:29; 2 Cor 5:19), he must endure the “wrath…fury” and “rod of iron” with which God shatters the rebellious nations (Psalm 2:5, 9). Jesus’ horrible cry,““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” (Mark 15:34) means that he is experiencing the fullness of the divine wrath against the nations, in his experience it is as if the Father is fighting against his very own Son. Emptied of the presence of God, it is as if there is no Father who fights for human deliverance, including his own. The hostile nations and the demonic-idol powers behind them appeared to have triumphed over the testimony of Jesus to the faithfulness of God as a Father. Christ’s works and words now appeared empty – apparently the oppressed of the earth are abandoned. No one remained, not even amongst his closest friends, who believed the testimony of Jesus, “after three days…” (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34).

If the Sonship of Jesus seems annihilated by the cross, it is elevated to the highest place in the resurrection. So Paul preaches using the words of Psalm 2, “And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, 33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,“‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’” (Acts 13:32-33 cf. Rom 1:3-4). The resurrection is God’s all powerful testimony confirming Jesus’ testimony that he is the Son of God and that everything he said of his Father is true. God has unveiled in an unsurpassable and irrefutable manner that he is a Father who fights for his children by death and resurrection. Jesus’ fulfilment of the messianic and filial vocation of the anointed king in the second Psalm illuminates two of the greatest declarations in scripture.

Firstly, ““All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….”” (Matt 28:18-19). These nations are not neutral to spiritual matters; they are the hostile nations of Psalm 2 that rage vehemently against the Son and his Father. The Great Commission is the command of the Messiah King to join with him in ruling a world which hates the kingdom of God. The sword by which this is accomplished is the Word of God (Heb 4:12). This is such a potent weapon that it can only be handled by those filled with the Spirit of God, hence the second mighty declaration, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses …to the end of the earth.”” (Acts 1:8)

The baptismal outpouring of the Spirit is identified by Jesus as “the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4, 5), and means the coming of the kingdom of God with power (Acts 1:3, 6). The Spirit comes as the chief witness to Jesus who will empower the disciples to likewise testify to him (John 15:26-27) as “Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). When Jesus commissions his apostles as “witnesses…to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8), he is drawing them into the prophetic promise of the Father to make ““the ends of the earth” his “possession.” (Ps 2:8). The Spirit empowered proclamation of the gospel is the communication of the Father’s authoritative decree that Jesus is Lord and heir of the nations as recorded in the second psalm. Christ presently conquers the rebellious powers of the world through us. This framework calls for a radical reconstruction of the popular Christian understanding of sonship.

Reborn to Reign

Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3 ties together a number of strands from Psalm 2: rebirth, the kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit. Nicodemus discerns Jesus’ signs are from God (v.2), but in the flesh he neither sees nor enters the kingdom of God (vv.3, 5-6). The remedy is to be “born again of the Spirit” (vv.3, 5-7). In the context of John’s Gospel to be “born again” is to be empowered by the Spirit of God to receive the nature of a son of God and so enabled to see the kingdom of God clearly. This is primarily to see and confess that Jesus is “the Son of God” (John 1:34), something totally outside of Nicodemus’ perception.

When John introduces Nicodemus as a “ruler of the Jews” (John 3:1), he is identified as one of the “rulers” who plot against God’s anointed King (Ps 2:2, 10). Unless he submits to Jesus as God’s Son he will be destroyed[18]. Unless a person is born again into sonship they remain an enemy of God without any future inheritance in his kingdom. These themes are expanded in the teaching of Paul on the inheritance rights of the children of God.

“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Rom 8:15-17). The witness which the Spirit gives to us is essentially the same witness the Father gave to Jesus in life, death and resurrection. The intimacy we enjoy through the revelation of God as “Abba” flows from the reality of the Father’s inheritance. For Christians this is sharing in what Jesus has been given by God, the nations (Ps 2:8). We witness to the nations in obedience to Jesus Great Commission in order that we might share with him in this eternal heritage[19].

The Western Church has largely failed in its witness because we have reduced regeneration, sonship and the gift of the Spirit to feeling states. This is a means of remaining “spiritual” and avoiding the way of the cross. Just as Jesus could only enter into his inheritance of “bringing many sons to glory…through suffering” (Heb 2:10 cf. Luke 24:26), so we are “fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Rom 8:17). The benefits of the identity of sonship cannot be obtained without cost. The book which confronts this issue most directly is Revelation.

The Final Battle

Revelation unfolds the implications of Psalm 2, for its central theme is Jesus’ rule as Son over all nations. In this book we encounter all our major themes; witness, the rebellious nations, idolatry, the kingdom of God, messianic rule, sonship. At the commencement of Revelation John describes himself as having, “bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ” (1:2). This book is about the prophet sharing in the testimony of Jesus[20] and its purpose is to encourage the churches to remain faithful in their witness to Christ under pressure.

From the beginning Jesus is introduced as “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth” (1:5). The expression “kings of the earth” appears regularly in the book as describing earthly rulers who oppose the kingdom of God and persecute the church (6:15; 17:2, 18; 18:3, 9; 19:19). These are the some militant powers already encountered in Psalm 2:2, and behind them are the spiritual hosts of wickedness (16:14). The rage of these sovereigns against God’s purpose and people (cf. Psalm 2:2) is rooted in the fury of the devil, who cast down from heaven to earth “makes war… on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”” (12:12, 17). Satan hates the testimony of Jesus, for it reminds him of his guilty condemned state as a fallen “son of God” and inevitable destiny in the hell of fire (Rev 20:10; Matt 25:41). The repeating issue in Revelation is, “Who is the true S/son and heir.”

The proliferation of idols inside (2:14, 20) and outside (9:20) the church are contending witnesses for deity and sonship. The “image of beast” and its adoration (13:14, 15; 14:9, 11; 15:2; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4) is a thinly veiled reference to the cult of worshipping the emperor, who claimed divine sonship. The true heirs of the authentic kingdom of God are those who share in the life of the only Creator God, this is the persecuted church. Christians are the true sons of God and kings on earth[21].

Psalm 2 is strategically cited throughout Revelation to inspire faithful witness in the suffering church. Revelation 2:26-27 directly applies Psalm 2:8-9 as a promise to the church in Thyatira, “The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.” The account of Satan’s attempts to destroy Christ’s brothers (12:13ff. Cf. 6:9; 13:10, 15; 18:24) is preceded by a reference from Psalm 2:9 about the “male child (Jesus), one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron” (12:5). This assures the saints of final victory. The co-heirs of the triumphant Lord are identified in a very particular way, “11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (12:11cf. v.17). The ONLY reliable evidence for authentic sonship in Revelation maintaining a witness to Jesus until the end, no matter what cost! In terms of the use of Psalm 2 in Revelation, the final encouragement to persevere is found in the description of the last battle between good and evil. The rider on the white horse coming for his beloved Bride will surely triumph over every opposing force for he is the prophesied king that rules the rebellious nations “with a rod of iron” (19:15, 19 alluding to Ps 2:9, 2).

Given that Revelation is an unfolding of the eschatological implications of Psalm 2, the saving climax of the book is unsurprising. “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son” (Rev 21:7). Those who conquer the evil material and spiritual rulers of this world by holding fast to the testimony of Jesus until the end inherit the new heavens and earth (21:1) because they hold the exalted title “son”. Finally we read of the heavenly city, “By its (the glory of God) light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (21:24). The “kings of the earth” are those rebels who were created to be the true rulers of the earth but in their hostility towards God crucified the Son of God, only to be later converted by the testimony of Jesus in the gospel. These kings are us!

Conclusion

We began with an insight from Psalm 2, the messianic king is emboldened to rule the nations as God’s representative because he hears the decree of the LORD, ““You are my Son …Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance” ”. The divine witness to sonship and kingdom inheritance is the root empowerment of all witness to the true God. The failure of the Western Church to effectively testify to Jesus is grounded in a basic identity crisis; we have attempted to divorce the blessings of sonship from the context of warfare and suffering mode in which it has always been embedded in scripture. We have not embraced the essential testimony of the Spirit given by God in the resurrection, that the crucified Jesus is his Son and heir. This paradigm of victory and rule through the suffering of sonship has been rejected almost wholesale. Therefore our witness is either silenced or accommodated to the spirit of the age.

Many Christians are praying for an outpouring of the Spirit, yet God does not seem to be answering. James tells us why, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (4:2-3). On one hand we want to live like the materialistic and rebellious kings of the earth (1 Cor 4:8), whilst at the same time we are praying for the kingdom rule of Christ. This double mindedness grieves the Spirit of God.

To be united with the Spirit of powerful witness to Jesus is to be one with him who led Christ through baptism into death (Heb 9:14) exalted him as Lord (Acts 2:36) and was poured out by the Messiah-King at Pentecost transforming the whole church into a prophetic voice (Acts 2:33, 4, 11, 17-18). This “S/spirit of prophecy” is “the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 19:10). Such a church is radically uncontrollably by man and the true heir of the nations. To receive this inheritance from the Father, with all the persecutions that must follow[22], is the true testimony of sonship.