Psalm 21
"the Lord will engulf them in his wrath, and fire will devour them"
I chose a cheerful line to meditate on this week. :-)
Psalm 21 is a song about the Davidic king, with the last half of the psalm praising his abilities in battle. It's a war cry.
In many progressive Christian spaces and within the academy, it is unfashionable to be overly aggressive in reading Christ back into the Hebrew Scriptures. And yet, in my opinion, Psalm 21 is one of those places were I feel it is necessary to read the song Christologically. When the Messiah finally came he didn't come as a Davidic warrior in the style of the Maccabees. Jesus didn't, in the name of God, engulf the Romans with his wrath and devour them with fire.
And yet, such "Day of the Lord" imagery inaugurated Jesus' public ministry in the proclamation of John the Baptist:
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove his sandals. He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.”
And as we know, Jesus repeatedly invoked an eschatological fire that would judge all of humanity. But the wrath and fire here have been radically reconfigured, shifted out of the political realm and into the spiritual. This, of course, creates new and different sorts of tensions, questions, and conundrums. But the one clear and decisive thing it accomplishes is taking the sword out of the hand of God's people. Judgement becomes eschatological and is the Lord's prerogative, not ours.
I know lots of progressive Christians get squeamish around talk of hell, but they often miss the moral implications of hell: non-violence in this world, taking the sword out of our hands and leaving judgment to God. So: Three cheers for hell!
Because when you look at the world today, where terrorists and nation states use lethal violence to accomplish political ends, where children lay dead on the streets, you start to appreciate the sanity and safety of singing "the Lord--and not us--will engulf them in his wrath, and fire will devour them."
The war & battles Jesus fights today are for the hearts of His beloved. The wars & battles for the Jews before Christ were for the Nation. So it’s an internal war, since the hear of man is inside. This doesn’t mean that we don’t “take it to the streets”, we just take it there in a different manor. We defensively work to protect ourselves from social contagions & all forms of ideologies that aim to steal, kill & destroy. We offensively, & this I believe is the most important, ‘seek first the Kingdom of God’ so that all the realities of the God will remain True on this earth. We become so clearly defined in our reasons as to our hope that following Jesus is the true “cool” & appropriate way to live. We love so ridiculously that there’s little confusion about our offering of rebuke to others is anything but love. Rebuke isn’t judgement, rebuke is love expressed in uncomfortable conversations that MUST happen when Godly love is present.
When social contagions & ideologies go to far isn’t blood shed & lives lost. (Think gender “affirming” care & abortion, the lynchings of the ku klux klan & riots by blm & antifa).
There is a war going on, & always has been, for the heart of man by the Son of Man. Don’t be mistaken. We loose each battle when there is no war cry or the war cry volume goes low. If this wasn’t the case Paul would have written about flowers & cotton candy instead of the Armor of God. Jesus was always at odds & socially at war with the Pharisees & spoke about the Luke warm. Every justified & rationalized sin is a battle lost in the human heart.
Dr. Beck, I am a sixty-six year old man in therapy for my work-related vicarious trauma who is also currently halfway through your book "The Slavery of Death." I just noticed on the back cover of your book that you write this blog and so I've subscribed, not for pay, mind you. You'll have to earn that, but I suspect that you soon will. It's nice to make your virtual acquaintance out here in cyberspace, and I see that I've picked a hell of spot to do that! Anyway, I wrote something kind of similar to this the other day that I'd like to share with you and your readers, if you will be so kind as to permit my link to it. I can't decide if I went too far in my apocalyptic post . . . or not far enough. What do you think? https://themjkxn.substack.com/p/christ-is-risen?r=1qts0e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&fbclid=IwAR3Dky33rRRcXHSVh4IgjELBrzN09PkxVSe7MYENV4jiSOTeyWQBVQMUaTQ