I started something last week. I’m not sure how long it’ll go on.
I started reading the Psalms with my kids.
You’d think this would be a pretty good idea, right? “Israel’s prayerbook.” “The Bible’s Hymn Book.” But as one of my Fuller colleagues said about his pre-seminary attempt to read these songs: “There’s a lot of really strange stuff in there.”
And not just strange.
I knew I was in trouble before I got to the end of Psalm 1.
“Papa, why can’t the wicked enter the assembly of the righteous?”
This, of course, led to a conversation about wickedness and righteousness in the best 5-year-old capacity I could muster.
The end of our conversation was 5 year old’s firmly expressed conviction that, because of Jesus, “The wicked can enter the assembly of the righteous.”
Let’s hear it for the hermeneutics of Christological revisionism!
Things didn’t get any better in Psalm 2: Dash those enemies into pieces like a potter’s vessel. God laughing in mockery at the bad guys.
I felt acutely the dissonance between the depictions of the regional deity, fighting on behalf of one tribe, and the God who desires that none perish but all come to the knowledge of the truth.
And, I was as always reminded of the echoes of Psalm 2 in the NT, where the Son is enthroned by the Father and rules the nations–even with a rod of iron, says Revelation.
But somehow, even with the pot-crushing rod, I still need the Christological revision. I need to know that the ultimate story isn’t one of earthly conquest, but one in which the hopes of earthly conquest were thwarted (or at least put on hold) by a messiah whose coronation parade was the road to Calvary.
And I think my kids buy it, too…
The God who desires that none be saved?
With respect to the post, I find your take very interesting–I think I’m a bit sympathetic to your point, but overall, I find this line of interpretation of the Psalms strikingly similar to the more extreme forms of Reformed theology that you have long since abandoned, with their ubiquitous law/gospel contrast foisted upon every passage of Scripture that “demands” something of us or evaluates us on the basis of our moral behavior, not Christ’s righteousness.
I think the main way the NT writers read passages like these is NOT to do “Christological revisionism” in the sense that you advocate here (i.e. grace changes the way God looks at the wicked and the definition of who is righteous), but rather in the sense that the designation “righteous” and “wicked” are now filtered through Jesus, not the law. But I doubt that the ethical obligations and expectations for the righteous have changed all that much for the NT writers, nor their willingness to consider the wicked to be cut off from God and under His judgment apart from active repentance and faith. Which, to come all the way around, is exactly what Psalm 1 has always been saying.
Would love to hear your thoughts in response, Daniel!
As for every generation, the biblical text doesn’t quite say what we want it to. The nice thing about kids is that they actually listen. Adults tend to let it wash over them without letting it penetrate.
I don’t understand how a Christological hermeneutic gets you off the hook on this one, in light of Matt 25:31-46 (and many other NT passages…).
Awesome!
Nick wrote, “righteous and wicked are now filtered through Jesus, not the law.” Even though I disagree with this, I have to thank him for saying so clearly exactly what I disagree with.
I’m not sure I will ever be able to say “Christological Hermeneutic” with a straight face, but whatever that means, I have one of those that does not mean Christ replaces The Law as the one who condemns the wicked.
Very interesting, Daniel. I tend to agree that the NT writers read the OT Christologically. I also tend to think that they are very “creative” (not sure whether this is the right word though). Yet at the same time I think they had a much greater respect and love for the Scriptures than we 21st-century Westerners do. More than often I find that we discard the Scriptures that we don’t like – and we have developed sophisticated ways to do so! But my sense is that what the NT writers did was to faithfully interpret the OT Christologically, and they did so with the utmost reverence and respect.
Kids have a wonderful way to teach us the Bible. My nine-year-old just finished reading the entire Bible on his own (over the past 10 months). We used to spend a lot of time in the car on the way to school, and he used to love listening to the Bible in the car. For him, it’s the stories (e.g. Genesis, Joshua – 2 Chronicles) that were most interesting, and he listened to them again and again. (I think when he’s old enough he might like the notion of “storied theology” a lot.) As he read through the Bible over the past 10 months, every now and then he would ask very good questions that I was reluctant to dismiss simply because of my pre-supposed theology. It’s amazing that he doesn’t have to harmonise Scriptures. He can sit with the tension between the violence in Joshua and the fact that Jesus asks us to forgive and love our enemies (which strongly points to a non-violent response to violence). Thus he would say that wars in the world today should stop (and his father is very happy with such a peace-loving attitude), but at the same time has no problems with reading the battles in Joshua.
On the other hand, our Western (adult) mindset is uncomfortable with such a tension.
That’s my two-cents worth of contibution to the discussion.
Freshly reminded by yesterday being the International of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, I wonder if Christians in southern Sudan can resonate with Psalm 2 a little better than we can. Sometimes the evildoers in the Psalms just may be the tyrannical sadists of ths world and the righteous just may be the generally good folks who are our relatives, friends and neighbors. I’m not denying all those heart issues our Lord talks about, but there’s evil (in its potential form) and then there’s EVIL (in its robustly manifest form).
that would be Int’l DAY of Prayer, obviously
so what exactly did you say to your kids? my guess isn’t “christological revisionism”
Great points, all. I only have one second right now on the computer. Thanks for the various input. Yes, there will be judgment. Yes, the Anointed will do it. I guess reading it in the presence of the kids just made God sound… I dunno… so… mean or something.
This is very helpful in explaining why our daughter now frequently comments on her brother’s actions being examples of “wickedness.” I was wondering…
Thank you for explaining. And thank you.