Gairney Bridge

I attended a preaching conference/workshop in the Chicago area May of last year, which (of course) meant I had to take a trip by the obligatory book table (we all know that conferences and such are just covert means of selling huge quantities of books to pastors — as I was once jokingly told by another pastor: “Beware of books; they’re the preacher’s whiskey!”). I picked up a book by James Adams (not be confused with Jay Adams, whom I greatly respect, though he did write the foreword) entitled War Psalms of the Prince of Peace: Lessons from the Imprecatory Psalms (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyerian and Reformed, 1991). Imprecatory Psalms (or “psalms of cursing”) seem to give some Christians fits. When David, speaking of wicked rulers, proclaims, “O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth; break out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD. … The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked” (Psalm 58:6, 10), what is the Christian supposed to think? After all, aren’t we taught to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44; Romans 12:17-21)? Perhaps the Christian can remember the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is inspired by God[literally, ‘breathed out by God’] and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” Note that Paul does not qualify this and say “some Scripture” or “everything but those uncomfortable-to-read psalms.” He says “all Scripture.”

I found it quite surprising as I was reading the book to see that this is disputed by other Christian writers. That is, those who are not fond of the imprecatory psalms often dismiss them with a wave of the exegetical hand. Now, I would expect a non-believer to do this (he would do this with much or all of Scripture anyway). But Christians? And not just your run-of-the-mill “liberal” Christian either! For example, Adams notes that Henry Halley, author of Halley’s Bible Handbook (a fairly standard Christian reference work; I remember buying a copy when I began seminary) writes that these psalms “are not God’s pronouncement of His wrath on the wicked; but are the prayers of a man for vengeance on his enemies” and “in the Old Testament times, God … accomodated Himself to Men’s Ideas.” The Pulpit Commentary (which I also own) says this about Psalm 35: “So with this and other imprecatory psalms, they give us, not God’s precepts, but man’s defective prayers.” Even C.S. Lewis, in his book Reflection on the Psalms, describes psalms such as Psalm 109 as “devilish” and “diabolical.” These writers are certainly not alone in their opinions. But will man judge God by his own standards? Is this not akin to paganism? Cornelius van Til writes, “It was Socrates the pagan philosopher who insisted that he wanted himself to be the ultimate judge of the nature of piety, and that he did not care what God said about it. … One would think he reads a modern humanist rather than an evangelical Christian when he hears Lewis speak of the ‘devilish’ character of the psalmist’s sentiments…” (Christian Theistic Ethics, pp. 84-85).

Well, who is right? Are the imprecatory psalms merely imperfect sentiments of men, or are the opinions of Lewis, et al, the imperfect opinions? It might be helpful to note that the imprecatory psalms are routinely quoted in the New Testament, by both the Apostles and Jesus Himself! Let us consider two of the more “notorious” of these psalms: 69 and 109. For example, in John’s Gospel, after Jesus chases away the money changers from the Temple, we read in John 2:17, “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME.’ ” Psalm 69:9 is the Scripture being cited. In the Upper Room, when Jesus describes the way the world will hate Him and His followers, He quotes from Psalm 109:3: ” But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.’ ” Perhaps most startling of all is how Peter quotes from both of these psalms in Acts 1:20, concerning the death and replacement of the treacherous Judas Iscariot: “For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘LET HIS HOMESTEAD BE MADE DESOLATE, AND LET NO ONE DWELL IN IT’; and, ‘LET ANOTHER MAN TAKE HIS OFFICE.’ ” And if there be any doubt that these imprecatory psalms are the inspired word of God, Peter states in Acts 1:16: “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.” It sounds as if the disciples and Jesus considered these psalms to be the inspired words of God. Does this not tell us something?

Why do Christians think that God’s revelation can be disposed of so easily when His word gets uncomfortable? In the 19th century, the liberals rejected the miracles of the Bible. In the 20th century, the feminists rejected the teaching on male headship (both in the home and in the church) in such passages as 1 Timothy 2 and Ephesians 5. How can Christians keep doing this, and how can the church keep tolerating it? Does this not take us back to the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where we see the devastating consequences of what happens when God’s word is rejected and replaced by the foolish musings of men (interestingly, something that Paul reminds us of in 1 Timothy 2:13-14)? Instead, we need to need to be submissive to God’s word. If we do not understand, then we can ask for wisdom, as James instructs us to do in times of trial (James 1:5). But we must reject this attitude of intellectual superiority that attempts to make man judge of God’s word. If we think like this, then van Til was right: we are no better than the pagans and humanists.