A Look At Psalm 2, Part 3

“He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.” (Psalm 2: 4)

The NIV footnote says, “The Lord mocks the rebels. With derisive laughter the Lord meets the confederacy of rebellious world powers with the sovereign declaration that it is He who has established the Davidic king in his own royal city of Zion (Jerusalem).”

How does God look at all these ungodly, humanistic heathens who verbally attack the Bible, attack Judeo-Christian morals, and attack Christians? Is God afraid of what these people might do? Is God worried? Hardly. This is the only verse in the entire Bible that speaks of God laughing. However, He’s not laughing with them; He’s laughing at them. God is laughing at His enemies who challenge Him and challenge His will and His Word. He sees these rebellious unbelievers---those who would mock God and challenge His will---and their worldly, humanistic reasoning, which comes from sin, as a pitiful joke. “Derision” means ridicule or mockery. These unbelievers, who are enemies of God, mock and ridicule God, His Son Jesus Christ, His Word the Bible, and His People (i.e., all who are born again). But God has the last laugh, and it is God Who will, in the end, mock them, when He throws them into Hell. One definition of “derision” is “mockery or laughter which shows scorn and contempt.” You may say, “Yes, I agree that God hates sin, but He LOVES the sinner!” However, the Bible would suggest that God’s wrath is against unrepentant sinners who are unbelievers:

“The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity.” (Psalm 5:5)

“God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” (Psalm 7:11)

"The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence His soul hateth" (Psalm 11:5).

The NIV footnote says, “God’s anger is always an expression of His righteousness.”

You might say, “Yeah, but that’s the OLD Testament!”

And what exactly, I would reply, do you mean by that? Do you mean that the God of the Old Testament is a completely different God than the God of the New Testament? Do you mean that God’s character changed completely from the Old Testament to the New Testament?

God does not change. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1:17)

Neither did God save people in a different way in the Old Testament from the way He saves people today. People in the Old Testament were saved the same way that people are saved today. Good works did not save people in the Old Testament. People back then could not perfectly keep the Law, just like people today cannot perfectly keep the Law. The entire chapter of Hebrews 11 (in the New Testament) shows how even the Old Testament saints were saved through faith, not by works. The entire chapter of Romans 4 (again, in the New Testament) shows how Abraham was justified by faith alone, and not by works; i.e., "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." They were saved by their faith in the coming Messiah (i.e., looking forward and believing, with faith, at what will take place one day); we are saved by faith in the Messiah Who has come (i.e., looking backward and believing, in faith, at what already took place).

Neither were they saved by animal sacrifices; if they were, then Jesus wasted His time on the cross. Those animal sacrifices were only a foreshadowing…a picture…an object lesson…of what was to occur in the future, much like Communion or the Lord’s Supper is an object lesson (symbolism) of what has already occurred…it’s a physical way for us to remember what has already occurred in the life of every born-again believer, and it gives us a physical, tangible way to relate to something of extreme importance…in this case, the sacrificial death of Christ Jesus on the cross.

The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God. In fact, the New Testament speaks of God’s wrath against unrepentant sinners as well:
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Romans 1:18)