Our engagement with the Psalms demands a response. It’s not enough to nod in agreement and carry on as before. If your heart and hymnbook are full of defeat and despair, it’s high time for a reformation. We need to ditch the weak-kneed theology that has infiltrated our ranks and put on the whole armor of God, ready to fight the good fight with the confidence of those already on the winning side.  Remember, the Psalms don’t call us to a passive, defeated life, waiting for the end times. They call us to action, dominion, to take up the mantle of our King and push forward His Kingdom here on earth, as it is in heaven.

If you want to learn what a culture values, and if you’re going to understand the worldview that underpins a nation, then you must look no further than their songs. No matter what the whompyjawed ideologues say behind fake smiles and teleprompters, and no matter what manufactured narratives are peddled by the bobbleheaded pundits in the fake news media, the hopes and dreams of a people will be found most clearly stated in their anthems, ballads, and refrains. If you want to know what a society believes in, where their hopes lie, what they think about the purpose of life, and why we are all here, then pay attention to the lyrics and hymns they produce. It will be telling.
For instance, let’s say that I have been living under a rock for a few decades, and somehow, I end up washing up on the shores of this strange land called the USA. If I wanted to figure out who these people are and what things they value, I might look up their ten most popular songs for that year. If I did that, I would find out that these people believe our purpose in life is to engage in womanizing, emasculation, promiscuous and filthy sex, getting drunk, doing drugs, and being a thoroughgoing moral degenerate. But it’s all good, as long as we have a good time, right? That is the attitude our songs are celebrating. While I wish I could say that I am being hyperbolic, I read through the lyrics of the ten most popular songs right now, and if anything, I am being excessively modest. That is the discordant melody and the seedy song we are singing about who we are. And based on our cultural anthems, we are not only a very sick and disgusting people, but we are unashamedly proud of it.
However, this was not the case in ancient Israel, whose hymn book tells a much different story about who they were and what they valued as a society. Amid the hundred and fifty songs that we have preserved in our canon, we can see themes of trust, praise, and worship of Yahweh, lament, and suffering in times of struggle, repentance and confession, thanksgiving, His love, and covenantal faithfulness to His people, as well as His sovereignty and Kingship over all things. In fact, one of the most prominent themes in the book of Psalms is how God is going to take a sin-laden world that was handed down to us in Adam and, through His Son, establish a Kingdom that fills the world with worshippers, which ties in perfectly with the themes that we have been talking about so far.
If you are new to the party, we are in a series called a practical postmillennialism, where we have been talking about what postmillennialism is. We have been arguing that postmillennialism is the story of how God will fill the world with worshippers before the curtains close on this old world. This is the promise He made to Adam in the garden before He sinned (Genesis 1:28). This is the promise God repeated to Noah after sin (Genesis 9:1). It is the hope that Abraham’s line will bless every family on earth (Genesis 12:3) and every nation on earth (Genesis 18:18). And it is the promise that humans will never be able to do this on their own, because we are all like Adam, so a messianic Shiloh will come and bring obedience and worship to all the nations (Genesis 49:10), filling them with worshippers. We have seen that Jesus will take the promises given to all those men in Genesis and accomplish them as the true and better Adam.
Last week, we saw how those world-filling promises are not only contained within the book of Genesis but spill out into the pages of the Exodus, or in the law found in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, or in the conquests narratives of Joshua, and in the lead up to and all throughout the era of the kings from Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. We saw that these cosmic promises that were given by God would be fulfilled. God would not abandon His plan. And before the last grain of sand falls through the hourglass of time, God will have filled the world with worshippers through His one and only Son, Jesus. These are His promises, and He is going to fulfill them.
Now today, we will see how the book of Psalms takes these glorious themes and sings them back to us, even shouting them at us like a metal concert with loud crashing symbols going off in the background so that we would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to miss the throbbing chorus. Today, as we move out of the history of Israel’s kings and move into the poetry and songs of Israel, we will see how the hymnbook of God’s people echoes the promise of a better King, a ferocious King, who will put all of His enemies underneath His feet so that He can fill the world with worshippers as God has promised.
A Song of Crushing Enemies
As men have become increasingly emasculated in our culture and radical feminism has run through our societal veins like rat poison, the widespread view of Jesus has shifted away from the warrior priest-king to the humble, loveable wuss. If that stings, it is because it is true. In art and movies, we shamefully depict Him with long flowing hair, soft, supple skin, and longing eyes, looking like a woman with a well-manicured beard. In popular evanjellyfish music, Jesus has become the emotional boyfriend in the sky, to whom we belt out all our emotive mantric babblings, so He will wrap us up in warm worshipful hugs. This is ironic because the songs we see concerning Him in Scripture are masculine and ferocious, and they focus not only on His affections but also His wrath against the wicked.
No matter how sappily evangelicalism has painted the Lion of Judah, and no matter how loud they roar that we lose down here, the softening of this King and the defeat of His people does not work in the Psalms. He is not a mere savior of souls working for a Kingdom filled with harp-playing, toga-wearing cloud riders. This prevailing notion suggests that the church’s role is essentially to crash and burn in this lifetime, to retreat from the world like cowards in anticipation of a heavenly reward, sidelining the Kingdom’s advancement on earth. Many argue that Jesus is not actively building His Kingdom on this earth because He is focused entirely on spiritual things. However, this image starkly contrasts with the robust, authoritative Messiah depicted in the Psalms.
In these God-breathed hymns, Jesus is not depicted as a distant, passive figure; instead, He emerges as a mighty warrior, a king not only concerned with the afterlife but vigorously involved in the here and now, establishing His rule, authority, and dominion across the globe. And there will be setbacks. There will be enemies who rise up and pop off at the mouth. The Scriptures are not silent about those moments. But, they are also not quiet about the Messiah standing as the indomitable General leading the charge against the hordes of hell until every single enemy of God has been crushed under King Jesus’ feet. In that sense, the Psalms aren’t just songs; they are war cries, declarations of victory by a King who will bring utter devastation and ruin upon His enemies.
Take Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 for example. These aren’t gentle whispers of a far-off distant hope; they are booming thunderclaps of God’s immutable promise.
Psalm 2:7-12 says:

“I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to me, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall shatter them like earthenware.’ Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, that he not become angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in him!” – Psalm 2:7-12

Although David wrote this song, He is not talking about himself. He is an outsider to this scene. He is nothing more than a privileged spectator who returns and reports all He heard and beheld within the Godhead. He is writing a song about a conversation God the Father and God the Son are having with one another. A song where the Father will bring His Son to this earth as His only begotten Son. A song where the Father will give His Son all of the rebel nations on earth as the inheritance for His obedience. And, after assuming His global dominion (alluded to in Matthew 28:18), He will begin the process of overthrowing all of the sedition on earth, breaking into pieces all of those who are in ongoing insurrection against God.
Because of Jesus’ incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, He will rule over the nations of this earth with a rod of iron and shatter all of His Father’s rebels like pottery shards. This is why the world’s kings are told to be wise and take this warning very seriously. They are not told to repent in terror because Jesus is building a Kingdom that loses down here and has no impact down here. No! They should be terrified because if they do not turn from their evil in order to worship the Messiah King on this earth and pay homage to Him in His rule on this planet, then He will overthrow them here, displace them here, and bury them here in His righteous wrath.
God the Father is promising that Jesus will win down here, rule down here, and crush everyone who opposes Him down here. That is a far different tune than what we are used to hearing in modern Christianity. But, alas, there it is in the text. We see that this Messiah doesn’t come as a passive observer of world history but as the relentless conqueror of it. He is the one who claims every inch of this earth as His rightful domain because He won it as His inheritance on the cross.
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When our hearts and minds are restless and raging, we need help. It’s challenging to reason with ourselves when the boat of our mind is taking in the water of our emotions. Like the storm in the Sea of Galilee, we can only see the storm in front of us. The omnipotent Savior resting is eclipsed by our clear and present danger. We need to hear the words of the one who can calm the raging sea within us (Mark 4:35–41). Our access to this transforming power is the Word of God. More specifically, the promises of God in his Word. We need to hear, believe, cling to, and rest upon God’s promises.

Life has no shortage of problems. Jesus reminds his disciples to expect trouble (Jn. 16:33) and that each day has enough trouble of its own (Matt. 6:34). During these times, rest seems like the furthest thing from our minds. However, suggesting it sounds almost as foolish as curling up for a nap while a tornado siren goes off.
But this is precisely what we need to do.
How? Here’s a brief encouragement: a picture, a story, and a memory device.
A Picture: Rest on the Pillow of God’s Promises
When our hearts and minds are restless and raging, we need help. It’s challenging to reason with ourselves when the boat of our mind is taking in the water of our emotions. Like the storm in the Sea of Galilee, we can only see the storm in front of us. The omnipotent Savior resting is eclipsed by our clear and present danger. We need to hear the words of the one who can calm the raging sea within us (Mark 4:35–41). Our access to this transforming power is the Word of God. More specifically, the promises of God in his Word. We need to hear, believe, cling to, and rest upon God’s promises. He is faithful, trustworthy, and unchanging. When the storm is flooding in and threatening to capsize you, rest your weary head upon the pillow of God’s promises. It’s your only hope, and it’s your best option.
When the storm is flooding in and threatening to capsize you, rest your weary head upon the pillow of God’s promises.
 A Story: Jacob
In Genesis 35:1, God instructs Jacob to go to Bethel. Why? He’s lingering in Shechem because he’s afraid after the Dinah incident (Gen. 34:30). More specifically, God promised to bring him back to Bethel (Gen. 28:15) and Jacob himself vowed to go (Gen. 28:19–22). God is telling him to live in faith because God is faithful. So Jacob goes back to Bethel and sets up an altar to God. But then, God appears to him again and reminds Jacob of two significant events in his life (Gen. 35:9–15).
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It is impossible to ignore the motif of victory in Christ’s work. Therefore Aulén’s contention that Christus Victor has been understated among Protestants is worth consideration. Towards the beginning of his book, Aulén outlines four reasons he believes the classic view has been neglected. One of them is his claim that many moderns find conflict imagery to be disagreeable, even primitive and crude. I saw this myself when sharing Oh, Sleeper lyrics with a friend. In one their tracks, God sings to Satan: “You’ll bow at my feet, or I’ll rip out your knees / and make of your face, all the carnage you crave.” My friend thought the imagery was unnecessarily violent and unsettling. But then so is a lot of what we read in the Bible.

Despite the criticisms levelled against Mel Gibson’s The Passion, especially from Protestant quarters, his portrayal of Gethsemane is profoundly theological. After pleading with the Father to be spared the cross, Jesus stands up and crushes a snake’s head. This striking imagery alludes to God’s promise in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This has traditionally been called the protevangelion, meaning ‘first gospel.’ It promised that even though the reality for fallen humanity would be conflict with evil powers (Genesis 3:14), the promised end of that strife is victory. As Gibson depicts, Christ’s life was marked by conflict. Yet it ended in God’s promised conquest.
But where was that victory won? Identifying the serpent as Satan, in Revelation 12:11-12 we read that Satan was conquered by the blood of the Lamb. Mysteriously then, it is through his death—and resurrection—that Christ triumphs over evil and brings us back to God. To use an old but obscure word: at the cross Christ achieves ‘atonement.’
Atonement Theories
In my own experience, we often tend to downplay this dramatic struggle between God and evil when speaking about the atonement. But standing at either end of history we see a promise of conflict; and that same struggle climaxing in God’s victory. For these reasons, the Eastern Orthodox tradition (following the early church fathers) has long treated the Christus Victor view of atonement as primary—sometimes exclusively so. This view of the atonement received renewed attention amongst Protestants in the 20th century, thanks to Gustav Aulén.
Aulén outlined three views of the atonement: classic or dramatic (Christus Victor); objective (Latin); and subjective (Christus Exemplar). But for Aulén these were not three aspects of Christ’s unified work. Rather he set his classic view, or Christus Victor, over against the other two. Aulén’s view of the atonement centred on “divine conflict and victory.” However, the New Testament speaks of Christ’s atoning work in a variety of ways. These are related, even mutually dependant. Thus Kevin Vanhoozer urges us to think of a plurality of metaphors rather than polarised models.
In the remainder of this post I will briefly unpack Christus Victor using Aulén’s book and point out some of its undervalued strengths.
Introducing Christus Victor
In Aulén’s presentation of Christus Victor, Christ’s victory over the evil powers brings about a new relation between God and man, which we might call reconciliation or atonement. In the work of the Son, God reconciles man to God through conquering mankind’s enemies. This victory was dramatic, not dryly rational. In fact, Aulén described this divine drama as contra rationem et legam (against reason and law). It was not man atoning God through bearing his righteous judgment in our place, appropriated by an intellectual faith and resulting in imputed righteousness.
As Robert Letham writes: “Today there is almost universal distaste for thinking of God and salvation in legal categories.” Aulén certainly felt that the Latin (objective) view of the atonement was too rationalistic and abstract. There is some validity in his criticisms. Where Aulén comes unstuck is in claiming that Christ suffering the legal penalty for sin in our place cannot be fitted with the motif of victory.
An Atonement Theme; Not the Whole
One of the church’s leading historians, Justo González, writes: “From the very beginning the church proclaimed Jesus as its Saviour, and in the Patristic age there had been a variety of views as to how Christ saves sinners.” Thus Aulén overstates his position in claiming that Christus Victor dominated the church’s doctrine of salvation for the first millennium of its existence. Might we not see, in this variety of positions on the atonement that none can exclusively address the whole work of Christ?
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