The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Human government is part of God's plan. He established the leaders of Israel, and they were to exercise their authority in His name. But like most human governments, those leaders soon forgot who it was that granted them their power.

Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. When leaders are corrupt, the helpless suffer, and God does not turn a blind eye. Let's join Dr. Boice as we study Psalm 82 and see what happens when those who govern forget their judge and fail the ones they're called to serve.

Dr. James Boice: On one occasion toward the end of his ministry, the leaders of the Jewish nation came to Jesus with a trick question. It had to do with taxes. They asked him, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?" It was a trick question because they thought however he answered the question, they'd be able to get him in trouble. If he said it's lawful, you ought to pay taxes, they would try to discredit him with the people because nobody likes to pay taxes.

In the case of the Roman occupation, there was a great deal of natural resentment. They would have said, "Look, this is just a collaborator with the Romans. This is just oppression in a religious guise." On the other hand, if he said, "No, it's not right to pay taxes," then they could go to the Romans and say, "Look, you've got trouble here. Here's somebody who's trying to stir up a revolution. I think you'd better arrest him and put him out of sight."

Well, Jesus was never caught off guard by anything, and he certainly wasn't caught off guard by this. He simply turned to them and said, "Give me a coin." They dug around in their pockets, they produced one, they gave it to him, and then he held it out to them. He held it out so they could see the image of Caesar that was impressed upon the coin. And he asked them the question, "Whose image is this?" They said, "Caesar's." Well, he said, "Give Caesar what is Caesar's." It's his money. If he requires some of it back, that's your duty.

But then I think what happened is this. I think he flipped it over in his hand because there would always have been a picture of a Roman god or goddess on the back side of a coin. And he said to them, I think making a contrast, "But to God the things that are God's." In other words, what he did was something really profound. He wasn't just getting off the hook, he wasn't just answering the question about taxes.

He was saying that the state has a legitimate authority and that authority has been given to it by God. It's to rule. One of the things the state has to do in order to rule is to receive taxes. At the same time, he was indicating that the authority of the state is not unlimited. The state doesn't have a right to do anything at all. Rather, it's subject to God, and the people of God always have to obey God first whenever there is a legitimate choice in contrast.

I begin that way because that is exactly what Psalm 82 is all about. Psalm 82 is dealing with the earthly judges of Israel and it's calling them to account by God. In other words, it's saying they have authority, but it's saying that their authority is given by God and therefore they're accountable to him. Notice how that first verse begins: "God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the gods."

Now, we have to pause here a moment to deal with a question, a technical question. Some people don't like that. They wish we would just get on with something practical, but you have to deal with it because this word "gods" has been handled in two different ways. On the one hand, there are people who treat this as referring to the judges of Israel. I've just done that myself. This has been the traditional view in the church until relatively recent times. All of the great writers down through the ages of the church have treated it this way. When it refers to gods, it's referring to human rulers or judges.

Now, that seems strange to us because we wouldn't refer to human beings this way. We wouldn't call the judge in a local court or the Supreme Court a god. And yet it doesn't seem to have been so strange to Israel because there are verses in the Old Testament that use the word exactly that way. For example, in Exodus 21:6, there are instructions, part of the civil law, that say that if there's a man who has served as a slave for six years—a servant indentured, a slave to another man—and if at the end of that time, in the seventh year, when by the law it was required that he be set free, if he decided he didn't really want to be set free, but rather he enjoyed the kind of service he was happy in the home, then he was to go to the judges who would pierce his ear as a sign that he was taking on a permanent but willing slavery.

Now, when it says go to the judges, the word that is used there is Elohim. It means God or gods because it's plural in exactly the same way the word occurs here in our psalm. If you look at that verse in Exodus, you'll find that the New International Version and some others rightly translate the verse "then his master must take him before the judges" because that's what it's referring to, but the word is actually Elohim. Now, the same thing occurs several times also in Exodus 22.

The best argument for this verse or this interpretation of the verse is the way Jesus referred to the psalm in John 10. There's a little story there where the Jews come to him with another criticism of what he's doing. And since Jesus had been calling himself the Son of God, they said, "You shouldn't be saying that about yourself because that's blasphemy. Call yourself the Son of God. Who do you think you are anyway?" And Jesus replied this way, "Isn't it written in your law, 'I have said you are gods'?" Now, that's where he's quoting from this psalm, Psalm 82.

And then Jesus continued, "If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and the scripture cannot be broken—what about the one the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world?" Now, some have accused Jesus of trying to get off the hook on a technicality there, but he wasn't doing anything of the sort. He was saying that God uses that word "gods" of the judges of Israel. And he says if God calls the judges of Israel gods directly, a very strong expression, how can you possibly accuse me of blasphemy when I say I'm the Son of God?

It seems to be a lesser thing if you just look at it linguistically. Now, we know he wasn't trying to get off the hook because the very comment in which he answers this, he says, "I'm the one the Father has set apart for his very purpose and sent into the world." So he's talking about his pre-existence, his deity, and an incarnation. He wasn't trying to get off the hook at all, but he says you're raising a question about my use of terminology and that's the answer. Now, the importance of that for us is that it shows that Jesus at least regarded Psalm 82 as being about Israel's civil rulers, the judges.

It does something else too, and it's why I've brought in this case from Jesus' own teaching. It gives one of the reasons why the judges of Israel could be called gods. Because, it's what Jesus says, the word of God came to them. That is, they were God's spokesmen when they rendered judgment. Here's what Stewart Perowne, one of the great commentators, says: "They were sons of the Highest, called by his name, bearing his image, exercising his authority, charged to execute his will, and they ought to have been in their measure his living representatives." But they didn't do this, of course. That's the whole point of it, and that's why the psalm is written.

Now, the second interpretation of this word "gods" is something that, as I intimated a moment ago, has risen up in the last hundred or so years in Old Testament scholarship. If it were only something that was advanced by liberal scholars, I'd just dismiss it. I'd say, well, they're not taking the word seriously. But conservative scholars have done it as well. One example would be Derek Kidner, who has given this interpretation in the InterVarsity Commentary series. He wrote two volumes on that.

Another one would be Marvin Tate, who has written a lengthy exposition in the Word Biblical Commentary series. This is the idea that what it's referring to are minor deities. We would call them demons, perhaps, or at least the principalities and powers that Paul writes about in the sixth chapter of Ephesians. You know what he says there? He says our struggle isn't against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Well, what are the arguments in support of this view? There are two of them, two main arguments. First, the Old Testament does indeed speak of such powers, referring to them as gods. One example is Isaiah 24:21, which is translated, "The Lord will punish the powers in the heavens above." Daniel 10:13 talks about the prince of the Persian kingdom who resisted Michael the archangel. It seems to be a demonic power. And if you want an example of God presiding over an assembly of such gods—exactly what you find here in Psalm 82—you find it in Job 1. Right in the very first chapter of that great Old Testament book, we're told that the sons of God, the Elohim, come and present themselves before God, and Satan is among them.

There's also a second argument, and the second argument is this. It's the way Psalm 82 speaks of judgment on these gods. What it says is that they're going to die like mere men. Now, the argument would go, if they're going to die like mere men, then they can't be men—that is, human beings. They have to be something else. And this is simply saying that it's the kind of end they're going to have. The only trouble with that, of course, is that it's an argument that cuts two ways.

Because if you're going to insist on literal death, you turn to the angelic or demonic beings who have spirits but no bodies, and you say, can angels or demons really die? The answer is they can't. They don't have bodies. It takes a body in order to die. That's why Jesus, in order to be our savior, took a body upon himself so he could die. And the demons don't have bodies. Now, they're going to be punished for their sin. They're going to be punished in hell forever, but they don't die.

So it doesn't make sense if you apply it that way. On the other hand, if you apply it to the human judges, it does make perfect sense. Because what this is saying is something like this: "You human judges get carried away with yourselves and you think you're quite important. You think you're better than other people. At times, you almost think that you were gods. But I want to remind you," says the psalmist, "that you are not. You're going to die just like anybody else, and your great plans are going to be swept away and you're going to find yourself accountable."

Well, the bottom line of that, I suppose, is that either view is possible and people argue both ways. But the first should be preferred, if for no other reason than that this was the interpretation of Jesus Christ. And I think it's more valuable that way because it takes the psalm out of what we might regard as some remote ethereal realm, and it brings it down to where we are. Saying, here's a word to actual human rulers. Important. They're accountable to God. And of course, it brings it down to us as well because the same standards that are raised up for them, which they have special opportunities of affecting, are the standards that apply to us as well.

Now, let's look at it. We've already looked at the first verse. We have to return to it again briefly because it sets the scene for what follows. It's really the convening of the court. It's God calling the gods before him to render judgment. "God presides in the great assembly; he gives judgment among the gods." This psalm was a psalm that meant a lot to Martin Luther. You know, at different times in history, different psalms jump out and mean special things to different people.

This psalm meant a great deal to Martin Luther because it came to him in the course of his exposition of the psalms about the time of the peasants' revolt that occurred all over Germany in the year 1525. The Reformation loosed the authority of many people and organizations and structures. And the peasants who had been oppressed greatly in the previous century or so rose up in what really became a political revolution. It happened all over.

And of course, because Luther was the great reformer, the leader of the Reformation, the peasants expected Luther to support them. Now, he didn't. He's been criticized for that—I think wrongly—but he didn't. And the reason he didn't was that he knew that spiritual goals are not advanced by political means. He was concerned with spiritual issues. And also because he knew it was necessary to maintain civic order in order that life and limb and even the opportunity to preach the gospel might be preserved.

He had himself been protected from death at the hands of the Roman Church by the Elector of Saxony, who was his prince over that particular area of Germany. So when he came to the exposition of Psalm 82, he pointed out that it has to do with the authority of princes, and it both establishes and limits it. It establishes their authority because it's God who appoints them. It also limits it because they are ultimately responsible to God. Now, that's exactly what we find elsewhere in the Bible.

Let me give you the example of Jesus' trial before Pilate. When Jesus was on trial before Pilate, and Pilate, very conscious of his office and his power, said to him, "Aren't you talking to me? Don't you know I have power to condemn you or I have power to let you go?" Jesus replied. He said, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above, that is, from God." So he said Pilate, even a Roman magistrate who had no knowledge of the true God, was nevertheless put in his position by God.

You wouldn't have any power over me unless it were given to you by God. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin. Very loaded statement, you see. The Pharisees, who knew something about the Old Testament and should have been able to recognize that Jesus was the Messiah on the basis of the Old Testament prophecies, had the greater sin. But Pilate himself nevertheless was sinning. The reason he was sinning is that he was offending justice, which he had been entrusted by almighty God to uphold whether he recognized it or not. So he's talking both about the authority and the limitation.

You find the same thing in Romans 13. Paul was writing there and he speaks of the rulers as God's servants, therefore appointed by God and also accountable to God. And when he writes to the people who are under their authority—Christians—he says therefore it is necessary to submit to the authorities. Now, Luther knew that. And so when Luther came to his exposition of this psalm, he struck a marvelous balance. I want to read you just a little bit about what Martin Luther said.

First of all, he argued that the rulers must be obeyed. "For where there is no government or where government is not held in honor, there can be no peace," said Luther. "Where there is no peace, no one can keep his life or anything else in the face of another's outrage, thievery, robbery, violence, and wickedness. Much less will there be room to teach God's word and to rear children in the fear of God and his discipline." He recognized the importance of the state and civil authorities.

But he went on: "On the other hand, God keeps down the rulers so that they do not abuse his majesty and power according to their own self-will. For they are not gods among the people and overlords of the congregation in such a way that they have this position all to themselves and can do what they like. Not so. God himself is there also. He will judge, punish, and correct them. And if they do not obey, they will not escape." Luther had the balance, and so does the psalm.

Now, in the New International Version, the next three verses are set apart as a separate stanza. You have that text, you can see that. That's right because this constitutes God's indictment of the injustice of these Jewish judges. Technically, the first part is a question: "How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?" The second part is a command: "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

You see two different forms—a question and a demand—but together they constitute an indictment. The whole point is that the rulers didn't do this. They have not punished the wickedness, they have not defended the weak or the orphans, the poor or the oppressed. They have not intervened to save the weak from those who are more powerful. Now, what are the duties of the state? They're twofold: to establish, maintain, and promote justice; and secondly, to defend the citizens of the state from aggression, both from within—that is, from unlawful persons—and also from without—that is, enemies of the state. But what it's saying here is that the judges had done neither of those things. They have failed on both accounts.

Now, I like Luther. I want to read you another paragraph from Luther. He's talking to the judges now, and here's what he says: "These three verses, indeed the whole psalm, every prince"—he means every ruler, everybody responsible in government—"should have painted on the wall of his chamber, on his bed, over his table, and on his garments. For here they find what lofty, princely, noble virtues their estate can practice, so that temporal government, next to the preaching office, is the highest service of God and the most useful office on earth."

And then Luther wants to extol the value of people who serve in the civil government. He's not saying that the only important thing is being a minister. No, these people who are serving in the civil government are important, and here's what he says, speaking of himself. He said, "I would rather be a pious secretary or a tax collector for one of these gods than twice a Hilary"—not speaking about Hillary Clinton, but he's talking about the founder of the monastic orders in Jerusalem where Saint Jerome went—"than twice a Hilary or a Jerome among the angels."

Now, let me ask a question. Here we're talking about justice, we have a high standard of justice, I've just read what's involved. Question is this: can justice like that ever be established and maintained in the earth in the midst of the flux of sinful human affairs? And before you answer, let me point out that Job at least claimed to have done it. Job was a ruler among his people, a wealthy man. He sat in the gate where it was his responsibility along with the elders of the people to exercise justice.

And here's what he said of himself—exactly what we're talking about. "I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist him. The man who was dying blessed me; I made the widow's heart sing. I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger. I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth." Well, that's exactly what is required of these judges of Israel and what the psalm is saying, saying it very clearly, that they hadn't done it.

And that's why they are being called to account by God. Now, following verses two through four, which contained the indictment, you get the consequence. And what's the consequence? "They know nothing, they walk in darkness, and all the foundations of the earth are shaken." Let me say this is a right description of all godless governments. It's exactly what happens. Whether it's an overtly godless government like the former Soviet Union and the other nations of the communist bloc, or a covertly godless government like our own, which is doing everything it can to push religion out of national life.

A godless government always produces consequences like that. What are they? What would we call those three statements? Well, there are three perils listed in the verse. The first is ignorance. You see, if you won't acknowledge God, a moral order in the universe that comes from him, absolutes that flow from his moral law, then you won't perceive what's happening or what needs to be done. And even if you did, you wouldn't know how to go about it. That's exactly what's happening in our country.

People don't know what to do. It's because they don't have a focus. There's nothing that brings them together. They're ignorant. Secondly, inept action. Everybody in government thinks they have to do something, so they do something. But because they're not focused and they're ignorant of what is required, they inevitably operate in darkness and the programs and policies of the government are ineffective. This is exactly what's happening in our country. People are waking up to that.

We've lost our frame of reference. We've distanced ourselves from God. So, so we don't have a focus. And because we don't have a focus, we don't know what to do. Somebody in government said some years ago, "Whenever we do something, it's always the wrong thing. We always make it worse." And there was a great movement for getting the government out of it. Well, that's not quite the answer either. The government has a legitimate role, you see.

But we say, "Look, government, every time it puts its hands in the pie, messes things up." That's true. But what government has to do is recover its focus as a servant of almighty God. The third thing that happens after ignorance and inept action is that the foundations of common life are shaken. Now, that's what happened in the communist countries prior to the collapse of the system and the fall of 1989. And it's what seems to be happening in our own country.

You know, we have people writing books today that are talking about a dying culture, and they're not referring to communism. They're referring to the Western democracies. Our most basic institutions like the courts, the public schools, even government itself are in turmoil, and it's increasingly unsafe even to walk in our streets because we have forgotten God. We studied Psalm 11 some time ago. Do you remember verse three? "When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

Well, in a judicial setting as significant as this where God is calling the human judges to account, we might anticipate a thunderous judgment of eternal death being passed upon these judges. And there are some who take verses six and seven that way. Verses six and seven say, "You'll die like mere men; you'll fall like every other ruler." Some say, well, that's referring to spiritual death, to hell. They're going to perish in hell. Yet the psalm doesn't actually say that.

It just seems to be speaking temporally, reminding the rulers that they're human after all and that they'll die in time just like anybody else, and that they will fall from their exalted positions and be replaced by someone else. Now, it doesn't seem to be enough somehow. And yet it probably is because that's really what needs to be said. Those in high office need to know that. It is also true that they have eternal souls to worry about and has to do with the gospel and the fact that they need to have faith in Jesus Christ, but we're not talking about them in that respect right now.

We're talking about them in their capacity and responsibility to exercise justice. And they need to be told that although they have functioned as gods, they are not gods. They're men and women after all. They will die and they will be replaced by others. In the meantime, as long as they still hold their high office, they need to be reminded that they can exercise the function that they're called to exercise only minimally and that only if they really wait upon God humbly and in prayer.

Now, what's the task of the church? Is the task of the church to do the secular government's job for it? Not at all. That's not our task. Ministers always get in trouble when they try to do that. Whenever in history you have had a church that tries to take over the government, the responsibilities of the government, it's always been a disaster for the church and for the government as well. But you see, the responsibility of Christians is to remind people in authority that these things are true.

That they are responsible to God, that they cannot function without a reference to the standards and character of the Almighty, and to pray for them as well. Because Paul, who lived in the midst of a declining Roman Empire, a world just like ours, wrote to the people of his day saying pray for those who are your rulers and have positions of authority over you. Well, that's the psalm, but there's one thing more.

We not only need to remind those in authority of their responsibility and pray for them, we need to practice justice ourselves and we need to come to the defense of the poor and oppressed ourselves, as Job did. The reason I say this is because this is the way the psalm ends. The psalm says, "Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance." That's kind of a universal judgment, and it matches verse one.

Verse one, God is judging in heaven, and it sort of brings that down to earth. It's sort of like that phrase in the Lord's Prayer where we are to pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Now, it's saying God is judging in heaven, but so far as we are able, we're to exercise those same standards on the earth. And let me ask the question: how is that to be done?

When you talk about God judging the nations, all of the nations, is that simply a reference to the final judgment—the fact that in the last day all are going to be called to an account before God and nations as well as individuals will be judged? Yes, I'm sure it is that, but it's more than that. It's also a prayer that justice might be done on earth through God's people. So whatever the failure of the civil rulers may be, God's people are nevertheless called to show mercy and exercise judgment in the sphere of their more limited influence and to the extent of their responsibility.

Pray, yes, but work as well. You know the Latin phrase *ora et labora*? It was a great Lutheran phrase: pray and work, because those who are the greatest prayers also become the greatest workers. And those that work certainly need to pray. Now, that's a challenge for what each of us can do. One commentator on this verse says something that is wrong. Here's what he says: "There will be no universal betterment of human existence till the right judge appears and saves the poor and needy, so the true church does not pray this prayer."

Now, I say we'd better pray it and pray for others, and we'd better pray for ourselves and act in justice as well. May God be praised. Let's pray. Our Father, we are thankful for this psalm. Sometimes when we talk about Scripture, people get the idea that it's all about spiritual things, it has nothing to do with the here and now. But here's a psalm that's talking exactly to the here and now, to the failure of our government and the responsibility of people who know you to live in an upright way, doing these things that aren't spectacular but are an expression of compassion and justice.

So, our Father, we would ask for grace to do that, not because we think we can earn your favor in any way by doing so, but as an expression of the fact that we are your people having been saved by the work of Jesus Christ and who therefore live in this world to be as he would be where he and I are placed. And so to that end we pray, and to that end also we want to work, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

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