The Messianic Psalms and the Prosperity of the Gospel

Three of the Davidic Psalms are quoted frequently in the New Testament to refer to David's descendant, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They also teach much regarding his mediatorial reign between His first and second advents.

King David, God's Hymn-Writer

Psalm 2:7-8, "The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten You. Ask of me, and I will make the nations Your heritage, and the ends of the earth Your possession." God the Father, speaking to the Son, promises Him all the nations, His merely to ask for. Did Jesus do so? Matthew 28:19 quotes Him, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." The Father promised and the Son received. Referring to this passage, Keil and Delitzsch explain, Jehovah "has appointed the dominion of the world to His Son: on His part, therefore, it needs only the desire for it, to appropriate to Himself that which is allotted to Him." Can this mean anything less than that the nations shall belong to Him?

Psalm 22:27-28 reads, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and He rules over the nations." Again, the Lord's dominion is taken as the basis for the expectation that a time will come when the nations (not necessarily all individuals) will worship Him through His mediatorial Son. The Apostle Paul borrows this theme in Ephesians 1:20-22.

And finally Psalm 110:1-3, "The Lord says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.' The Lord sends forth from Zion Your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of Your enemies! Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of Your power, in holy garments; from the womb of the morning, the dew of Your youth will be Yours." After His ascension, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father's throne in heaven, compare Acts 2:33, Hebrews 1:3, and Hebrews 10:13. There He receives the Father's promise to bring all things under His dominion. Notice especially that this is said while Jesus is in Heaven, and explicitly states that He is to wait there until it is achieved. There is no allowance here for the premillennialist error that holds that His dominion is established after His second advent. This is a description of His kingly work between His first and second advents, i.e., it is being achieved now!

It is an error, dishonoring to our Redeemer, to hold that He is impotent to change the world, until some future millennium. I hold that the millennium is now, and Jesus reigns now, and history is the story of His conquest of His enemies. Having once been His enemy, I rejoice in His conquest of my heart (Romans 5:19, Colossians 1:21).