In Psalm 2 we meet the “begotten”, not created, Son of God who declares that the Lord has told him: “Ask of Me and I shall give Thee the heathen for thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

It is widely agreed that the “begotten Son” here is the Lord Jesus Christ, who according to 2 Timothy 4:1, will “…judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom”.  It is also clear that taking over government of the world and its people will be the Son’s “inheritance”.

Importantly, that “inheritance” is also our inheritance, if we have believed the gospel of the grace of God and put our full trust in Jesus. How so, you ask? The answer is found in Eph. 1:11:

In whom (Christ)… we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will.

Rom. 8:17 makes plain that if we are the children of God by faith, then we are also “… heirs, joint-heirs with Christ, if we suffer with Him that we may be glorified with Him’.

In other words whatever becomes His inheritance will also be our inheritance. Thus, if in this life we “…serve heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men” then we know that “…of the Lord ye (we) shall receive the reward of the inheritance” (Colossians 3:24).

Amazingly, in Psalm 2:8 we are told that this inheritance, prepared long ago for the Son of God, and for those who trust in Him, will comprise the “heathen” and the whole earth on which we all live. In other words, with Christ and in Christ we will “take the world by storm”. What’s more, Christ as our King will (verse 9) take the stick to those who rebel and disobey and “dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel”.

When the Son asks for his inheritance every part of the earth, including New Zealand, will be brought under his rule from heaven. It will be a time when (Daniel 4:25) “the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men and giveth it whomsoever He will”. That was so in Daniel’s day. It will be so again when the present era of God dealing in grace and grace alone with mankind ends and the Lord brings in his kingdom.

But what is the time setting when this wonderful takeover of the world’s governments will occur? 2 Timothy 4:1 explains that it will be “at his appearing and kingdom”, the time when the Lord Jesus He shall show Himself to be “…the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords’ (1 Timothy 6: 15). Seven times in Paul’s epistles this next dispensation of the dealings of God with mankind is described as the Day of Christ. It is the Kingdom of God (or Heaven) in Matthew, the Last Day in John’s Gospel and the “...blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” in Titus 2:13.

Amazingly, in Psalm 2, this blessed era, next on God’s agenda, is foreseen by the Prophet David. The Lord God, the resurrected glorified Lord Jesus Christ, is seen ruling over all with his anointed king, David himself ruling as his appointed king on earth. Israel evidently has been restored and peace and righteousness are enforced by the tight control exerted by the Spirit of God. But despite the blessings of peace and a restored earth rebellion breaks out. The once God-appointed kings over the nations rage against God and plot to “…break their bands asunder and cast their cords away from us” (Verse 3).

All this is in a time to come when righteousness and peace fill the earth and David has been resurrected to rule over the restored nation of Israel. This, of course, comes as a shock. David raised from the dead to live again and rule over a restored Israel?

Well, let scripture have its say. The Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 30:7-9) foretells of the “time of Jacob’s trouble” out of which He (Israel) would be saved and the “yoke” would be broken off his neck. In verse 9 he goes on to say that the freed nation of Israel will:

                …serve the Lord their God and David their king whom I will raise up to them.

Two other prophets, Ezekiel and Hosea, who both lived long after David had died, also speak of God resurrecting David in a time to come, for him to rule again over Israel as the Lord’s appointed deputy on earth.

Ezekiel 34:23-24: “And I will set one shepherd over them (i.e. the restored nation of Israel in time to come), even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it”.

Ezekiel 37 describes the prophet’s vision of the “valley of dry bones” which the Lord says He will raise from their graves to regather the nation Israel in the time of his pre-millennial kingdom. The prophet goes on in Ezekiel 37:24-25 to write…

…And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd; they shall also walk in judgements and observe my statutes and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever, and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.

Every word should be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses, the Bible says. And so, we find the following in Hosea 3:5:

Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.

When will it happen? In the “latter days”, in the “afterward”, both of which are terms for time the risen, glorified Lord Jesus will ask God for his inheritance (and ours) and take over government of the world in what Paul the Apostle cites as the “day of Christ” seven times in his epistles.

John Dudley Aldworth, June 2024.

john.aldworth@hotmail.com