PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

their incorporation into this Messiah of Israel by following him in the way of the cross,
and crying out with him for divine vindication. They are to believe in his resurrection and
look forward to the implied endpoint of this resurrection, the “final harvest” 39 vindication
of the Messiah and his community.
Earthly Rulers and Opponents as the Condemned Boasters in Acts
The book of Acts presents the apostles as interpreting present-day powerful opponents to
be the scornful-but-condemned opponents foreshadowed in the Psalms and prophets.
In Acts 4 the Jerusalem church is depicted as quoting Psalm 2 in a prayer to God,
explicitly equating its doomed human “rulers” with Herod and Pilate, who opposed Jesus,
and with the authorities who presently threaten the church itself: 40
Acts 4:23-29
Master, you who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them, spoke
by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of David your son, saying,
Why do the nations rage
And the people imagine vain things?
petitions”. Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old
Testament in Early Christianity (Philadelphia, Pa.: Fortress Press, 1988), 89.
39 Cf. the seed parables of Mark 4. Hays comments on the reception of the psalms of
lament: “Israel’s historical experience had falsified a purely immanent literal reading of
the texts; the line of David had in fact lost the throne, and Israel’s enemies had in fact
seized power. Thus, the promise that God would raise up David’s seed and establish his
kingdom forever (e.g., 2 Sam 7:12-14; Ps 89:3-4) had to be read as having reference to an
eschatological future. How, then, would the royal lament psalms be understood? They
would be construed – by many Jews, not only by Christians – as paradigmatic for Israel’s
corporate national sufferings in the present time, and their characteristic triumphant
conclusions would be read as pointers to God’s eschatological restoration of Israel. Thus
‘David’ in these psalms becomes a symbol for the whole people and – at the same time – a
prefiguration of the future Anointed One… who will be the heir of the promises and the
restorer of the throne”. Hays, Conversion, 110-111.
40 Talbert is right to perceive this utilisation of Psalm 2 as eschatological, messianic, and,
specifically, “applicable to Jesus’ passion”. Talbert, Reading Acts, 46. Witherington’s
addition, furthermore, is essential: “it is often taken to refer to events in the life of Jesus,
but the narrative here is about events in the life of the church”. Ben Witherington III, The
Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 200;
emphasis original. The pivotal events associated with the Messiah, and their
programmatic influence on the church, are given common expression in the liturgical
language of reversal.
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