Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

2:26-29
end, to him I will give authority over the nations.
And he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the
vessels of a potter are broken to pieces, as I also have
received from My Father. This is a reference to the
Father’s promise to the Son, as recorded in Psalm 2:8-9:
Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations
as Thine inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron,
Thou shalt shatter them like earthenware.
God the Son has been granted the rule of all the world,
and all nations will come under His messianic kingship
(see also Ps. 22:27-31; 46:4, 10; 65:2; 66:4; 68:31-32;
72; 86:9; 102:15-22; 138:4-5; 145:10-11). Whatever
opposition is offered against His Kingdom will be
crushed absolutely. And the installation of Christ as
universal King, prophesied in this passage, clearly took
place at Christ’s First Coming, through His birth, life,
death, resurrection, and ascension to glory (this can be
confirmed by simply looking up the numerous New
Testament quotations of Psalms 2 and 110, both of
which are about Christ’s kingship 24 ).
The point of the quotation here is that the Christian
overcomers, in this age, are promised a share in the
messianic reign of Jesus Christ, in time and on earth. In
spite of all opposition, God has set up His King over the
nations (cf. Ps. 2:1-6). Those who are obedient to His
commands will rule the world, reconstructing it for His
glory in terms of His laws. Psalm 2 shows God laughing
and sneering at the pitiful attempts of the wicked to
fight against and overthrow His Kingdom. He has
already given His Son “all authority in heaven and
earth,” and the King is with His Church until the end
of the age (Matt. 28:18-20)! Is it possible that the King
will be defeated? He has, in fact, warned all earthly
rulers to submit to His government, or perish (Ps. 2:10-
12). And the same is true of His Church. The nation
that will not serve us will perish (Isa. 60:12); all the
peoples of the earth will be subdued under our feet (Ps.
47:1-3) – promises made originally to Israel, but now to
be fulfilled in the New Israel, the Church.
For the persecuted and seemingly weak church in
Thyatira, this was good news. At the time, they were at
the mercy of a powerful economic and political power;
statism and state-worship were increasing; even their
fellow Christians were being seduced by false prophets
and heretics. To be a faithful Christian in Thyatira
meant hardship and suffering, and not necessarily a
very glorious, headline-making sort of suffering, either.
Just the day-to-day grind of faithfulness to Christ’s
Word; just the fact of being unemployed and
unemployable in the midst of a booming economy,
when everyone around them could get work for the
mere price of burning a little incense, eating a little
meat from a pagan altar, and engaging in a little
“harmless” sex between consenting adults. There was
no opportunity for a great moral crusade; everyone just
thought you were weird. And night after night your
children would cry for food. No, this kind of martyrdom
was not very glamorous at all. But those who remained
faithful were promised that they would overcome, that
they would rule with Christ. The situation would be
reversed, the tables were about to be turned. Christ was
coming, to save and to judge.
The sufferings of these Christians did not mean the end
of the world, but rather the beginning. What may have
seemed like the approach of a long, dark night was
really the herald of Christ’s triumph over the nations.
The conflicts they experienced were not a sign of
Christ’s defeat by the world, but simply the assurance
that the battle had finally been joined; and the inspired
prophecy of Psalm 2 guaranteed that their Lord would
be victorious, and they with Him. It was paganism,
statism, and Judaism which were about to enter the
darkness, as Christ turned the lights out all across
apostate Israel and the Roman Empire. But for
Christians the night was just ending; the redeemed and
liberated universe was rushing headlong into a bright
Day. Christ was about to give these overcomers the
Morning Star.
24. Psalms 2 and 110 are the two most quoted Psalms in the New Testament. For Psalm 2, see Matt. 3:17; 17:5; Mark 1:11; 9:7; Luke 3:22; 9:35; John 1:49; Acts 4:25-
26; 13:33; Phil. 2:12; Heb. 1:2,5; 5:5; Rev. 2:26-27; 11:18; 12:5; 19:15, 19. For Psalm 110, see Matt. 22:44; 26:64; Mark 12:36; 14:62; 16:19; Luke 20:42-43; 22:69;
John 12:34; Acts 2:34-35; Rom. 8:34; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:3, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13; 12:2.
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