Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
... Nor are the “imprecatory” Psalms really contrary to the “spirit of Jesus” or the “spirit” of the New Testament. All that is found in them can be matched by statements of the New Testament, and none is more terrible than the words of Jesus Christ against those permanently identified with Satan’s kingdom. The objections also arise partly from a false idealism in religion, which regards Christianity as merely a matter of ideals. Christianity is not merely a matter of ideals; it is not even merely salvation; Christianity is divine redemption from an objective realm of evil—from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, from Satan’s kingdom.
Christianity involves divine judgment on sin and sinners as truly as it involves divine redemption for God’s people. The false notion that God is nothing but love is responsible for much of the opposition to these Psalms. The present writer recalls hearing a young woman, a member of a Psalm-singing church, say of Psalm 137: “I just HATE that Psalm!”
The most charitable explanation of this attitude toward a part of God’s holy Word is that this young woman really understood neither Psalm 137, nor the real character of Biblical religion as divine redemption from an objective realm of evil. She had no doubt been fed on a false religious idealism which thought of God as nothing but love, and left His justice entirely out of the picture. ...
For more, see J. G. Vos: In defence of the imprecatory psalms.
Christianity involves divine judgment on sin and sinners as truly as it involves divine redemption for God’s people. The false notion that God is nothing but love is responsible for much of the opposition to these Psalms. The present writer recalls hearing a young woman, a member of a Psalm-singing church, say of Psalm 137: “I just HATE that Psalm!”
The most charitable explanation of this attitude toward a part of God’s holy Word is that this young woman really understood neither Psalm 137, nor the real character of Biblical religion as divine redemption from an objective realm of evil. She had no doubt been fed on a false religious idealism which thought of God as nothing but love, and left His justice entirely out of the picture. ...
For more, see J. G. Vos: In defence of the imprecatory psalms.
