Shattered Teeth: Jesus and the Imprecatory Psalms

The place of hatred in the Christian life

“O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth;

Break out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD.

Let them flow away like water that runs off;

When he aims his arrows, let them be as headless shafts.

Let them be as a snail which melts away as it goes along,

Like the miscarriages of a woman which never see the sun.”

Psalm 58:6–8

O that You would slay the wicked, O God;

Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed.

For they speak against You wickedly,

And Your enemies take Your name in vain.

Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD?

And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?

I hate them with the utmost hatred;

They have become my enemies.

Psalm 139:19–22

I can’t say I remember singing words anything remotely like those in church in my life. But Jesus almost certainly did.

The Psalms were the hymnbook for Israel and the early church, and as such they would have been sung regularly by Jesus and His apostles—even the imprecatory ones. While the 150 psalms have much to say about God’s power, love, and comfort, they also appeal fairly regularly to His justice and call for Him to bring destruction on the wicked.

That is one of the blessings of the Psalms—they give us balance we so desperately need.

As the members of CS Lewis’ fire department continue to emphasize God’s love and patience and warn about the dangers of going too far in combating evil, in reality the church has almost no backbone at all in opposing evil.

Psalms like these have become taboo and even embarrassing to some. The idea of Christians hating anyone or anything has become abhorrent in our day. And yet, there Psalm 139:21 stands.

“But in Matthew 5:44 Jesus said to love your enemies,” the response comes immediately.

To that I would say four things.

First, we absolutely should love our enemies, and we should be thankful we serve a God who loves His enemies. We were once in that camp (Romans 5:10, Ephesians 2:1-3), and all those we want to see saved are currently there.

Second, there’s a real cognitive dissonance at play when people who insist Christians shouldn’t have enemies are also big proponents of the verse that tells us to love our enemies.

Third, Psalm 139 speaks of hating those who hate God. Matthew 5:44 speaks of our enemies. This is an important distinction. The guy who cut me off in traffic, the business partner who cheated me out of money, or the soldier who is occupying my land (Matthew 5:41) is my enemy, and I should love them and pray for them.

On the other hand, a doctor who is castrating children for “gender-affirming care” or aborting children in the name of “women’s healthcare,” or a school teacher or entertainment executive who is trying to groom children into sexual perversion, or officials around the world who are persecuting God’s people—these are God’s enemies. They are actively harming “these little ones.” These are not run-of-the-mill unconverted people. These are people actively waging war against God.

The world is waking up to the fact that there is real evil out there. Stubbornly refusing to see it out of false humility is a ridiculous practice that needs to stop. Instead, we need to be the people who can diagnose the evil and prescribe the only solution there is.

Fourth, the idea that Jesus reversed the sentiment of the imprecations in the Sermon on the Mount (an oft-abused text, as I’ve written) is completely false.

John announced Jesus as one whose winnowing fork was in His hand to clear the threshing floor and throw the chaff into an unquenchable fire (Luke 3:17). In Matthew 18:1-6 Jesus said that anyone who made a little one stumble would be better off cast into the sea with a millstone around his neck. The obvious implication is, “He would be better off there drowning in the sea than he will be once I get a hold of him.”

And, in Matthew 23, Jesus promised that the temple complex would not have one stone left on top of another when He got through with it—a promise He kept roughly 40 years later. So yes, we should be thankful He is loving and gracious and long-suffering. But He also still really, really, really hates wickedness and is not afraid to punish those who practice it. And some day He’s coming back to finalize their fate.

What this means practically

Instead of approaching the Psalms with a 21st century mindset and deciding which ones we don’t want to read anymore, we need to let the Psalms train our thinking. If you can’t think of any person or entity on earth that can genuinely be described as wicked, your compass needs to be recalibrated by Biblical standards.

We should also learn to distinguish between those who practice sin and those who promote sin. The person who sets the trap and the person who gets caught in the trap should not be thought of in the same way.

Finally, it means we should be praying for the wicked to be stopped through one of two means, and in this order: they repent and cease their evil deeds (think Nineveh in Jonah), or they be stopped by God’s wrathful justice (think Nineveh in Nahum).

A brief word before I go

If you’ve been reading my recent string of articles, I probably come across as someone who sees God as only combative and hard-nosed, and that’s not the case at all. He is absolutely the lamb, full of grace and truth and willing that none should perish. But He’s also the lion whose justice will be carried out. And since that is what is often missing in today’s religious dialogues, that’s where I’m directing my attention.

Honestly, I’m tired of making these points. I wish I didn’t have to. But in a day in which we are only allowed to see Jesus as a meek lamb, the bulk of our focus needs to be put on His lion side until we get some balance back. The Good News is only Good News once you’ve digested the bad news. Gospel is only a relief once you’ve felt the weight of Law. A merciful God means little if He’s not also a just God.

But praise be to His holy name, He’s the true point on the compass that never wavers. It is up to us to realize our biases and orient ourselves to Him rather than trying to orient an immovable God to ourselves.

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Notes

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