My Enemies (part 1)

I chase My enemies and catch them; I do not turn back until I wipe them out. – Psalm 18:37 (NET)

Once again, as we find ourselves in the Psalms, with an ever-present reflection on the only reason why we even venture into the Word of God---our resurrected Lord Jesus---we are confronted with words and thoughts that could very well be ascribed to Jesus, as He tread the earthly path of ministry that was going to take Him to His cross. In the midst of first century expectations concerning Israel’s messiah, and the kingdom of God on earth that would be established by the messiah’s victory over the enemies of God’s people, we can imagine Jesus searching the Scriptures, as He contemplated His role and His task to usher in that long-expected kingdom; but doing so in a way that stood contrary to what His fellow countrymen were imagining and in some cases pursuing. Jesus knew that God’s kingdom would not be established in the way that every other kingdom had been established in this world---that of the violence of sword and spear.

At the same time, Jesus knew that there was going to be violence, but that the violence would be that which He would suffer and endure at the hands of the Romans. Jesus knew that there was going to be a massive conflict, and an enemy to be defeated, but the enemy with which He was going to engage in battle, was far more ferocious and powerful than the ones that His countrymen sought to overthrow. Jesus was going to do battle with death, that enemy which ultimately ruled through its power over all men and all things. Jesus trusted that His God was going to empower and enable Him to emerge victorious over this enemy, through a Resurrection, thereby stripping death of its power, and in its place, offering life to all men and all things, in submission to Him.

It is with such things in mind that Jesus could come to this Psalm, inserting Himself with a full understanding of His vocation, and to the Roman cross to which that vocation was leading, and read, “I chase My enemies and catch them; I do not turn back until I wipe them out.” To that is added, “I beat them to death; they fall at My feet” (18:38). Recognizing the source of such power, Jesus could read, “You give Me strength for battle; You make My foes kneel before Me” (18:39). The Apostle Paul would latch on to this theme, echoed elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures, and include in his letter to the Philippians “that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow---in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (2:10). Not only would this enemy kneel and bow before Him, but Jesus could look to this Psalm and go to the cross with the confident declaration that “You make My enemies retreat” (18:40a). With the power of the faithful, covenant-making-and-keeping God at His back, Jesus could make the assertion that “I destroy those who hate Me” (18:40b).

His enemies would not go down without a battle, nor without an assertion of their rights. In fact, those enemies would cry out. The Psalmist would write, “they cry out, but there is no one to help them” (18:41a). More than that, His enemies, death and the grave, would even “cry out to the Lord, but He does not answer them” (18:41b). Wait a minute. How could death cry out to the Lord? Why would death cry out to the Lord? In crying out to the Lord, death would be doing nothing more than asserting its rightful claim against all of mankind. That rightful claim began with Adam. Death would be asserting its rightful claim against Israel, which had been in constant violation of their God’s commandments to them.

It was this failure of Israel that would make it necessary, because God is faithful to His promises, for their King to undergo that which was seen as the greatest curse, the cross, going there as the representative of His people, to undergo suffering and death. Though death was a usurper and an interloper in God’s good creation, it was not an unlawful usurpation, as death had only entered because of mankind’s failure, and through mankind’s relinquishing of his God-given dominion over all things. Though death and its associates cry out, God’s answer would come through His anointed King’s power to “grind them as fine windblown dust” (18:42a), and His strength to “beat them underfoot like clay in the streets” (18:42b). This would be accomplished by a Resurrection, as God would brook no bargains with death, as He set His world to rights through His Christ.