Psalm 73 and New Testament Apostasy

This psalm is well known by many for the words of comfort it provides regarding the plight of the believer in the world and the abiding sense of injustice that can gnaw away at us if we let it. The wicked flourish and the righteous always seem to suffer and lose.

In the New Testament, this plight or framework and its ethical outgrowth is explained by God's strength through weakness, the way of the cross, and the notion that as martyrs, called to be slaughtered as sheep – we are in fact more than conquerors.

Why? We have an eschatological view and it shapes and informs our ethics. This is why we can suffer patiently, why we can turn the other cheek, and why don't seek after the wealth and status the 'gentiles' chase after. We reject their claims and what they have to offer – and it drives them to call us fools, think us mad, and in some cases it makes them want to kill us.

Grace informs us that we are in fact undeserving of good things and thus anything we suffer is right. Clearly, this is not the grace taught by today's Evangelical movement. We deserve worse than whatever we suffer, but instead of self-pity and despair, we rejoice in that we are being shaped and sanctified, and that we are following in the footsteps of our Lord in taking up the cross and despising this temporal present evil age and all it has to offer. We turn our backs on the realm of death and embrace the realm of eternal life. At least we try to live that. No one ever suggested it's simple and yet if our faith is solid, it is an easy yoke to bear.

We are also patient, knowing that vengeance belongs to the Lord. We cannot be the judges and executioners. We have no right to do so. The wrongs that are committed in this world will be accounted for at the Judgment. And the wrongs done to us 'in Christ' – Christ views these are wrongs committed against Himself and His wrath will be holy and righteous in response to such blasphemy.

We proclaim truth to our hurt, but we cannot take up the sword and as such we do not form alliance with the sword and coin powers of this world.

Some lost people understand this position in perverse terms as some kind of revenge fantasy. It's nothing of the kind. We rejoice in grace, forgiveness, and atonement, but it's also right to groan over the state of the world and to be offended at its wickedness and injustice. And things will be made right. It's not about revenge but about God reconciling the world – settling accounts as it were. The Day of the Lord will be a terrible thing to behold and it will be grievous in one sense as we see many we care about perish. And yet it will be right and we will view and understand things in those terms. The defeat of death and sin is cause for joy. The triumph of holiness is a hope beyond our reckoning. We can scarcely imagine such an existence and what it will mean.

The climax of the psalm by some estimations is verse 17:

Until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then understood I their end:

It's something we can all resonate with. The burdens, griefs, and sorrows of the world are set aside when we enter the sanctuary and our perspective is reoriented and corrected. The world and its doom come into focus and we can be at peace. The world is unjust but be patient and wait on the Lord.

In the New Testament, that sanctuary is not found in an earthly temple or what is mistakenly referred to as a Church building. This sense of peace, or participation in the 'sanctuary' or holy place may occur within the confines of such a building but that's beside the point or even despite it and the theological confusion generated by such edifices. To gather with the saints is to enter the sanctuary, but that can occur in a living room, basement, forest, barn, or a 'church building'. Sadly, many associate it with the latter without making a proper distinction. Such buildings (and their traditional architecture) are not sacred, but mere meeting houses or auditoria.

But such sanctuary-peace can also occur on an individual level – when in private prayer or Scriptural study and meditation. Through Christ we have access to this sanctuary any time we please. How little we appreciate that.

How often in the Psalms and prophets are the wicked associated with riches? It's actually no different in the New Testament. Christ plainly states you cannot serve God and mammon.

And yet few seem to understand that one of the core issues surrounding mammon is that of power. Often people think about money in terms of idolatry and dependence, and those risks are real. And yet the real issue is that of power and autonomy. Buying power also buys respect.

If I call my small town bank and want to talk to the manager I might or might not get through. But I can guarantee some of the local names associated with wealth will get through immediately. Wealth incorporates power and influence. This is a danger the Church (generally speaking) has ignored and in fact has embraced to its own peril.

One of the characteristics of the wicked is that they speak loftily, they set their mouth against the heavens (vv.8-9).

In the New Testament the Church is warned of those who will make merchandise of God's people, and those whose deeds result in the way of truth being evil spoken of. 2 Peter 2 specifically comes to mind.

These wicked men embrace a heretical spectrum of doctrine and ideology that is equated with the covetous angels leaving their estate (a clear reference to Genesis 6), and to the perversions of nature witnessed in Sodom. A law unto themselves, terms like idolatry and corruption are attached to them. And the memory of Balaam is invoked – a man who trafficked in holy things, a spiritual mercenary as it were who was willing to use, abuse, and manipulate the Word for the sake of gain and political favour.

Such men speak of liberty but instead they proffer corruption and bondage. The dream big as it were but are marked for destruction. Through their lofty speech, they set their words against the heavens.

The clear context by the end of 2 Peter 2 is one of apostasy. They are identified at the beginning of the section as the progeny of the false prophets.

At first glance someone might fail to see the connection. The psalmist is simply talking about the wicked. What does that have to do with apostasy and the kind of false teaching seen in 2 Peter? In 2 Peter (and Jude) we see a heresy that has combined covetous dreams of cosmological dominion and reordering, combined with riches but many won't see the emphasis being placed on wealth – relegating it to something of a secondary concern. Lofty dreams of power and glory always include boundless wealth.

But Psalm 73 is simply about the rich and powerful in the world – right?

The fact that the wicked (generically speaking) also have cosmological aspirations (like the false prophets) as it were is simply coincidental, an occurrence connected to wealth and status – but it can't be connected to believers having money or power. Can it? They're not likely to fall into these same traps, right? This is certainly what the Evangelical sphere would have us believe. This is certainly the argument made by Dominionists and Integralists of our day. Wealth and power are good because they can be utilised to foster the Kingdom of God.

The end of the psalm ties these loose ends together. In verse 27, we read that the Psalmist isn't speaking of the Philistines, Egyptians, Edomites, or the Babylonians. No, he's speaking within the context of the covenant. He's speaking within the context of God's people who go a-whoring from thee. These wicked people in the psalm are not pagans but functionally apostate believers. They're in the covenant community, and probably even respected members of it. Deceived deceivers as some heretics are described elsewhere (2 Timothy 3.13), they are most likely blind to their own plight and may even believe that they are serving God faithfully. They have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. That's not about the pagans, or even the Democrats. Those words apply within the context of the Church.

This error in the Psalms is directly related to the New Testament heresies being addressed by the apostles.

Yes, wealth and power lead to blasphemous aspirations – elsewhere referred to as making a name for oneself, as opposed to being called by the Name or calling on the Name.

Such cosmic aspirations are simply reiterations of Babel. The world always does this but there's a specific warning given to the Church – when it joins forces with Babel and seeks to sanctify. As I've said elsewhere the entire Dominionist project of Evangelicalism is little more than an attempt to put a cross on top of the Tower of Babel.

Such defections on the part of the Church are always associated with idolatry and cast in terms of an unfaithful spouse. The Bride turns harlot and goes a-whoring. It seeks alliance with the Beast and rides it. The eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin in 2 Peter may refer to sexual appetites but I think it more likely it's in reference to power and aspiration – idolatries. To be sure, such dreams and aspirations lead to a type of sociopathy that often includes the other type of behaviour as well. In fact it's rare that men in power avoid it.

But the covenant community or Church playing harlot is invariably associated with idolatry and one of the core idolatries that motivates the wicked in Psalm 73 and the false prophets (and the evil men crept in unawares) in the New Testament is mammon.

You cannot serve God and mammon. Never was a plainer statement made – and ignored.

The world will always be full of injustice and wicked men but what really grieves the psalmist-prophet is to witness this within the context of the covenant. And it should grieve us as well.

How often are Old Testament passages such as Isaiah 5 read in terms of the world or larger society? The wicked joining house to house in the passage are part of God's vineyard. These are covenant people trampling the poor. Likewise in Jeremiah 12 we read of the pastors who devour God's vineyard and in chapter 23 we learn of the false shepherds who strengthen the hands of the evildoers. The apostate covenant community fell prey to mammonism in the Old Testament as well and the rich and powerful had no qualms about building their wealth on the backs of others.

Because of the Prosperity Gospel and its over the top ethos, there are many who embrace the same doctrine in principle but can craft a means to justify it and part of that fog of justification is to juxtapose their 'modest' riches and tastes with the ostentatious proclivities of the televangelists. I may have a ministry that has made me a millionaire – but at least I don't have a jet. I may have five million, but at least I don't have fifty. Or in other words, I may be a thief, but at least I'm not guilty of grand larceny. Through such rationalisations men can convince themselves that what they've done is moral.

Ultimately through a host of sleight-of-hand arguments, cultural adages, bromides, and maxims, a kind of common sense wisdom is appealed to that effectively undercuts the imperatives of Scripture. Once coupled with the doctrines of sacralism and dominionism, the Biblical teaching fades into the background and not only is the wicked ethos of Psalm 73 justified – it becomes the ideal.

Since the days of Constantine this cancer has infected the Church. It has passed through various iterations and permutations and the present form which dominates Western Evangelicalism is particularly seductive and yet in Scriptural terms, heinous. Not only does wealth dominate the Western Church, but that wealth allied with evil forces, dominates the poor in other parts of the world, destroys their livelihoods, robs them of their resources, financially enslaves them, and foments war and then profits off that too. Today's Evangelicals and other forms of wealth-and-power oriented Christianity are part of the evil condemned in the Psalms and prophets. Nothing has changed. And the same false shepherds are still running the show in terms of God's people and doing the bidding of the powers that back them. Nothing has changed. The same spirit of apostasy is present over twenty-five hundred years later.

The message of Psalm 73 is powerful and yet this is significantly amplified when read through the lens of the New Testament – something we must always endeavour to do.