Begotten today
You’ve read it many times, right? Psalm 2, one of the great prophecies of God’s Kingdom to be established on the earth, ruled over by God’s Anointed. Referring to the Anointed, we read, “I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. (Psalm 2:7) But when exactly is “today”? When did the Almighty say this? Well, it turns out it was a whole bunch of times!
At his birth: Luke 1:32; Hebrews 1:5-6 (quoting the verse from the psalm).
At his baptism: Matthew 3:16-17.
In the mouths of others: Matthew 16:16; John 11:27.
In a voice from heaven: John 12:28.
At the transfiguration: Matthew 17:5.
At his death: Matthew 27:54.
In his resurrection: Acts 13:30-33 (again quoting the psalm); Romans 1:4.
In his appointment as High Priest: Hebrews 5:5-6 (quoting the psalm yet again).
At his return and the establishment of his Kingship: right here in Psalm 2. (Look at the whole psalm, but especially the verse immediately before: “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.”)
Just looking at the psalm itself and the times it was quoted to prove a point, “today” was 4 different times! Plus all the others—even those with no quotation make the same declaration. Is this legitimate, quoting this passage and applying it to different times?
We are familiar with referring to Jesus as God’s “only begotten Son”, but we may not have considered that the Father “begat” His Son through a progression of milestones. It wasn’t only the miracle of his birth, although that was a crucial, immensely important beginning. The Father was working to shape His Son’s life throughout all these stages. Over and over, He declares that Jesus is His Son. Step by step. “This baby is mine. This one anointed by the Spirit is mine. This one who declares my word is mine. This one who died to save all my sons and daughters, is mine. This one I raise from the dead is mine. This one to provided intercession is mine. This King is mine.”
As many of those in the passages above, we bow in awe. Yet the awe doesn’t end here. Consider what John writes: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. . . . Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-2)
Do you see what this says? God, our heavenly Father, is doing with us as He did with Jesus! He claims us! Declares we are His. Just as Jesus went through stages, the Father is working in us, and He’s not done. In fact He’s not even done with Jesus—because the prophecy of Psalm 2 is not yet complete, the King is not yet on the throne in Zion. In the same way, as Johns says, what we will be is not yet accomplished. For now, He continues to declare us his sons and daughters, in the stages of our spiritual lives. Looking at each one of us, individually, He declares today, “This one is mine.”
Love, Paul