Psalm 46 pictures God as a Divine Warrior who fights for his people. The entire context of the Psalm is a world at war. The people of God and the city of God, Jerusalem, were constantly exposed to the threat of more powerful nations with expansionistic ambitions. In the Psalm such superpowers are compared to the raging sea pounding against the land. The weaker nations that are being lost to these superpowers are likened to land and mountains eroding into the surging sea.
The Psalm celebrates God as a refuge amid such danger. He will not only protect his people in such a crisis, but He will also fight for them. He only needs to lift his voice, and the aggressor is no more. The “Lord Almigty” is with His people.
The last part of the Psalm expands on this truth by inviting us to come and see what the Lord has done. The scene that is put forth is the judgment of God against the warring nations. God has brought desolation on the earth. It’s unclear if the author is pointing us to past historical occurrences of God defeating His and Israel’s enemies or if he is pointing us forward as a prophet to a future time when God will punish evil doers. In either case the meaning remains the same. The evil that threatens the people of God is being dealt with by God. He is fighting for his people. God is described as breaking the bow, shattering the spear, and burning the shields with fire. He is stripping evil doers of their war armaments. And He is doing this by force. Evil people are being eliminated.
At this point I want to ask a simple question. Is this the only way God deals with evil doers. Is His only strategy to match their fire power with his greater fire power and do to them what they do to others? In other words, is there no other way to get rid of evil than eliminating the doers of evil?
When we zoom out from the historical confines of Psalm 46 and look at the entire biblical storyline, we discover there is a way to defeat evil and preserve the perpetrators of evil. Although the New Testament warns of the judgment of evil doers and closes with depictions of such a judgment day, its pages also provide a surprising twist on God’s strategy to purge evil from the world. God sent Jesus into the world to die for evil doers that He might extend forgiveness to all who deserve His judgment. He raised Jesus from the dead and restored him to his heavenly throne so he could pour out his life changing Spirit into the hearts of repentant evil doers. In other words, God decided to love his enemies. And that love is powerful enough to melt a heart that is bent on doing evil and transform it into one that can love in like kind. Without question, this is God’s preferred method of dealing with evil doers.
So how might this affect the way we relate to evil doers? We are naturally inclined to match fire with fire and when we do we contribute to the continuance of evil. Jesus calls us to a radically different response. He tells us to love our enemies, to pray for those who persecute us, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, and to only do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The rest of the New Testament exhorts us to not repay evil with evil, but to overcome evil with good. The clear goal of such instruction is to win our enemy not defeat them, to exhaust evil and not feed it. Of course, there is no guarantee that you turning the other cheek will instantly change the one who is acting against you, but you can be sure that not doing so will only add justification to their aggression toward you. And I might add, we have no other option. To be a Christian, is to give up all your rights to the Lordship of Jesus. When we do follow his call to love our enemies we are participating in God’s redemptive strategy for the world. Blessed are the peace makers for they shall be called children of God.