God laughs with derision at the kings of the earth who rebel against him. The King of Kings will establish his rule over the entire world through the coronation of his chosen one. Nothing and no one can stand against that, prevent it, delay it or corrupt it, although the entire focus of Satan is on doing just that. But he will lose, and Christ will reign forever. Therefore, the kings of the earth are warned and advised in Psalm 2:10-11. It says, “Now, therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.” Luther said there were two different ways people might “fear” the Lord. He calls them “servile fear” and “filial fear.” Two verses might help us understand the difference between these two ideas. First, Hebrews 10:31 says, “it’s a frightening thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Sproul says, “The servile fear is a kind of fear that a prisoner in a torture chamber has for his tormentor, the jailer, or the executioner. Or it’s the kind of fear that a slave would have at the hands of a malicious master who would come with the whip and torment the slave.” The most important term is “malicious.” We fear someone who intends to do us harm. Because of our sinful nature, we often have this kind of fear of the Lord. We know we have violated the laws of God and deserve punishment, and we fear the one coming to punish us.
Galatians 4:6-7 is the other verse that helps us understand the distinction between servile fear and filial fear. It says, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” Filial fear, according to Luther, as Sproul describes it, “Refers to the fear that a child has for his father. In this regard, Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. He has a fear or an anxiety of offending the one he loves, not because he’s afraid of torture or even of punishment, but rather because he’s afraid of displeasing the one who is, in that child’s world, the source of security and love.”
The New Testament tells us that John the Baptist and Jesus came preaching “repentance” for the forgiveness of sins. Repentance is not saying I’m sorry for this sin or for that sin, and it’s not penance as such, saying five Hail Marys and five Our Fathers, as some of us have learned. Repentance is genuinely acknowledging that we are the kind of people that should have servile fear of God. Sproul says, “As sinful people, we have every reason to fear God’s judgment; it is part of our motivation to be reconciled with God.”[1] So, the writer of this Psalm points out the need for repentance and submission to the rightful ruler of the universe. This is the way Calvin understood this Psalm. In his commentary, he says the writer of this Psalm, he says is David, “Having, as a preacher of the judgments of God, set forth the vengeance which God would take upon his enemies, proceeds now, in the character of a prophet and teacher, to exhort the unbelieving to repentance, that they may not, when it is too late, be compelled to acknowledge, from dire experience, that the divine threatenings are neither idle nor ineffectual.”[2] True repentance does not lead to shame but rejoicing, as the Psalm says. Then, believing in Jesus as the adequate payment for our sins brings us into God’s family. We know and accept God’s expressed love for us on Calvary. As a loving father, “God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
[1] https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/what-does-it-mean-fear-god
[2] Calvin, John, and James Anderson. 2010. Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Vol. 1. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software.