Jesus A Gospel Of Love: Since becoming a Christian in 1991, I have spent a lot of time in the Bible. I have read it several times and one time even front to back. I have spent many hours in Bible study with others. But I just learned something that blew me away! I must admit that in all of the Bible reading I have done, I have never been very found of the Psalms. They seemed repetitious to me, with David asking God to crush his enemies. As you know, David wrote most of the Psalms.
So, what is it I just learned? I learned that while David was the instrument to get the Psalms down on paper, what he was recording was not his own thoughts. David was recording prayers of our Lord, Jesus. Armed with that revelation, the Psalms took on a new meaning for me and became very interesting.
In many of the Psalms the psalmist seems to desire destruction, shame, judgment, fear, defeat, scattering, persecution, confusion and even death of his enemies. The Psalms containing such reflected desires are known as “imprecatory” or curse Psalms. The curse itself is called an imprecation.
So, now understanding that these imprecations are prayers of Jesus, then we now understand that these are curses from Jesus. It is Jesus calling down curses, from God, on His enemies. It is interesting to note that only Jesus can do that. We cannot, and David could not. Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and that we cannot seek revenge on out enemies as vengeance belongs only to God.
How then do we reconcile Jesus’ teaching of love your enemies with His curse prayers? That is not as difficult as you might think. The Lord Jesus Christ is praying these prayers of vengeance. They had to be of Christ for them to make any sense at all. These prayers signal an alarm to all that continue to be an enemy of Jesus. And, His prayers will be answered! God’s wrath will be revealed upon all that oppose Christ. Anyone who refuses to acknowledge the work Jesus did on the cross and rejects Him will bear the dreadful curses of God.