"Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little" (Ps. 2:12a).
In Revelation 14, John records this vision: “Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, ‘Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ … So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.” These angels display the wrath of Christ through judging the nations. We do not usually think of Christ in these terms, but the Bible uses the language of judgment regarding the second coming of Christ.
In Psalm 2, we read of the gathering together of rebellious nations to take their stand against Jehovah. The psalmist says that God laughs from heaven, and that His anger is kindled against them. He also writes, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you perish in the way.” In this verse, we see the correlation between the wrath of the Father and of the Son. In light of this, we cannot think of the Father as angry and the Son as the epitome of tranquility. The Son, too, is angry with sin, and He will break the unbowed knees of sinners with His iron rod.
The Scriptures tell us that, when Christ came, He came to reveal the Father, that He is the express image of the Father, and that He most perfectly reveals the character of the Father. If anger is intrinsically evil, then it would be defect in both the Father and the Son if they ever became angry. But, we know that Christ was the lamb without blemish, that He lived a sinless life. That is because in Christ we see anger without sin. When he threw the moneychangers out of the temple, Jesus was angry. When He brought cursing upon the Pharisees, He was angry. When He comes again, He will come in righteous fury, bringing satisfaction to the justice of God.
What we need to learn as we seek to understand human wrath is when it is righteous and when is it sinful. Our anger can go both ways. It can be justifiable, or an occasion for violence and bitterness. In Christ there was anger, but never a distortion or misapplication of that anger.
The psalmist tells us to kiss the Son, lest He be angry. What does it mean to kiss the Son (think in terms of how a subject bows before his king)? Will Christ overlook sin? If Christ is angered by sin, what should your response to sin be? Should you delight in it or feel comfortable around it? Memorize Psalm 2:12.
