Using Imprecatory Psalms

A few thoughts on the use of the imprecatory Psalms-- there always seems to be hesitancy on their appropriateness for the church, whether in private or corporate worship.

I think any hesitancy is only because people aren't understanding that Christ and his Church are the central figures of the Psalms; everything in them must be embraced through that lens in order to understand and make full use of them.

The imprecatory Psalms solemnly proclaim God's just and righteous judgments upon the wicked. They sometimes pronounce those judgments, as in Psalm 109, where the judgment upon Judas the son of perdition is foretold (see Acts 2:15-20). God will judge in the same way all who have despised and persecuted Christ and his Church. The Church, united to her Lord, speaks with his mind in praying for and pronouncing these judgments. And like him, the Church takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11).

The imprecatory Psalms sometimes describe the sad outcomes of those judgments, when man is left to his own cruelty and the innocent suffer as casualties of war, as in Psalm 137:8, 9. These verses are not the voice of the church praying that babies will suffer and die. They were prophecy in the sense that they warned of and foretold the terrible future ahead for the little ones of cruel Babylon, when the equally cruel Medes and Persians overran and conquered them. They are still prophecy, an overarching truth of the consequences of man's pride and hatred toward God. The church is to continue to recount these things for her own sobriety and for the good of a lost world.

There is no sinful desire for revenge expressed in the Psalms. The psalmists' expressions are all prophetic, all of Christ, and all speak to the coming of his glorious kingdom. We can and should make use of them because we are to pray for and speak of the righteous judgments of God.

Bonar On The Solidarity Of Christ With His Church In The Psalms

Andrew Bonar, "Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms"

Now in the early ages men full of the thoughts of Christ could never read their Psalms without being reminded of their Lord. They probably had no system or fixed theory as to all the Psalms referring to Christ; but still, unthinkingly we might say, they found their thoughts would wander unto their Lord, as the one person in whom these breathings, these praises, these desires, these hopes, these deep feelings, found their only true and full realization.

Hence Augustine said to his hearers, as he expounded to them this book, that "the voice of Christ and his church was well nigh the only voice to be heard in the Psalms." And on another occasion, "Everywhere diffused throughout is that man whose Head is above, and whose members are below. We ought to recognize his voice in all the Psalms, either waking up the psaltery or ordering the deep groan; rejoicing in hope, or heaving sighs over present realities...We cannot err far, therefore, if we keep our left eye on David, while we have our right eye full on Christ."

In some instances, the Head exclusively speaks, or is spoken of; and in a few others the Members alone; but generally, the strain is such in feeling and matter, that the Head and Members together can use the harp and utter the song. And so important are these holy songs, that nearly 50 of them are referred to in the New Testament, and applied to Christ.

The Church In The Psalms

Just a bit of reflection: the more familiar I become with the Psalms through reading and dwelling on them, the more oriented I become to the realities of being the church in the world. This, as opposed to a merely individualistic reading of the Psalms.

What I mean is, that the Psalms, while absolutely meant to supply words for the cries to God of his individual members, are also meant for the prayers and praises and supplications of the church who is in Christ, the Christ of the Psalms.

He went through these travails of the flesh for us (for each individual member, absolutely; but he came to redeem a people, a royal priesthood, a nation, a bride). Those travails are given expression uniquely in the Psalms.

This morning, I read Psalm 120, the first of the Songs of Ascent:

In my trouble I cried to the LORD, and he answered me. Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. What more shall be given to you, and what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of the warrior, with the burning coals of the broom tree. Woe is me, for I sojourn in Meshech, for I dwell among the tents of Kedar! Too long has my soul had its dwelling with those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.

This brought me right up against the truth that these are the words of the sojourning, suffering church in the world. As an individual member of Christ's body, I am in union with the church universal through our union with Christ; there is a for real solidarity with the sufferings she experiences, and I am, right now, groaning in those sufferings, even if I feel relatively at ease for the moment: "all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution" (2 Timothy 3:12). What this Psalm and others like it teach through their expressions of joy and sorrow and difficulty (and of imprecation, verse 4) is that the ultimate realities are those expressed in all the Psalms.

I'm realizing that it is happiest to have my thinking transformed through God's word to think as he does about his church and about our experience in the world as a "lively stone" of it.  The Psalms are uniquely given for this purpose, giving us words that transform our thinking to see his church as God sees it in this world.