Blessed is the Nation

The Misuse of Psalm 33:12

The first half of Psalm 33:12 is yet another biblical passage misappropriated by some who claim that the United States is a Christian nation.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD

This verse does not apply to the United States or any other nation on earth. The second half of the verse identifies which nation the Psalmist has in mind.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he chose for his inheritance. (Psalm 33:12)

The blessed nation is biblical Israel, whom God chose in Abraham.

I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you and make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing. (Genesis 12:2)

No nation on earth has the right to claim God’s blessings to Abraham.

The Old Testament consistently contrasts the nation (goy) of Israel with the nations (goyim) of the world. Abraham and his offspring will be a blessing to the nations of the world, but the nations themselves are arrayed in opposition to God and his chosen. God will be victorious over them. In this same Psalm we read,

The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples. (Psalm 33:10)

Psalm 33:12 itself is more of a description than a promise. Hebrew has two words that are often translated “bless.” One is barak, which when used of God means to to bestow favor. When used of people blessing God, it means to kneel. That’s not the word used in Psalm 33:12. Here the word is asher, which means to be happy, often as the recipient of divine favor.

Psalm 33:1-3 is a call for Israel to sing praises to the Lord. Verses 4-11 recite the reasons that Israel should rejoice. Verse 12 sums it up: Israel can praise God for all the happiness Israel has enjoyed as his people.

What would it even mean for a nation to be Christian? England, with its established church might claim to be a Christian nation based on that fact, but the United States Constitution explicitly eschews the establishment of any religion.

What about Christianity in general? There is no such thing. The Christian faith is always embodied in some institutional or corporate form. Some forms are more helpful than others. Some forms are seriously deficient at best and damnably heretical at worst. Some are spiritually dangerous and are leading people to hell. Those speaking the loudest about the United States being a Christian nation often mean only their kind of Christian. But the irony is that modern evangelicalism doesn’t look much like any form of Christianity prevalent at the nation’s founding.

More importantly, where in the New Testament is there any support for the idea for there being such a thing as a Christian nation? We are exiles and sojourners. Our citizenship is in the kingdom of God.

You can’t just go back to the Old Testament, substitute evangelical worship practices for the temple, insert some Reformed theological language, and appropriate God’s covenant with Israel for your own nation. It’s blasphemy.

None of the New Testament authors would have contemplated the idea that a Gentile nation could claim God’s promises to Israel. Those promises are fulfilled and transformed in Jesus and now apply in new ways to all who belong to him. There are no Christian nations, but there are Christian people scattered throughout all the nations of the world.

Let’s return to Psalm 33. “Happy is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance” (33:12). As a Christian, I hear that speaking about the church of Jesus Christ, composed of people from “every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages (Revelation 7:9).

Paul writes that we Gentiles (a translation of the Greek word for “the nations”) have been grafted by faith in Jesus into the one people of God, the nation God founded in Abraham. Paul reminds his Gentile readers that without Christ, they were excluded from citizenship in the people of Israel. In Christ, our citizenship has its foundations in the heavens. Nevertheless, we still live live as exiles, aliens, and foreigners in the various nations to which we have been scattered. Peter repeatedly describes Christians as living in a state of exile in this world. The author of Hebrews describes us a aliens and foreigners. We do not yet have, he says, a true homeland (patria) on earth.

“The earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD,” the Psalmist says (33:5). The Psalm invites all the the world to come to the Lord. “Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him,” (33:8) These words became a reality as the church took the story of Jesus to the nations.

Since the Psalmist declares that the whole earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord, ands that he calls all the worlds inhabitants to fear him, the Psalm has a promise for all who look to him.

The LORD looks down from heaven; he sees all humankind.
From where he sits enthroned he watches all the inhabitants of the earth“ (33:13-14)

Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
to deliver their soul from death
and to keep them alive in famine. (Psalm 33:18-19)

The promise is for the people of every nation.

As for the nations themselves, what is he looking for? “He loves righteousness and justice.” (33:5) That’s what he is looking for from the nations and his own people.

If, on this 250th anniversary of the nations’ founding, the Christian people of my country want to do something to avert God’s wrath, skip the “rededicate the nation to God” language. You are only digging the nation into a deeper hole by saying one thing and doing another. Instead, listen to the prophet Isaiah:

Cease to do evil;
learn to do good;
seek justice;
rescue the oppressed;
defend the orphan;
plead for the widow.
(Isaiah 1:16-17)

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