It was Lord Acton who, in 1887, famously wrote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Injustice tends to start at the top.

This is the focus of Psalm 82. It applies to both church and state. To the former, Jesus says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites” (Matt. 23:14ff), and to the latter, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way” (Ps. 2:12). These warnings are universal, for if, as Peter says, judgment “begins with us [the church] first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Pet. 4:17).

Psalm 82 envisages a court scene, in which human judges are arraigned before the bar of heaven and held accountable for their actions (vv. 1-7). This is followed by a prayer that God will establish His rule on the earth (v. 8).

At the arraignment, the Judge enters and the charges are read (vv. 1-2). The court convenes when “God stands in the congregation of the mighty.” Who must appear before Him? The answer is “the gods”—the civil authorities in our world. How, you ask, did the term elohim (gods) come to be applied to human rulers and magistrates? It is surely because such people stand in the place of God as they render judgment (see Ex. 22:8-9 where elohim clearly means “judges”). In fact, even parents act as “gods,” as do elders in the church, when rendering decisions that are final for those in their charge. Now you know why Jesus says, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1-2). All our judgments are under the supreme Judge’s review. Judgments have to be made all the time, so we had better judge according to God’s judgment, for we will answer to Him sooner or later.

The charges are read by the unidentified counsel for the oppressed, alleging that these rulers “judge unjustly” and “show partiality to the wicked” (v. 2). “There is a certain devilish frenzy,” writes John Calvin, “which infatuates the princes of the world, and leads them voluntarily to pay greater respect to wicked men than to the simple or innocent” (Psalms, vol. 3, p. 332). This, at any rate, is the charge before the court of heaven.

The evidence is presented (vv. 3-5). Judges—that is, rulers at all levels—have authority to do certain things in the interest of the public good. They “bear the sword” to “execute wrath upon him who practices evil” and are “God’s ministers” in the matter of civil government (Rom. 13:4, 6).

Judges are supposed to “defend the poor and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy; free them from the hand of the wicked” (vv. 3-4). The focus is on equal justice under the law of God. The modern “nanny state” with its totalitarian tentacles extending its control to the smallest detail in the lives of its people is outside government’s proper authority.

How did these judges judge? The answer is a poetic reflection on their dereliction of duty. Notice the regression from “do not know…nor do they understand…they walk about in darkness” (v. 5). As Talleyrand said of the Bourbon kings of France, they had “learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” They went their own way.

The final word—“all the foundations of the earth are unstable”—says that they neither see the ruin they cause, nor care about the real needs of humanity. How many millions have died because the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Roe v. Wade?

The verdict is, “Guilty as charged!” (vv. 6-7). Rulers are invested with a special dignity. They are given to be “gods” in that they are to administer justice—God’s justice—and act for Him. They also are “sons of the Most High,” which implies a relationship to God characterized by honor and love. Rulers are all to “Kiss the Son.” This dignity and high honor, however, does not save them from just judgment for their injustices. However godlike their exercise of authority, our leaders “die like men” (v. 7). Their power vanishes. Their authority dies with them. Like the rest of us, it is appointed to them “once to die” and then face God’s judgment (Heb. 9:27). In the mirror image of 1 Corinthians 1:26ff, the many who are “wise according to the flesh,” and “mighty” and “noble” in the annals of the world will find themselves under the very divine justice they corrupted in their days of power.

The only hope for our misgoverned world is expressed in the final prayer: “Arise, O God, judge the earth.” (v. 8). The hope is not in men or women; in politicians or judges; in legislations and courts. Nor is it to be found in some Christian utopia, secured by constitutional and legal instruments establishing Christ as King of the nation. No! We are called to look to the Lord, who is Lord of nations—“head over all things to the church” (Eph. 1:22)—that in the kingdom of His providence, He might overrule the pretensions and excesses of the powers in the present, and hasten the kingdom of Messiah in all its heavenly glory. “And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of many thunderings, saying, ‘Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!’”(Rev. 19:6).