A Contested Prooftext in an Election Season
In Psalm 146:3 the people of God are commanded to “put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.” This text has become something of a prooftext in evangelical churches for political disengagement. It is trotted out frequently as elections draw near. The thought behind its use as a slogan is something like this: earthly rulers cannot provide the safety and security the people of God desire. Placing one’s hope in them is not only a recipe for intense disappointment and maybe even despair, it may also be a sign that one has become a political idolater, elevating earthly blessing over heavenly. It is a common enough experience that such texts are cited to encourage people to back away from what is perceived to be an unhealthy fixation on politics or the election of a particular political candidate.
Psalm 146:3 is not the only text in the Psalms that puts forward this theme of being on guard against putting too much trust in earthly rulers. It is also found in Psalm 20:7–8: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.” We encounter a different form in Psalm 118:8–9a: “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”
All three texts convey the same basic idea. There are many things that only powerful earthly leaders can do: leading armies, directing vast national resources to pressing national needs, and dealing with national emergencies like invasions and various disasters. Citizens of a nation look to their leaders to provide those things. Therein lies the danger, that we might place all our hope in those leaders, rather than in God.
In my experience, texts such as these are often appealed to in a somewhat one-sided fashion, in that it is usually only those who support a disfavored political party or candidate that are said to be in danger of placing too much trust in princes. Regardless, these are biblical texts, so we need to know what they mean so that we can obey the Lord in his commands.
What stands out immediately is that these texts do not counsel passivity in times of trouble. The words that immediately follow Psalm 118:8–9a, for example, recount how the Psalmist acts because he trusts not in princes, but in the Lord (vv. 9b–13):
All nations surrounded me;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!
They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!
They surrounded me like bees;
they went out like a fire among thorns;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!I was pushed hard, so that I was falling,
but the Lord helped me.
The Psalmist is by no means passive in the face of the attacks of his foes. His strong trust in the Lord leads him to act. Such action is certainly not “political idolatry.” I recognize that the situation of the Psalmist is not our situation, given that people of God (at this moment in redemptive history) are not called to earthly holy war by the Lord. This Psalm is the words of Israel’s king, surrounded as he is by hostile nations in battle. My point, however, is simply that a strong trust in the Lord, rather than in earthly princes, does not lead to an attitude of disengagement or passivity in the biblical texts where we find this theme. Trusting in the Lord is the motivator to action.
Psalm 20:8–9 similarly shows the outcome of David’s trust in God, not chariots or horses: “They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright. O Lord, save the king! May he answer us when we call.” David, as he leads the people of God in war, is strengthened to “rise and stand upright” in contrast with the cowardly, who do not trust in the Lord, and therefore “collapse and fall.” Trust in God’s power, in other words, leads David to heroic bravery in battle.
Put succinctly: trusting God cannot lead to apathy or passivity. This is true regarding whatever difficulty, trial, or attack the people of God face in any generation. This is certainly true when we think of the advance of God’s kingdom. It is true even for Christians when they fight for what is good in the broader world today. Pursuing what is just, whether in the political system or society at large, will require Christians to stand firm in the face of many difficulties, setbacks, and trials. And the actual meaning of these many passages in the Psalms will remain equally important for them as they do so.
Nonetheless, if Christians place their hope for blessing in earthly leaders, they will always be setting themselves up for extreme disappointment, perhaps even despair. We do not control the future. We don’t even know the future. Only God does. God is building his kingdom in the world, and advancing his purposes, which are so often different than ours: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isa 55:8). We frequently must be reminded that God’s plan for the world and its history is independent of our own hopes and aspirations, often even godly ones for our own nations:
Come, behold the works of the Lord,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire (Ps 46:8–9)
As we approach the presidential election this November, we must keep these things at the forefront of our minds and hearts. We must avoid the “blackpill” of despair, but we must do so as those who trust that God’s ways are perfect, even when in his inscrutable wisdom he allows evil to triumph (though only for a time), even when those outcomes we know are best do not come about. The antidote to the blackpill of despair is not presumptuous certainty that things will go the way we know they should. It is a solid trust in the Lord: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just” (Gen 18:25)?
Then we can say, as David said millennia ago: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Ps 20:7). And then in this confidence we can cry out to the Lord: “answer us when we call” (Ps 20:9)! Equipped with this firm trust in the Lord’s goodness, wisdom, and power we then can confidently fight for what is good and true, precisely because we “take refuge in the Lord” rather than “trust in princes” (Ps 118:8), and because we trust that the Lord knows how to “how to rescue the godly from trials” (2 Pet 2:9).
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Couldn’t this same verse apply to pastors when it’s found out that they’ve been having an “inappropriate relationship”? Or when they fail to take a stand against the counterfeit “gospel” of social justice?