Class Outline:

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

 

The placing of the ark in his new capital city gave David great joy. But, being reverent to God, David then pondered deeply the significance of taking the ark up the hill and placing it on God’s chosen mountain. For this, he wrote Psa 24.

 

PSA 24:1-6

A Psalm of David.

 

1 The earth is the Lord's, and all it contains,

The world, and those who dwell in it.

2 For He has founded it upon the seas,

And established it upon the rivers.

3 Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?

And who may stand in His holy place?

4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood,

And has not sworn deceitfully.

5 He shall receive a blessing from the Lord

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

6 This is the generation of those who seek Him,

Who seek Thy face —  even Jacob.

Selah.

 

Only the Lord Jesus is qualified ascend up the hill of the Lord. He alone has clean hands and a pure heart. This is affirmed by David in the second half of the poem.

 

PSA 24:7-10

7 Lift up your heads, O gates,

And be lifted up, O ancient doors,

That the King of glory may come in!

8 Who is the King of glory?

The Lord strong and mighty,

The Lord mighty in battle.

9 Lift up your heads, O gates,

And lift them up, O ancient doors,

That the King of glory may come in!

10 Who is this King of glory?

The Lord of hosts,

He is the King of glory.

Selah.

 

He ascended that hill with His cross, and by His victory, He ascended to heaven to the New Jerusalem, the eternal Zion.

 

LUK 24:50-53

And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. 51 And it came about that while He was blessing them, He parted from them. 52 And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and were continually in the temple, praising God.

 

Luke records in the opening of his second history, the Book of Acts, that they were on the Mt. of Olives, so on the Bethany side, and as they were looking, a cloud received Jesus out of their sight.

 

His departure from the world was in keeping with the circumstances of His life on earth. No pomp and ceremony attended His exit. No multitude assembled to witness the startling spectacle.

 

As was pointed out in Psa 68, Zion and David were small. The world and the flesh love pomp and ceremony and the ornamental, flashy display, but true substance doesn’t need it. We must always be reminded that what we do in the service of God and one another should not be one bit contaminated by a care of others seeing or knowing of it.

 

Paul interprets his use of the verse: vv. 9-10.

 

EPH 4:7-10

But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. 8 Therefore it says,

 

"When He ascended on high,

He led captive a host of captives,

And He gave gifts to men."

 

9 (Now this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

 

David’s giving to the captives when he conquered Jerusalem signified a higher receiving - the conquering Christ would give gifts to His captives (believers).

 

It was not secret, as the prophets revealed, that God was going to be victorious over His enemies and that Israel would be filled with glory. David, a great warrior, poet, faithful believer, lover of God, was flawed and limited, but his greater Son would not be. PSA 68:18 carried in it a promise that flashed it light over the space of a thousand years, and that light became visible to the apostle Paul who sends it out again, but shining brighter. Paul equates David’s ascent in victory up Zion, God’s mountain, with the ascension of Christ to heaven in victory over Satan, sin, and death, which upon arriving would give gifts to men, and in this case, the men and women in the age of the church who through faith in Him were a part of His body.

 

Christ would give His gifts so that we would be gifted and empowered in the freedom of serving one another and released from the slavery of the selfish flesh.

 

David rose from deep humiliation to a high dominion; his exaltation brought blessing and enrichment to his people; and the spoil that he won with it went to build God’s house amongst rebellious men.

 

The Son of God was rich and became poor by taking humanity upon Himself. But then He was highly exalted that at His name every knee will bow. Upon His exaltation, He did not think of Himself alone, but gave gifts to men which were from the fruit of His victory.

 

The exalted Christ has an enormous breadth of generosity.

 

When He was poor and suffering, Jesus gave generously - wine to the wedding feast, bread and fish to the hungry, health to the sick, sight to the blind, pardon to the sinful, and even life from death. His elevation as a Man to the authority equal to the Father, at His right hand, did not alter His generous spirit. But now, with the resources of heaven and the universe at His disposal, He gives gifts to His bride, and what kind of gifts does He give?

 

The fact that Christ above all rule, who could give us anything, gives us spiritual gifts, reveals what is really valuable in the world.

 

For many men, when wealth increases their hearts contract. The more they have to give, the less they love to give. Not so with our Lord, and we hope and pray, not so with any of us, His bride.

 

“He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth” - Omnipotence could not save us. Christ’s humiliation was required.

 

If it were a matter of omnipotence only, then God could have just said the word, as He did in creating the universe, and all men would have been saved. 1TI 2:4 tells us that God wills all men to be saved, but they are not all saved. All mankind was condemned by the sin of Adam and we all sinned many times on our own. An impenetrable barrier stood between holy God and sinful man. The justice of God had to erect that barrier and nothing or no one could take it down except the God/Man giving His life as a substitute, being judged for the sins of all.

 

2CO 5:21

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

“Descended” - down to the Virgin’s womb, to the manger, His Godhead in the frame of an infant, to the home and bench of a village carpenter; to the scorn of sinners, to death on the cross, to the underworld.

 

None of us can imagine treading so low, for the Son of God somehow set aside deity and heaven while never losing them. As a Man He is never referred to or even hinted at being a part or portion of Himself or of God. He is the Son. The curtain on this understanding is close to us. It just is. God the Son left heaven and became a lowly Man; perfect and sinless, powerful and wise compared to the rest, but fully a limited, exposed, frail Man.

 

Background: After seeing many signs, the latest being that He cast a demon out of a blind mute (Messianic miracle), the leaders attributed His power to the devil and Jesus called this unforgiveable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, meaning that that generation in Israel would be destroyed, which was fulfilled in 70 A.D.

 

After Jesus’ condemnation against them, some of them asked Jesus again for a sign. Not another miracle, they have acknowledged that He has done miracles and have attributed them to the power of Satan, but a sign from heaven (LUK 11:16 they ask for a sign from heaven) that would be an immediate display of something that would prove to them that His miracles were from heaven.

 

MAT 12:38-40

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." 39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign shall be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; 40 for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.