Psalms 24

Psalms 24:1-10

THE OF CHRIST IT will be understood of course by our readers that the Psalms constitute no continuous discussion of a specific subject. They were not necessarily written in the order of their appearance, and there is not necessarily a logical order as one passes from one Psalm to another as is true in the chapters of certain other Books of the Bible, particularly the historical and philosophical Books. In this 24th Psalm we take up a subject wholly different from the 23rd. In the 23rd, the Psalmist is writing largely from a personal standpoint, and expresses a personal faith. Beginning with the 24th Psalm, we find a series that are Messianic, and in this one, the Lordship of the Christ is the especial subject.THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S“The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.“For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods” (Psalms 24:1-2).This statement conforms perfectly to the general teaching of the Bible, and asserts an accepted truth. This Lordship of the earth rests in certain definite and Divinely recorded circumstances.First, He created the earth. “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3).He is the Creator of the earth not only in the sense that He gave it form, but in the fact that He brought it into existence. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:3).It will be found that the Book Divine states facts and states them clearly. The Jews finally worked out a philosophy to the effect that God was the God of the Jew, and of Judea, but their opinion was without, a Bible basis. The Word of God gives no countenance to any thought that lays a limit upon God Himself. He is the God of the whole earth, and the God of every nation; and that fact was brought to the fore when Christ, who is God manifest in the flesh, came to abolish the middle wall of partition, and to show that with Him “there is no difference” between barbarian, Scythian, bond, or free.He filled the earth. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof”. that is to say, He placed in it everything which the earth holds. He created its grass, herbs, and trees, its fish and fowl, its creeping things, its mammals, its man. Genesis 1 makes all this clear.

That is why the silver and the gold are His; that is why the cattle upon a thousand hills are His; that is why all men, all women, all children are His, so far, at least, as physical creation and factual origin are concerned.He also founded it. “For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods” (Psalms 24:2). This also harmonizes with the Genesis account.

Science and Scripture alike bear their testimony to the effect that the earth originally was without form and void, and it was God who said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:9-10).Mr. Spurgeon calls attention to the fact that waters make an unstable foundation and moralizes, “They who trust in worldly things build upon the sea; but we have laid our hopes, by God’s grace, upon the Rock of Ages.” There is, however, a complementary truth, namely this, that God carl make the unstable to be stable, and though He founded the earth on the seas, and set the continents to float in the same, yet He hath made them stable, dependable! Such is God’s ability. In fact, according to Job 26:7, “He hangeth the world on nothing”, and yet, since it is in His hand, its stability is assured.WHO IS THIS LORD? This is the question raised in the third verse, and answered in the 4th, 5th, and 6th.“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place”? (Psalms 24:3).The answer is, Christ alone. Among all the men known to all the ages, He alone is holy; He alone hath clean hands and a pure heart; He alone lifted not up His soul to vanity nor swore deceitfully. Of all others, there was none that did good; not one, without sin; not one, with clean hands; not one with a pure heart. In these relations, He stands solitary and alone. Of the rest, it is written, “They are all gone out of the way * *; there is none that doeth good, no, not one”. But of Him it was said, “Without sin”.

He challenged His enemies as no other dare, “Which of you convinceth Me of sin”?He alone merited the Father’s favor. He alone received the full blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation. It is true that every man is under Divine blessing. God’s children are peculiarly sensible of that fact, believing that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”, but that they receive them as unworthy dependents, not on the basis of merit. God’s blessing to sinful men is all of grace, but His blessing upon this Man is of merit, for His righteousness is from the God of His salvation.He alone is worthy of worship. That is why the generation of believers seek Him; that is why they are attracted to Him; that is why they hope to spend eternity with Him.

He is the embodiment of all for which believers hope. In fact, He is Head over all things to the Church, and on that account, is spoken of here as Jacob, the name that compassed the Old Testament church, the church of the Psalmist’s time.HE IS ALSO THE COMING KING This fact is set forth in Psalms 24:7-10. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. “Who is this King of Glory f “The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in. “Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory. Selah”. The kingship here spoken of, however, is the kingship of promise as well as position. When Christ completed His earthly ministry as the sinner’s substitute, He started straightway for His final office of the world’s kingship, and while His path led by the throne, where He stops as our intercessor, it will end as the world’s ruler. In that glorious estate He is recognized by the heavenly host, and the words of the Psalmist here are addressed to the heavenly ones, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in” (Psalms 24:7). The figure employed here seems to refer to the fact that when He had finished His conflict with the adversary, had conquered by the Cross, and had triumphed over death and the grave, He returned to the land of Glory and this is the inspired record of His reception. The gates of Heaven opened; the everlasting doors lifted up to let the King of Glory in.The second question, “Who is the King of glory”? gave occasion to the answer, “The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle” (Psalms 24:8).This refers to the completeness of His work. At the very moment when Satan and all hell supposed that they had finished Him, He was coming to the completion of His earthly ministry, and could say concerning His entire earthly work, “It is finished”.

The soul’s redemption was purchased; the victory against death and the grave was absolute, and the righteous hopes of all heaven were realized.But to put past dispute the Messianic character of the Psalm, our last question comes—“Who is this King of glory”? with the answer, “The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory”.Christ is the Lord of hosts. We are told that in the Orient, doors were sometimes taken from their hinges, or, if they were the port-cullis form, drawn up at the approach of the conquering king.

It was an expression of the wide welcome which they accorded to the approaching conqueror. This fact is made a figure of our Lord’s return to the Father’s House after that His redemptive work was finished. It is little wonder that such a figure should be employed, and yet we feel that it but faintly represents what must have taken place in Heaven when all the archangels and the angels, and the entire portion of God’s family that was there, received our Saviour as He came from the scenes of earth’s conflict, a victor in all. And yet how poorly human language portrays such a scene! Our figures of speech fall far short for the greatest demonstrations of earth are faint symbols of what Heaven must have witnessed when Christ returned, having accomplished redemption for man. No wonder James Scott renders Psalms 24:7-10 after this manner:“Lift up your heads, ye gates, and, O prepare, Ye living orbs, your everlasting doors, The King of glory comes! What King of glory? He whose puissant might Subdued Abaddon, and the infernal powers Of darkness bound in adamantine chains: Who, wrapp’d in glory, with the Father reigns, Omnipotent, immortal, infinite!”