AP

Psalm 50:1-2  The Mighty One, God the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.  Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth.

This opening statement of Asaph’s psalm is a stark reminder to God’s Covenant People, Israel, of who they are, and their God, the LORD’s purpose for them in his world.

When God first called Abraham, their ancestral progenitor, he said to him: “And 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.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3)  This is what Asaph wanted them to remember, and to reflect on its implications for them.

The LORD’s ongoing relationship with them was centred on ‘Zion’, the City of David, containing the Temple, the centre of their worship.  Scholars want to date its writing to the 8^th or 6^th century BC, ie after Babylon’s invasion and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, but verse 2 refers to a time when Solomon’s Temple stood as a glorious symbol of God’s ‘perfection and beauty’, which seems to require a date in the 9^th century, which, it seems to me, is much more likely.

Be that as it may, the Psalm itself is a good reminder to us today of our Sovereign God’s promise, plan and purpose for the Church built on the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The New Testament refers to the Church, the People of God throughout the world and across the ages, as the ‘New Israel’ and the ‘New Jerusalem’.  So, in line with the promise plan and purpose given to Abraham, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is to embrace God (the ‘Mighty One’, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe) in all his glory, and to be the means by which this God will ‘shine forth’ in all his ‘beauty’ throughout the whole earth for all time – ‘from the rising of the sun to its setting’!

Sadly, Israel failed in its calling, so God sent his own Son into the world to be the ‘True Israel’ displaying perfect obedience to the Father’s will and dying as the Perfect Sacrifice for Man’s sin the ‘once-for-all sacrifice to which all the OT sacrifices in the Temple under the Mosaic Law pointed.  This is why the Temple in Jerusalem was finally destroyed in AD 70, never to be built again.  The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is now the true, everlasting Temple, as the Apostle Peter reminds us: “As you come to [Jesus], a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’  So the honour is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.’  They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.  But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:4-10)

What a warning Psalm 50 is to us today to live in obediece to God’s Word and not fail as Israel failed.  By his grace, may the perfection of God’s beauty keep on shining forth from us throughout our watching world, from the rising of the sun to its setting, until Jesus returns in power and glory!

– Bruce Chrisitan