1 His foundation is in the holy mountains.
2 The LORD loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
3 Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. Selah.
4 I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me: behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; this man was born there.
5 And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her: and the highest himself shall establish her.
6 The LORD shall count, when he writeth up the people, that this man was born there. Selah.
7 As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there: all my springs are in thee.
We are blessed to be born and reborn in the church of Jesus Christ, and many shall enjoy this privilege from every corner of the globe.
We feel blessed to be part of a City whose builder and founder is God—a City where God dwells and the one place that is closest to the heart of God. Moreover, our hearts leap to give God the glory for the great expansion of this city into every nation around the world. The unity of the church across national boundaries is far more substantial than the cheap unity provided by the man-centered United Nations, and we delight in this unity! The psalm ends with voices blending and multiple instruments joining in to give joyful praise to God, the Source of all blessings.
Verses 1–3. There is a special place in society that God calls home. While the Bible maintains that God is omnipresent (Ps. 139:7ff) and that nobody can ever escape the presence of God, still His special presence in society is found only among His people. In the days of Old Testament Israel, God was found within the walls of Jerusalem, and He made His residence in the temple there. Those who came to worship Him there received a special blessing from Yahweh their God (Ps. 24:3–5). Indeed, “Yahweh loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob!”
The first verse gives the history of this special City, when Yahweh Himself laid its foundations. It was His plan to build a congregation for Himself. Speaking to the woman at the well, Jesus said the hour would come when men would no longer go to Jerusalem to worship the Father (John 4:21). Also, Jesus told his apostles that where two or three of them were gathered, there He would be in the midst of them. From these and other texts, we conclude that the special presence of God is shifted to wherever His people gather in the assembly of the church. This makes the city portable, not unlike what we find with the tabernacle in the wilderness. The church is the City of the living God, the great heavenly Jerusalem, the general assembly and church of the first born (Heb. 12:22–24).
According to verse 3, this City has a great reputation! Glorious things are said of this City! Of course, this is not true of the apostate church, the compromised church, the schismatic church, the unloving church, or the church that refuses to preach the truth against the world. But where there are brothers willing to die for each other and for the truth, there is a City that will never pass away. Today, these churches assemble on the first day of the week all over the globe. Millions of people hear the Old and New Testaments preached and respond to the Word in powerful ways. The living God is praised in these public worship services. God is praised with more genuine fervor than all the other gods of the heathen receive from their devotees. What a contrast from A.D. 30, when only a handful recognized the all-sovereign God of Israel Who created heaven and earth! Tribes that once engaged in cannibalism and human sacrifice now accept the single sacrifice of a Savior, gratefully receiving His cup of koinonia (communion) in their convocation on the first day of the week.
Verses 4–6. These verses speak prophetically of the great expanse of the City of God throughout the world. Even those from Egypt to the south (Rahab), Babylon to the east, and Ethiopia (Cush) to the far south will acknowledge the God of Israel. The Lord will record their names as those born in Israel, as those who have been grafted into the covenant body of God’s people. Those born into a godly family are in a sense already part of the kingdom of God (verses 4–5). Paul speaks of the household of Narcissus which is “in Christ,” in Romans 16, and he elsewhere speaks to a local church at Thessalonica which is “in Christ.” The kingdom of God is made up of individuals, families, and churches. Contrary to the pure individualist view of human society today, the Bible teaches that families and local churches, as corporate bodies, are part of the kingdom of Christ. Thus, when a child is born into a godly family which happens to be a part of a godly church, there is a sense in which he is already part of the city of God. He is born into the kingdom of God. Jesus said of nursing infants (brephos), that “of such is the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16). Of course, these children must learn to walk in faith and give testimony to that faith by confessing Christ before men (Matt. 10:32). This is an essential part of belonging to the City.
God Himself writes the names of the citizens of the City in a register. Now do you see that this City is built more of living stones than of bricks and mortar? This is how Peter refers to the City of God in 1 Peter 2:4–6. As God writes in His register the names of those who were born in Zion (those born into godly families and reborn by the saving power of the Spirit of God), the mortar between the stones begins to set, and the city walls rise.
Verse 7. Together these living stones combine to sing praises to God, Who laid the stones in place. We should also note here that few other religions actually sing praises. You will not find praises being sung among the Buddhists, the Moslems, or the Hindus. Islam repudiates music in worship. You will find no song book or singing at the mosque. What a contrast with the aesthetic beauty of Christian worship, born out of the Book of Psalms!
The psalmist ends with a powerful, poetic statement, “All my springs are in thee.” The fountains that feed the deepest desires of the human soul are found right here in the church of the Firstborn. This statement is not an irresponsible over-statement concerning the importance of the corporate body of believers. An individualistic society such as ours, produced by the revivalism of the 18th and 19th centuries, can have a hard time swallowing declarations such as this. But our church fathers from Augustine to Calvin have wholeheartedly received this confession, insisting that there is ordinarily no salvation outside of the church of Jesus Christ. These forefathers knew that the normal place to find believers who are living and growing in faith is the church! The importance of the church corporate has been down played for several centuries, especially by evangelicalism. Evangelicalism’s revivals produced more short-term decisions, false commitments, and shallow faith than real substantial fruit. Unless those who received the Word in a revival service were actually planted in churches, there were precious few seeds yielding fruit unto thirty, sixty, or one hundredfold.
This psalm teaches us to treasure the City of God, which is the church of the Firstborn, the church of Jesus Christ. The City is God’s project in history. Whereas men spend their lives constructing empires with great power centers only to watch them fall apart, the church of Christ is built on the preaching of God’s truth and the love of the brothers and sisters. If God’s truth and genuine love are the foundation and the mortar of the building, you know that the building can never come apart. Worldly textbooks ignore the importance of the church in history, and pessimistic theologies assume that Jesus is losing ground, but their focus is wrong and they do not look at the world through eyes of faith. However, we will delight in God’s great project in history. Let us be careful not to minimize what God has accomplished over the centuries in Europe, North and South America, Australia, Asia, and Africa. God has accomplished what He prophesied in this psalm!
We should occasionally speak of the church itself in worship. After all, corporate worship is the context in which the church comes together, so a little teaching on the church is always in order. While we are involved in corporate worship, we should also praise God for what He has accomplished in the church throughout the ages, delighting in the fact that we are part of this holy City that serves as a fountain of God’s good gifts.
1. What is the City of God?
2. How does Peter refer to the City of God? Of what is it constructed?
3. What does it mean to be born into the City of God?
4. Why was it such an amazing prophecy to the Old Testament Jews that there would be some from Egypt, Cush, and Babylon born into Zion?
5. How does this psalm impress on us the importance of the church?
1. What kind of esteem do we have for the church of the firstborn? Do we consider it a privilege to have been born and reborn into the church of Jesus Christ