Psalm 68: Travels with the Triune God

Psalm 68 is both the highest and most difficult to understand psalm in the Bible (Life-study of the Psalms, p. 315). It is a psalm, written in poetry, revealing God’s move on the earth in Christ to gain Zion. It speaks of women bearing glad tidings, staying at home to divide spoil, a dove with multi-colored pinions, being loaded with good, and four of the twelve tribes of Israel. Yet, in such a complex and poetic psalm we can see God’s entire economy in Christ from His incarnation to the New Jerusalem.

Verse one says, “Let God arise.” This is actually a quotation of Moses from Numbers 10:35:

“When the Ark set out, Moses said, Rise up, O Jehovah.”

These were the words uttered by Moses upon setting out from Mount Sinai with the tabernacle and the Ark, destined for Mount Zion. It indicates that what is portrayed in Psalm 68 is entirely concerned with the Ark of God, which is Christ in reality, and it’s move. The intrinsic meaning of Psalm 68 is the journey, the move, which the Triune God made in Christ typologically between two mountains – Sinai and Zion.

Just as the move in Numbers began with the erecting of the tabernacle at Sinai, the move of God in Christ as the real tabernacle began in John 1:14, when the Lord Jesus came in incarnation to dwell among mankind. At this point, the voyage of the Triune God to Zion commenced.

Beginning from Christ’s incarnation and unto His ascension, Psalm 68 shows that God’s desire is to bring man from Sinai, the Old Testament covenant under law, to the heavenly Zion, the New Testament covenant under grace in the reality of the Body of Christ. In light of Numbers 10, Psalm 68 shows us that the destination of Christ is Zion—“the mountain on which God desires to dwell…indeed Jehovah will dwell there forever” (Psalm 68:16).

In Revelation 14:1, the apostle John saw Christ, after all of His processes and His ‘journey,’ which began at incarnation, standing on Mount Zion with His overcomers. Mount Zion was the destination of the Old Testament tabernacle, the Triune God in Christ, and it is also the destination of the overcomers.

In order to reach this destination with Christ, we need to read Psalm 84:5, which uses the phrase “in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” To have highways to Zion in our heart is to have the intention to enter into the church life in a living and active way. If we are to join Christ on this corporate voyage to Zion we need to get on the ‘highway’. This is to endeavor to be vital, to see, know, care for, and honor the Body, to do the work of the Body, and to keep every principle of the Body. If we desire and live for this, we will arrive with the Triune God in Zion. God desires Zion (132:13), and we should too (84:1-2)!