The King Of Glory Comes In

Psalm 24

INTRODUCTION

This month I’m going to take a look at three psalms: Psalms 24, 69 and 119. Today, we’ll look at Psalm 24.

The words of the psalm are really moving:

‘Lift up your heads, you gates;

be lifted up, you ancient doors,

that the King of glory may come in…’

We can imagine some ancient doors like something out of Lord of the Rings, closed for aeons, waiting for a particular person to arrive. Now, the gates are being told, ‘Lift up your heads.’ ‘Lift up your heads’ means, ‘Cheer up! Something good’s going to happen!’

Then follows the question, ‘Who is this King of glory?’ Who could he be, this king who is entering through those ancient doors? Then comes the astounding answer:

‘The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.’

A few English Bibles give a more literal translation:

‘Who is the king of glory?

Yahweh, strong and mighty;

Yahweh, mighty in war!’

Yahweh! Wow! GOD HIMSELF is entering through those ancient doors!

The psalm is moving. But what does it mean?! A flood of questions come into our minds. When is it talking about? What was the occasion? What are these ancient doors? And as we start to digest the psalm, another question appears. How do the different parts of the psalm connect together?

Commentators and Bible scholars view Psalm 24 as a difficult psalm. It can be understood in a number of different ways. But it seems to me that there is really only one way to understand it in which the different parts of the psalm fit together.

OVERVIEW

Let’s take a quick first look at the psalm and see why the parts might not seem to fit together. [PowerPoint slide of Psalm 24. I used ESV]

You should be able to see the word ‘selah’ at the end of verse 6 and at the end of verse 10. A few versions of the Bible don’t include ‘selah’ – the NIV, for example. No one knows what ‘selah’ means and I suppose the NIV imagines there’s no point putting in a word which we don’t know the meaning of. But having the word ‘selah’ is still helpful, as we can see that the psalm has at least two parts. Actually, commentators mostly split the psalm into three parts: verses 1 and 2, verses 3 to 6, and verses 7 to the end.

The first part of the psalm starts, ‘The earth is the Lord’s.’ The subject is THE EARTH BELONGS TO GOD.

The second part asks, ‘Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?’ The subject is ‘WHO CAN ENTER GOD’S HOLY PLACE?’

The third part contains the question, ‘WHO IS THIS KING OF GLORY?’

Each part of the psalm has a different subject! But what’s the connection between them?

SOLVING THE JIGSAW

If you’re doing a jigsaw, you can put a single piece down on the table and it can face any way you like. But once you connect it with other pieces then it must line up with the other pieces. There is only one way it can face. Much the same is true here.

Verses 7 to 10 are about a king of glory entering somewhere. The king of glory is ‘the Lord’, and we have already noted that it’s the word Yahweh, meaning God. That means God in the form of God the Father, God in the form of Jesus, or God in the form of the Holy Spirit. There are a certain number of occasions in history or in the future when God, in some form, enters somewhere. This piece, on its own, can face a number of directions. Here are some examples.

God entered the temple after Solomon dedicated it. We read, ‘As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.’

Jesus entered our world as a baby.

Jesus entered heaven after God raised him from the dead.

God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, enters people who receive him, who open the door to him – as Revelation 3 tells us.

All of these ideas, and many others, have been suggested. My impression is that the commentators are happy to mention various possibilities, but hold back from saying, ‘this is actually what it means.’ But it seems to me that once we connect this piece – verses 7 to 10 – with the other pieces, there’s only one way it can face.

VERSES 1 AND 2

Let’s look first at verses 1 and 2. I’d like to show how they fit into the story with an illustration.

During the 1982 Falklands War, British soldiers landed in the Falklands and advanced on Port Stanley. President Reagan telephoned Margaret Thatcher and proposed some sort of peace deal. She told him, ‘This is democracy AND OUR ISLAND, and the very worst thing for democracy would be if we failed now.’ Note Thatcher’s words: ‘This is … OUR ISLAND.’