SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/14/2019
12:51 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “How Christ Won the Right to Give Gifts”
My Worship Time Focus: Ephesians
4:8-10
Message of the verses: “8 Therefore it
says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON
HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES,
AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN." 9 (Now
this expression, "He ascended," what does it mean except that
He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is Himself also He who
ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.)”
It
looks like Paul was ready to write about some of the gifts that Chris has
given, but before that Paul goes back to Psalm 68:18 as a comparison passage
that will show how Christ received this right to bestow those gifts. MacArthur writes “The obvious differences
between both the Hebrew and Greek (Septuagint) Old Testament texts of Psalm
68:18 and Paul’s citation of it suggest that he is probably making only a
general allusion to the passage for the sake of analogy, rather than
specifically identifying it as a direct prediction of Christ.” One thing that I want to point out here is
that what Paul did he did under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and what He
wrote is a permanent part of the New Testament.
We have been covering on my other
blog the book of Psalms as I went back into my Spiritual Diaries to go over
what I wrote back in 2012, and so if one wants to look at this Psalm they can
go to my other blog to see what I wrote about this 68th Psalm. ““Read
the ‘Song of Deborah’ (Judges 5) as preparation for studying this psalm, and
compare the parallels: Psalm 68:4;
Judges 5:3, 7-8, 4-5, 12/30, 13/16, 18/12, and 27, 14, 18. The emphasis is on God’s mighty acts on
behalf of Israel resulting in His decision to dwell on Mount Zion. Several names of God are used, including
Elohim (23 times), Jehovah, Jat (short for Jehovah, as in hallelujah, Elijah,
etc), Adonai (6 times), and Shaddai. The psalm is Messianic; Paul quotes verse
18 in Ephesians 4:8 and applies it to the ascension of Christ. The use of ‘temple’ in verse 29 doesn’t
prohibit Davidic authorship since the word hekal
was applied to the tabernacle as well (1Samuel 1:9, 3:3; and see Psalm 5:7;
41:4; 18:6; 27:4; 65:4). The psalm is a jubilant hymn of
praise to Jehovah in which the nation of Israel gives four expressions of
triumph through their God.” (This
comes from my writings on Psalm 68.)
However John MacArthur writes “Psalm 68 is a victory hymn composed by
David to celebrate God’s conquest the Jebusite city and the triumphant ascent
of God (represented by the Ark of the Covenant) up Mount Zion (cf. 2 Samuel
6-7; 1 Chron. 13). After a king won such
a victory he would bring home the spoils and enemy prisoners to parade before
his people. An Israelite king would take
his retinue through the holy city of Jerusalem and up Mount Zion. Another feature of the victory parade,
however, would be the display of the king’s own soldiers who had been freed
after being held prisoner by the enemy.
These were often referred to as recaptured captives—prisoners who had
been taken prisoner again, so to speak, by their own king and given freedom.
“The phrase ‘when He ascended on high’ depicts a
triumphant Christ returning from battle on earth back into the glory of the
heavenly city with the trophies of His great victory.”
I have studied this passage at different times and have
found it very much interesting as I hope all will see. We will continue (Lord willing) to look at
different ways on how we can understand what Paul was writing about in our next
SD, and will probably be camped out on these verses for a few days.
The following are the verses
that go along with yesterday’s quotation:
“I will lift up my eyes to the hills—from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven
and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2)
3/14/2019 1:16 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment