Glory of God in His Eternal Celestial City

Psalms 48:1-14
A Song. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.

1 Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised
In the city of our God,
In His holy mountain.
2 Beautiful in elevation,
The joy of the whole earth,
Is Mount Zion on the sides of the north,
The city of the great King.

3 God is in her palaces;
He is known as her refuge.

4 For behold, the kings assembled,
They passed by together.
5 They saw it, and so they marveled;
They were troubled, they hastened away.

6 Fear took hold of them there,
And pain, as of a woman in birth pangs,
7 As when You break the ships of Tarshish
With an east wind.

8 As we have heard,
So we have seen
In the city of the LORD of hosts,
In the city of our God:
God will establish it forever.

Selah

9 We have thought, O God, on Your lovingkindness,
In the midst of Your temple.

10 According to Your name, O God,
So is Your praise to the ends of the earth;
Your right hand is full of righteousness.
11 Let Mount Zion rejoice,
Let the daughters of Judah be glad,
Because of Your judgments.

12 Walk about Zion,
And go all around her.
Count her towers;
13 Mark well her bulwarks;
Consider her palaces;
That you may tell it to the generation following.

14 For this is God,
Our God forever and ever;
He will be our guide
Even to death.

This is our God, and His glory was but a faint glimmer compared to what it will be in the eternal Celestial City of the New Jerusalem to come!  Since the LORD is great, our praise to Him must be as great as we can offer it up as His living sacrifices.  This psalm on the surface appears to only sing of the earthly city of God’s people on the Mount Zion of Israel, but also speaks in prophetic shadow and type of the New Jerusalem spoken of in Revelation.  The earthly city was so beautiful on the high hill, a source of joy to those looking up at her, knowing it was where God met with His people for sacrifice of worship.  Hat was the light on the hill foreshadowing the temples of men and women where He would inhabit them and their praises after receiving Christ and His Spirit in each one (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19, Ephesians 2:21)!  But the temple where we will see Him face to face forever is the New Jerusalem on the new earth where He will sit and we will bow before His presence at last with ceaseless praise.  Glory!  God was the refuge of His people in Zion, and will be our eternal refuge in Christ forevermore, a refuge from the just due penalty of punishment for our rebellious sin by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11).  God will establish that city as He did the one on earth spoken of in this psalm, but the one to come will not only be looked up at in admiration and elicit praise, but will stand secure and never fade away as the one on earth did which was patterned after it.  There we will continue to be living sacrifices with our praises.  That is a selah moment to dwell on...  Then we consider the lovingkindness of our God in Christ with the presence of His Spirit in us in the midst of the temples of our individual bodies and that of Christ, the universal church, and sing praises together of His name to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).  The gospel of Jesus Christ is the culmination and embodied fulfillment of all that came before, and our praises should shout that out to the world and for His glory.  We rejoice in His judgments as verse 11 tells us, but also in His mercy and grace of atoning forgiveness of sin.  The earthly city was remembered and accounts have been passed down through His people to remember, yet how much more do we then tell of the Celestial City to come among ourselves and as hope to a lost world sitting under certain judgment?  This is our God forever who leads and guides us to Himself by drawing us to Himself by His word and Spirit (John 6:44, Isaiah 30:21).  He is our guide to death, through death by the resurrection of hope, and into everlasting life before His throne and His face forevermore.  Praise Him, all His people!