Psalm 48 is a song of praise to the God who really exists, the living God, the One who is truly great – infinitely so. And He is “greatly to be praised” (v 1). Unless God had made Himself known to us human beings, it would be impossible for anyone to know Him. But this God has made Himself known, particularly through the Bible. In a much lesser way, God makes Himself known in His wonderful works that are all around us, “for the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse” who refuse to believe that this God actually exists (Rom 1:20).
Again the magnificent temple that Solomon built on Mount Zion was testimony to the greatness of this God. The man who wrote Psalm 48 had, by divine grace, taken this God to be his God; he did not worship images made from wood and stone, or even from silver and gold; he trusted in this glorious God – who made the earth and all things in it, indeed the whole universe – and sought to worship and serve this great, majestic God. We today also are to trust in this same glorious God and seek to worship and serve Him, not the gods of false religions, or the gods of money, possessions and entertainment. We are not to give our hearts to any of these things as what is to be sought most earnestly as the ultimate sources of satisfaction.
As inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Psalmist sang of “the city of the great King”, where God was known (Ps 48:2,3). The temple was by far the most significant building in this city, Jerusalem, especially because this God’s seat was there. The symbol of His presence was the cloud that had accompanied Israel through the wilderness, and everyone in that nation knew that this cloud was the sign of God’s presence in the most holy place, the inner part of the temple. Both the temple and the tabernacle before it were symbols of the Church of God. And when the Psalmist sang of the bulwarks and towers of the temple, we are to recognise references to the defences of the Church. These defences, says J A Alexander in expounding this Psalm, were “untouched by the recent dangers”; none “of them have been demolished”. It is,
of course, God who is the defence of the Church, which is why it can never be put out of existence. And the individuals who belong to the Church, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, can never lose their faith in Him. They can say, “This God is our God for ever and ever” (Ps 48:14).
What does this Psalm say about “this God”? We may note three attributes:
(1.) This God is holy. We read of “the mountain of His holiness” (v 1), for Mount Zion was characterised by the holiness of God; it was where the holy God had made His seat on earth. A A Hodge speaks of “holiness, as applied to God in Scripture”, as representing “first, moral purity . . . second, His transcendently august and venerable majesty”. But Hodge also says, “The holiness of God is not to be conceived of as one attribute among others; it is rather a general term representing the conception of His consummate perfection and total glory. There is a glory of each attribute . . . and a glory of the whole together. Infinite moral perfection is the crown of the Godhead. Holiness is the total glory thus crowned.”1
God is our Creator, and so we are responsible to Him. He has the right to direct us how we should live. He has given us a law to show us how we should act, speak and think, and that “law is holy” (Rom 7:12) because it is a reflection of His holy nature. And because He is holy, we too, as His creatures, should be holy. This, of course, is what many in this generation want not to accept. Better, they assume, to believe that mankind came into existence through a vast number of slight, random changes than accept that a holy God created everything, with all that this fact implies about our responsibility to obey Him as our Creator. But how dangerous to ignore the fact that this holy God does indeed exist and that we are responsible to Him!
(2.) This God is gracious. So we read in Psalm 48: “We have thought of Thy lovingkindness, O God, in the midst of Thy temple” (v 9). Especially at the temple, the Israelites could think of the mercy of God to unworthy sinners, as the way of forgiveness was illustrated there in animal sacrifices. These were offered as substitutes for sinners, bearing the penalty for sin instead of them – for the just punishment for sin is death, even eternal death. The animal suffered death instead of the sinner; it was God’s merciful provision for the guilty. Not that animal sacrifices could actually take away sin, but they pointed forward to the Messiah, who would come into the world in the fullness of time. In offering up Himself, He would make it possible for sin to be really forgiven in God’s infinite kindness to rebellious sinners.
Paul told the believers in Corinth: “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich” (2 Cor 8:9). What tremendous grace is
1A A Hodge, Outlines of Theology, Banner of Truth reprint, 1983, p 163.
to be seen when the One who was eternally rich becomes poor – with nowhere to lay His head, to be treated as “a worm, and no man” (Ps 22:6) and in the end to be crucified! And how gracious God is in the benefits He gives, and gives freely, for no human being could ever earn them. All are unworthy of them. So Paul emphasises that it is “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy [God] saved us” (Tts 3:5); our works cannot merit salvation, yet in His kindness God saves sinners. And Paul follows this vital statement by pointing to these crucial elements of God’s gracious salvation: justification and eternal life.
(3.) This God is righteous. But how can God remain righteous when He gives such great blessings to sinners? How can God deliver sinners from the just consequences of their sins and yet be just? How can God remain just while He justifies the ungodly? First, note that those whom He justifies are the ungodly who believe in Jesus (Rom 3:26). Note further that Jesus has done all that was necessary to provide a salvation that is absolutely consistent with God’s justice. For Christ was a propitiation for sinners – a sacrifice to turn away the anger of God from them – so that, “through faith in His blood”, they might be saved and escape the wrath to come. He fully satisfied God’s justice in their place; so God remains righteous when He justifies the ungodly. Besides, Christ kept the law perfectly as a substitute for His people; accordingly, when they believe in Him, they are treated as if they had kept God’s law perfectly themselves. They are justified – they are accepted as perfectly righteous – for the sake of Christ. No one, certainly not Satan, can be heard in heaven when he lays anything against them. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died” (Rom 8:34).
Thus, if we have good reason to believe that we are looking to Christ alone for salvation, we have a right to say, “This God is our God for ever and ever”. He will never cast us off; He will never allow us to depart from Him. That is why David could say near the end of his life: “God . . . hath made with me an everlasting covenant” (2 Sam 23:5). An everlasting covenant implies everlasting love and an everlasting salvation. It implies too that God will guide His children, so that they will come safely to the end of their journey; by faith they may say, “He will be our guide even unto death” (Ps 48:14). By faith also they can be assured, even when the Church is at its weakest, that its towers and its bulwarks will never be entirely demolished. And this is part of the teaching they are to tell “to the generation following” (Ps 48:13). Let the parents of this generation so teach their children and seek God’s blessing as they do so – not least that the Holy Spirit would work savingly in each of them. And let all of us earnestly seek grace to be able to say sincerely, “This God is our God for ever and ever”.