Dear Church Family,

I just want to thank you all for your prayers while I was out. I sure do love my church family! Also, I want to thank all of you who volunteered, prayed, led, and taught during our DNOW. Pastor Paul has been such a blessing to our student ministry. He is such a believer in bringing the generations together, which is such a beautiful picture of God’s Church.

I ran across the following devotional and I hope it encourages you:

In Eph 4:8, Paul quotes Psalm 68:18 in a form that is often a bit perplexing. Especially in the second part of the verse quoted (“he gave gifts to men”), it’s pretty different from how it survives in the Hebrew or in the Old Greek of the Psalms, but I want to spend a moment asking why Paul uses this psalm at all, and why he focuses on what he does.

Psalm 68 is very much located in the history of Israel. It is a call to praise God because he has conquered his enemies and will yet further conquer. We’re led through the Exodus and wilderness (68:7-8), the provision of a fruitful land (68:9-10), and the deliverance from the Canaanites by Deborah and Jael (68:11-14, cf. Judges 4-5). Then we have the establishment of worship on Zion in Jerusalem, with the declaration that now “Sinai is in the sanctuary” (68:17).

Then, finally, the verse called up by Paul, “You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train and receiving gifts among men, even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there” (68:18). The rest of the Psalm leaves historical description and alternates between statements of how God will yet defeat his enemies and calls to praise him. This call to praise also goes forth not only to Israel but to the “kingdoms of the earth” (68:32).

So why does Paul cite this Psalm as a description of the work of Jesus and why does he use 68:18 to do so?

One clue might be how 68:18 does seem to be a hinge in the psalm. The next verse is a new call to praise God, and the focus moves from there to what God will do, not what he has done.

But Paul’s own emphasis may give another hint: Paul does not focus on the gift giving, which the context of Eph 4 would lead us to expect, but rather, on one word “ascended.”

“In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?” (Eph. 4:9).

Here, he’s picking up on a lexical oddity. God rarely ascends (עלה) in the OT. He never elsewhere ascends on high (לַמָּרוֹם). He dwells on high (Is. 33:5). He sends from on high (2 Sam 22:17, Ps. 18:16), stretches up his hand from on high (Ps. 144:7), pours out his Spirit from on high (Is. 32:15), roars from on high (Jer 25:30), and sends fire from on high (Lam 1:13).

So why would God ascend on high? Why would he go up to where he already is?

Well, in the OT, when God does “ascend,” it’s usually after a time when he went down to speak with someone (Gen 17:22, 35:13).

What if Paul were picking up on this pattern?

His own words suggest as much! If God “ascended on high”, he had to have descended previously, to the earth.

When did God descend to the earth, and then ascend with a train of captured captives? When did God ascend after a victory that brought about a call for the kingdoms of the earth to praise this God of Israel?

To Paul, it’s quite clear: in the ascension of Jesus after the resurrection of the dead.

This is why he’s able to use this verse to talk about Christ’s gifts to the church. It’s not an arbitrary association with the word “gift”, but rather, Paul is reading the Psalm and asking questions that the specific wording of the passage prompts.

What an amazing reminder of how good God is!

Press on,

Pastor Mark