Life-Study of Psalms, by Witness Lee

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V. THE BUILDING UP
OF THE DWELLING PLACE FOR GOD

The last part of Psalm 68:18 says, "That Jehovah God may dwell among them." This indicates that Christ uses all the gifts to build up the dwelling place for God. The dwelling place here signifies the church as God’s habitation (Eph. 2:22). As Ephesians 4 reveals, all the gifts do the same work of the ministry to build up the Body of Christ as God’s dwelling place on earth today.

A. The Gifts as the Gifted Persons
Builded Together to Be the Dwelling Place for God

The gifts as the gifted persons, the believers in Christ, are builded together to be the dwelling place for God. This dwelling place signifies the church, the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12).

B. This Dwelling Place
Being Also the Habitation of the Believers

"A Father to the orphans and a Judge for the widows/Is God in His holy habitation./God causes the solitary to dwell in a household" (Psa. 68:5-6a). Here we see that God’s dwelling place is also the habitation of the believers, the needy, the solitary, and the bound ones. Today we all are the needy ones (the orphans and widows), the bound ones (the prisoners), and the solitary ones, and the church is our dwelling place. The church is a building that includes such people.

C. This Dwelling Place of God Being Built
on Mount Zion

"O mighty mountain, O mountain of Bashan,/O many-peaked mountain, O mountain of Bashan:/Why do you look with envy, O many-peaked mountain,/At the mountain on which God desires to dwell?/Indeed Jehovah will dwell there forever" (vv. 15-16). The "mountain on which God desires to dwell" is Mount Zion. The dwelling place of God is built on Mount Zion, signifying the highest peak in the universe, the heavens.

The builded church is in the heavens. Whether we are in the heavens or on the earth depends on whether or not we have been built up. If we have not been built up, we are earthly. If we have been built up, we are heavenly. Whenever the saints in a locality are divided and scattered, they are on the earth or, even worse, below the earth. But whenever the saints in a locality are built up together, they are in the heavens. This is an aspect of the wonderful things in God’s New Testament economy, in His move in Christ from incarnation to ascension.

(Life-Study of Psalms, Chapter 27, by Witness Lee)