The King of Glory (Psalm 24) from South Woods Baptist Church on Vimeo.

The Bible presents a story. Actually, it is the Story that lasts through eternity. It’s the story of God the Creator making a world in which His glory dwells and is displayed in everything that exists.

But like the stories of novels and history, there’s also the counter-story, in this case, the conflict with the Creator and the effect upon His creation. The counter-story takes place in the Fall. Why is that a counter-story? God is so holy and His creation so glorious, that one act of defiance in the Garden obscured the beauty and glory of God in the creation. That one sin replicated itself in unnumbered sins throughout the human race, each defying the holy One, each tarnishing His glory. Yet that tarnishing and defiance did not limit itself to humanity but spread to the entire cosmos. Everything that God created is so tied to His glory, that when sin entered the world, it affected everything. Nothing escaped. Without God countering the counter-story through Christ, all hope vanishes.

We’ve witnessed the cosmos echoing the fall as hurricanes savaged several states, floods devastated many communities, and earthquakes tumbled a neighboring country. Lives were lost, businesses wrecked, homes destroyed, and communities ravaged by the fury of the natural order displaying the effects of the fall. And that’s just a snapshot of the ongoing events that we witness week-by-week, reminding us that we live in a fallen world that longs for restoration of all things to once again reflect the glory of God.

Some shake their fists at God, as though continued defiance will somehow curb the consequence of the fall. Others hold no hope. But they do not understand the Story. They live in the counter-story, thinking that it is ultimate. So they live for the moment, seize all they can, indulge every desire, and mindlessly curse and complain when the effects of the fall bash their hopes and dreams. But the counter-story is not ultimate; God’s story through Christ is. We face the challenge each day of whether we will live in the Story or the counter-story. The story in which we live affects us now and through eternity. Are you living in the Story or the counter-story? Psalm 24 helps us to understand the Story.

Scholars conjecture the background for this psalm. It could have been used when David brought the ark up from Kiriath-jearim to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6); or as “the liturgy for the autumn festival”; or triumphant returns from war to Jerusalem with the ark in the lead; or when Solomon dedicated the temple and brought in the ark (1 Kings 8). However, as Ralph Davis explains, all of these are but scholarly “guesstimate” of the psalm’s background [Slogging Along in the Paths of Righteousness, 177–178]. “The primary burden of the psalm,” he points out, “is to tell Israel (and us) to be ready for the King” (178]. With that in mind, we’ll consider the three stanzas of the psalm as the Story of the King who creates, the King who welcomes, and the King who triumphs.

1. The King who creates

The Bible begins at the beginning. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1). Everything mirrored God’s glory, so much so that the Creator declared it “very good” (Gen 1:31): no trace of sin, no defiance, no corruption, no floods, no hurricanes, no dictators, no wars, no grief, no despondency, no hopelessness—just God’s beauty and glory manifested in everything. That was no aberration, no one-and-done. Here God’s intention for manifesting His glory, love, and care would continue in the people and the world He created. That’s why the end of Revelation brings us back to the Story, by returning us to “a new heaven and a new earth,” where everything lost and tarnished in the fall returns to the creation’s original design (Rev 21). The King who creates will see to it.

Here we rejoice. Despite the wickedness of humanity and the multiplied effects of the fall, the Creator has not ab[...]