Hope: All About Zion

  Zion (“Tsiyonin” in  Hebrew) is the City of David and specifically The Temple Mount which was called Mount Moriah in early times. It was there that Abraham was willing to seal the covenant with God. Abraham was willing to sacrifice the entire flesh of his only remaining son, just as God was willing to do years later on nearby Mount Golgotha – “the place of the (Adam’s) skull” (Mat 27:23; Mark 15:22; John 19:17).

  Rather than Isaac’s entire flesh, God sufficed with the flesh of man’s shame which was circumcision of the foreskin of his genitalia. For a time that flesh would protect those who kept the Covenant, but it was not the flesh of the penis which provided safety, but the circumcised hearts of the covenanters: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked” (Deut 10:16).

I often wondered, therein, if God made a double-entendre! Was He referring to necks or erections? (Covering their shame hinted at the latter; Gen 3:7). That is a great question as erections seem to be mankind’s greatest problem; a “tool” for the men, a “tulip” to the woman, and a generator in God’s “He-Shed” to keep the “lights” a burning.

  Uncircumcised hearts are lustful; circumcised hearts are not! Circumcised genitalia rest; uncircumcised genitalia prowl. There is a synchronicity between the heart and the genitals. Will- power controls the lust, and God cuts off the flesh of the heart. Mankind shares responsibility in controlling their desires. However, this is not the subject of today’s commentary; Zion is!

  Abraham saw Zion from a distance: “On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off” (Gen 22:4). Then once obtaining Zion, Abraham said, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.” Then God provided and His identity became known: “The angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham:’ and he said, ‘Here am I.’”

  First off, God identified his Existence as Father when He said, “Here Am I” (I AM). The Angel of the Lord called from Heaven. This was one specific Messenger or Angel, the Voice of God in the Garden – The Word (John 1-3,14) who is called Jesus. God the Father was there as was The Son. Where was the Holy Spirit? “He” was providing the sacrifice, burning the sacrificed flesh, and blessing Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the nations of the Earth (Gen 22:17-18).

  God cannot be separated. He was there on Zion in all three “substances” and He was there on Calvary the same way! In other words, the Flesh of God died, but His Spirit and Mind experienced death on our behalf much the same way that Abraham experienced death on behalf of his son. Abraham experienced Zion, and he also experienced Zion. Are you confused? Zion was indeed Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, but was there another Zion?

  Abraham saw Zion and experienced it at a location. He also experienced God in His fullness – The Messiah was there on Mount Moriah, as He was on Ornan’s Threshing Floor where Solomon’s Temple would be built. The Temple was God’s House. I believe it has the  same intent as God’s “House of Many Mansions” in New Jerusalem in Heaven: “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2).

  On Zion, God was preparing a place for those faithful to the Covenant. First, man was to provide a place there for God, as God was there sealing the deal with mankind. The Abrahamic Covenant was always by grace as Jesus provided the sacrifice, and it was a covenant of two parts: God gives the gift and people graciously love the Giver! Nothing has changed.

  God is in God’s House. Zion, then, not only represents Mount Zion (Moriah) and Jerusalem, as well as New Jerusalem, but Jesus himself! “So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory” Psalm 102:15-16). Of course, David was referring to Jesus appearing in Zion, but the focus is on his appearance, not Zion itself!

  When did Zion appear in his glory? When he died and gave up the Holy Ghost.

And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost. Now when the centurion saw what was done, he glorified God, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man. (Luke 23:46-47)

  John validated that even as the moment of glorification: Going to his death, Jesus spoke of himself as glorified:

He then having received the sop went immediately out: and it was night. Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him. (John 13:30-32).

  Given those two different events associated with glorification, “glorification” seems to be a process commencing with Christians glorifying Jesus, then God glorifying him on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Last Supper glorifying Jesus, then death finishing the glorification process, and Jesus even commenting, “It is finished.”  (John 19:30). What was finished? Glorification! He was transfigured from the Son of Man to the Son of God, then to God Himself on the Holy Cross.

David saw that, and wrote of it in Psalm 102:15-16. Zion was not only a place, but a promise, and a Person. Zion implies the Messiah who we call Christ and Jesus.

  Abraham saw Zion and stood on that Holy Ground by faith. He talked with Jesus, but didn’t see his face as Jesus spoke to him from Heaven. David foresaw Jesus (Zion) appearing in his glory! He saw the heathens fearing the Lord of Zion, as well as kings. Kings have always strived to maintain Zion, and feared the Jews as God’s chosen people. I am one of the “heathens” (Gentiles) who David envisioned fearing the Lord, and a “peculiar person” as we are called!

  David could have mentioned only the Jews, but Jesus was more than King of the Jews, he is Savior of all mankind! David foresaw that when most did not.

  Moses was part of the Covenant. It was effectually the same as the Abrahamic Covenant with the items listed for clarity. Jesus – the Finger of God and The Word – wrote down the “Prescriptions” for the healing of the nations. He too saw Zion, but from afar (Deut 34:4) but it was not his time to see Jesus yet. He knew that Jesus would be there soon, but he had yet to see Jesus in his glory. That all changed with the transfiguration.

  Moses, on the Mount of Transfiguration, finally saw God face to face and He was Jesus all the time. Moses had seen the land of Zion from afar, but on that Holy Mountain, Moses saw the person, Zion, close up and with his own eyes looking into the eyes of God – the God who he had sinned against!

The theogian, H. J. Whitaker (1987), proposed that the Mount of Transfiguration may be Mount Nebo where Moses saw Zion from afar. Since he saw Zion close-up at the transfiguration, it makes sense that Moses and Jesus were again on Mount Nebo. Moses didn’t go to Zion; Zion came to Him!

  David’s thoughts, in many of his psalms, were saturated and fixed on seeing God’s face. He sang songs about the Face of God. Moses dreamed about seeing the land Zion and the Person Zion. It was not the land that kept him faithful, but the prospect of the Man Zion!

  As a Christian, and a former heathen, my hope is seeing God face-to-face. My room will be in a house of many mansions, predictably it must be Zion. It will be: New Jerusalem is Zion! Of course, just as Moses, my eyes are not on the place but the Person Zion. It was never the place Zion that interested Abraham, Moses, David, nor the other patriarchs and prophets, but the face of God, who David seemed to call “Zion!”