God shall come and shine forth.

Psalm 50

A psalm of Asaph.

God◦, God Jehovah, has spoken,

And called the earth from the rising of the sun even to its going in.

Out of Zion, the completeness of beauty,

God has shined forth.

Our God shall come and not be silent;

A fire shall devour before Him,

And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.

He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth,

To make judgment for His people.

Gather My merciful ones to Me,

Those who have cut a covenant with Me by sacrifice.

And its heavens shall tell His justice;

For God, He is a judge. Selah....

I will not take a bullock from thy house,

Nor he-goats from thy pens....

Sacrifice to God confession,

And pay to the Most High thy vows;

And call Me in the day of adversity;

I will set thee free and thou shalt glorify Me....

verses	topic	Summary of the Spiritual Sense
title, 1-6	1,15	The Lord will come for judgment to those with whom is the church.
7-13	2	The Lord does not desire sacrifices and external worship.
14-15	2	He desires confession of the heart.
16-20	2	External worship is of no avail, as long as evils are committed.
21-22	2	They do evils, and therefore evil befalls them.

The Lord always comes when we need Him.

AC 4060:5. The Lord has come whenever the church has been vastated, not indeed in person, as when He assumed the human by birth and made it Divine; but by means of appearings—either manifest, as when He appeared to Abraham in Mamre, to Moses in the bush, to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai, and to Joshua when he entered the land of Canaan; or not so manifest, as by inspirations through which the Word was given, and afterwards through the Word.

AE 850:12e. Divine truth, in which the Lord is in His glory, is meant by, “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shall shine forth.”

AR 612:4. By “Mount Zion” is signified heaven and the church where the Lord alone is worshiped.

God has called the earth from the rising of the sun even to its going in.

AE 401:28. Because “the sun” signifies the good of love to the Lord with man, “from the rising of the sun unto its going down” signifies all who are in the good of love to the Lord, from the first to the last; “from the rising of the sun” meaning from the first, and “unto the going down of the sun” meaning to the last.... All in heaven dwell according to quarters. Those who are in the good of love to the Lord dwell from the east to the west. Those who dwell in the east are those who are in a clear good of love, and those who dwell in the west are those who are in an obscure good of love.

A fire shall devour before Him.

AE 504:20. As the fire that comes down out of heaven, which in its origin is Divine love, becomes a consuming fire when it is received by the evil there, in the Word such fire is attributed to Jehovah. Hell fire has no other source than the change of the Divine love into evil loves, and into dreadful lusts of doing evil and inflicting injury.

Questions and Comments

In what ways did God “shine forth” when Jesus came into the world, literally and spiritually? The psalm says that He spoke, that He called to the earth, and that He was not silent. He cast out the money-changers and the people selling animals for sacrifice. He showed He does not desire external worship, but confession of the heart. In such teachings and actions, He showed us who He is and what He is like.
“God... called the earth... even to the coming in of the sun.” He reaches out to people who have only an “obscure” love to the Lord and their neighbor, as well as to those in a clear love. We can be very grateful!
The fire of life from the Lord is creative and renewing, but to the evil it feels burning and consuming, because it is opposite to the lusts they love pursuing. Then they blame the Lord for the frustration of not being able to do what they want, destroying everything.

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