The carrying out of God's economy actually began with the incarnation of Christ. John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. This indicates that the incarnation brought in the real and living tabernacle, which was Christ Himself as the embodiment of the Triune God. The physical tabernacle erected by Moses was a type, a shadow; it was not the real tabernacle. Both the tabernacle and the ark were types of Christ. However, without that type, God could not have had, with the children of Israel, a type of His move on the earth in Christ. God's move in the tabernacle with the ark from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion was a type of His move in Christ from the incarnation to the ascension.

At Sinai God prepared the children of Israel for His move in the tabernacle with the ark. God had sent Moses to Egypt to bring them out of Egypt to Sinai, and there at Sinai God gave them a training which lasted quite a long time. First, God decreed the law in order to test them, expose them, convince them, convict them, and subdue them. Eventually, after they were subdued, they were trained to be a holy people, a people sanctified to God so that He could dwell among them and move with them.

By the time the tabernacle was set up, the people had been trained and prepared, even as an army, for God's move. Thus Moses, the representative of Israel, prayed, saying, "Let God arise; let His enemies be scattered;/And let those who hate Him flee before Him" (Psa. 68:1; Num. 10:35). Immediately, God began to move with His people through the wilderness. Eventually, the ark ascended Mount Zion and was placed in the temple, which had been built to replace the tabernacle. This was God's move in the Old Testament, a type indicating that one day God would move on the earth in Christ as the real tabernacle.

After being on earth for thirty-three and a half years, Christ was crucified, was resurrected, and ascended to the heavens. As the ascended One, Christ is still working on us, the people of God, to make us a new creation, that is, to work the new creation out of the old creation. This is not a simple matter, and it cannot be done in a short time. Many of us can testify that, even though we have been in the Lord for many years, we are not that spiritual and are still being renewed, sanctified, and transformed. We still need Christ to work on us by His heavenly ministry. Even Paul had to wait until the end of his life before he could say, "I have fought the good fight; I have finished the course; I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). I hope that one day we all will be able to say this. At present, the Lord is still moving on in the heavens to make us the new creation in full and to bring us from the earth to the heavens.

Let us now endeavor to explain what is the center of the first section of Psalm 68. The center of this section is the dove wings gilded with silver and the dove pinions gilded with greenish yellow gold (v. 13). The dove wings signify the moving power of the Spirit; the silver signifies Christ in His redemption for our justification; and the greenish yellow gold signifies God in His nature glittering in His life and glory. Here we have the Triune God with all His accomplishments for our enjoyment.

The dove wings gilded with silver and the pinions gilded with greenish yellow gold are the spoil mentioned in verse 12. Some may wonder how the Triune God could be such spoil. To understand this we need to realize that by spoil we mean something gained, or reaped, as the result of fighting and winning a battle. Christ fought the battle in His death, resurrection, and ascension, and surely He has gained some spoil as a result. What has He reaped through His victory? He has reaped the riches of the Triune God for us. At the very time we confessed our sins and believed in Christ, we received the Spirit with God, Christ, and the divine life—the riches, the spoil, gained by Christ through His victory.

As those who have believed in the Lord Jesus, we gain what He has gained. We gain God; we gain the Spirit; we gain the divine life; and we gain the all-inclusive Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God. This means that in Christ we gain the processed and consummated Triune God as the spoil for our enjoyment. Now day by day we are enjoying the dove, the silver, and the gold. This is the center of the first section of Psalm 68.

Let us now go on to consider the second section of this psalm.