In this message I have the burden to give a further word on Psalm 84 as a supplement to the foregoing message. Recently, the Lord has opened up the intrinsic content of this short psalm. The intrinsic content of Psalm 84 is the secret revelation concerning the enjoyment of the incarnated Triune God.
The Old Testament indicates that God is triune (Gen. 1:1, 26; Isa. 6:1-3, 8), but the God unveiled in the Old Testament is not the incarnated Triune God. In the Old Testament the incarnation of the Triune God was a hidden mystery. However, the very first chapter of the New Testament, a chapter on the genealogy of Christ, speaks of God being born into a virgin to become a man in the flesh (Matt. 1:20). This is the Triune God coming into man to make Himself one with man, to make Himself humanly divine as the God-man named Jesus (vv. 21, 23).
The Lord Jesus lived and walked on earth in a divine-human way for thirty-three and a half years, and then He died on the cross to consummate an all-inclusive, vicarious death, a death that solved all the problems between God and man. His death on the cross is signified by the first of the two altars mentioned in Psalm 84. This altar is the bronze altar for the offering of the sacrifices.
After Christ passed through death, He entered into resurrection. In resurrection He was born to be the firstborn Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:3-4; 8:29). Prior to that time He was the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18; 3:16). As the only begotten Son, Christ had divinity, but He did not have humanity. However, as the firstborn Son of God, begotten in resurrection, He has humanity as well as divinity, the human nature as well as the divine nature.
Furthermore, in His wonderful resurrection Christ became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). The Spirit of God was there in the Old Testament, but at that time the Spirit of God did not have the capacity to give the divine life to humanity. For this reason, certain ones of the descendants of Adam received the power of God but not the life of God. Samson is a typical example of one who received the power of God from the Spirit of God but did not have anything related to God's life. Many others in the Old Testament, such as Job, were quite godly and pious, but we cannot say that they were spiritual, that they were filled with the spiritual, divine life. It was only since the resurrection of Christ, who is the incarnated Triune God, that the Spirit of God began to have the capacity to give the divine life to human beings, for it was in resurrection that Christ Himself became the life-giving Spirit. Also, in the resurrection of Christ all of God's chosen people were regenerated, born again (1 Pet. 1:3). In the resurrected Christ, who is the firstborn Son of God and the life-giving Spirit, we, God's chosen people, were regenerated to become the new creation, the new man.
Following His resurrection, Christ ascended. When He ascended to the heavens, another altar was established, the golden altar of incense for God to accept what Christ has brought to Him. The two altars—the bronze altar for the sacrifices and the golden altar of incense—are the leading consummations of the work of the incarnated Triune God, who is Christ as the embodiment of God for His increase. This is the intrinsic content of Psalm 84.
Psalm 84 bears four aspects. The first aspect is the loveliness of the house of God (v. 1). The second aspect is the longing of the psalmist to enter into God's house (v. 2). Third, there is the aspect of the highways to the house of God (v. 5b). The fourth aspect consists of the blessings of dwelling in the house of God to enjoy God as the sun, the shield, the grace, and the glory. In such a house we enjoy the incarnated and consummated Triune God as our sun to supply us with life, as our shield to protect us from God's enemy, as grace for our enjoyment, and as glory for the manifestation of God. Let us now consider this psalm in more detail.