A Call to Arise
Songs of Ascents Part I

by Mark Waters

here are 15 chapters in the book of Psalms that carry an important theme. They are subtitled: “A Song of Ascents” and are found from Psalms 120 to Psalms 134. The word “ascents” has the meaning of “goings up”. These Psalms are songs about a journey upward and speak of progress and development in the life of the people of God. Paul, in the New Testament, speaks of this upward call in Philippians 3:14 where he says “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling (upward calling) of God IN Christ Jesus.” As we come to Him, we hear a calling to come up. It has been said that these Songs of Ascents were sung by Israel as they made their journey up to Zion three times a year to feast with the Lord¹.

This frequent command to Israel to ascend to Zion¹ reveals a longing in the heart of God for His people. Through sin, the Lord lost the man He created for Himself. God made man to live in the heights in a life of union with Himself. Man was called to full intimacy and communion with the very heart of God. The Lord made man to be the bearer of His image in the earth and called him to establish an administration of the government of Heaven there. God desired to find in His man a full and undiminished expression for Himself. However, when man partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he fell from His high place in the plan and purpose of God. He lost his life union with God in the heights. Now by nature man lives in the lowlands and gravitates toward the earth with all its enticements and pleasures. He has become something of the earth.

This call to ascend implies there was a fall. Redemption's purpose is to bring man back to the heights again. In Christ, God gets His man back. Today, salvation through the cross is often presented as man’s way to heaven. However in its full meaning, salvation is man’s way back to his original calling and destiny to God Himself and to God's purpose for His Son.

"The cross was the means by which God would bring man back to the heights with Himself."

God never meant for man to live in the “valley”. The valley is not our home. Psalms 84:6 tells us we will pass through the valley, but we are not to dwell there. God commanded the men of Israel to come up to Zion three times a year. This continual calling to come up served as a constant reminder for them not to live in the lowlands, but instead live in the heights in union with God. If they ever began to settle down in the earthlies, this calling to arise would come to them again. Over and over again, throughout the years, they would hear the command to come up. They were created and destined to live with God in the heights. They were called to be a people whose life was governed by the heavens and not by the earth. God intended them to be a channel through which heaven could invade the earth.

Throughout the Word, God reveals the longing of His heart for His people. He has intended man to be intimately associated with Him in the highest place. This highest place is often represented by a mountain in Jerusalem called Zion. In the heart of God, Zion speaks of man living in God's original calling. To be in Zion means we have come back up into all God has destined for man. Listen to the intensity of the longing of God for Zion in Is. 62:1. “For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.” He longs for man to be with Him in the heights of Zion again. He is not willing to rest till He has it. It is a burning passionate desire working in Him. A blazing torch speaks of a testimony. It has to do with God being manifested in, through, and among His people. God is there in the heights, but He is not alone, His people are with Him in the mount. That is what he longs for.

What a wonderful picture we have in Revelation 14:1 where John looks and sees the Lamb on mount Zion. The message John was to understand from this revelation was that a man has made it back to God's original purpose! The Lamb stepped into time and became a man. And as a man He has ascended back to the heights of Zion there to reclaimed the place man had lost. But notice too, He is not alone in Zion's heights; “and they that were with him.” He did not go there alone, but He took a people back with Him. In Jesus, the Father gets back the man He lost. These verses are the celebration. God's purpose for man has been realized in the Lamb and a people in union with Him. This is the salvation He came to bring. He did not go through the cross so God could fill heaven. The cross was the means by which God would bring man back to the heights with Himself.

There is only one way up. In John 1:51 it says; “And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.” In this verse, Jesus reveals the meaning of the redemption He had come to bring. Jesus is man's way back to God and to His purpose. The gospel is a call upward. It is a call to return to the heights. It is not merely a call to heaven. It is a call to heart union with the Father in the heights of Zion. The way up is in a person. “And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.²” In Him is working the life in the heights, and He has come to release in us that very life, that through Him we would be lifted up into God. May we open ourselves to Him afresh and find grace lifting us out of the lowlands into the heights of God.

“Lift us up into Thy greatness O Lord,
Lift us up into the heavenlies above,
Out of the narrowness of self,
Into Thy heights, into Thy depths;
Lift us up into Thy greatness O Lord!”

¹ Deut. 16:16
² John 1:16,17