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Where is Zion? What is Zion? Who is Zion? Are these the sorts of questions you find yourself asking? My guess is probably not. Yet, if you read the Bible daily, especially the Psalms you will have noticed Zion popping up all over the place. You would be correct in thinking Zion is a place situated in the Middle East known as the Holy Land — the city of Jerusalem in Israel. Zion is also a physical nation presently living in many lands and scattered across the globe, a group of people, known as the remnant, firstfruits, and followers of Christ who belong to God's true Church and keep the 10 Commandments including the weekly Sabbath, and all of His 7 annual holy day festivals. Online Dictionary states "the hill of Jerusalem on which the city of David was built; Jerusalem; the Jewish people or religion; (in Christian thought) the heavenly city or kingdom of heaven; the Christian Church; a land of future promise or return from exile". So, as you can see, people think there is more than one answer to the question of what constitutes Zion with some of these answers not accurate, especially using the term Christian loosely, hence the purpose of this article. You will discover that Zion has a past, present, and future fulfillment if you give careful attention while traversing the pages of your Bible.
There are many passages in the Bible where the reader can find the name Zion, in both the Old and New Testaments. For the purpose of brevity one scripture from each of these sections will be provided for your consideration. Beginning with Psalm 125:1-5 - "Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forever. For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity. Do good, O Lord, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts. As for such as turn aside to their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them away with the workers of iniquity. Peace be upon Israel!" Then there is Hebrews 12:22-24 "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel".
This topic of Zion is a fascinating study because there is much to explore and understand when gathering and tying in what Zion is and stands for replete with plenty of symbolism. As we have just read, God dwells in Zion, His perpetual city, the place of His temple. There is a spiritual fulfillment of this in the future where Jerusalem will be the capital of the world once Christ returns to the Mount of Olives to set up His glorious Kingdom (Zechariah 14). Furthermore, as already mentioned Zion is symbolic of God's Church who will reign with Him over all the nations eternally from Zion. God's firstfruits living now, earnestly and faithfully hope and pray we will be part of God's plans for Zion in order to teach the rest of humanity all about the awesome God we serve and His laws. There are many reasons to follow Christ on our journey to Zion in the Promised Land and one of these is the great peace we will have which replaces all the tears, sorrow, fear, anxiety, uncertainty and stress this current world suffers from. The change in transformation will be monumental, exciting, like nothing any of us have ever experienced before because we will all be spirit beings without our present physical limitations of needing rest, sleep, food, and other disadvantages such as pain and illness. All of these setbacks will be gone forever.
Whenever we sing from our Hymnal hymn #122, “Great Is the LORD”, which mentions Zion and is taken from Psalm 48, we not only crave or yearn for the peace to come in the city of Zion, we recognise that we are destined to be part of the faithful written in the Lamb's book of life. The words are meaningful and full of love for our Almighty Father and our Wonderful Saviour Jesus Christ and so we sing with full hearts the words here "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, upon His holy hill. Zion is God's city; peace is in the land. Christ rules the nations; His kingdom is at hand! Let us rejoice! Our King has come to reign! He will judge with righteousness, the Faithful One and True! Glory, Alleluia unto Christ our King! Behold our Saviour! Of His great pow'r we sing! Worship the Lord, present yourself to Him, Hail the Lamb who is our light; pay homage to His name! Look within the city, there shall be no strife. Enter, you faithful, known from the Book of Life".
As marvellous as these words are there are other scriptures mentioned in the Bible where we have this incredible future ahead of us as in Isaiah 2:2-4 and Micah 4:1-13 "Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it. Many nations shall come and say, 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths'. For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all people walk each in the name of his god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever. 'In that day', says the Lord, 'I will assemble the lame, I will gather the outcast and those whom I have afflicted; I will make the lame a remnant, and the outcast a strong nation; so the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from now on, even forever. And you, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come, even the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem'. Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in your midst? Has your counselor perished? For pangs have seized you like a woman in labour. Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in birth pangs. For now you shall go forth from the city, you shall dwell in the field, and to Babylon you shall go. There you shall be delivered; there the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies. Now also many nations have gathered against you, who say, 'Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion'. But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord, nor do they understand His counsel; for He will gather them like sheaves to the threshing floor. 'Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hooves bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; I will consecrate their gain to the Lord, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth' ".
There is no doubt that God loves Zion (Psalm 132:13-14; Psalm 87:2) with a supernatural passion that we as physical humans can only imagine or even begin to imagine related to the depth, width, breadth, length, height and all-encompassing beauty connected to His mercy and righteousness of God's passionate love for us to be there in Zion as part of Zion. What is there not to love about God's perfect plan? All of it is absolute perfection on a majestic scale that we are only beginning to see and understand. Nobody, no not even one is forgotten for everyone is included in order to drink in the joy of the peace and safety of all that is supplied in the Kingdom of God from the epicentre of Zion for those who choose life. God desires deeply for all of His creation to be saved as He sees and knows our potential, and He will see to it that we will be ready because we will have been perfected in order to claim our inheritance. Meanwhile we do well to give heed to the warning for Zion. Here are some excellent sermons for further study: https://youtu.be/Ox2o4xL7r7I https://youtu.be/iBLjG9oVtsY https://youtu.be/WN_8Sx9YPdw