Psalm 15: Who can come into God's presence?
Devotional Time Study from P. Will
From the title, we know that this is a psalm of David. Unlike other Psalms, David is not crying out to God, asking him to save him from his enemies. But rather, he seems to have some bandwidth to direct a theological question to God: “Who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?”
These are very relevant questions because they remind us of the question, “how do I get into heaven?” And if we examine the sentence close, perhaps that is the question David is asking.
The ESV study bible says to “sojourn” and “dwell” in the tent and hill of a person requires an invitation by that person. So essentially David is asking is “who is the kind of person that God will invite into his presence?
And he answered that in the following verses. That person is:
1. He who walks blameless and does what is right and speaks the truth (v.2)
2. He who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor (v.3)
3. He despises a vile person in his eyes (v.4) and honors those who fear the LORD
4. He swears by his own hurt and does not change (i.e. he keeps his promises even though keeping them becomes detrimental to his interests) (v.4)
5. He does not put his money at interests and does not bribe against the innocent.
How does this list make you feel? Can you come into the presence of God?
I think the first thing that this psalm does is it reveals a standard. It’s not surprising to see that to come into the presence of a holy God, one must be holy. What’s interesting is that the person whom God invites to dwell with him is a person of good moral character. She is the person who treats others well because she fears God.
The second thing that this psalm does is convicts us. I don’t know about you, but I know that I am not this blameless person. I have failed on all of these accounts (except perhaps the part about lending money with interest and bribing against the innocent because I don’t have that kind of money). If this is the person God invites, then he is definitely not inviting me to dwell with him.
The psalm motivates me to become this blameless person SO THAT I CAN dwell with God. But that is going to be burdensome and discouraging endeavor because I know I will fail. If I go that route, then I will end up in one of three places. I will become shallow, live an unreflective life, and attempt very little because I don’t want to sin or see my sins. Or I will become bitter at God because I’m not changing. Or I will just give up on Christianity because “it’s not working.” Or if I succeed, then I will be self-righteous like the Pharisees.
So, what do I do?
When I think about these qualities, I can only think of one person who IS blameless and who CAN come into the presence of God. And that is Jesus. He is the only whom God invites into his presence because he has fulfilled these requirements. He is the righteous one, the blameless one and the guiltless one.
And the amazing things is that God extends his righteousness to us! At the cross, there was a great exchange where Jesus became sin, and we became righteous because our sins have been paid for and God has forgiven us for our sins.
The cross enables us to come into the presence of God. As the writer of Hebrew says, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need..” (Hebrews 4:16). We can approach God with confidence because Jesus was our high priest who mediated our salvation for us! Because of the cross we can be confident that Jesus understands our struggles (Hebrews 4) and that God invites us into his presence.
God invites me, a sinner, into his presence!
That’s not fair, but it is the gospel.
I’m going to dwell on this for the rest of the day and relish the thought that God has invited me to be with him. And, I’m going to spend time in God’s presence by regularly thanking him. And I’m going to ask him for strength to live out the blameless requirements in this Psalm. But instead of being motivated by fear (i.e. I have to in order to into heaven), I am motived by love (i.e. I going to honor God because of what he did. And I know if I fail, God will forgive me still).
I hope you have a great day!