Psalm 15: Three Uses of Ethical Holiness

August 30, 2008

Psalm 15 always convicts me out the roof. It opens with the enticing future that hangs before all Christians, the ripe plum at the end of our race. Sojourning in the tent of God–dwelling on His Holy Hill. If we take the view of Kline on heaven (that it is the endoxation of the glory of the Holy Spirit) then this refers to that pinnacle of experience that consists in dwelling constantly in the enveloping glory of God. Heaven. Who goes to heaven?

And then the rest of the Psalm proceeds to place in view all the impossible perfections that stand as stepping stones before us to that felicity. I traverse the familiar and uncomfortable road from despair, to relief and love, to resolution–the road we must always travel when considering that, without holiness, “no one shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).

Go ahead and read the Psalm below, and then see if you do not feel this same progression in yourself, when you read the final sentence comprising verses 2-5:

1. That you have read a sentence of condemnation. That neither your yesterday nor your today thus far, have you perfectly accomplished any of these things. That the logic of this hymn points you to hell.

2. That you have read a sentence of adoration. That Christ is prefigured in this description of ethical holiness, and the reason for that holiness simply expressed in the first verse. That you will sojourn in God’s tent and dwell on his holy hill because he did walk blamelessly, doing what was right and speaking truth in heart, neither slandering nor doing evil to his neighbor nor taking up reproach against his friends, despising vile people and honoring God-fearing people, swearing to his own hurt with perfect constancy, never giving his gift with strings attached, never bribed to turn against his work and his people (even by the most magnificent attempt at bribery, by the devil, in the history of the world).

3. That you have read a sentence of acceleration. The Law becomes attainable when it has been conquered. For us in Christ it has been conquered. Now we are free from bondage to it, and therefore we should be eager to obey it from love, demonstrating the greater motivating and mortifying motive of love for the author of the law.

O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart;
who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
in whose eyes a vile person is despised,
but who honors those who fear the Lord;
who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.