One of the fun things about praying through the Psalms is the little nuggets you encounter along the way. Little gems that you’ve read plenty of times before or heard in and out of context over many years.
Psalm 15 has its fair share of gold. Yet, while I find a beautiful poetic tone to the psalm, I’m also faced with the huge degree to which I don’t cut the mustard.
LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless.
I don’t think it will come as much of a newsflash for you to hear me say: ‘yeah, that’s not me, I’m not blameless by the most generous interpretation of blamelessness’.
As we’ve said over the last couple of weeks, our tendency can be to resort to comparisons. To find someone who’s less blameless than us and somehow feel a little consoled by the discovery. And then you get to the next verse:
and who does what is righteous,
who speaks the truth from his heart
And the next:
and has no slander on his tongue,
who does his neighbor no wrong
and casts no slur on his fellowman
And the next:
who keeps his oath
even when it hurts.
And you realise it’s game over. Finding a cast of people who are more ordinary than you for each criteria for sanctuary-dwelling might help you pessimistically drift off to sleep each night, but it doesn’t come close to what the Psalm is requiring. The demands are absolute. Blameless. Righteous. Truth. No wrong. No slur. Keeps his oath. No grey, no shade, just absolute.
And then we remember Jesus. And we also remember that we aren’t saved through what we’ve passed or failed (or we’re all stuffed) but by the blood of Jesus.
Nothing can for sin atone, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing good the I have done. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Does it mean we don’t pursue righteousness. Of course not. Nor does it mean that we don’t seek to show integrity with our commitments, self-control with our tongues, love for our neighbours, and transparency with our finances. It simply means that while we’re called to holiness in these areas, it doesn’t pave the way to our salvation, Jesus does.
It’s all about Jesus.
– Simon Elliott