Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly...

I was reading Psalm 15 this morning. It's a wonderfully descriptive lyric about the kind of good and righteous person who can sojourn and dwell with and be in relationship with the holy God. And it struck me as impossible. That's a good thing because for too long I have read the Scriptures FIRST as a moral and ethical example that I should try to follow. But all the efforts to attain righteousness by ourselves (self-righteousness) are doomed to fail. Psalm 14 says "There is none who does good...they have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one." (Psalm 14:1, 3) So when David (the author of both Psalm 14 and 15) then begins to list the qualities found in the one who "does what is right" (Psalm 15:2), it's not that he has amnesia, or is in a better, more optimistic mood. No, we are to see Jesus in this Psalm.

We need to read, "Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart," (Psalm 15:1-2) and realize that only Jesus ever lived that way. "Who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor" (Psalm 15: 3) ought to remind us of how Jesus overcome the temptations of retaliatory slander when he was slandered and lied about and mocked. "Nor takes up a reproach against his friend" (Psalm 15:3) should point us to the deep love and forgiveness Jesus expressed to his disciples after his resurrection, knowing they had abandoned him when he needed them most. "In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord" (Psalm 15:4) should cause us to reflect on how Jesus courageously called out the hateful, prideful sin of the religious leaders while drawing attention to, and honoring, the widow who gave her last few pennies in an otherwise unnoticed act of loving worship. "Who swears to his own hurt and does not change" (Psalm 15:4) clearly ought to make us aware of Jesus' resolute determination to go to the cross to pay  for the world's sin--and how his epic prayer struggle in the garden of Gethsemane revealed how he suffered for his vow, but saw it through for our benefit.

If I try to take each of these statements as simply an example to live up to and follow, I will always fail. But if I am in Christ by grace through faith, then the very One who has already lived Psalm 15 perfectly, lives in me. That means Jesus can live Psalm 15 in and through me. I ask him to do it, and then do all I can to work with him, never forgetting that it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.