SATURDAY 23rd
Psalm 15
NIV (v1) – ‘LORD, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?’
ESV (v1) – ‘O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?’
The psalmist is asking an important question here, ‘LORD, who may dwell or sojourn , . . . who may live or dwell . . . where you are?
The place where God dwells is a sacred place (sacred tent) and a holy place (holy mountain) and therefore anything that is not holy cannot be found there, otherwise it would cease to be a sacred tent, or a holy hill. When it comes to the holy dwelling place of God, the psalmist wants to know who may dwell there? He continues in the psalm to answer the question, ‘He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart . . .’
But we can ask another question, where on earth will we find anyone who fits the bill? Who does walk blamelessly, who is right and speaks truth in his heart? We know from yesterday’s Psalm that God had looked at sinful humanity way back in Genesis 6 and he only found Noah who was righteous, and yet we know that after the flood, even Noah failed in his righteousness and sinned. Well our answer comes by looking at Calvary, for there hanging on the cross was one who fitted the bill perfectly, we see Jesus, he was born sinless, lived sinlessly and he was able to go as mans representative to die a substitutionary death on our behalf, he had fulfilled the law, he had lived a life of total obedience, he had lived blamelessly, he had done what was right, he had only ever spoken truth from his heart, and thus he was able to be the perfect and spotless Passover Lamb and through his atoning sacrifice he has made it possible for men and women to be able to go and to live in the LORD’S tent, to dwell in the LORD’S hill. And how? In the words of Jesus himself, ‘ I am the way, and the truth and the life, no man can come to the Father except through me’ (John 14:6) We get to God’s dwelling place through his Son, through the Lord Jesus Christ, for through his obedience many have been made righteous, meaning that the day is coming when Christ will take into the eternal presence of God, into the dwelling place of God all who have been washed and cleansed in his precious blood, made clean, made holy and in that moment when it happens we will be presented as a bride without spot and without wrinkle and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27) So, who can dwell? Only those who have come by faith to Calvary, there is no other entrance into heaven, there is no other means, no other access but through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We stand not in our own righteousness but we stand complete in his righteousness, fully and squarely on what he has done for us, and this is wonderful news, that because I am dependent upon what Christ has done, and you as a believer are dependent upon what Christ has done, we shall be found in God’s dwelling place, and we will not cause it to cease to be a holy place, because we will have been made holy, justified and sanctified by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.