Psalm 15:1-5
Just
how good do you have to be to get into heaven? I so often hear people talking
about being good people, as though being good could satisfy a Holy and
Righteous judge. Psalm 15 starts with a question about who is qualified to be
in God’s presence. And then the writer, probably King David, gives us examples
of what this type of person would be doing in real life. He fleshes out what
holiness looks like in several different realms.
David
starts his list of qualifications for entry into God’s presence with two
statements, two overarching principles of holy living. If we take these two
statements as actual qualifications, it would be impossible for anyone to enter
God’s presence. And I think that is David’s point. We aren’t qualified on our
own, and we never will be. No one deserves heaven, no matter how good they are,
or think they are.
The
first overarching qualification for entry is that our lives are lived in a
blameless way. I like to think of blameless in this way. If you are blameless,
no one could point their finger at you and show a fault or failure. If your
record could be examined with a fine toothed comb, there would be nothing that
would reflect poorly on the character and nature of God. So a way to think
about this is that if the LORD would be doing those things, would it be in line
with His holy, righteous character.
I
don’t know about you, but I know there are some things that I have done and
still do that miss this standard. I know that if people could examine my life,
even to the degree that I examine it, they would be able to point their fingers
at many things that don’t reflect well on the LORD. And I suspect that the same
would be true in your life.
The
next overarching qualification that David lists is that the person who enters
the LORD’s presence must do what is right, be righteous. But what does that
mean? Being righteous means that you do what is right according to the standard.
This might be hard for some in our world to accept, at least that is their
stated belief, that there are no universal standards. Some even say that there
are no standards other than individual standards which can vary from person to
person and be right for that individual.
The
main problem with not believing there are universal standards is that everyone
believes they exist when their toes get stepped on. When they are the object of
the wrong, they get all upset. But if they really believed what they say, they
wouldn’t be upset at all. They would merely say that the other person had the
right to their action, that it was right for them. But this is not what people
do. What they really mean is that they don’t want someone else imposing a
standard on them that they don’t like, that will make them uncomfortable with
their choices.
But
our Psalmist says that we must do what is right. And since we want to enter the
presence of the LORD, it is the LORD’s standards that must be met. Now I know there
are some who might run down the rabbit trail of one of the obscure Levitical laws
dealing with washing or this or that, or avoiding this or that, and that those
standards (and therefore all Biblical standards) are ridiculous and outdated. I
want to give them a big kick in the shins with my steel toed boots and ask them
if what I just did was acceptable, but I refrain myself. (There are no prohibitions
against kicking with steel toed boots in the Scriptures!)
The
LORD holds us to His standard, and not the other way around. He won’t let us
off because we chose to live our lives by ours, rather than His. And therefore,
we all fail. None of us meets the standard all the time, in every circumstance,
without qualification.
But
there is good news. Jesus did! And we can get credit for what He did.