The psalm answers it in an instructive fashion, which we take as it
stands. 'He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.' Let me measure
myself by the side of that requirement. 'Clean hands?'--are mine clean?
'And a pure heart?'--what about mine? 'Who hath not lifted up his soul
unto vanity'--and where have my desires and thoughts so often gone? 'Nor
sworn deceitfully.' These are the qualifications that our psalm dashes
down in front of us when we ask the question.
The other two occasions to which I have referred, where the same
question is put, give substantially the same answer. It might be
interesting, if one had time, or this was the place, to look at the
differences in the replies, as suggesting the slight differences in the
ideal of a good man as presented by the various writers, but that must
be left untouched now. Taking these four conditions that are laid down
here, we come to this, that psalmist and prophet with one voice say that
same solemn thing: 'Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.'
There is no faltering in the answer, and it is an answer to which the
depths of conscience say 'Yes.' We all admit, when we are wise, that for
communion with God on earth, and for treading the golden pavements of
that city into which nothing that is unclean shall enter, absolute
holiness is necessary. Let no man deceive himself--that stands the
irreversible, necessary condition.
Well, then, is anybody to go in? Let us read on in our psalm. An
impossible requirement is laid down, broad and stern and unmistakable.
But is that all? 'He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and
righteousness from the God of his salvation.' So, then, the impossible
requirement is made possible as a gift to be received. And although I do
not know that this psalmist, in the twilight of revelation, saw all that
was involved in what he sang, he had caught a glimpse of this great
thought, that what God required, God would give, and that our way to get
the necessary, impossible condition realised in ourselves is to
'receive' it. 'He shall receive ... righteousness from the God of his
salvation.' Now, do you not see how, like some great star, trembling
into the field of the telescope, and sending arrowy beams before it to
announce its approach, the great central Christian truth is here
dawning, germinant, prophesying its full rising? And the truth is this,
'that I might be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, but that
which is of God through Christ.' Ah, brethren! impossibilities become
possible when God comes and says, 'I give thee that which thou canst not
have.' The old prophet asked the question, 'What doth God require of
thee?' and his answer was, 'That thou shouldst do justice, and love
mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.' If he had gone on to ask a better
question, 'What does God give thee?' he would have said what all the New
Testament says, 'He gives what He commands, and He bestows before He
requires.' And so in Jesus Christ there is the forgiveness that blots
out the past, and there is the new life bestowed that will develop the
righteousness far beyond our reach. And thus the question which evoked
first the answer that might drive us to despair, evokes next a response
that commands us to hope.
But that is not all, for the psalm goes on: 'This is the generation of
them that seek Him, that seek Thy face.' Yes; couched in germ there lies
in that last word the great truth which is expanded in the New
Testament, like a beech-leaf folded up in its little brown sheath
through all the winter, and ready to break and give out its green
plumelets as soon as the warm rains and sunshine of spring come. 'They
that seek Him'--'if thou seek Him He will be found of thee.' The
requirement of righteousness, as I have said, is not abolished by the
Gospel, as some people seem to think that it substitutes faith for
righteousness; but it is made possible by the Gospel which through faith
gives righteousness. And what the Psalmist meant by 'seeking' we
Christian people mean by 'faith.' Earnest desire and confident
application to Him are sure to obtain righteousness. To these there will
never be returned a refusing answer. 'I have never said to any of the
seed of Jacob, seek ye Me in vain.' So, brethren! if we seek we shall
receive; if we receive we shall be holy, if we are holy we shall dwell
with God, in sweet and blessed communion, and be denizens of His house,
and sit together in heavenly places with Him all the days of our lives,
and then shall pass, when 'goodness and mercy have followed us all the
days of our lives,' and 'dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.'