The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): Who is worthy in the eyes of God? What are some of the characteristics of a righteous man? Today on The Bible Study Hour with Dr. James Boice, we'll explore the answers to these questions posed by David to God as we continue in our study of the Psalms.

Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. Psalm 15 is a simple psalm with much to say about what it means to live a righteous life that is pleasing to God. Listen along with us today as we deconstruct this psalm to examine the qualities and virtues of a righteous man. If you have your Bible, turn to Psalm 15.

James Boice: A short time ago, I was preaching on Romans 8:4, that text which says God saved us not merely to save us from hell, but in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met by us. I talked about that for a bit, and after I’d finished, I got a note from someone who asked the question: What are the righteous requirements of the law? What is it particularly that God requires?

It was a very good question and I answered it as you might suspect I would answer it. I said that although that word law is used in different ways in scripture, unless it’s clear that it's talking about something like a general moral law of humanity, what it usually means is a reference to the Old Testament law, the law that you have in the first five books of the Bible. If you want to be particular about that, the best summation of that is in the Ten Commandments. The rest of the Bible to one extent or another explains what those mean and apply them.

If you want a summary of the Ten Commandments, the best place to get that from is the teaching of Jesus Christ himself in what he called the first and the second great command. The first command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. A person who does that is fulfilling the first table of the law, the first of the commandments. And then the second command is to love your neighbor as yourself, and a person who does that is fulfilling the second table of the law.

So I said that's what God is looking for in us. When he saves us, it's in order that we might begin to live like that, or to put it in another language, that we might begin to live like Jesus Christ. Now, that's what Psalm 15 is all about. At the very beginning of this psalm, David asks the question, “Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?”

Sometimes commentators look at that question and they say, well, is he thinking about heaven? Is he saying, Lord, in that final day when people die, who is it that is going to be accepted into heaven? Or is he thinking about an earthly sanctuary? Is he thinking about the holy hill of Zion and he’s saying, who lives in such a way that he’s able to go up to that sanctuary and enjoy fellowship with you, that is a fellowship while he is still on earth? Probably it's the latter, though it's not necessary to distinguish the two. It's a way of saying, what is the character of the man or the woman whom God approves?

And then having asked that question in verse one, David answers it in verses two through five. He answers it in a variety of ways, and when he comes to the very end, there's a little comment on the person who actually lives this way. So in terms of an outline, this is a very simple psalm. We need to say one or two things about it, however, before we begin. I think they'll be helpful.

First of all, we have to recognize that the question he’s asking here is one that concerns godly living and not justification. You see, if you think of it in terms of justification, you say, well, is a man made right with God by doing these things? If he lives like that, is he going to be justified? And the answer is no. No one is justified except on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ. Those in the Old Testament looked forward to his coming. Those of us who live since the coming of Jesus Christ look back, and we are saved by faith in him. It's his death for us that provided for the punishment of our sins, and it's his righteousness freely offered to us that provides the basis for our justification.

This is a psalm dealing with a godly life and not with justification itself. And then there's a second thing that is helpful as we approach it, and that's to recognize that these answers that David gives are representative answers. And by that, I mean they’re not all comprehensive. What David says here in verses two through five is not everything he could say.

The reason I'm encouraged to point that out is that there are other places in the Old Testament and even in the Psalms where a similar question is asked and similar but not identical answers are given. For example, not very far on here in the Psalter in Psalm 24, you have a question which is quite similar, almost identical to what David asks in Psalm 15: “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place?”

And then he gives this answer: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.” Now, that answer is very similar to what we find in Psalm 15, but it's not identical. So you have a representative kind of answer here. Let me give you another example. In the 33rd chapter of Isaiah, you have a similar question. The question there reads this way: “Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?” And then this answer is given: “He who walks righteously and speaks what is right,” that's very close to what we find in Psalm 15, “who rejects gain from extortion and keeps his hand from accepting bribes, who stops his ears against the plots of murder.”

Again, some of those things are what we find in Psalm 15, but the answer isn't identical. And that is merely meant to suggest to us that what you have here in this psalm is representative. When you look at it, it does suggest a number of important categories and it's in those categories that we're going to study it. One more preliminary thing before we plunge in, and it comes about in answer to this question: how many characteristics is David speaking about?

Some of the older commentators have analyzed it and they say, well, there are ten things that you're to do. And they like that, I suppose, because the number of ten reminds them of the Ten Commandments and they say, well, here's ten commandments for somebody who would live a godly life. Another commentator finds eleven, some find seven or whatever. I suppose it depends on what they think of biblical symbolism of numbers.

I want to suggest that the way to approach it is in terms of the style. In order to do that, I want to say something about the chief characteristic of Hebrew verse, which is parallelism—that is, one thing repeated in a second line. Said once and then repeated. You know in English verse, our chief characteristics are meter and rhyme. All our lines in normal verse have the same number of feet or beats, and then we have some kind of rhyme, usually at the end.

Now, you do have free verse that doesn't have that, and that's become particularly common in contemporary verse, but most of the poetry you and I know follows that pattern. The lines go along in a certain kind of meter and then there's a rhyme at the end. Sometimes it's AA and BB and CC, and sometimes it's AB AB, and sometimes it's ABC ABC. It varies in all sorts of ways, but you expect the rhyme usually.

That does not exist in Hebrew. There is something a little bit like meter—not what we mean by meter, but there are sometimes certain stresses in a Hebrew line. So a characteristic line might have two stresses and then the next line will have two stresses. That's something like meter, but they don't have rhyme at all. And as I said, what the characteristic feature of Hebrew verse is is this parallel construction.

Now, I mention that because that's what we have here, and we have a lot of it. We've had it before. As I say, if it's characteristic of Hebrew verse and we've been looking at it through fourteen psalms, we've undoubtedly seen it before and I've called attention to it before. But here you really do have some clear examples, and this is important to understand the answers David gives.

Let me just say something about different kinds of parallel construction. It varies as you might expect, and it's from the variation that you get the interest in the verse. The most obvious kind of parallel would be where you say something once and then you say it all over again, but in slightly different words. That's really what you have in verse two: “He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous.” Slightly different words, but that is very much saying almost the same thing.

Sometimes you have an alternative, you have a contrast. He does this and he doesn't do that. And that's what you have in the next couplet, which is the second half of verse two and the first half of verse three: “who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue.” It's obviously in the same area. It's speaking of the same characteristics. It has to do with speech, but the one is positive and the other is negative.

Sometimes you have a construction where something is said and then in the repeat in the second line, it's added to, not merely repeated. That would be the construction A, but not only A, also B. And you find that, you see, you find it in that little shortened one, the second half of verse four: “who keeps his oath even when it hurts.” That's a kind of parallel construction. It's incomplete. I'm going to say something about that later, but the second half of that adds to the first part. He not only keeps his oath, he does what he says he’s going to do, but he does it even when it's to his disadvantage. Now, you have that kind of thing in Hebrew verse and it's interesting to study it.

The reason I point that out here is that when you recognize that these are all little sets of parallels, little pairs of lines, couplets, you begin to recognize that that's the outline for the answer to David's question. He asks the question: Who may dwell in your sanctuary or live in your holy hill? And then he gives six little pairs, and each little pair has to do with a characteristic.

Now, when you see that, it's easy to determine what he’s saying. The first has to do with the approved man's character. The second has to do with the approved man's speech. The third has to do with his conduct. The fourth with his values. The fifth with his integrity. And the sixth with his use of money. And after he gets through those six things, he has the little line with which the psalm ends.

Now, let's look at it in those terms. First of all, his character: “He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous.” Now, at first glance, when we look at that, that seems to be the kind of parallel where you have a contrast. The first is negative, he is blameless—without blame, we would say—and the second is positive, he does what is righteous. Actually, you couldn't have in the Hebrew a more perfect parallel than this because that first word, “blameless,” doesn't really have quite the negative idea that it does in our minds. Without blame, no blame, without flaw, no flaws. It rather means what we would mean if you're talking about something without flaws. We would say, well, it's a perfect thing, it's whole, right? That's the idea behind that word, “blameless.”

So what that really says is, here's a man whose walk is whole or sound, and he does what is righteous. I guess our way of saying it would be that he is well-rounded and well-grounded. Well-rounded because he’s not just perfect in one area, he’s complete in all areas. You can't say, here's a person who has a very good characteristic and we admire him for that, but then he has three or four serious flaws that greatly weaken what he is. Here's a person who is well-rounded, and moreover, he’s grounded in the sense that he is this without being shaken. You can count on him to be that way day after day and year after year. This is the characteristic of the righteous man.

Now, I said that the second half of a couplet in this kind of construction repeats what's said before, but it doesn't mean it just repeats it without any addition whatsoever. And here, although the second of these two lines is saying the same thing that the first line is, there is an additional idea and it's found in that verb “does,” who does what is righteous.

In other words, here's a man who doesn't just have, as we would say, a passive moral character. Here's somebody who actually acts righteously, who does what is just. You'll recall, to use a New Testament idea, that the Lord, when he was speaking about this kind of a person, said this is the kind of person who feeds the hungry and clothes the naked and gives drink to those who are thirsty and visits those who are in prison and takes care of those who are sick. Now, that's what David is saying here. He’s saying the character that God approves, the kind of people he likes, are those who are upright and who actually do righteousness, they do good deeds.

The second couplet talks about the approved man's speech. It says he speaks the truth from his heart and he has no slander on his tongue. Now, that's a contrast, the opposite of the first. The first it's parallel, the second is a contrast. And it says on the positive side, he speaks the truth, and it says on the negative side, he doesn't slander anybody. I have to make a few comments there, one having to do with truth.

When we talk about truth, we usually simply mean that which corresponds to reality—truth as opposed to error or falsehood. That's involved in the Jewish idea of truth, but the Jewish idea of truth is more. It's not only that which is true as opposed to that which is false, but that which is true in the sense that you can rely on it. Our closest approximation of the idea would be trustworthy.

Now, give you some examples of that. That word is used of God. God is a God of truth, said Jesus Christ. Used of Jesus Christ himself; he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” It's used of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is called a Spirit of truth. It's used of the Word of God; Jesus said, “Sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth.” Now, why is that? Why is the word chiefly characteristic of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Bible? Well, because these are things on which we can rely.

You say, does it mean truth as opposed to falsehood? Yes, of course it involves that. God always speaks the truth. But you see, in addition, the Hebrew being richer in this area than our speech, it means you can count on God. Now, that's what David is saying here. He wants the man who is a man according to God's own heart, or a woman according to God's own heart, to be someone upon whom you can rely. Do they speak truth? Oh, yes. When they speak to you, they're telling it like it is. They're not trying to pretend to be one thing when they're actually something else. They're not using words to manipulate you. They're not trying to put on a false face. It's straightforward.

But simply because it is that way, their word is something you can rely on. You can go away saying, if they said they'd do it, I know they'll do it. That's the kind of character God approves. The third of these couplets, “who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man,” is talking about conduct. It's almost parallel itself to the second of the couplets, but it does go beyond it, you see.

You can say if you're not slandering somebody and you're speaking the truth about them, you're not wronging them. And of course that's true, but it goes beyond it because I think in this sense it is passing beyond words to action. You see, slander is something you do against somebody else by words. But when you get to the next couplet, it says and does his neighbor no wrong. That is moving over into the area of action. You don't actually do anything that hurts the other person.

Somebody will say, well, how about this matter of casting a slur? Doesn't that involve words? Well, it may, but not necessarily. And I think in the context, since the motion goes the way it does, that it probably involves something quite in addition to words. It's true you can slur somebody by speaking rudely to them, but you can also act that way. You can snub them. Somebody that you think isn't very important or somebody whom you look down on, you can treat them—we say treat them like dirt. You can be mean to them. You can ignore them. That happens at work, perhaps. It might happen in a social context.

David says God doesn't like that kind of conduct. That is not the way the Lord Jesus Christ, our model, treated other people. He never slandered other people, and he did not cast slurs on them either by speech or by action. And so we're to follow him.

The fourth of these has to do with values. I would say to put it in our own terms that it has to do with models. You see, the couplet says, “who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord.” That doesn't mean he despises a vile man's existence to the extent that he wouldn't do any good to him, because the verses immediately before that would contradict it. Or if he had a chance to lead him in the right way, wouldn't try to do it. Or if we put it in a New Testament context to preach the gospel to him, would refuse to do it because the man is vile. That's the very person who needs the gospel. It's not talking about that.

But it's saying rather his vileness is not something that the godly man admires. Rather, he despises the vile conduct, and by contrast, he honors those who fear the Lord. I think this matter of models is very, very important today and especially among the young. Some years ago, a couple of years ago now, the Canadian government did a study of the young to see what their values were and see if they couldn't put some of the data that came out of the study into the educational system in Canada.

And they found out a number of interesting things, among them the fact that the youth in our day generally have no heroes. Nobody they look up to. That's kind of a hard thing for many of us who are older to understand because when we were growing up, we did have heroes. And we do have heroes. We had people we looked up to and we wanted to be like them. And to some extent, the kind of character we have and the things we're doing today have to do with those who were our models. I had preachers who were models, and when I entered into the ministry, what they did and the way they did it became a model for me. Not copying them slavishly, but that was something you wanted to do.

And I think probably during my years in seminary, the fact that I had models of godly ministers who believed the word and knew how to teach it really kept me from a number of the errors with which I was surrounded during those days. We have that, but the young today really don't. And because they don't have models, nobody they're trying to be like, they're more or less adrift morally, socially, and spiritually.

I think that's a product of the secularization of our culture. I'm sure you have heard me say before, speaking about Psalm 8—I did it as part of this series—that we have this mediating position in the universe where we are lower than the heavenly beings and higher than the beasts. And it's our privilege to look up beyond the heavenly beings to God, and if we look to God, become like God. I began to think about that in terms of what David is saying here, and I realized it's not just a question only of looking up to God. There are also human beings we should look up to, those who have achieved and have done that which is good, who fear the Lord.

And they become our models. When we don't look up, if we don't have even human models, well, the same thing happens in that area that happens spiritually: we end up looking down to those who are not models at all, who are bad models, and we become like them. The only thing worse, I think, than having no models at all is having bad models.

And if there's any way in which I would reflect on the Canadian study and say how are things actually happening today, it would be by saying many of the young, unfortunately, not only have no models, but they have bad models. If you say who do you want to be like, what they think of are the rock stars, who have abominable lives in most cases, but who are rich and famous. And they think, well, I'd like to be like that. Or even worse, in some areas of our city, who are the heroes? The heroes are the crack dealers because they walk around in flashy clothes and they have expensive jewelry, and the young say, well, that's what I'd like to be like. That's sad, you see, when a culture comes to that point.

But that's what's happening in our age. David says the person God admires is the one who despises the vile man, the vileness, but who honors those who fear the Lord. The fifth of these couplets is what I referred to earlier as an incomplete couplet. The way it reads, it's just one sentence: “who keeps his oath even when it hurts.” But you have to understand that little elements are dropped out there. If that were made into a perfect couplet, it would go like this: “who keeps his oath at all times and who doesn't break his word even when it hurts.” That's the way the parallel would go.

When it's foreshortened, as it is here, parts being dropped out, it's to heighten one of the elements, and in this case, the element it heightens is the second: even when it hurts. You see, it's easy to keep your oath when it doesn't hurt. If it's to your advantage, well, people do keep contracts and promises and covenants and their word. It's when the situation changes and you find that what you've promised to do or covenanted to do or signed a contract to do isn't to your advantage that then you want to try to get out of it.

And that's what's happening today. Contracts in our day hardly mean a thing anymore because somebody will always find some reason why they didn't quite understand the circumstances when they signed it, and so they try to get out of it. It's a breakdown of the moral system, the legal system in our time. But you see, those whom God approves are people who stick by their word even when it hurts, even when it produces unhappiness, even when there is financial loss. It does not put the person's own individual prosperity or happiness above all else. You see, David says that's the kind of character God honors.

And then there's the last thing that has to do with the use of money. It's interesting how practical the Bible is; doesn't leave it out there just in terms of abstract moral concepts. It gets as nitty-gritty as what you do with the money you receive in your paycheck every month. “Who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.”

I say this has to do with the use of money because as I study this matter of usury in the Bible, I'm convinced it's not just usury itself that's involved. When you go back to the passages in the Old Testament, and there are a number of them, you'll find that although there are some that just talk about lending your money for interest, there are always qualifications. A person living under the Old Testament system could loan to somebody outside the system; a Jew could loan to a Gentile, so it wasn't usury per se that was involved.

And usually, when it forbids usury to a member of the Jewish race, it says because you're taking advantage of him in his poverty. You see, that's what's involved. It's not using money in a legitimate way for business operations. I would suggest that our Lord's parable about the talents even suggests that that's possible. The man received the talents and he put it out to usury and he profited from it, and when the master came back, he had a profit. I would suggest that that's not the problem at all.

The problem is really what we find in Nehemiah. We saw it when we studied it. There you had a situation where the exiles were all struggling together to do something extremely difficult, to build the walls for their own defense and to reconstitute the city. While that was going on, while they were all supposed to be struggling together and working together and sacrificing, those who had means were taking advantage of those who were poor among their brethren.

And they came to Nehemiah and they complained. They said, we're trying to do our best, but we don't have the money to pay the king's taxes. There are certain things we have to do, we don't even have money to eat, and our brethren are loaning us the money, but it's at such high rates that we're being impoverished and we find that we even have to sell our sons and daughters into slavery to settle the debt. And Nehemiah, who wouldn't stop the building of the wall for all the threats of all the heathen in the countries round about, stopped it at that point.

Because he said, there's no use building a wall to defend the city if what's inside the walls isn't worth defending. And he wouldn't go ahead until he got it all straightened out. You see, he was concerned not with the usury, but to whom the money was lent and for what purpose. He was not going to allow that to be used to harm those who were in need.

And then there's the final element: it says, “and doesn't accept a bribe against the innocent.” There, you see, the greed involves justice also. Hugh Latimer, one of the great bishops of the church, said in one of his writings: if a judge should ask me what is the quickest path to hell, I would tell him it's in these words: become covetous, accept bribes, and pervert justice. And he said, I can't even think of a fourth thing to add to it. Now, that's what David is talking about here. The godly man does not do that.

And what's the result? Well, he asked the question at the beginning: “Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?” This is the kind of person that can have fellowship with God. If we put it in terms of our sacraments, this is the kind of person who can approach the communion table. His heart is open before the Lord, he’s confessed his sin, he’s trying to live a godly life. What does David say as he closes about such a person? Not only that he will have fellowship with God and dwell in heaven in the final day, but the one who does these things will never be shaken.

What does he mean by that? Aren't the righteous ever shaken? Apparently, because David's talked about it himself—all the troubles the righteous go through. Shaken, yes, but you see, what David means is not shaken loose. Rattled, but not knocked out. Knocked down, but not eliminated from the contest. Because God who is faithful to his own people is faithful to those who live for him. We want to be like that, and I ask the question: are we? Let's examine our hearts on the basis of that study.

Let us pray. Our Father, do take these things home to our hearts. It's easy for us to read and then dismiss, especially in the area where it applies to us most effectively. We would ask you to do in our hearts by your spirit what we tend not to do to ourselves, don't want to do. Use this for good, we pray, in order that we might grow and might become increasingly like Jesus. For we pray in his name, amen.

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