Ps 15
a family resemblance
(Psalm 15)
Jason Procopio
One of the most common questions all pastors get asked is, “How can I know I am saved?”
We have a picture in our minds of what God is like—far too often, this picture is of a cruel tyrant who is just waiting to destroy anyone who isn’t perfect. And so because none of us are perfect, Christians easily doubt whether or not God actually has saved them.
Psalm 15—when taken in the context of the whole of Scripture—gives us one of the best answers to this question. Taken on its own, it’s absolutely terrifying. But when taken in the context of the whole of Scripture, its answer to that question—How can I know I’m saved?—is wonderful and multifaceted.
In this psalm, David literally asks that same question, only using a different form, and then answers his own question. This psalm was written as a celebration of the ideal worshiper of God. It’s sort of funny to realize that, because no one on the planet could sing this song and say, “That’s me! We’re singing about me!” But in singing and repeating this song, we can express a desire to become the man we see here.
So let’s look at the question first. V. 1:
1 O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
This question, to put it another way, is “Whom will God serve like a guest, and love like family? ”
The words “sojourn” and “tent” both suggest a temporary visit. What does a host do for a guest in his home? He offers hospitality, brings him something to eat and drink; he serves the guest.
The word “dwell” is far more permanent—if you dwell with someone, they’re like family (or they are family). God’s “holy hill” is the hill on which his temple stands—it is God’s home. If you dwell in God’s home, you are part of his family.
So whom will God serve like a guest, and love like family?
We’ll get to that answer, but to do it we’ll have to do something a little strange today. We’re not going any further in this psalm for a few minutes. We will get an answer to how we can know we are saved, and we’ll get it in this psalm…but we need to do some work first, in order to correctly understand that answer.
The Gospel
In v. 2-5, David gives a list of qualities that this “dweller of God’s holy hill” possesses. We’ll get to them in a little while, but even after a quick read, is there anyone here who perfectly fits that description? Of course not. That’s why this psalm would be terrifying if we took it on its own—because the answer to “Who shall dwell on God’s holy hill?” would be, “Absolutely no one.”
None of us can live like this. We are all prone to go back on our word, to say things we shouldn’t say, to vacillate in our allegiance to God, to seek our own gain over others’.
So the first answer to the question, “Who can sojourn in your tent? Who can dwell on your holy hill?” is: Only one man, in all of human history. Only one man fits this description. The Bible is incredibly clear that the only person who ever did live like this is Jesus Christ himself.
And that is the first thing we need to see and understand.
Every moral teaching in the Bible—like this one—does at least two things. They all show us what we should do, and they all highlight all the ways in which we don’t do it. They show us what the ideal looks like, and they hold a mirror up in front of us, saying, “And you’re not like that.”
In the same way, every moral teaching in the Bible shows us who Christ is for us. What do I say literally every Sunday? What is the gospel? That Christ lived the life we should have lived, in our place. When we say that, we need look no further than the moral teachings of the Bible to see what kind of life Jesus lived. Compile all of the moral teachings of the Bible into a list—Christ lived like that, in every point, without once deviating from these things.
And we must always remember that not only did Christ live this perfect, sinless life; he lived it in our place, FOR us.
He is perfect; we are imperfect and sinful (that’s what “sin” is—it’s missing the mark of God’s perfect holiness). So what did Christ do? He traded places with us.
He took our sin, our disobedience, upon himself, and suffered the punishment we deserve for that sin. And in exchange, he gave us his perfect life (this life, the life of the Psalm 15 man). He gave us his life, and clothed us in it. (That’s the image that Paul gives in Galatians 3.27: For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.) So now when God looks at us, he doesn’t stop at our sin; he sees Christ’s perfect life, which we are wearing like a cloak, and he declares us just as righteous as Christ himself.
So when the Spirit gives us faith in Christ, and we put on Christ’s perfect life, in God’s eyes we become this man; we become the ones who shall dwell in God’s tent, who shall dwell on his holy hill.
The Result of the Gospel
As far as it goes, that’s really good news. But it’s only the beginning—it just gets our foot in the door. Now we need to know what difference it makes for us today. Or, to put it another way, what’s the point in giving us all of these moral teachings, if following those teachings isn’t what saves us? If Christ was perfectly righteous for us, what’s the point of trying to be righteous ourselves?
The Bible calls us children of God, so let’s run with that image. Every parent has had this experience—your kids are independent beings, with their own likes and dislikes. But every so often, they will do something that you never taught them, that you never intentionally set before them as an option, but that is at the same time absolutely and undeniably YOU.
Zadie is three, and nearly everything about her is unexpected. Most of what she does, we have no idea where it comes from. But every once in a while, she’ll get this crazy look in her eyes, and you’ll know she’s about to do something hilarious. And every time, it’s freaky, because Loanne gets that exact same look in her eyes when she’s about to do something funny. We never taught Zadie that look—we couldn’t have if we’d wanted to, it’s too perfect—but that look proves, every bit as well as a DNA test would, that she is Loanne’s daughter.
Kids imitate their parents, without even realizing they’re doing it, because they’re members of the same family. They spend so much time observing their parents and being with them that they unconsciously do things like Mom and Dad would do. When you belong to a family, a certain family resemblance is impossible to avoid.
This is how every moral teaching in the Bible works.
We have been brought into the family of God by the finished work of Christ. It’s a done deal. We are God’s children, he is our Father, he has adopted us, and declared us righteous. We’re in.
So once we’re in, it’s no longer what we do that makes us accepted by God. Rather, what we do becomes a validation—a proof that we belong to this new family now, and that we are learning to adopt this most beautiful of family cultures. We obey because we believe that God has done this in us…and we obey because our obedience helps us to believe that he is still doing it.
You see? Christ’s obedience gives us assurance; and our obedience hammers that assurance even further home.
We see his obedience and we trust in it for our salvation; and as we see ourselves growing in obedience, learning to walk as Jesus walked, we look at our lives and say, “Wow—it’s really true! He really is doing this in me!”
And that’s how we can read and sing this psalm with absolute seriousness. Because of Christ’s perfect life given to us, God declares us to be people who can sojourn in his tent, who can dwell on his holy hill. And as residents of God’s kingdom, disciples of Christ, we slowly and surely become like our Master.
Clothed with Christ’s perfect life, filled with his Holy Spirit, we are finally free to become the man this psalm describes. When the Holy Spirit saves us, regenerates us, gives us faith in Christ and brings us to repentance, he does it all by creating in us a new nature—a nature which is free to pursue, and wants to pursue, the righteousness we see in Christ, and the righteousness we see in this psalm.
So you see, Psalm 15—and every other moral teaching in the Bible—describes two separate types of “righteousness.” It describes the perfect righteousness of Christ, in which we are now clothed—because Christ is the only man who ever lived like the man in Psalm 15. And it describes the righteousness to which God calls us as members of this family.
The Qualities of a Man of God (Psalm 15)
So all that being said: what kind of a man is Christ, and what kind of men and women does he call us to be? What do members of God’s family grow to become? That’s what Psalm 15 tells us. (Keep in mind, this list isn’t exhaustive. There are loads of other moral teachings in the Bible—like the Sermon on the Mount, for example—which give far more details about what this looks like. This is more of a general overview.)
The first quality of a man of God we see here is integrity (v. 2). Let’s read again starting at v. 1:
1 O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart…
So this person does what is right, not what is expedient. He does what is right, not what will make him most immediately happy.
“He does what is right” is the simplest description of someone who walks in obedience to God’s commands—not someone who is perfect, but who does what they know God calls them to do.
When I do baptism interviews, I always finish by asking the same question: Is there any area of your life which you have not given over to Christ? Not areas in which you struggle—we should all be struggling, fighting temptation to sin, at every moment—but areas which you knowingly hold back from Christ? “Christ, you can have this area, and this area, and this area…but this one? Very sorry, this one’s for me.”
Every Christian’s answer to that question should be no. We might struggle to give it to him, and there are surely lots of areas which we aren’t aware of, which we haven’t given to him yet. But when God makes a Christian aware of a new area of his life which he is still keeping for himself, that Christian’s reflex should be to immediately respond by saying, “I’m sorry God, I hadn’t seen that before. Please take it. Help me to follow you in this area too.”
This is what it means to do what is right. That is the first component of true integrity.
The second component is that this person is honest. He says what he means. There are no hidden meanings behind his words, no subtle hints about what they are actually thinking, that they won’t say aloud.
I’m sure you’ve all known people with whom you can have a conversation about something serious going on in your lives. And then later on, you found out they talked to someone else about that conversation, and they described it quite differently than the way it actually happened. They’re unhappy about something you said, but during the conversation they never gave you any hint that’s what they were thinking.
A person of integrity says what she means, and means what she says. Now of course there may be some things that she won’t share, for any number of reasons; but she won’t say one thing while really meaning another. If there is conflict to address, she addresses it. If there is encouragement to be given, she gives it. If she says she will do something, she does it.
The man who dwells in God’s tent is a man who has integrity.
The second quality if self-control (v. 3).
3 …who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend…
It is very important to see that David speaks of self-control in actions and in speech.
This man does no evil to his neighbor. He treats others the way God calls him to treat others (again, he does what is right, not just what will make him happy).
He does not slander with his tongue. Derek Kidner notes that “the word for slander has a background of ‘going around’, to spy things out or spread them abroad…” So it’s misrepresenting the truth in order to discredit someone else.
Now slandering is something that most Christians will recognize as wrong pretty quickly. You don’t tell lies about someone to attack their character.
But it becomes trickier when you take into account the second kind of speech David mentions here: taking up a reproach against a friend. The word “friend” here should be understood in the broad sense, like the “one another” commandments in the New Testament. David isn’t talking about refusing to say something difficult when it needs to be said. He’s talking about needlessly digging up dirt or framing a negative narrative around someone else.
Basically, the difference between the two is that in the first case, you are misrepresenting the truth so that others may look down on someone; in the second case, you are telling the truth, so that others may see them negatively, as you see them.
Let me give you a plausible scenario of how this might happen in the church (sadly, it happens quite often). Someone sins against you. You’re hurt by it, you’re bothered by it—with good reason. So when you’re together with some close friends—the people you confide in, maybe in your community group or your discipleship group—you tell them what this other person did, and how it hurt you.
Everyone understands why you would do this. You’re hurt, and you’re looking for a friendly ear, or some sympathy. It is totally natural, and totally understandable. But no matter how understandable it may be, this is not how Jesus calls us to deal with this kind of situation.
What did he say? Matthew 18.15: If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. If he doesn’t listen, then you can get someone else involved, but even then, it is in the presence of the brother who sinned against you, not in a small committee where the person can’t respond.
Christians are called to do everything in their power to maintain unity within the church (1 Peter 3.8), and the easiest way to break that unity is to paint another brother or sister in a negative way, so that other members of the church will see them differently. It creates a breach which wasn’t already there. This is especially serious if you haven’t tried to repair the unity that was broken between you and that person first.
Do you see the problem?
This runs exactly counter to what Paul tells us love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
In other words, love gives the benefit of the doubt. It takes the time to ask the question, What might this person be going through, that caused them to act in this way? Love drives us to ask thoughtful questions, not level accusations. Love drives us to go toward the sinner, not describe their sin to others. Love drives us to help the sinner heal, not distance the sinner from the brothers and sisters they need to grow.
Now don’t get me wrong: I know how difficult this is. Most of the time we do things like this, we don’t even think about it—we’re just talking and it slips out. And sometimes it can even be well-intentioned. I know I’ve said things about other people on occasion to someone I thought could help…not realizing I was wounding them.
No matter our intention, God calls us to be self-controlled in our actions and in our speech. He calls us to not cast aspersions on others, but rather to go to those with whom we have a problem, and lovingly address that problem with them.
So the man of God has integrity, self-control (in his actions and his words), and thirdly, he has commitment (v. 4).
4 …in whose eyes a vile person is despised,
but who honors those who fear the Lord,
who swears to his own hurt and does not change…
Now we need to take a second to address the beginning of this verse—this is very strong language. David says that in the eyes of the man of God, a vile person is despised.
We need to be aware that the psalms often use very strong language to denote allegiance. This language can be shocking to us—especially today in our inclusive, tolerant culture—so we need to remember the point.
The point of this strong language is to show that this man knows whose side he is on. He knows which camp he belongs to. He belongs to the Lord. He is fully and completely on God’s side, not on the side of God’s enemies. Kidner says in his commentary, “This man is not comparing himself with others, but giving his vote: declaring what he admires and where he stands.”
This is what David means when he says that this man swears to his own hurt and does not change. Because he is committed to obeying the Lord, he does what he says he will do. If he commits to obeying God, he will obey. His yes means yes, and his no means no. Unless he makes a rash commitment which would require him to sin against God (like Jephthah in Judges 11—probably the most shocking story in the whole Bible), a commitment for which he will have to repent, he keeps his word.
This man has integrity; self-control; commitment; and next: he has generosity (v. 5a-b).
5 …who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
The problem here isn’t the concept of interest, but rather the possibility of profiting from a brother’s troubles. The Law of Moses forbade any financial machinations that would allow one member of the people to profit from another’s mistakes or problems.
And that is the point. The man of God knows that everything he has, he has received from God. And so he doesn’t hold onto it so tightly, as if it came from him or fully belonged to him. People who fully understand the generosity they have received from God know how to extend it to others. They remember how God met their own needs before, and so want to see the needs of others met just as abundantly. They are not indifferent to the needs of others, because they know that God was not indifferent to theirs.
These people have integrity; self-control; commitment; generosity; and lastly, they have assurance (the end of v. 5):
He who does these things shall never be moved.
The idea of being “unable to move” in the Psalms is a statement of security. Think of the man who loves the law of the Lord in Psalm 1—he’s described as a tree planted by rivers of water. A well-fed tree has deep roots, so that when a storm comes, branches may get knocked off, leaves may fly, but the tree won’t budge.
These men and women, who dwell on God’s holy hill, have this same assurance. They know that no matter what happens, they are God’s, and they will always be God’s.
They know this, first of all, because Christ is the perfect man David describes here. Christ is the only one who has perfectly lived like this—with complete integrity, complete self-control, complete commitment to God, perfect generosity—and Christ lived like this for us. This is the righteousness we wear, which has been given to us, and God now considers us as perfect as this man—as perfect as his own Son.
And secondly, the men and women who dwell on God’s holy hill know they will not be moved because they can see these Christlike qualities growing in themselves. They can look back at their lives, see where they were, and where they are now, and know that they are becoming more like Christ. What better assurance is there than the witness of the Holy Spirit who says to our hearts, “You belong to God; you wear Christ’s perfect life”, and the growing Christlikeness they can see in their own lives?
These are those who shall sojourn in the Lord’s tend, who shall dwell on his holy hill—who are both invited as guests of God, and adopted as God’s children. As Kidner says, “The thought [of this psalm] penetrates beyond the threshold and the welcome; indeed the question of verse 1 spoke of dwelling rather than gaining admission, for the qualities the psalm describes are those that God creates in a man, not those he finds in him.”
So if you read this psalm and are discouraged, because you know how far you are from this ideal, rest assured—I feel the same way. But God doesn’t allow us to dwell with him because he finds these qualities in us; rather, he creates these qualities in us if we dwell with him. So keep pursuing the family resemblance to which you have been called. Christ did it for us, so we can do it too. Let us be men and women of integrity, self-control, commitment and generosity—and let us grow into these men and women with complete assurance, knowing that Christ paved the way for us, and that if we grow in this way, we will never be moved.
