There is a difference between worship considered as the habitual service of the good,—the appearing before God of those of “clean hands” and “pure hearts,” who are living in moral sympathy with him,—and the approach to his footstool, in shame and tears, of the guilty and the penitent. It is the worship and character of the former class that are contemplated in the description of the psalm before us; which description, with the demand involved in it, to be fully and theologically understood, must be looked at in connexion with the entire service of the Hebrew Institute, and the whole teaching of the sacred volume. If a holy God can only be approached by holy worshippers,—and that, too, in a world of which holiness is not the natural and characteristic attribute,—it is very obvious, that he must either remain without ever being worshipped at all, or some mode must exist by which the inhabitants of such a world may be made holy. Now this is just the thing which the Jewish dispensation illustrated by a figure, and which the Christian redemption is given to the world to realize in fact.
The Jewish dispensation approached men, in the first instance, as sinful and polluted, and it established a system adapted to their necessities. It set up its altar,—prescribed its sacrifices,—appointed its institutions,—consecrated its priesthood;—had its days of atonement, and its ark of propitiation,—its paschal lamb, and its burnt offering, and its scape-goat, and its sprinkling of blood;—with everything else that could either significantly presuppose sin, or point to the necessity and the mode of its removal. The Hebrew worshipper, in appearing before God, was first required to come into contact with the sacrifice and the priest;—he confessed offence, acknowledged his just exposure to punishment, brought his propitiation, and then, being purified from his ceremonial transgressions and the consequent disqualifications he had contracted, by this appointed method of approach to God, he was regarded as in a state of fitness for his worship, and could thus draw nigh as an accepted worshipper.
Now, there was a moral meaning in this ritual arrangement. It was intended to teach that, as ceremonial impurity needed to be removed in order to acceptable outward service,—so, spiritual guilt needed to be removed in order to acceptable spiritual worship. When the psalm before us, therefore, or any other, expatiates on the virtues and excellences of the man who is permitted “to ascend into the hill of the Lord,” or allowed “to stand in his holy place,” it is always implied, that he has come to the attainment of the character described, by a process of pardon and of purification through the previous exercise of the Divine mercy.
But, it is to be remarked, that the Levitical Institute, while so fully set forth and impressively taught the two great truths of the sinfulness of man, and the necessity for some Divinely appointed mode both for his reconciliation with God and the renewal or sanctification of his nature, did not reveal, completely and explicitly, what that mode was, or what it was to be. It dimly foreshadowed it;—it indicated the principle on which it would proceed, and the parts of which it would consist;—but it did this by type and symbol,—anticipating, in a picture, the substance and reality that were one day to be revealed. It was very evident, from the Hebrew Institute, considered as a Divine and intelligible appointment, that men were to learn from it that their approach to God was to be marked by solemn and affecting peculiarities. They were distinctly taught that they needed to be redeemed, reconciled, pardoned, purified, in order that they might be able to rejoice at the remembrance of God’s holiness, or to appear before him as acceptable worshippers; and they were further taught, that in order to this,—that is, to their attainment of pardon and its attendant advantages,—it was incumbent that atonement should be made by sacrifice, and that the priest should pass into the Divine presence with the blood of the victim, to bring thence, and through it, the blessings needed by sinful humanity.
St. Paul tells us, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the Levitical Institute taught this, and that it was intended to teach it; that is, that it taught what it was that humanity needed. But he tells us more than that; he tells us that it also taught that this thing that was so needed, and so wished for, was not yet revealed, that it was not provided by the Institute itself, in its own altar, victim, or priesthood,—and would not be manifested so long as itself stood; or, at least, that the coming of it, as it would be the fulfilment of what the Institute foreshadowed or foretold, would be the signal and means of its dissolution and departure. By the fact of sacrifice, and the sprinkling of blood, and the washings and purifications of their own ceremonial, the apostle says it was evidently taught, that there existed a necessity for the removal of sin and the cleansing of the conscience; but then, by the repetition of the sacrifices, the annual return of the day of atonement, and the mysterious darkness of the holy of holies,—excluded from sight by the awful veil, and permitted to be approached only once a year, and that only by one individual,—by all this, he says, it was equally taught, that Judaism did not accomplish for man, what it informed him needed to be done. The first covenant had ordinances of divine service,—a sanctuary—a veil—the tabernacle which is the holiest of all. Now, into this, the high priest alone went, “once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people. The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not made manifest, while the first tabernacle was yet standing: which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience: which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.”
Now, this typical and temporary character sustained by the Jewish Institute,—this parabolic and preparatory office which it had to fulfil,—this suggesting merely, or setting forth in a figure, of the wants of humanity and of the principle which must pervade, underlie, and distinguish the provision that must meet them,—this prophetic announcement that priest and sacrifice were yet future, but were certain to come,—all this, while it shows the importance of attending to the connexion between the Old and the New Testaments, and of mutually interpreting each by the other, gives, of necessity, to the more spiritual portions of the Hebrew records a far-stretching and comprehensive meaning, which can only be understood by looking at it in the light of the Christian revelation. “Coming events cast their shadows before.” The whole of the fabric and furniture of the tabernacle were constructed and arranged upon this principle. This principle was recognised and embodied in the utterances of the prophets;—it often pervaded the entire texture, or appeared in parts, of one or other of the psalms and songs of the ancient church. In looking at the intention and significancy of Judaism, we should imagine ourselves gazing on the floor of the temple and the front of the veil,—observing them covered with flickering shadows falling from objects which are unseen. There they lie,—the distinct outlines of thing and person,—the shadows of substances which are existing somewhere, but which only, as yet, give notice that they are, by this insubstantial intimation of themselves. In the holy of holies, there is the mysterious light of the glory of God seated between the cherubims;—between that and the hanging veil and the sacred floor, some one must be standing, whom, as yet, we see not,—for his shadow can be discerned on the veil itself, and even on the floor, as we mark minutely the appearances before us of light and shade. Some one is preparing to appear, and to be revealed, and manifested, in whose hands will be found the substance of those other objects whose shadows seem to be lying around us!—The approaching events are thus prophetically announced by these dim outlines; and, while they are being so, voices are heard from the great congregation, uttering an equally prophetic song,—celebrating the glories of what they see, but doing it in language which only finds its intended significance when applied to and associated with what they see not.
On this principle it is, then, that we have prophetic psalms;—psalms that are termed Messianic, from their referring to the Messiah, and anticipating his appearance, his sufferings and death, his resurrection and ascension, his kingdom and glory. Some of these refer, in their primary application, to other individuals and to mundane events;—they express the feelings and anticipations of the writers in relation to themselves, and they describe matters of immediate concern or recent occurrence; but they do this in language that admits of a deeper meaning and a larger range;—the import of which they that employed it might not know, and which we only learn from the New Testament expositors of the Hebrew text. When Jesus “opened the understandings of the apostles, that they might understand the Scriptures;” and when he condescended to show them the true meaning of their ancient books, he expounded to them, it is said, “What was written in the law, in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning himself.” The evangelists and the apostles, in their future writings for the instruction and use of the Christian church, used this knowledge, or similar knowledge from the same source; and thus it is, that we find quotations from so many of the psalms,—some in the Gospels, some in the Acts, others in the Epistles of Peter and Paul. From one psalm the apostle takes the expression of man being made “a little lower than the angels,” to express the fact of Christ’s coming in the flesh, with the objects and results of it;—that “he was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, that he might taste death for every man.” From another psalm, he applies language still stronger, to the same purpose. “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: lo! I come to do thy will, O God.” The apostle’s comment upon this is very remarkable. Having quoted the passage, he proceeds to reason upon it after this manner:—When he says, “Sacrifice and offering, which are offered by the law, thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein, and then says, ‘Lo! I come to do thy will;’ he takes away the first that he may establish the second.” That is, he removes and puts aside the mere symbols of the preparatory dispensation, which were inefficient and typical, and reveals the reality, which they were meant to announce, and which they prophetically foreshadowed. That reality was the Divine “will” in its ultimate object, namely, “The offering of the body of Christ” “once for all,” “through the eternal Spirit,” “without spot;” by the which offering, we are saved and sanctified;—for it can do that for the heart and conscience which the others only showed to be necessary by what they did “for the purifying of the flesh.” From another psalm may be collected the physical circumstances of the crucifixion,—the “cruel mockings,” the “piercing of the hands and the feet,” the “parting of the garments and casting lots;” together with the anticipated mysterious utterances of the great sufferer, in his “bloody sweat,” and his mighty anguish! In another psalm, we find the resurrection;—the soul of Messiah is “not left in Hades,” the place of the dead, nor does “his body” in the grave, “see corruption;” and in other psalms, we find the foreshadowing of subsequent events:—his ascension into heaven; his official position, and mediatorial glories and functions, there; with much that relates to the corresponding effect of all this on earth:—“Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee”:—“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” “The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedek.” “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed:—Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them.” Now, this latter passage is to be particularly observed. It is a passage taken from one of the psalms,—a psalm sung at the removal of the ark, like the twenty-fourth, and which, like it, is taken up in the celebration of battle and war, victory and conquest. It is to be noticed, then, that the passage just quoted, is applied by the apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, to the ascension of Christ, and is connected by him with the work which he came from heaven to accomplish, and the blessings which he returned to heaven to dispense. “Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended, is the same also as he that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things). And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come, in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”
These last remarks will have revealed the drift of this long discussion, and will enable us now rapidly to bring it to a close. By “reasoning out of the Scriptures,” we have shown how the Levitical dispensation was, in its rites and usages, preparatory and prophetic of something to come;—by distinct passages from the Book of Psalms, as quoted and explained in the New Testament, we have shown how the hymns of the ancient church anticipated, by their recondite and profounder meaning, the same things that were foreshadowed in the ritual;—and, in the concluding remarks on this point, we have shown, how the apostle illustrates the ascension of Messiah, after successful battle and war—returning from conquest and crowned with victory—by referring to the words of a Hebrew Psalm. In the same way, then, we think ourselves entitled to connect the 24th Psalm with the mission of the Messiah, and to consider that the close of it, if not an intended prophecy of his ascension, is yet capable of being regarded as illustrative of it; and that it should suggest therefore the propriety of adding to whatever truths of a general nature the first verses of the psalm may embody, the specific peculiarities of the Christian revelation,—that revelation to which all previous discoveries were preparatory, and without which they cannot be complete. There is an emphatic sense, in which Christ is “the King of glory;” in which he is to be regarded as having being engaged in mortal combat,—contending with the enemy of God and man,—overcoming him in a way as mysterious as it was successful—by yielding himself to be “bruised for our iniquities,” and “stricken for our sins;” and that, “after having by himself purged our sins,”—after having, in the nature he had assumed, “presented himself an offering and a sacrifice,” that we might obtain “eternal redemption through his blood,”—he rose again from the dead, proclaiming his triumph over sin and Satan, by showing that it was “not possible for him to be holden” of Death; and further, that “he ascended up on high,”—entered into heaven, whose “everlasting gates” opened to receive him, as one who was “leading captivity captive,” and who came to ask and “to receive gifts for men.” All this we are warranted in connecting with the ideas which have already passed before us, of the supremacy of God, the duty of worship and the character of his worshippers, and of finding in it the evangelical element in which such ideas need to be baptized. God is; God is to be worshipped; God is holy; they must be holy who habitually approach him;—but “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God:” “every mouth must be stopped, for the whole world is guilty before Him.” “Who, then, shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place?”—They, certainly, who have “clean hands” and “a pure heart,” but—who have first “made a covenant with God by sacrifice;”—who have accepted Him, whom he hath “set forth as a propitiation,” and “whose blood cleanseth from all sin;”—who, as sinners, draw nigh in his name, who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and without whom “no man cometh unto the Father;”—they who, believing in Him “who died, rose again, and continues to live,” and “who hath ascended up on high that he might fill all things,” have “received out of his fulness even grace for grace”;—have obtained the pardon of actual sin, and have received the gift of the sanctifying Spirit which the Redeemer is emphatically exalted to bestow;—they who, by the subjective operation of the truth, are “washed, and justified, and sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God;” and who know, by experience, that “the grace of God which bringeth salvation, teaching them, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, they should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world.” “This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face O God of Jacob.” “These receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of their salvation.” “They that do these things, shall never be moved.”
In this way, then, by taking the first verse of the psalm before us, which constitutes the inscription on the Royal Exchange, and looking at it in connexion with the whole composition of which it is a part, and by looking at that, also, in connexion with the religious institution it belonged to, and the entire revelation of both Testaments, as gradually developing the great system of mercy and mediation,—in this way, we are taught to associate with the general truths of an elementary Theism,—which is all that at first appear to be proclaimed,—the specific truths of an Evangelical Christianity. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof;”—this simple declaration of the primary principle of all religion, when placed in the light emanating from the whole constellation of discoveries which surround it in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, is seen to involve in it, not only the existence, the government, and the worship, of a personal God, but the reality and the functions, the work and the presidency, of a personal Redeemer. They that “ascend into the hill of the Lord, and that stand with acceptance in his holy place,” must be holy because God is holy; but it were terrible to make this demand upon humanity, which is altogether deformed and dislocated, and that manifests everywhere, when it thinks of God, that its next thought is that God is against it,—it were terrible, we say, to make this demand, if there came not along with it, the proclamation of the offer, and the announcement of the Divine method, of forgiveness,—the “reconciliation” effected by him who triumphed over sin by the death of the cross, and who ascended up on high in the might of his achievement, to be at once the medium of our access to God, and the Divine Distributor of the blessings of his salvation. Men, as men—that is, as sinners—are to believe the gospel, and to accept of Christ, that, by faith and repentance, spiritually “entering into the holiest of all, through the way he has consecrated for them by his blood,” they may be constituted the church; and then, being the church,—that is, sinful men justified and sanctified through him,—they are “to bring forth the fruits of the spirit” in their lives, and habitually to worship “in the beauty of holiness.” The virtue that we demand in the worshippers of God, under the rule of the Christian dispensation, is the virtue that flows from religious faith; that faith being, the exercise of trust in the redemption of the gospel. To have “clean hands” and “a pure heart,”—to be sincere and upright in lip and life—we exact of all men as their daily duty; but in order to possess these in a proper manner, so that they shall be vital, Christian holiness, and not a superficial and secular virtue, there is a previous duty which behoves to be attended to,—the submission of the mind to the faith of Christ,—penitent approach to an offended God through the one divinely-appointed Mediator, “in whom we have redemption, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.” Being “made partakers of the Divine nature,” through the influence of the quickening and sanctifying Spirit, they will then not only have “their fruit unto holiness,” and cultivate, from the force of a necessary law, and as impelled by a regal and irrepressible instinct, “whatsoever things are just, and whatsoever things are pure, and whatsoever things are true, and whatsoever things are lovely and of good report,” but they will be a part of “the priesthood of God,” endowed and consecrated by an unction from himself, that, in the various acts and exercises of the Church, they may constantly offer up “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to him by Jesus Christ.” These engagements, again, will re-act on their personal character, and have a constant tendency to advance and elevate it, and help their attainment of a practical perfection. In this way, men, first “having obtained like precious faith” with the Apostles, “in the righteousness of God, and of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ;” will be divinely taught the secret of a real and accumulative excellence. “Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world through lust,” they will “give all diligence to add to their faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity.”