Who Gets to Stay with the Lord in His Place?
A Meditation on Psalm 15
As a former hotelier, I am very familiar with people checking into a place that is not their own. The time that guests reside at the hotel (whether a night or a month) is considered a stay. During this stay the guest is able to enjoy the hospitality of the ones who own, manage, and labor at the hotel.
When the guest arrives at the hotel to check in, they will be asked if they have a reservation. Without a reservation a person runs the risk of not being able to stay.
In Psalm 15 the psalmist poses the question as to who gets to stay with the Lord in his place.
O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
—Psalm 15:1
You will notice pretty much the same question is asked twice in this verse. The psalms often use this style of what we call parallelism. That is a statement is made, and then to help us understand it, a parallel statement is made using different words. Who shall sojourn in your tent is repeated as who shall dwell on your holy hill. To sojourn is to dwell. His tent is his holy hill or his tent on his holy hill. This gives us a picture of God’s house on the mount.
It is there that God’s people would gather to worship the Lord. While different in many ways, we might ask about gathering to worship the Lord with God’s people on each Lord’s Day. We can also see a foreshadowing to Jesus telling his disciples that he was going to prepare them a place in his Father’s house.
Like the parallel structure for the question, the answer is also given in parallel form using couplets (two statements that go together). Six of these couplets complete the picture of the one who can stay with the Lord.
The first couplet serves as a summary of the remaining ones.
Primary Answer Couplet:
He who walks blamelessly and does what is right.
—Psalm 15:2
To walk blamelessly is do what is right. To do what is right is to walk blamelessly.
The football coach Lou Holtz was known for instilling in his teams what became known as the Do Right Rule. This rule was the overarching rule for the players. In whatever situation you find yourself, do right.
But Lou Holtz didn’t invent this rule. It’s right here in the 15th Psalm. The remaining couplets give us a pretty good picture of areas to focus on doing right. So, what are the things that are right to do?
1. Do right with your tongue.
And speaks truth in his heart,
who does not slander with his tongue.
—Psalm 15:2-3
This parallel statement presents the opposite ends of the use of our tongues. On one end we are to speak truth. Opposite of that we are not to slander.
2. Do right by those in proximity to you.
And does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
—Psalm 15:3
If you have a question about the identity of your neighbor, you might want to read Luke 10:25-37. By using both neighbor and friend in this psalm, we are to do right by those in proximity whether by relation or geography.
3. Do right to others based on how they honor the LORD.
In whose eyes a vile person is despised,
but who honors those who fear the LORD;
—Psalm 15:4
Yes, we are to love our enemies, but we are not to mistake that for celebrating the vile things that person does.
4. Do right no matter the personal cost.
Who swears to his own hurt
and does not change;
—Psalm 15:4
This gives us the idea that we commit to doing what we say even if it hurts. Or even if it costs us.
We are not going to change by doing right some of the time. A consistency should exist in our lives.
5. Do right with your money.
Who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
—Psalm 15:5
How we use our money reflects what we think about those who are tough situations. We should never seek to profit off of other people’s (especially other Christians) difficulties.
In the end doing right in these areas will not only allow us a night in God’s place, but we can stay forever.
He who does these things shall never be moved.
—Psalm 15:5
But here is the bad news. In and of yourself, you will fail at doing right. Even if you do right at every step, but you fail to do right once, you have not kept this.
Here is the good news. If you are in Christ, we are confident that He has perfectly kept the do right rule. He has even died to pay the price for our failure to keep it.
We are called to repent of our failure to keep the rule, and to believe on the one who has kept it perfectly.