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.'
