Beloved, salvation is not earned through clean hands and a
pure heart — through being good enough. It is a gift to be received by the
empty hands of faith. Christ alone has merited our salvation. Christ alone had the clean hands and pure
heart which pleased the Father and became the righteousness which clothes
sinners who trust in Him.
This means that those of who are in Christ thrive on all the spiritual blessings
Heaven has to offer (all that comes with God's love and acceptance) even though
in ourselves we are sinners with
unclean hands and impure hearts. We thrive in this way because Christ met the
demands of the law on our behalf. As the Scripture says, "God has done
what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending His Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh in order
that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk
not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:3-4).
The expression, "the law weakened by the flesh," indicates the
weakness of any standard of righteousness, any law that tells us what is right
as a basis for acceptance with God. But notice that this weakness is due not to
that standard itself but the weakness of the flesh, which is what we are in our
own persons, what we have in terms of our own ability or resources, in Adam. Here
"the flesh" indicates not evil passions within but good intentions:
what we may rely on in ourselves (that is in Adam) for doing good, being
religious, trying to get right with God. Consequently, this expression,
"the law weakened by the flesh," is equivalent to "the flesh
(misleadingly) strengthened by the law" (Romans 7:11).
On the other hand, when Scripture says, "God has done
what the law weakened by the flesh could not do," we are being told that
salvation has been accomplished outside
of and for us by Another as our representative. That is, this is all about what God
has done for us in Jesus Christ as our representative. He is the second Adam,
the head of a new race of people, a new creation. He paid our debt to have
clean hands and a pure heart — what we did not and could not have, what we do
not and will not have — so that not in ourselves or our own persons but in him
as our substitute, we are completely acceptable to God. "Jesus paid it
all," the old hymn says. Therefore, "all to him I owe."
It is in Him alone as our righteousness and by His Spirit indwelling
our hearts that we abide in him (as branches connected to the vine) for all
fruit-bearing righteousness. We are once and for all, once and forever, counted as a people with clean hands and
pure hearts because we are in Christ by faith. It is because we are in Him in
this way, abiding in Him, that we bear His fruit through us — i.e., that we actually by His Spirit
bear the fruit of having clean hands and a pure heart. This comes not from us
(for we are no longer alive) but from Him living in and through us.
Keeping these things in mind is critical for a proper
interpretation of Psalm 24. There are times when I have sensed the assembly of
God's people weighed down by an exhortation that goes something like this:
"If you would just be more holy, then you could ascend the Lord's hill and
He would bless you." Or: "God is waiting to bless you. If you'd
overcome your sin and start doing right, God would be able to renew you and
bring revival." The yoke of
qualifying, meeting certain conditions for the blessings of Abraham, is thereby placed
upon God's people.
But, dear brothers and sisters, this way of thinking puts the cart
before the horse. Paul says, "Did you receive the Spirit by works of the
law or by hearing with faith?...Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and
works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith —
just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness?"
(Galatians 3:2-6)
We must remember: God doesn't love us because we first loved
Him. We love Him and others because He first loved us! If we love much, it is
because He has loved us much. God does not visit us with revival and the
outpouring of His Spirit because we have been good enough to merit such a blessing
from Him. It is not our righteousness God is waiting for to qualify us for seasons of great refreshment from His presence. Again, we do not ascend the hill of the Lord because our hands
are clean enough or our hearts pure enough. Scripture clearly
states that we all have unclean hands, lips, hearts, and lives. None of
us can ascend the hill of the Lord based on our own personal righteousness, our
own personal devotion to the Lord. It is precisely God's love and grace toward
sinners through the substitutionary offering of Jesus Christ which not only
makes them righteous or acceptable to God but also motivates them, empowers
them, to actually have clean hands and a pure heart. It
is all of grace. Holiness only comes by God's grace in Christ acting upon
the heart; conversely, it does not come by the demands of law or our efforts to
have clean hands and a pure heart.
May I suggest, then, a different interpretation of verses
3-6? This is an interpretation which any believer who regards Christ as his
righteousness already comes to eventually concerning this section. That is,
such a one would agree with me — even if they reject the interpretation I am
proposing — that Christ is the only sinless one, ultimately the only one with
clean hands and a pure heart who ascended the hill of the Lord in his own
righteousness. Perhaps, the only difference between my interpretation and
theirs is that they turn to the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ for the believer
more indirectly than directly, more as an afterthought. My claim, on the other
hand, is that we should be thinking of Jesus Christ right from the start when we hear
David ask, "Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord."
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