Behold the Man!

O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart;
who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
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;
who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things shall never be moved.

Psalm 15 (ESV)

The more I think about it, the more I think King David's question should be the question asked by all who say they love God.

To dwell with God is to reach the end for which we were created. It was the joy of Adam in the garden. It was the hope of the men and women of faith, as shown in Hebrews 11, the men and women who longed for "a better country, that is, a heavenly one." It is the hope still of all the saints yearning for heaven, where it will be proclaimed, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

But what's interesting is David's answer to his own question. For most of us, we have the Sunday School answer ready. "Who can dwell with God? The one believes in Jesus can dwell with God." True. This is true. But this isn't David's answer. David didn't explicitly call for a faith looking to the Messiah or a faith in God the Father to save, but he instead describes a man with a transformed heart.

This is the man who stands before God -- the man whose heart has been transformed by God. This is not a list for us to check off, but a list at which we can aim, through which we can pray and from which we should long to be changed. I long to be this man. To do what is right and walk blamelessly; to guard my tongue from slander and do no evil, to keep short accounts and commit no wrong against my friends. To see the sin and sorrow of the godless and hate it instead harboring this secret longing in my heart to live their life. To give freely and justly and to seek the good of the innocent, the lowly, the weak.

I want to be this man... But when I look at my life, I know I am not. When I look at this list as the answer to the question, "Who can dwell with God?", I must ask myself, "How can someone like me ever hope to stand before the Almighty God?"

And so one of the reasons that I praise Christ is that He is this man. He was "in every respect ... tempted as we are, yet without sin." And through Christ's death, I have hope to dwell before God. "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God." (1 Peter 3:18). This is why Christ lived and died - that someone like me may dwell with God. As the writer of Hebrews states, "Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water." (Heb 10:19-22).

And so, by faith in Christ, who was this man, I am being transformed more and more, bit by bit, into this man. This is the paradox of the Christian life. Because Christ is this man, I am this man -- There's a definition of grace! -- by virtue of my union with Christ through faith. But I know in my flesh I am not this man. I long to be this man to honor The Father, my Father. His grace sees me as this man in Christ -- so I too shall never be moved -- and His loving Spirit compels me to live now as this man in abiding in Christ.

I want to be this man and dwell with God. Christ is this man, Christ is God, and Christ dwells with me, enabling me to be this man. Now may I (and you) live accordingly...