I think psalm 15 is interesting because it gives you the impossible list of qualifications for who can worship in God's sanctuary and be in God's presence, but then stops.
When I think about it, at that point, without Jesus' sacrifice, that is sort of what the situation was. You had to be perfect or...nothing. But we know that is not completely true because there were people that able to be in God's presence, for instance Abraham's faithfulness was counted as righteousness.
But in general, there was the law and you either fulfilled it or not. Of course there was the practice of sacrifice for atonement, but this psalm doesn't even spell that out. It just provides a list of qualities and stops. I think this is interesting because I have to believe that David thought he, himself did not meet these qualifications. So why does David leave it off here?
Possibly David was feeling very picked on when he wrote this psalm and this was a way for him to list all the ways he was feeling injured by someone (or multiple someones) and he hoped this song would reach them and cause them to think about their behavior. Or possibly, he saw these as his areas of stength and he was highlighting them.
I do think it is interesting to consider this list and the ten commandments...but here is my question, if you were to be writing this psalm about the qualifications of a person who could enter God's presence (beyond faith in Christ), what would you list? Take a minute today to consider that. Does you list challenge you? Does it highlight your strengths?
Then praise God for Jesus' sacrifice which makes it possible for us, sinners that we are, to enter God's presence.
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