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Psalm 50

The Acceptable Sacrifice

A Psalm of Asaph.

1

The mighty one, God the L ord,

speaks and summons the earth

from the rising of the sun to its setting.

2

Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

God shines forth.

 

3

Our God comes and does not keep silence,

before him is a devouring fire,

and a mighty tempest all around him.

4

He calls to the heavens above

and to the earth, that he may judge his people:

5

“Gather to me my faithful ones,

who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”

6

The heavens declare his righteousness,

for God himself is judge. Selah

 

7

“Hear, O my people, and I will speak,

O Israel, I will testify against you.

I am God, your God.

8

Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;

your burnt offerings are continually before me.

9

I will not accept a bull from your house,

or goats from your folds.

10

For every wild animal of the forest is mine,

the cattle on a thousand hills.

11

I know all the birds of the air,

and all that moves in the field is mine.

 

12

“If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the world and all that is in it is mine.

13

Do I eat the flesh of bulls,

or drink the blood of goats?

14

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,

and pay your vows to the Most High.

15

Call on me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

 

16

But to the wicked God says:

“What right have you to recite my statutes,

or take my covenant on your lips?

17

For you hate discipline,

and you cast my words behind you.

18

You make friends with a thief when you see one,

and you keep company with adulterers.

 

19

“You give your mouth free rein for evil,

and your tongue frames deceit.

20

You sit and speak against your kin;

you slander your own mother’s child.

21

These things you have done and I have been silent;

you thought that I was one just like yourself.

But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.

 

22

“Mark this, then, you who forget God,

or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.

23

Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me;

to those who go the right way

I will show the salvation of God.”


16 But unto the wicked, etc. He now proceeds to direct his censures more openly against those whose whole religion lies in an observance of ceremonies, with which they attempt to blind the eyes of God. An exposure is made of the vanity of seeking to shelter impurity of heart and life under a veil of outward services, a lesson which ought to have been received by all with true consent, but which was peculiarly ungrateful to Jewish ears. It has been universally confessed, that the worship of God is pure and acceptable only when it proceeds from a sincere heart. The acknowledgement has been extorted from the poets of the heathen, and it is known that the profligate were wont to be excluded from their temples and from participation in their sacrifices. And yet such is the influence of hypocrisy in choking and obliterating even a sentiment so universally felt as this, that men of the most abandoned character will obtrude themselves into the presence of God, in the confidence of deceiving him with their vain inventions. This may explain the frequency of the warnings which we find in the prophets upon this subject, declaring to the ungodly again and again, that they only aggravate their guilt by assuming the semblance of piety. Loudly as the Spirit of God has asserted, that a form of godliness, unaccompanied by the grace of faith and repentance, is but a sacrilegious abuse of the name of God; it is yet impossible to drive the Papists out of the devilish delusion, that their idlest services are sanctified by what they call their final intention. They grant that none but such as are in a state of grace can possess the meritum de condigno; 252252     “The Schoolmen in that Church, ‘the Church of Rome,’ spoke of meritum de congruo, and meritum de condigno. By meritum de congruo, ‘to which Calvin refers in the concluding part of the sentence,’ they meant the value of good works and good dispositions previous to justification, which it was fit or congruous for God to reward by infusing his grace. By meritum de condigno they meant the value of good works performed after justification, in consequence of the grace then infused.” — Dr Hills Lectures in Divinity, volume 2, p. 348; see also Turretines Theology, volume 2, p. 778. but they maintain that the mere outward acts of devotion, without any accompanying sentiments of the heart, may prepare a person at least for the reception of grace. And thus, if a monk rise from the bed of his adultery to chant a few psalms without one spark of godliness in his breast, or if a whore-monger, a thief, or any foresworn villain, seeks to make reparation for his crimes by mass or pilgrimage, they would be loath to consider this lost labor. By God, on the other hand, such a disjunction of the form from the inward sentiment of devotion is branded as sacrilege. In the passage before us, the Psalmist sets aside and refutes a very common objection which might be urged. Must not, it might be said, those sacrifices be in some respect acceptable to God which are offered up in his honor? He shows that, on the contrary, they entail guilt upon the parties who present them, inasmuch as they lie to God, and profane his holy name. He checks their presumption with the words, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes? that is, to pretend that you are one of my people, and that you have a part in my covenant. Now, if God in this manner rejects the whole of that profession of godliness, which is unaccompanied by purity of heart, how shall we expect him to treat the observance of mere ceremonies, which hold quite an inferior place to the declaration of the statutes of God?


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