If you grew up in church and the Sunday school teacher, pastor or group leader asked any question, the safe and most likely answer was … Jesus! And while this answer tended to be correct on a surface level, the person asking the question might have been looking for a deeper answer. The question-and-answer sequence in Psalm 24:3-4 has a similar simple response, but the answer requires further consideration.

(Reading time – 10 minutes)

The first two verses of Psalm 24 recalled the Creator-King of Glory who separated the land and sea to provide a safe and sacred meeting place. The land appearing out of the sea created an image of a mountain rising out of the chaos waters. This creation imagery provided a transition to the parallel questions raised in verse 3.

3 Who may climb the mountain of the Lord?
    Who may stand in his holy place?

While the verse that follows quickly answers the question, like checking off a box, it is a good spot to pause and ponder. People often look at the Psalms, and the Bible, like a spiritual medicine cabinet – if you feel this, then read this – or like an informational or self-help book. Frederick Buechner suggested a different approach.

Don’t start looking in the Bible for answers it gives. Start by listening for the questions it asks. We are much involved, all of us, with questions about things that matter a good deal today but will be forgotten by this time tomorrow. At the same time, we tend to lose track of the questions about things that matter always, questions about meaning, purpose, and value. To lose track of such deep questions as these is to risk losing track of who we really are in our own depths and where we are really going.1

The Psalm 24:3 questions are an example of the deep questions that we need to park at and contemplate.

Flipping Boundaries

Staying with creation theme from the beginning of this poem, the question that came to me was, how did humanity move so far from the open and sacred communion space in the Garden of Eden, to the invitation only, prohibited meeting space on Mount Zion? How did we get from the ‘everyone welcome’ inclusive space to the ‘chosen few’ exclusive space? Wasn’t the Garden of Eden a sacred space created for everyone?

The authors of The God Story described the Garden of Eden as, “the quintessential ‘thin place’, a place where the distance between heaven and earth is so thin they have become one.”2 God’s original design was for humankind to live in free-flowing communion with him forever and to expand the borders of Eden through the whole earth, multiplying the blessing of God and extending his loving reign. There would be no boundaries, no guards, and no entry restrictions to God’s sacred sphere.

But a crafty serpent tricked humans into thinking that God was holding out on them. Humankind traded trust in the Creator-King of Glory’s wisdom for fruit that will open their eyes so that they can becomes gods, equal and independent of their Creator. Their eyes were opened, but not to what they were promised. Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened to shame and nakedness.

First Questions

After this incident, known as “The Fall,” God searched for Adam and Eve in the Garden, and when he found them, he posed the first two questions in Genesis: “Where are you?” and “What is this that you have done?” “Where are you?” Adam and Eve were hiding, that’s where they were. “What is this you have done?” They exchanged God’s wisdom and rule for their own. The first two questions uttered in the Garden of Eden were deep questions that humanity has been asking ever since the garden expulsion.

As a result of The Fall, the sacred space boundaries were flipped. God, who originally created borders to keep out the chaos for humanity’s protection, had now stationed mighty cherubim and a flaming sword guarding the way back into the Garden (Gen. 3:24). Adam and Eve no longer had access to God’s sacred sphere. After the Garden expulsion, humanity’s deep question is, how do we get back to the Garden? This is the same question the poet is pondering in Psalm 24.   

3 Who may climb the mountain of the Lord?
    Who may stand in his holy place?

The Simple Answer

The question, answered in three lines, is a brief description of the righteous person.

4 Only those whose hands and hearts are pure,
    who do not worship idols
    and never tell lies.

The righteous person is one described by three relationships. Relationship with themselves – their actions and motives are righteous and in sync. Relationship with God – their soul is focused on God and not distracted by vain things. Relationship with other people – they are trustworthy. In her book, The Arrival of the King, Carissa Quinn observed that the answer consisted of two positive characteristics, clean hands and pure heart, followed by two negative ones, not lifting the soul to idols and never telling lies.3

Psalm 15 provides a similar but longer list of requirements in answer the same question.

1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD?
    Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?
2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right,
    speaking the truth from sincere hearts.
3 Those who refuse to gossip
    or harm their neighbours
    or speak evil of their friends.
4 Those who despise flagrant sinners,
    and honor the faithful followers of the LORD,
    and keep their promises even when it hurts.
5 Those who lend money without charging interest,
    and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.

Similar to Psalm 24, the Psalm 15 list outlined things that a righteous person does and does not do. The verses swing back and forth like a pendulum between the positive and negative. On the positive side, the righteous person leads a blameless life, does what is right and speaks truth from a sincere heart (vs. 2). On the negative side, they do not gossip, harm their neighbours or speak evil of friends (vs. 3). Returning to the positive side, they have a right perception of others and fulfill their promises to others even when it results in their own harm (vs. 4). Back to the negative side, they don’t charge interest nor do they accept bribes (vs. 5). Carissa Quinn noted that there was a progression in these verses, “from any person to a neighbour, to a close one, with the result that this one does not withhold righteous speech or deeds from anyone.”5

By combining Psalms 15 and 24, we can compile a list of requirements that describe the righteous person who may access God’s presence. Personally, I like lists. They remove the guesswork. I can check off the boxes and know that I have satisfied the requirements. It’s like looking at list of qualifications on a job posting. I can compare my resume with the posting to see if my experience and skill set meet the job requirements.

A Revised Question

The list of requirements approach reminds me of the story of the rich, young man who came to Jesus with a similar question to Psalm 24, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Matt. 19:16-22; Mark 10:17-30; Luke 18:18-30) To the Jewish people in Jesus’ day, eternal life was equivalent to entering the kingdom of heaven and to being in God’s presence forever. He wanted Jesus to measure and grade his qualifications or to give him something that he could do to assure his own immortality.6 The man’s question assumed that eternal life could be achieved by doing some good thing. God had promised Israel life if they obeyed his commandments (Lev 25:18; Dt 4:1,40; 30:19–20). This originally referred to long life in the promised land, but Jewish teachers by Jesus’ day applied it to eternal life.7

Jesus responded, “Why do you call me good? Only God is truly good.” By emphasizing the goodness of God, Jesus questioned the man’s idea of goodness; it was found in relation to God, not by ‘good deeds’ of our own devising.8 Then Jesus returned to the man’s question, and he listed six of the ten commandments, all referring to interactions with others, similar to the Psalm 15 list.

Reply Question

When the young man replied that he had kept the commandments, Jesus asked him to go and sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor and then to follow him. By asking him to sell everything he owned, Jesus was touching the very basis of his security and identity. The man was willing to discipline himself to observe all the outward stipulations and even perform extra works; but because of his wealth, he had a divided heart.

Contrary to the man’s declaration that he had kept all the commandments, his response to Jesus’ request showed he was not able to keep the first commandment – undivided loyalty to God, which is also on the Psalm 24 list. The man came to Jesus wondering what he could do. He left seeing what he was unable to do.9 What started out as a question about where he was going turned into a question about who he really was.

Looking at the Psalm 15 and 24 lists for entering God’s sacred space leaves me feeling exhausted. It reminds me of job postings with ideal requirements, like requiring three to five years experience for an entry level position. Who can possibly meet those requirements?

To the ancient Hebrews in King David’s era, a reasonable response to the question of who could meet the Psalm 15 and 24 list of requirements would be Abraham or Moses, and that would be on one of their good days! Perhaps the answer to the question goes deeper than a list of requirements.

Up Next

Prior to King David’s procession up Mount Zion with the Ark of the Covenant, only Abraham and Moses achieved the special status of approaching God on his holy mountain. What can we learn about the answer to the question from Abraham and Moses’ as they ascend the holy mountain?

Notes:

  1. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC. (New York: Harper & Row, 1973) 77-78.
  2. Alain Emerson and Adam Cox, The God Story. (London: Form SPCK Group, 2024) 19.
  3. Carissa Quinn, The Arrival of the King: The Shape and Story of Psalms 15-24 (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2023) 50.
  4. Tremper Longman III, Psalms – Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2014) 139.
  5. Carissa Quinn, 41.
  6. NLT Life Application Study Bible, Third Edition (Carol Stream: Tyndale House, 2019) 1767.
  7. Craig Keener and John Walton, NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016).
  8. New Bible Commentary,(Leicester: Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, 1994).
  9. Life Application Study Bible, Third Edition, 1684.
  10. Kenneth L. Barker and John R. Kohlenberger III, Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Abridged Edition): New Testament, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004).

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