Ps 115 1 Not to us, O LORD , not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.
2 Why do the nations say,
"Where is their God?"
3 Our God is in heaven;
he does whatever pleases him."
This Psalm is teaching there is only one display of love and faithfulness in this world. The Psalmist begins by saying to God...Do not give me the credit for anything in this world. The Psalmist is teaching that apart from the good that He has created and sustained , every thing else is dead. Why would the Psalmist find all of his hope outside of all of his own choices? Why would he find all of His hope in God doing as He pleases? Why would he be encouraged in believing that everything that is accomplished in this world by man leads to total hopelessness?
The first reason is that all of creation was spoken into existence by God. From before the foundation of the world God planned the beginning of the world to the end. Gods creative voice is a covenant promise. God must be glorified in His work of creation and recreation. He must receive all of the praise for His work. Anytime God displays His creation He is showing His attributes in the relationship with the created object. He is displaying His pleasure in the beauty and symmetry of the object. But when sin entered the world God had to destroy all of the corruption of His creation. God destroys the corruption in order to recreate it according to His good pleasure. If the Psalmist declared his own value in giving God glory then the Psalmist would be creating a god made from his own hands. Anytime we think about a created object that does not rise up to the value and the view of God , we make an idol. We view the object by our own imagination and not in the real view that God has. If we were able to rise up to the praise of the beauty as God sees the object we would be instantly evaporated into the air.
This means that everything that we view on this earth is judged by us according to a false standard of the real value of Gods beauty. No matter how hard we try by our own knowledge and judgement we can never even get close to God view of His creation. We are all idol makers. If we depend upon our own judgement to be successful in this world we are gonna trust in a false scale of value because we cannot be God. This means that we would all be subject to the tension of our corruption that war with other people over their view of value. We are all subject to viewing Gods creation in order to use other people for our success. The Psalms call this motive an act against ones neighbor. The only way that we can be freed from attacking our neighbor is to see that everything that is corrupted must die. In other words there we cannot trust that we would be able to fundamentally change someone or a thing by our own wills.
If we did not trust that all things must die then we would not believe in Gods absolute right to be the judge.We would lower Gods sovereign right to judge every event. We would deny that the standard of the law demands death to any violation. We would not relinquish our own power to amend Gods law. We would defend ourselves by what we do. This Psalm is teaching that when we believe that the standard of justice is satisfied by anything short of death then we bring judgement upon ourselves. Gods curse is not longer absolute in pronouncing death but its according to a sliding scale of mans effort. The Psalmist is saying that Gods free grace is only free when there is no reason to receive it by the value of the object. This is enforced by Gods pronouncement of death to anyone who is corrupted who does not believe that all the reality in this world is allowed or prevented by God. God controls all events and people.
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.
2 Why do the nations say,
"Where is their God?"
3 Our God is in heaven;
he does whatever pleases him."
This Psalm is teaching there is only one display of love and faithfulness in this world. The Psalmist begins by saying to God...Do not give me the credit for anything in this world. The Psalmist is teaching that apart from the good that He has created and sustained , every thing else is dead. Why would the Psalmist find all of his hope outside of all of his own choices? Why would he find all of His hope in God doing as He pleases? Why would he be encouraged in believing that everything that is accomplished in this world by man leads to total hopelessness?
The first reason is that all of creation was spoken into existence by God. From before the foundation of the world God planned the beginning of the world to the end. Gods creative voice is a covenant promise. God must be glorified in His work of creation and recreation. He must receive all of the praise for His work. Anytime God displays His creation He is showing His attributes in the relationship with the created object. He is displaying His pleasure in the beauty and symmetry of the object. But when sin entered the world God had to destroy all of the corruption of His creation. God destroys the corruption in order to recreate it according to His good pleasure. If the Psalmist declared his own value in giving God glory then the Psalmist would be creating a god made from his own hands. Anytime we think about a created object that does not rise up to the value and the view of God , we make an idol. We view the object by our own imagination and not in the real view that God has. If we were able to rise up to the praise of the beauty as God sees the object we would be instantly evaporated into the air.
This means that everything that we view on this earth is judged by us according to a false standard of the real value of Gods beauty. No matter how hard we try by our own knowledge and judgement we can never even get close to God view of His creation. We are all idol makers. If we depend upon our own judgement to be successful in this world we are gonna trust in a false scale of value because we cannot be God. This means that we would all be subject to the tension of our corruption that war with other people over their view of value. We are all subject to viewing Gods creation in order to use other people for our success. The Psalms call this motive an act against ones neighbor. The only way that we can be freed from attacking our neighbor is to see that everything that is corrupted must die. In other words there we cannot trust that we would be able to fundamentally change someone or a thing by our own wills.
If we did not trust that all things must die then we would not believe in Gods absolute right to be the judge.We would lower Gods sovereign right to judge every event. We would deny that the standard of the law demands death to any violation. We would not relinquish our own power to amend Gods law. We would defend ourselves by what we do. This Psalm is teaching that when we believe that the standard of justice is satisfied by anything short of death then we bring judgement upon ourselves. Gods curse is not longer absolute in pronouncing death but its according to a sliding scale of mans effort. The Psalmist is saying that Gods free grace is only free when there is no reason to receive it by the value of the object. This is enforced by Gods pronouncement of death to anyone who is corrupted who does not believe that all the reality in this world is allowed or prevented by God. God controls all events and people.
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