Bible Commentaries

THE RECTIFYING INFLUENCE OF THE SANCTUARY

‘Then thought I to understand this; but it was too hard for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God: then understood I the end of these men.’

Psalms 73:15-16 (Prayer Book Version)

The difficulty of the writer of the psalm is a very old difficulty, and yet it seems to us to be perpetually new. The inequality of things. Up starts the question before us, the problem of suffering, the mystery of evil, the strange impossibility of reconciling the two sides of life—here is the difficulty which perplexed him.

And what is the solution? Is there any solution? The solution is this: “It was too hard for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God.’ What does he mean? How did it help him, and how may it help us?

I. In the Sanctuary there came to him the thought of God.—The whole place was full of it. How did that help him in the perplexities that troubled him? Think for a moment what the real difficulty was. It was not a difficulty of his mind; it was a difficulty of his conscience. It was not an intellectual difficulty; it was a moral difficulty. He went into the Sanctuary. It was the natural place to go to. But, I think, it meant something more than that. It was not merely the place, but that to which the whole place witnessed. It was the thought of God, the consciousness of God, and the consciousness of God meant the consciousness of purpose. Could it be otherwise? To believe in God is surely of necessity to believe in His purpose. To say the opening words of the Creed, ‘I believe in God,’ is to believe that there is no tangle, no puzzle, no labyrinth. It is only that we have not yet discovered the clue, God has not yet placed it in our hands. ‘Your heavenly Father knoweth’—the whole of the Sanctuary rings with the truth.

II. In the Sanctuary he discovered himself.—I suppose there is no thoughtful person but has often and often echoed that question, What am I? What is that thing I call myself? What does it denote, and what does it involve? What am I? My body—is that myself? At first sight there seems to be so much to be said for it because my body is so intertwined with my soul, that if I am tired, I cannot pray; if I am in pain, I can hardly think. At first sight my body seems to be myself. But somebody says, ‘No, yourself is the changeless part of you, and your body changes.’ The body of to-day is a very different thing from the body of twenty years ago. My mind, then—is that myself? And again the answer comes: ‘No. Your thoughts, your feelings, your opinions, they are not what they were ten years ago.’ But your self remains unchanged. In the Sanctuary of God I discovered myself. Why? Because the whole of the Sanctuary, and the worship of the Sanctuary, and every detail of the worship, is based upon the assumption that I am more than body and more than mind, that I am a deathless spirit, and that I cannot live by bread alone. How did the discovery of his own immortality help him in the perplexities and problems of his life? Why, surely thus. The whole thing looked so small beside those vast themes. Once he had discovered the endless life, once he had been made quite certain by the very fact of the Sanctuary, that if a man dies, he lives again; then all these things became insignificant. The inequalities of life, the sufferings so undeserved, the prosperity equally undeserved, they all sank into insignificance before the fact of the endless life of which the Sanctuary spoke.

III. In the Sanctuary he discovered the influence of worship.—There is a strange reflex influence in all acts of devotion. When the Lord Jesus prayed, he was transfigured; so when a man prays, he is bringing a strange influence, morally and spiritually, upon his being, and he rises up from the act of prayer as the Lord rose from His prayer, a stronger, calmer, braver man. And so it is also with the influence of worship. In days like these, when life is so anxious, more especially to men; when business is so exacting; when a right judgment is so important; when a prompt, almost instantaneous, decision is so frequently demanded, it is pathetically sad that some of the very men who want the power most should cut themselves off from the calming influences of the House of God.

IV. In the Sanctuary he discovered the truth of the consecration of himself to God.—The whole place spoke of consecration separated for the worship of God; every holy vessel set apart; the priest consecrated to God’s service. The whole place was full of the consecration of things and of life to God. Is there a more tremendously important truth than that for us to try and write upon our hearts? I am sure there is not. All you who are accustomed to go into the Sanctuary, may you not turn your thoughts from the place to yourselves? It is consecrated, will you not be re-consecrated? Again and again it has been said for you here: ‘We offer and present unto Thee, O Lord! ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee.’ Give these words a meaning they have never had before in more spiritual life, in more frequent worship, in more steady, well-prepared communion, in more generous alms.

Bishop F. E. Ridgeway.