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The verse in question today is Psalms 27:4
“One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to meditate in His temple.”
Right off the bat we notice that David says “One thing I have asked from the Lord.” Does David not remember how on other occasions he asked God for something? Surely that is not the case. But why does David use this kind of wording? Why is he being so singular and also emphasizing that he will seek after the answer? It seems to me it’s the one “ask” he has made of God that he finds worth pursuing. This being the case, it too is worth for us to pursue what applications this could mean for us.
We know that the promise we find in Scripture is that if we ask, we receive and that if we seek, we find. This idea presented by Christ in the Gospel of Matthew continues, “knock and it will be opened to you.” The teaching goes on to point out that what we receive is appropriate to the asking, that what we find is appropriate to what we are seeking and that doors open in proportion to how often we knock on them.
It seems answers are already made available by God to whatever woes we may have, but man must chase after them. And so, it seems David had learned such a lesson. He had asked God for something that he was willing to seek until he found it.
What was David asking for? “That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” The word “dwell” that David uses is also in Gen 4:16 where Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and DWELT in the land of Nod.” (Emphasis mine).
We know from man’s revolt against God that a separation occurred. Where Cain left God’s presence to dwell elsewhere, David wanted to dwell with God instead of dwelling in the place where he was. This is interesting because David was a king. And we would think of a king as living the kind of life that does not desire to do something else. David could have, generally speaking, whatever he wanted. David was king. Yet he wanted to dwell in the house of the Lord. Not his palace, not in his gardens, but in the house of the Lord.
At this point we have to deal with the question at hand. What does it mean to seek Him (God) in His temple? The questioner brings two possibilities to the table. First, that the temple can mean the church, the physical building where we meet. And while certainly we can seek God in a church building, I don’t think it fully explains what David was saying here. Second that the verse may refer in some way to a later reference in Scripture that teaches the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that that may mean we seek God within ourselves. This possibility we will see also falls short of a proper understanding.
A simple rule to follow when trying to understand scripture is to first observe what it says. This includes trying our best to observe not only the actual words, but also the context in which they were written. To whom were they written? What can we learn from the time it was written? Who wrote it and why? A simple formula to follow that we all already know is “who, what, where, when, why and how?” Once we have observed the text, we can move to interpret the text. This part gets complicated because sometimes we confuse it with the step that follows, application. When we interpret scripture, the interpretation must line up with what we already observed in the text.
No one would read the Scripture passage regarding the parting of the Red Sea and interpret it as a miracle that we can all do today. If this were the case, people would never perish in shipwrecks or floods. But human tendency seems to be to interpret Scripture according to what we feel best helps us. This is a bad habit. Interpretation must coincide with observation and also agree with other stated truths in Scripture. The interpretation often then, has nothing to do with the church as we know it today. And when it comes to interpretation there is only one correct one.
The last step is application. That is to say that what we observe and the correct interpretation of Scripture can speak in some ways to our lives today. God will not be parting oceans all over the globe for people to walk through, but we can make the application that when the odds seem insurmountable, God is sovereign. It’s a sensible application that is also a blessing for the believer who is distraught.
How then do we interpret Psalms 27:4? We know David asked God for many things, so his comment regarding “one thing I have asked,” can be interpreted as an important truth that David believed in: That the only worthwhile pursuit is seeking to dwell in God’s presence forever. While believers are elect by God, we are to live lives that pursuit Him. Francis Thompson, wrote a poem beloved by G.K Chesterton titled The Hound of Heaven, this is metaphorically true of God, but once we are found, we too must seek after God.
Jesus also alludes to this, again He said, “seek and you will find.” We don’t seek to find God for no man can find God by the simple use of his will which is not free but in bondage to sin. But once God has delivered us, as he delivered David many times from evil, we ought to adopt an attitude of pleasing God alone.
When we read the context around verse 4 in the rest of Psalm 27, this idea becomes clear. David begins by saying, “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” Notice neither of these David seeks. For he cannot seek salvation. Isaiah 1:5-6 teaches regarding human nature that “the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil.”
This picture drawn here of a sick and putrid body unable to repair itself is the picture of you and I and one David understood clearly. When David had taken Bathsheba the wife of Uriah and later had Uriah killed to hide his behavior, he realized the corruption of his own nature as we should see our own. He said, “Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me.”
David understood his pathetic state, so should we. Knowing this, it makes sense that David praises God for being his light and his salvation. He calls God the defense of his life (v2). He knows that because of God’s defense he should dread no one. Life, though rough for David in that his own sons turned on him and men sought his life constantly, was not about fearing what could happen in this world. David concerned himself with seeking God, that he may spend an eternity with him.
The proper way to think of the house of the Lord is to see it as Isaiah himself saw it. Here is his description:
“I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.” The Seraphim called out to one another, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:1-7)
In this place that Isaiah finds himself in he says “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips.” Is this not us too? To seek God in His temple means to realize our own depravity and God’s own glory. To boast not of our position but of His. The words that followed for Isaiah were comforting as he is told “your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”
This iniquity that David said he was born with, is upon us too and only God can take it away. Seeking God in his temple then is not going to church, nor is it seeking him within ourselves, since within ourselves there is nothing but iniquity. But seeking God in His temple is the very idea that we must humble ourselves before Him that He may cleanse us. And as believers we ought to seek that continually. For not only are we born in iniquity, we are also conceived in a world of sin that seeks to make us filthy at every turn.
So, one thing we too should ask and seek. To live a life that continually pines to be in the presence of God, his house, his temple, that cleanses us. It is in God’s presence that we can behold His beauty, where we can truly see God for who He is and be put to shame as we are awed by His divine majesty. In this too David reminds us we must meditate. The thought of dwelling in God’s presence, ought to consume us always. Amen.
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