Prayer for a pure heart.
"Create in me," etc. Human life belongs to two different worlds, distinct, yet inseparably interwoven—the world of outward nature, and the world of inward experience. Since this psalm was written, amazing changes have passed on outward nature in relation to man's life; but the world of inward experience is substantially unchanged. Even within half a century or less, human labour, discovery, and invention have so modified our relations to the globe we inhabit, and to the forces of nature, that we sometimes say we live in a different world. But the great inner world of joy and sorrow, love and hate, faith and unbelief, nobleness and baseness, holiness and sin, is the same in England to-day as in Judaea three thousand years ago. It has not ceased to be true that "As in water," etc. (Proverbs 27:19). There is still the same room and need for the prayer of the text. It is still true that it is a prayer which only the Spirit of God could inspire, can fulfil, or can interpret.
I. A PRAYER WHICH ONLY THE HOLY SPIRIT. COULD INSPIRE. How else can it be rationally accounted for? A prayer to God as Creator, for spiritual purity and rectitude: "a clean heart and a right spirit." Whence came these ideas? Still more, whence came these desires? It is easy to answer—They were suggested by the purifications ordained by the Law of Moses; sprinkling with blood, with the water of purification in which the ashes of the heifer had been steeped, and "divers washings." But even supposing these rites could have originated the notion of inward purity and spiritual holiness, how could they create any corresponding desire? But, in fact, these spiritual ideas were the very meaning of those rites, for the sake of which they were ordained (see e.g. Exodus 19:5, Exodus 19:10, Exodus 19:11). It has been asserted by scholars, who ought to know better, that the original notion of sin, in the Old Testament Scriptures and among the ancient Hebrews, was merely ceremonial. The doctrine of the inward, spiritual nature of sin, and need of inward purification, was gradually developed, it is said, by the prophets. No assertion can be more baseless. Of all the words (not fewer than ten) used in the sacred tongue to express sin, not one originally refers to outward defilements; all are moral. The three principal occur in verses 1, 2 (comp. Psalms 32:1, Psalms 32:2; Exodus 34:7).
II. A PRAYER WHICH ONLY THE HOLY SPIRIT CAN FULFIL. David begins (verses 1-9) by asking for Divine mercy; here he invokes Divine power. He uses the strongest term possible, "create." The same life-breathing Spirit who brooded over the dark waters at the first creation (Genesis 1:2) must descend on man's dark, sinful heart, and breathe life into it (2 Corinthians 4:6; Ephesians 2:1, Ephesians 2:5, Ephesians 2:10). Our Saviour expresses the same great spiritual change as a new birth (John 3:3, John 3:5-8). Thus the Old Testament here anticipates the deepest teaching of the New. But there is another side, equally recognized in Scripture (Ezekiel 18:31; Isaiah 1:16). As strongly in the New Testament (James 4:4, James 4:8; 1 John 3:3). God does not deal with men as machines or statues. God speaks to men, beseeches, warns, invites. Our Saviour did so, even to the very persons he described as closing their eyes, etc. (Matthew 13:15). It is by the reception of Divine truth that the heart is purified, spiritual life conveyed (1 Peter 1:22; James 1:18; John 6:63). This cannot take place passively and unconsciously. Still, when all is said, life can come only from God (Psalms 36:9; Ezekiel 11:19). David's prayer goes to the central depth, the innermost need of our nature. Our reason is incompetent to reconcile these opposite views (Divine grace and human will); but St. Paul shows their practical harmony (Philippians 2:12, Philippians 2:13).
III. A PRAYER WHICH ONLY THE HOLY SPIRIT CAN INTERPRET, AND TEACH US TO MAKE OUR OWN. Inspiration is as needful to readers as to writers of the Scriptures; not the same, but as real. The inspiration of the writer of this psalm we do not need. Here is the psalm, perfect, unrivalled, unexhausted. But before David wrote it he prayed it and felt it. We need that inspiration which taught him to pour out this prayer into God's ear (Romans 8:26). "A clean heart." In the earlier part of the psalm, washing and cleansing are the images of forgiveness (so Isaiah 1:8; 1 John 1:7). But here, of renewal, spiritual purity (2 Corinthians 7:1). As the former prayer expresses sense of guilt, and desire for God's favour; so this sense of the foul impurity and hate. fulness of sin, and desire for God's likeness. See what follows.
REMARKS.
1. The utterance of this prayer with no sense of sin, no longing for holiness, would be mockery. If you feel you cannot honestly utter it, what you have to do is to ask that God's Holy Spirit will teach and enable you (John 16:8, John 16:9).
2. If this is truly your prayer, the Holy Spirit must have taught you. And the prayers he teaches carry the earnest of their fulfilment.