NOTES for Psa 100

David wants not only to sing of mercy and judgment; he is full of strength and intends actively to eradicate evil. Such a desire is entirely natural for anyone who has only recently begun to walk the paths shown by the Lord and is filled with a fresh desire to establish justice everywhere. He intends to eradicate evil by destroying its bearers, who in his eyes merge with evil itself. We, who understand the need to distinguish sin from the sinner, should not look down on such an understanding, for everyone who does evil truly becomes permeated by it.

But time passes, and it becomes clear that evil cannot be eradicated in this way. It penetrates every human heart, and inevitably the fighter for justice himself becomes one of its bearers. Along his long path through life, David too stumbled, as we know both from the biblical narrative and from his own penitential lines.

Does this mean that the psalm is canceled and its content struck out? No. It not only bears witness to the psalmist’s personal faith, but also contains the truth that evil must be actively resisted—and therefore resisted within ourselves as well.

Crying out to God for blamelessness, the psalmist begins his prayer with remarkable words: “I will sing of mercy and judgment; to You, O Lord, I will sing.” For him, mercy and truth are not merely certain aspects of God’s design, nor only attributes of the divine Person, but the Lord Himself. Behind these words stands the great mystery of God’s presence in the world: wherever mercy and truth enter our lives, God Himself enters them.

And as he looks to the Lord, the psalmist rejects all lawlessness, because it becomes abhorrent to him as well. In this the psalmist discerns the meaning of God’s saving action in Christ. God Himself comes to us so that, having seen Him, we might love Him and hate sin.