The Second Commandment is also largely concerned with comforting us with the news that we need not be ignorant either of how or who to bring praise with and to in response to the grace given in love. The same God who has provided a plan of redemption has presented in His perfect Scriptures a witness to the manner of the worship of His people. 

Our catechism lesson today continues with more on the Second Commandment. Without any more delay let’s get right into it as there is much to talk about this week:
Q. 51. What is forbidden in the Second Commandment?
A. The second commandment forbids the worshipping of God by images, or any other way not appointed in His word.
Q. 52. What are the reasons annexed to the Second Commandment?
A. The reasons annexed to the second commandment are, God’s sovereignty over us, His propriety in us, and the zeal He has to His own worship.
Worship, as has been noted, is what we are about as human beings. It is the very essence of our existence. When we are given a peek at God’s redeemed flock in the Heavens in Revelation 7 we see the people gathered around the throne praising the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with their voices:
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
No matter where you are from, or who your parents are, or what the provenance of your faith is, in your resting and trusting in Christ the natural response of a redeemed heart is going to be worship. It’s who we are. If you don’t have a burning desire to gather with God’s Church on the Sabbath Day then it’s a moral issue, a sin, full stop, truly worthy of repentance. We bear the fruit of the tree unto which we are a member.
If we are still attached to the date tree of Satan then we will resist the call to worship. However, if we are grafted onto the fig tree that is Christ then we will bring forth praise upon praise, because the means of His grace flows through us as sap in a maple. There isn’t any wiggle room here for there can’t be more than one master under whom we live, as the First Commandment makes clear. We either have the God of the Bible as our Lord, or we have the man-made creation as our idol. Choose this day whom you will serve has implications for this next word given at Sinai.
The Second Commandment is also largely concerned with comforting us with the news that we need not be ignorant either of how or who to bring praise with and to in response to the grace given in love. The same God who has provided a plan of redemption has presented in His perfect Scriptures a witness to the manner of the worship of His people.
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He’s shown himself to be one who, although without sin and perfect in every way, can dwell with sinners. So now, with us as his people, it’s true, we are very sinful. But take heart, he hasn’t changed. He still longs to enter into the life of sinners. He still loves sinners. And because of such love, he’s in us sinners and changing us sinners to look more like his sinless self.

At a Bible study at our church recently, we came upon the point in Colossians where the climax of the gospel is, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Remarking on the text, someone in the Bible study said, “But I’ve always wondered, ‘How could Christ be in me, when I’m so sinful?’”
It was apt insight. Christ is holy. And in a certain sense, the Bible says God cannot even look at sin (Habakkuk 1:13). So how can Jesus live in sinners like us?
What I said in response was inspired by the Gentle and Lowly book by Dane Ortlund I’ve been reading. There, Ortlund convincingly shows that Christ’s heart—the Triune God’s heart—is gentle, humble, and one which draws him near in mercy to sinners. This is supported from Jesus’s earthly life, but also from the epistles written about Jesus and from the Old Testament which foreshadowed Jesus.
But perhaps best of all, we could argue, we see this merciful heart in Jesus’s earthly life. Yes, he was appropriately tough against those who spurned his mercy and presumed to be children of God by virtue of their own works or ethnicity. Yet above all, Jesus was “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). He entered with mercy into the sinful lives of many. He gently loved his disciples. And he generally become known as a “friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34).
Most of all, he showed this gentle and lowly heart by his death. He decisively went to the cross, taking on the sin of his sheep and suffering in their place, never complaining or fussing, always loving. And he then rose again on the third day, revealed himself as the Savior to his sinful disciples, and ascended back to heaven.
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Praise is a special means of glorifying God (Psalm 50:23) and so it is frequently commanded. In the space of just two verses, we are commanded five times to sing praise to God (Psalm 47:6-7). But one of these is to sing praise with the understanding (v7 see 1 Corinthians 14:15). The whole psalm helps us to do this by giving reasons for joyful praise. In the psalms God gives us not just many commands to sing praise but also reasons for it and not only that but the very words to use. Using the same kind of ascension language as Psalm 68:18 it also points to a time of a gospel kingdom rather than simply the Jewish people praising God. It reveals a future king, clearly the Messiah who would subdue the nations and have everything under His rule (Ephesians 1:22).
David Dickson describes this psalm as a “prophecy of the enlargement of Christ’s kingdom, and of the conjunction of Jews and Gentiles in one body under Christ their Head and Lord”. It is an exhortation to “Jews and Gentiles, joyfully to praise the God and Saviour of His people Jesus Christ” whom the Psalmist sees “ascended into heaven triumphantly after the full payment made of the price of redemption”. Christ is gathering His redeemed people, Jews and Gentiles, out of all nations. The benefits of His kingdom belong to more nations than one “for in Him the redeemed in al the nations of the earth are blessed” (Psalm 47:1).
It is a matter of chief joy when the kingdom of Christ comes to anyone because it means deliverance from “sin, Satan, and misery”. He has conquered these enemies and also brings “sure mercies of righteousness, peace, and joy” with eternal life. The Gentiles are commanded “to clap their hands and shout, and to shout with the voice of triumph”. They are to “shout to God, the triumpher, who in all this Psalm is the Redeemer Christ” “distinctly to be praised for His work of victorious redemption of sinners”. Thus it says “shout unto God with the voice of triumph” (Psalm 47:1). In the following updated extract Dickson goes on to show the reasons that this psalm gives us for praise. “None can praise God, or praise Christ sincerely, who do not understand the reasons for which they should praise” so it follow that praising with the understanding stirs up the affections also.
1. Christ is Sovereign Over all the Earth
The first reason for joyful praising of Christ is taken from His sovereign majesty over all the world (Psalm 47:2). The Redeemer, the victorious triumpher is the Lord: very God, essentially Jehovah, the Lord most high. Christ has the right and just title to erect a church in what country and kingdom He pleases without asking the permission of any. He is able to set up the profession of His name and the practice of all His ordinances in doctrine, worship, and church government. “He is a great king over all the earth.”
2. Christ’s Kingdom is Increasing
The second reason for joyful praising of Christ is taken from the increase of His own kingdom, and the exalting of all His subjects above the rest of the world (Psalm 47:3).
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