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This command is addressed to the "righteous," not because they only ought to obey it, but because they only can obey it, and because, indeed, only they can understand it. If one thing more than another can show the entire and radical change which the Spirit of God, in the hour of regeneration, works upon the hearts of sinners, it is, that after this change has passed upon them they are not merely reconciled to God's holiness — cannot merely bear the thought of it, even when apprehended far more clearly and powerfully than before — but regard it with complacency and delight.

I. WHAT IS IMPLIED IN THIS DUTY.

1. Our being in a state of reconciliation with God. Before we can delight in, and give thanks for the holiness of God, we must be at peace with Him, — we must believe that the flame of consuming wrath which His holiness kindled against us for sin has been quenched by the blood of His own Son poured forth on our behalf, — we must believe that His holiness, which was so awfully against us for sin, is now for us and on our side, because all its demands have been gloriously met by Him who was made "sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" — in short, we must be persuaded that, pacified and propitiated towards us through the atonement of Jesus, God's holy eye no longer rests on us with the unpitying fury of an avenging Judge, but beams on us with the purest kindness and love of a merciful Father.

2. That we have a new and holy nature; for otherwise we can neither understand nor appreciate the holiness of God. And such a new and holy nature has been wrought by God's own Spirit in all who have been born again. They "have put on the new man which, after God," — that is, in the likeness of God, — "is created in righteousness and true holiness." They have been made "partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the pollution that is in the world through lust." Possessed of this Divine nature, they begin, in their own finite and imperfect measure, to hate sin as God hates it; they begin, in their own finite and imperfect measure, to love holiness as God loves it; and therefore they remember God with supreme complacency and delight, because they see in Him the perfection of that which their nature loves and approves — the perfection of an absolute and ineffable holiness.

3. The remembrance and contemplation of God's holiness as this is exhibited in the person and cross of His Son. It is when we behold God subjecting Him who is the partner of His glory and throne, by whom also He made the worlds, to the awful humiliation of taking the nature and the place of His guilty creatures; it is when we survey the sufferings of the world's Creator and Lord under His Father's hand, — the sorrow unto death, the bloody sweat, the strong cryings and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, the slow death of shame and woe; and it is when we remember that such suffering on the part of the Divine Sufferer was all absolutely necessary ere God could pardon a single sin, or allow a single sinner to approach the footstool of His mercy: — that we learn how holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.

II. THE GROUNDS OR REASONS OF THIS DUTY. Why may the righteous well give thanks at the remembrance of God's holiness?

1. They may well praise God for it, as that which gives lustre and glory to all His other perfections. His holiness is the crown of all His perfections. It ensures, if we may so say, that they shall be exercised in a way worthy of Himself. Oh, when we think that our God is holy, that His wisdom is holy, that His power is holy, that His mercy is holy, that His providence is holy, that all His acts and manifestations of Himself in His government of the universe are, and ever must be, perfectly holy, and worthy of Himself, — well does it become us to join with every creature in heaven, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness.

2. The righteous may well give thanks at the remembrance of God's holiness, because the display and vindication of it in the work of their redemption pacify their conscience, and secure their everlasting safety. If He were not absolutely holy, I might well tremble in perpetual terror, lest, after having punished sin in Christ, my Surety, He should refuse to pardon it to me; and lest, having received the price of my redemption from Christ, He should yet deny some of its blessings to me. But well may I give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness, when I think that His absolute holiness is my security, — a security strong and abiding as His own unchangeable nature, — that, having accepted the price of my redemption at the hands of my glorious Surety, He will assuredly bestow on me all its blessings, from the pardon of my sin, to my full investiture with all the riches of glory.

3. The righteous may well give thanks at the remembrance of God's holiness, when they remember that, however mysterious and trying God's dealings towards them may be, they are all holy, and designed to promote their holiness.

4. The righteous may well give thanks at the remembrance of God's holiness, because it is the security and pattern of their own ultimate holiness. You hate sin, O Christian, and long to be delivered from it. Think, then, that the God of your salvation infinitely hates sin, and that His infinite abhorrence of sin is a pledge that He will destroy its power and its being in every soul whom He loves. What comfort, when you are using the means of holiness, — often, as you fear, vainly and with little success, — to think that this is the will of God, even your sanctification; and that, when your will is thus coinciding and co-working with the will of the Omnipotent God, it cannot fail to reach the summit of its highest endeavour! O then, give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness! It is the pledge of the progress and perfection of yours. And not only so, but, — most elevating and ennobling thought of all, — it is the pattern of yours. Your duty is always your privilege; and God commands what He will certainly give, when He says, "As He who hath called you is holy," etc. Jesus Christ is the brightness of His Father's glory. He is the living manifestation of the brightness of the Father's holiness; and is it not said, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is"?

(James Smellie.).

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KJV: Rejoice in the LORD, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

WEB: Be glad in Yahweh, you righteous people! Give thanks to his holy Name. A Psalm.