John Calvin Commentary Psalms 50:14-15

"Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiving; And pay thy vows unto the Most High: And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." — Psalms 50:14-15 (ASV)

These verses shed light on the preceding context. If it had been stated in unqualified terms that sacrifices were of no value, we might have been perplexed to know why, in that case, they were instituted by God. However, the difficulty disappears when we perceive that they are spoken of only in comparison with the true worship of God.

From this we infer that, when properly observed, they were far from incurring divine condemnation. There is in all people by nature a strong and indelible conviction that they ought to worship God.

Unwilling to worship Him in a pure and spiritual manner, they find it necessary to invent some specious appearance as a substitute. However clearly they may be persuaded of the futility of such conduct, they persist in it to the end, because they shrink from a total renunciation of the service of God.

Accordingly, people have always been found inclined towards ceremonies until they have been brought to the knowledge of what constitutes true and acceptable religion. Praise and prayer are here to be considered as representing the whole of the worship of God, according to the figure of speech synecdoche.

The Psalmist specifies only one part of divine worship when he commands us to acknowledge God as the Author of all our mercies and to ascribe to Him the praise that is justly due to His name. He adds that we should resort to His goodness, cast all our cares into His bosom, and seek by prayer the deliverance that He alone can give, and for which thanks must afterwards be rendered to Him.

Faith, self-denial, a holy life, and patient endurance of the cross are all sacrifices that please God. But as prayer is the offspring of faith, and uniformly accompanied by patience and the mortification of sin, while praise, when it is genuine, indicates holiness of heart, we need not be surprised that these two aspects of worship are here employed to represent the whole.

Praise and prayer are contrasted with ceremonies and mere external observances of religion to teach us that the worship of God is spiritual. Praise is mentioned first, and this might seem like a reversal of the natural order. But in reality, it may be ranked first without any impropriety.

An ascription to God of the honor due to His name lies at the foundation of all prayer, and appealing to Him as the fountain of goodness is the most elementary exercise of faith. Testimonies of His goodness await us even before we are born into the world. Therefore, we may be said to owe a debt of gratitude before we are faced with the need for supplication.

If we could imagine people coming into the world with the full exercise of reason and judgment, their first act of spiritual sacrifice should be thanksgiving. There is no necessity, however, for exercising our ingenuity to defend the order adopted here by the Psalmist. It is quite sufficient to maintain that he here, in a general and popular manner, describes the spiritual worship of God as consisting in praise, prayer, and thanksgiving.

In the command given here, to pay our vows, there is an allusion to what was customary under the ancient dispensation.

What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. (Psalms 116:12–13)

In short, what these words teach the Lord’s people is gratitude, which they were then in the habit of expressing through solemn sacrifices. But we shall now direct our attention more particularly to the important point of doctrine set before us in this passage.

The first thing deserving our notice is that the Jews, as well as we ourselves, were commanded to offer spiritual worship to God.

Our Lord, when He taught that this was the only acceptable kind of worship, rested His proof on the one argument that God is a spirit (John 4:24). He was no less a spirit, however, during the period of the legal ceremonies than after they were abolished. Therefore, He must have demanded then the same manner of worship that He now commands.

It is true that He subjected the Jews to the ceremonial yoke, but in this He considered the age of the Church; just as afterwards, in its abrogation, He had our advantage in view. In every essential respect, the worship was the same.

The distinction was one entirely of outward form, God accommodating Himself to their weaker and immature understanding through the basics of ceremony. Meanwhile, He has given a simple form of worship to us who have reached a more mature age since the coming of Christ.

In Himself, there is no change. The idea held by the Manicheans, that the change of dispensation necessarily implied a change in God Himself, was as absurd as it would be to reach a similar conclusion from the periodic changes of the seasons.

These outward rites are, therefore, in themselves of no importance and acquire importance only insofar as they are useful in confirming our faith, so that we may call upon the name of the Lord with a pure heart.

The Psalmist, therefore, justly denounces the hypocrites who gloried in their ostentatious services and declares that they performed them in vain. It might occur to some that, since sacrifices held a necessary place under the Law, they could not be justifiably neglected by the Jewish worshipper.

However, by attending to the Psalmist's scope, we may easily discover that he does not propose to abrogate them insofar as they were aids to piety, but rather to correct that erroneous view of them which was fraught with the deepest injury to religion.

In the fifteenth verse, we first have a command to pray, then a promise of its being answered, and afterwards a call to thanksgiving. We are commanded to pray in the day of trouble, but not with the understanding that we are to pray only then, for prayer is a duty required of us every day and every moment of our lives.

However comfortable and free from anxiety our situation may be, we must never cease to engage in the practice of supplication, remembering that if God should withdraw His favor for a moment, we would be undone. In affliction, however, our faith is more severely tried, and it is appropriate to specify it as the season for prayer.

The prophet points us to God as the only refuge and means of safety in the day of our urgent need.

A promise is added to encourage us in this duty, as we are inclined to be overwhelmed by a sense of the majesty of God or of our own unworthiness. Gratitude is next commanded, in consideration of God’s answer to our prayers.

Since the invocation of God's name is represented in this passage as constituting a principal part of divine worship, all who profess piety will feel how necessary it is to preserve its pure and uncorrupted form.

We are forcibly taught the detestable nature of the error on this point held by Roman Catholics, who transfer to angels and to men an honor that belongs exclusively to God. They may pretend to view these as nothing more than patrons who pray for them to God.

But it is evident that these patrons are impiously substituted by them in the place of Christ, whose mediation they reject. Furthermore, it is apparent from the form of their prayers that they recognize no distinction between God and the very least of their saints. They ask the same things from Saint Claudius that they ask from the Almighty and offer the Lord’s Prayer to the image of Catherine.

I am aware that Roman Catholics justify their invocation of the dead by denying that their prayers to them amount to divine worship. They talk so much about the kind of worship that they call latria—that is, the worship they give to God alone—as to make it seem that in the invocation of angels and saints, they give none of it to them.

But it is impossible to read the words of the Psalmist that we are now considering without perceiving that all true religion is lost unless God alone is called upon. If Roman Catholics were asked whether it were lawful to offer sacrifices to the dead, they would immediately answer no.

They admit to this day that sacrifice could not lawfully be offered to Peter or to Paul, for common sense would dictate the profanity of such an act. And when we here see God preferring the invocation of His name over all sacrifices, is it not clear beyond dispute that those who call upon the dead are guilty of the grossest impiety?

From this it follows that Roman Catholics, however much they may abound in their genuflections before God, rob Him of the chief part of His glory when they direct their supplications to the saints.

The express mention made in these verses of affliction is intended to comfort the weak and fearful believer.

When God has withdrawn the outward marks of His favor, a doubt is apt to creep into our minds whether He really cares for our salvation. This is far from being well-founded; on the contrary, adversity is sent to us by God precisely to stir us up to seek Him and to call upon His name.

Nor should we overlook the fact that our prayers are acceptable only when we offer them in compliance with God’s commandment and are encouraged in them by considering the promise that He has given.

The argument that Roman Catholics have drawn from this passage, in support of their multiplied vows, is futile and unjustified.

The Psalmist, as we have already hinted, when he commands the payment of their vows, refers only to solemn thanksgiving, whereas they trust in their vows as meriting salvation. Besides, they make vows that have no divine authorization but, on the contrary, are explicitly condemned by the Word of God.