God the Living One.
The precise expression here used is only found besides in Psalms 42:2. "In the New Testament the name 'living God' is found in St. Matthew's and St. John's Gospels, in the speech of Paul and Barnabas in the Acts (Acts 14:14), in several of St. Paul's Epistles, four times in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and once in the Revelation." It is difficult to treat this subject as a universal experience, because our hearts are so full of the risen and living Christ, God manifest in the flesh, God manifest in the spirit. He is God, the living God, ever with us, as Helper, Inspirer, Comforter, and Sanctifier; but we may helpfully try to take the position of a "son of Korah," and begin by considering what the "living God" was to him.
I. GOD THOUGHT OF IN MAN'S MEDITATIONS. Why did it not suffice this writer to read his Bible, study and think about God, in the land beyond the Jordan? A man can have feast times, times of spiritual refreshing, in the privacy of his home, and in the midst of God's handiwork in nature. And every man ought to have such thoughts of God; nourish and cherish them. But here is the fact of human experience—God thought has never wholly sufficed and satisfied any human being yet, because man is a composite being. He is not all thought. He has a body. And this very thinking is dependent on the help that symbols—relative to the body—can bring. Devotees may strive to become all thought. They do not thus transcend human nature, they degrade it. We must have more concerning our God than mere thinking about him; and therefore this Korahite longs for his revealed Presence in the temple.
II. GOD REALIZED THROUGH APPOINTED SYMBOLS. Pious souls have always recognized a sense in which God is specially present in his sanctuaries, and in his sacraments. God taught this to all the ages by the manifestation of his Presence in Jewish tabernacle and temple, by the brooding cloud and the Shechinah light. What the psalmist dwells on is, that he used to realize God's nearness when he looked on his dwelling place, shared in his worship, and heard his priests. Urge that only at spiritual peril can men neglect the symbols of the presence and working of the living God.
III. GOD FELT IN MAN'S HEART AND LIFE. This is the full realization of God as the Living One, living and working in us. Show this is an advance on sentiment, or mere thought of God, and on formalism, or mere outward worship of God. It is God in us, the inspiration of all good. It is "Christ our Life."—R.T.