The Christian Conundrum

May my heart be ^[ag]blameless in Your statutes, so that I will not be ashamed.  Psalm 119:80  NASB

Blameless – Martin Luther would have rejected the psalmist’s plea outright.  A blameless heart was simply a human impossibility.  Calvin would have had the same reaction.  In fact, virtually all the Catholic theologians of the past followed the philosophical influence of Augustine who viewed the Fall as the fatal flaw infecting all humanity.  Ever since Adam listened to his wife, we’ve all been guilty of something.  As my Italian friend opined, “Every Italian knows he’s guilty.  He just doesn’t know why.”  I can answer that.  He’s guilty because Adam is the “federal head of Man” and what Adam did permanently marred all his offspring.

Except, apparently, the psalmist.  The very fact that he can ask to be considered blameless is a Christian conundrum.  It’s like asking for gills to breathe underwater.  Not ontologically possible.  But the psalmist wasn’t Lutheran, or Calvinist, or even Catholic, for that matter.  He was Jewish/Hebraic, and in his theological world, blamelessness was not only possible.  It was expected!  Why?

Investigation of the Hebrew tāmîm provides the answer.  Derived from the verb tāmam, the idea is not morally perfect.  Rather, it is about being complete.  The difference is crucial.  We’ve been misdirected because of the use of the term when applied to the sacrificial lamb.  We think the word means “perfection” because we’ve read those passages about a sacrifice without blemish, but if we read this as ritually pure, the “spotless” sacrifice is determined by its acceptability in accordance with the religious practice.  It doesn’t mean a lamb that never had a single flaw.  We can see this when we realize that tāmîm is also used in connection with speaking the truth:

Speech which is tāmîm (Amos 5:10) corresponds to “what is complete, entirely in accord with truth and fact” (BDB, p. 1071). Elihu was enabled to assure Job, “My words are not false; one who is perfect (tāmîm) is with you” (Job 36:4), because of his inspiration by God, who is perfect (tāmîm) in knowledge (37:16, cf. 32:8, 18; 33:4). In the fullest sense it is Yahweh’s acts (Deut 32:4; II Sam 22:31 = Ps 18:30 [H 31] and law (Ps 19:7 [H 8]) that are perfect.^[1]

Note Payne’s comment:

tāmam moves naturally toward that which is ethically sound, upright (Ps 19:13 [H 14]). The “perfect” (tāmîm) decision, as made by lots, is the correct one (I Sam 14:41). As made by men, it is the right one (Jud 9:16, 19). Asaph praised the completeness (tōm) or integrity of King David’s heart (Ps 78:72). tāmam is used with the commandments of God meaning to fulfill them (Josh 4:10). The av translates Job 22:3, “if you make your ways perfect.” Abraham was instructed to be tāmîm (Gen 17:1), as was all Israel (Deut 18:13; cf. II Sam 22:33; Ps 101:2a, 6). They were to be “wholly” God’s; for, even here, “the words which are rendered in English by ‘perfect’ and ‘perfection’ denoted originally something other and less than ideal perfection” (IDB, III, p. 730).

From a concept of being “used up,” as of money (Gen 47:15, 18), tāmam takes on the meaning of “come to a close, cease,” as of a year (v. 18; cf. Ps 102:27 [H 28]). The verb denotes the finishing of various actions, such as building (I Kgs 6:22) or writing (Deut 31:24, 30). Finally, it refers to a people’s destruction (Num 14:33).^[2]

Payne addresses our misconception directly:  “Two problems of ot theology concern the verb tāmam: self-righteousness and perfectionism. . . Those who make [claims of being tāmîm] do not profess to be absolutely sinless, but they do disclaim all fellowship with the wicked, from whom they expect to be distinguished in the course of Providence” (A. F. Kirkpatrick, Cambridge Bible, Psalms, I, p. lxxxvii). . . the ot resists claims to ultimate perfection.”^[3]

It’s going to take some serious effort to remove the Catholic and Protestant theological misdirection from Scripture, but it’s absolutely essential that we make the effort.  Why?  Because under the typical Christian reading of this word, we always fall short.  We are essentially flawed.  We can never be good enough.  That leads to theological fatalism; either God steps in and rescues us from a condition we had no choice in, or we give up trying because its useless.  Hebraic thinking avoids both of these personally destructive conclusions.  We are not expected to be perfect.  In fact, that sense of the term doesn’t really have a place in the Tanakh.  We are expected to follow God’s statutes because doing so makes us ritually pure, acceptable before the Lord, and complete in our design.  In other words, wholehearted in devotion.  That’s enough.

Topical Index:  perfect, tāmîm, wholehearted, Psalm 119:80

BDB Brown, Driver, Briggs, A Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1905

^[1] Payne, J. B. (1999). 2522 תָּמַם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 973–974). Moody Press.

IDB Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. G. Buttrick, 1962

^[2] Payne, J. B. (1999). 2522 תָּמַם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 974). Moody Press.

^[3] Payne, J. B. (1999). 2522 תָּמַם. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 974). Moody Press.