Psalms 115

Not to us, LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for steadfast love and faithfulness. Wesley: a prayer against self-seeking; glory to Thy name for mercy and truth.

Undisputed: self-glory is refused. Arminian readers hear a sincere plea that God's hesed and emet—not our merit—receive the praise.

Calvin: the faithful ascribe nothing to themselves, that the whole glory of their salvation may remain with God. Mercy and truth are the grounds of the plea.

Solace in God's name alone. Not to us; to Your name give glory.

Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" The taunt wounds; the psalm answers with theology, not panic.

God's apparent hiddenness does not void His love. The question of the nations is met by confession, not by inventing a visible idol.

Calvin: they plead His mercy and truth against the taunts of the nations. The scoffer's question is overturned by who God is, not by what we manufacture.

Why should the nations say, Where is their God?

Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. Wesley: though we do not see Him, He sees us, and He does whatsoever He pleaseth.

Arminians confess sovereignty and refuse denial of God's freedom—yet they hold that what pleases Him includes a sincere goodwill toward sinners and a government consistent with enabling, resistible grace. Heaven is not absence; it is majesty.

Calvin: God is in heaven and does whatever pleases Him—an assertion of His free and sovereign power. Nothing frustrates His counsel; idols cannot rival Him.

Absolute freedom of the divine will. Shared wording: He does whatever he pleases.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. Wesley underlines handmade vanity. Costly metal does not make a god.

No dispute here: idolatry is human manufacture. Shared contempt for silver gods.

Calvin: idols are convicted of utter vanity—works of human hands set against the God of heaven.

Both affirm: silver and gold; work of human hands.

They have mouths, but they don’t speak. They have eyes, but they don’t see. Sensory organs without life—parody of the living God who speaks and sees.

Where they meet: mute idols cannot answer prayer.

Calvin piles up the absences: mouth without speech, eyes without sight—so that trust in them appears folly.

Mouths that do not speak.

They have ears, but they don’t hear. They have noses, but they don’t smell. No incense reaches them; no cry is received.

The Lord who inclined His ear (Ps 116) is the opposite of these deaf statues.

Calvin continues the inventory of lifeless senses. Deaf idols shame those who pray to them.

Ears that do not hear.

Hands that do not feel, feet that do not walk, throat without sound. Total disability of the so-called gods.

Both traditions hear: the living God acts; idols are furniture.

Calvin completes the satire: no touch, no walk, no voice. Helplessness is the idols' essence.Shared: no sound comes from their throats.

Those who make them will be like them; yes, everyone who trusts in them. Wesley: they that make them are like unto them. Worship forms the worshiper.

What we trust either deforms us or transforms us. Classical Arminians warn that clinging to dead things deadens the soul—and call for living trust in the living God.

Calvin: their makers become like them—spiritual senselessness as judgment and mimicry. Trusting emptiness empties the heart.

Idolatry carries its own judgment: worshipers become like what they worship. Common reading: become like them; all who trust in them.

He is their help and their shield. Wesley: trust—He is help and shield. The alternative to idols is living reliance.

Both confess: trust commanded; help and shield promised.

Calvin: the Church is exhorted to trust in Jehovah alone as help and shield. Israel's safety is not in images but in the Lord.

Trust in the Lord; help and shield.

Priests need the same trust as the people—office does not replace faith.

Ministry without trust becomes another handmade security.

Calvin extends the call to Aaron's house: those nearest the altar must lean on the Lord, not on ritual as talisman.

The house of Aaron is called to trust the LORD.

You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord! Fear and trust are twin postures—reverence that leans.

Either reading: the God-fearers' circle is wider than ethnic Israel alone in the Hallel's trajectory.

Calvin: all who fear the Lord—the true worshipers—are summoned to the same trust. Help and shield are unchanged.

Both sides agree: you who fear the Lord, trust.

The LORD remembers us. He will bless us—Israel and Aaron. Wesley: the Lord hath been mindful of us; He will bless us. Past memory grounds future hope.

Classical Arminians hear covenant faithfulness that sincerely blesses the people who trust Him.

Calvin: He who has remembered His people will continue to bless them. Remembrance is not recovery of forgotten data but faithful action.

Sure blessing according to promise. He has remembered; He will bless.

He will bless those who fear the LORD, both small and great. No rank monopoly on mercy.

Small believers are not beneath the blessing; great ones are not above the need of fear.

Calvin: small and great alike are under the blessing promised to God-fearers. Status neither earns nor blocks.

Both traditions see: both small and great.

May the LORD increase you more and more, you and your children! Generational kindness asked under God's hand.

Both note: increase is petition, not presumption of autonomous growth.

Calvin hears a prayer for fruitfulness under blessing—households enlarged by the Lord who makes alive.

Common confession: increase, you and your children.

Blessed are you by the LORD, who made heaven and earth! Creator blessing outranks idol craft.

Both readings hold: the Maker is the Blesser.

Calvin ties blessing to the Creator of heaven and earth—so no local shrine-god can compete.

Blessed are you by the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but he has given the earth to the children of men. Stewardship under ownership—earth entrusted, heavens His.

Gift of earth calls for responsible trust and praise, not idolatrous claim.

Calvin: heavens remain the Lord's; earth is granted to mankind for habitation and duty under His rule—not as escape from His sovereignty.

Both agree: heavens the Lord's; earth given to children of man.

The dead don’t praise the LORD, nor any who go down into silence. Urgency of living praise—this side of the grave's hush.

Agreed: praise is the work of the living congregation in the psalm's horizon.

Calvin: the living, not the dead, are the choir of His praise. Silence of the grave presses present thanksgiving.

Both hear: the dead don’t praise the LORD.

But we will bless the LORD, from this time forward and forever more. Praise the LORD! Wesley's mindfulness theme lands in vowed, lasting blessing.

Both see: forevermore matches Ps 113's duration. Wesley’s tradition hears willing, persevering praise under grace.

Calvin closes with the Church's resolve: we will bless the Lord continually. Hallelujah seals the refusal of idols.

From this time forward and forever more. Praise the LORD!