Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 97:12

Ye righteous...all ye that are upright in heart. Some may say the just or the righteous man may thus rejoice; but where are any such? "Who can say", saith Solomon, "I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" No; "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." A vain thing may as seem then to exhort men to rejoice, when the condition annexed is such as excludes all from rejoicing To what end is it to incite the just to rejoice when there are none such that may rejoice? The answer is ready at hand in the latter part of the verse. By just are meant all such as are "upright in heart", which clause is added partly to exclude the hypocrite, and partly to temper and qualify the rigour of the term before used, if it were strictly and exactly taken. So that it is a note as well of extent, as of restraint.

1. Of restraint, to exclude from this joy, and all right therein, all dissemblers, all counterfeit Christians, all hollow hearted hypocrites, that repent in the face but not in the heart; that make a sour face that they may seem to fast, saith our Saviour, that justify themselves in the sight of men, but God seeth their hearts what they are, and seeth them to be far other than either they should be, or they pretend themselves to be.

2. Of extent, to extend and enlarge this joy, the ground of it and the right to it, to all that are single and sincere hearted; and so to give and afford a share and a portion in it as well to those that are sincerely righteous on earth, as to those that are perfectly righteous in heaven. It is as a key to let in the one. It is as a bolt to bar out the other. —Thomas Gataker.