“Oh, How I Love Your Law!”

Psalm 119, which is the longest chapter in the Bible (176 verses), is an exposition of the greatness, the goodness, and the graciousness of God’s law and commandments.  Although there is no author identified with it, it was most likely written by King David as it is consistent with other Psalms he wrote extolling the excellencies and blessings, the wisdom and joys inherent in the law and commandments of God, and in keeping them (Psalm 19:7-11) (Psalm 1:1-3) (Psalm 40:8).

In Psalm 119:97, David writes “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.”  In Psalm 119:47-48, he states, “For I delight in your commands because I love them. I lift up my hands to your commands, which I love, and I meditate on your decrees.” In Psalm 119:166-167 we read, “Lord, I hope for Your salvation, And I do Your commandments.  My soul keeps Your testimonies, And I love them exceedingly.”

Now the question we should be asking ourselves in reading these verses is, why would anyone have such love and affections for the law and commandments of God?

We typically love that which brings us great pleasure and delight – that which we see as of greatest benefit or immense value to us – that which we believe to be essential to our happiness and wellbeing, and for most of humanity, the “law of the LORD (Yahweh)” does not fit into any of those categories.

When we think of the “law of the LORD” or the law of God, (if we think of it at all), we usually think of the 10 Commandments. However, in our sinful, fallen condition we mostly try to ignore them, see them as limiting our choices, restricting our freedom to live as we want to live.  And we find that when we do try to obey them, the expected blessings for doing so fail to come to pass, and thus we consider them irrelevant, inconsequential and unnecessary to our happiness and wellbeing.  Although our consciences may be bothered at times when we transgress what we know is likely wrong in the eyes of God, we can quickly justify or minimize the severity of doing so and continue in our disobedience, especially when we see no immediate negative consequences (Ecclesiastes 8:11).

When David refers to the law of the LORD  in the above noted passages/verses, he is referring not just to the 10 Commandments (although it includes them), but to the totality of God’s self-revelation of His glory, of the infinite perfections of His eternal being and of His glorious purposes in creation as revealed in the first five books of the Bible, namely Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, which have historically been referred to by the Jewish people as Torah, which means to instruct or prescribe and is translated as “law”.  Thus, he is referring to the word of God in total, equating it to the law of God, as it is an authoritative revelation of what we are to believe regarding God and how we are to live and act in accordance with that belief.

Thus, at first glance, it is easy to see how King David would have loved the Law/Torah as in these five books we have revealed to us God’s goodness, wisdom, beauty, power, majesty, love and justice displayed in the natural creation and in His creation of men and women in His image and likeness to know, love and be loved by God and one another, as well as revelation of His glorious order and design for human flourishing and our individual happiness in Him (Genesis 1:26-31) (Genesis 2:8-25) (Isaiah 43:7).

Having revealed how God graciously created mankind in His glorious image and likeness to live in personal relationship with Him, ruling over and freely enjoying all that He created (1 Timothy 6:17), living in His glorious presence and enjoying the infinite blessings of doing so (Psalm 16:11), Torah then reveals God’s righteous requirement for mankind to live in that relationship, which is our personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience to His will and commands, which is inherently necessary to sustain His glorious design for human flourishing and our individual happiness in relationship with Him and one another  (Deuteronomy 28:1-2). To not do so, what the Bible refers to as sin or unrighteousness, would result in death, mankind being cut off from this glorious relationship with God forever, subjected to His just judgement and wrath ((Genesis 2:16-17) (Romans 1:18).

And tragically, Torah then reveals mankind’s fall into sin, our rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, thus subjecting ourselves to its promised consequences.  Adam, created to be the federal head of the human race,  though endowed with God’s righteous nature and character that was to be passed on to his progeny (us), reveals in himself a prideful desire “to be like God”, to usurp God’s divine authority and prerogatives and to be a law unto himself, a desire all of mankind has inherited as a result (Ecclesiastes 7:31).  With full knowledge of the promised consequences, Adam succumbs to the serpent/devil’s temptation to fulfill that desire by disobeying God’s one law/command, not to eat of the fruit of the one tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  And the consequences are horrifically devastating to both Adam and Eve, and to all of mankind who will proceed from them (Genesis 3:1-24).  

They are immediately expelled/exiled from God’s gracious presence with both mankind and God’s “good” creation coming under a curse, wherein nothing is as it was created to be, particularly mankind, and where sin and death is both the natural state and destiny of all mankind (Deuteronomy 28:15) (Romans 5:12-14) (Romans 3:9-23) (Ephesians 2:1).  And to top it off, God grants the devil limited dominion in this world as part of His just response to man’s lawlessness such that man essentially comes under the devil’s dominion, (Revelation 12:9) (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

Now much, if not all, of this negativity and adversity surrounding the “law of God” was known to David through reading and meditating on Torah, as well as through the reality of sin and evil around him and the within him.  And yet David was still able to maintain His deep love for the law of the LORD and was enabled by the Holy Spirt to write quite profoundly about its infinite value and blessedness (Psalm 1:1-3) (Psalm 19:7-11) (2 Peter 1:20-21).

So, if we are to come to love and delight in the law of the LORD as we should, actually must if we are to live in right relationship with God, we need to ask and answer correctly the question, what was it that David saw in Torah that allowed him to maintain his high esteem and deep affections for it?

And this is what I will begin to look at in my next post, Deo volente.

Grace and Peace ×