Creator, Father, King #129

I honor and love your commands. I meditate on your decrees.

WHAT EXCITES YOU MOST in life?

Hold on. Don’t blurt it out. Is it one of the following?

• laws
• commandments
• regulations
• instructions
• decrees

What’s that? You say those things don’t excite you? This is shocking news! After all, don’t you love being told what to do?

(Deafening silence.)

Hopefully, you get the joke here. Most people don’t do cartwheels and sing for joy over following rules. But the writer of Psalm 119 did. Look at today’s verse. The psalmist was head-over-heels excited about God’s “commands” and “decrees.” He had fully embraced the beauty and blessing of God’s laws.

This is such a foreign concept to many of us that it’s worth exploring in more detail.

What’s It Mean?

Psalm 119—the longest chapter in the Bible and longer than many books of Scripture—is a celebration of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, specifically the law-giving sections in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Due to our sinful nature, we inherently want to throw off laws and regulations.

So why did the writer of Psalm 119 exult in God’s commandments? Because as a Spirit-led believer, he joyfully acknowledged that the Old Testament moral code was a gracious gift, not a burden, from God to guide his covenant community.

With unabashed enthusiasm, the psalmist says God’s laws help keep us from sin (verse 11), reveal “wonderful truths” (verse 18), give “wise advice” (verse 24), “expand [our] understanding” (verse 32), give life (verse 37), comfort us in our troubles (verse 50), bestow more value than all the world’s riches (verse 72), and provide spiritual “light” (verse 130).

Yet we face a tension. Although good, God’s laws can’t save. Ultimately, they reveal God’s righteous standard, our sinful inadequacy, and our great need for a Savior.

That’s where Jesus comes in! Since Psalm 119 was written, Christ fulfilled his redemptive mission and the full canon of Scripture was completed. Now, as twenty-first-century Christians, we can read this psalm with even greater significance, understanding that God’s “laws,” “commandments,” and “decrees,” etc., include the whole counsel of Scripture—Old and New Testaments.

Jesus has perfectly satisfied every word of God’s law (Matthew 5:17) so that we might have a perfect High Priest and Savior.

Yes, God’s “regulations are good” (Psalm 119:39). But Jesus is greater!

Now What?

Read Psalm 119 and thank God not only for his Word, the Bible, but the living Word—Jesus Christ!

Did You Know?

In the original Hebrew, Psalm 119 is an acrostic featuring the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.