S. The Value and Sweetness of the Law

THE VALUE AND SWEETNESS OF THE LAW

“More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.”- Psalms 19:10-11

TWO figures are used (Psalms 19:10) in commendation of the law, gold and honey; the one indicating its intrinsic value in itself; the other its relish in the actual experience or taste of it. It has a worth of its own which gold cannot measure. It has a flavour when tasted that sweetest honey cannot rival. This double praise of the law may be considered, either, in connection with the particular description of the law’s different characters and offices going before (Psalms 19:7-9); or in connection With the brief summary of its power and influence coming after (Psalms 19:11) as crowning all.

I. Taking it in the former of these connections, the value of the law, as compared with gold, may be measured by the good it does; its honey sweetness by its manner of doing it.

1. The golden good that it does in the region of spiritual experience is manifold, as is the power or influence which gold literally wields in the affairs and ongoings of the world. It converts the soul; it makes wise the simple; it rejoiceth the heart; it enlightens the eyes; it inspires a fear of Jehovah that is clean and ever-enduring; it harmonises all his judgments, all his providential dealings, as true and righteous. Can the finest gold do as much as that? Can it do anything like that in the sphere over which it holds proper sway?

It can, alas! do much - too much, not only there, but even in the sphere in which it ought to have no place. It can debauch the conscience, pervert the will, and fan the folly of presumptuous disregard of all warning. It can infuse the poison of discontent, under duty, and cast its dust into eyes willing to be blinded. It can overcome salutary fear, and pervert righteous judgment. It can mystify or mislead the witness; it can bribe or bias the judge. In all the sorts of influence which carry men along in the line of their natural inclinations, their natural positions, gold, fine gold, is all powerful, and therefore to the natural mind very precious and desirable. But what power has it in the opposite direction? What power to turn the current of men’s thoughts and feelings, to change the character and remould the entire mental and moral frame? What power to give a man the mastery over himself, and over things without? The law has that power. And it has it as being like gold, which is not only a highly prized article in commerce, but an instrument and medium of exchange on which all commerce turns. As “Jehovah enacting, legislating” - inserting sharply into the convinced conscience and sin-smitten soul the keen point of its uncompromising perfection, it works so as to enforce consent to the guilt of transgression being laid, not on the sin-doer, but on the sin-bearer, making the transgressor at last willing to exchange his own righteousness for that of Christ; his own forfeited dead life, for the life of him who liveth, and was dead, and is alive for evermore. As “Jehovah testifying and warning” it breaks in, often rudely and terribly, upon the folly of men sleeping secure on the brink of the pit, and forces them to see how inevitable is their doom, if they are not wise in time to foresee the evil, and hide themselves. So it makes them exchange their fond and foolish dream of exemption from, for the wisdom which embraces Christ bearing that punishment away. As “Jehovah ordaining” in exchange for that murmuring frame of mind which is ever counting Jehovah’s statutes grievous, complaining of his requirements as irksome, it inspires the loyal and filial spirit which welcomes them rejoicingly as the Father’s ordinances for his glory and their good. As “Jehovah commanding” it gives, in exchange for embarrassment and indecision amid the complicated experiences and demands of life, the clear and constant light of a single eye, fixed on a single ruling principle, everywhere and always subjecting all things to itself. As “Jehovah feared,” in exchange for a mean and fitful impulse, sordid, selfish, capricious, prompting sudden alarms, to be as suddenly appeased by unworthy opiates or palliatives, it gives a clean and enduring motive; a reverential awe, not superficial and passing, but deep and lasting. As “Jehovah judging,” and owned as, in all his dealings, exercising a wise disciplinary training in the line of his law, in exchange for the temptation to regard the things which befall as a sort of chaos, it gives a willingness to see in all of them a true and righteous governing plan of correction, guidance, discipline.

“That bad thing, gold, buys all good things.” So says, and truly in a sense, one of our poets. The reverse, however, is here true - that good thing, law, buys all bad things.

It buys up all evasion of its perfection on my part by the provision of a perfect satisfaction on my behalf. It converts and buys me, in and through my perfect substitute and surety, thus making me by purchase loyal to it as uncompromisingly perfect. I am bought with a price to be under the perfect law. The law buys me, redeems and rescues me from the vain notion of impunity, to be wise in fleeing to the stronghold as a prisoner of hope. The law buys out of me my resentment of Jehovah’s statutes as if they were unrighteous and unfair, giving me, instead, a heart to rejoice in them all, in each and all of them. The law divests me of all doublemindedness, all obliquity of vision, and endows me instead with singleness of eye; enlightenment in the frank acknowledging of Jehovah’s authority to command. It buys up the unclean and uncertain motive of mere sordid, selfish, abject, and servile dread, and it implants in exchange for that a loving, holy, filial reverence. It buys and hides away from me all dark resentful suspicions of Jehovah’s dealings in the administration of his law, and in room of them all implants a humble, serene, and cheerful assurance that, in his governing according to his good and holy law, all his ways are just and true.

Well, then, may the law stand comparison with gold; well may it be held, in all its aspects and workings, to be desired more than much fine gold. It is far more powerful, and its power is far safer and far better. It buys bad things out of you which gold can only leave with you and make worse. Believing you of these bad things, it buys for you, and gives to you good things which gold, try as it may, can never purchase.

Many good things gold may buy; gold, and the pleasures it commands; all natural good things it can buy; all gifts of genius; all genial affections; all highest powers of intellect; all deepest sympathies of humanity, it can buy; in large speculations, or by drops and driblets; alas! it can buy them all for a joyless prosperity, a heartless show, a drunken unclean cup. The law has no power or excellency in that line. But set in the light of the gospel plan, the great evangelical mode of salvation by freest grace, in terms of strictest law, seen as magnified and made honourable in the law-fulfiller and law-satisfying mediator; written in the heart by the Holy Spirit, the law of liberty, the law of love, it does in its proper region infinitely more than gold can ever do in what is its. It negotiates better exchanges in a better market. It wields a higher power in a higher sphere. It does not merely help you to exchange one poor perishable article of earthly merchandise for another, to be kept for a moment and then sold again, or stolen or lost. It enables you to exchange yourself for yourself; your old self, guilty, blinded, rebellious, unclean, for your new self, converted, enlightened, enlarged, single-eyed, joyous, and free for ever.

2. The manner in which the law wields its command thus comparable and preferable to gold, is such as to entitle it well to the commendation of being sweeter also than honey and the dropping of honeycombs. This quality of the law, its sweetness in its workings as described in the preceding verses, can scarcely be explained beforehand. It must be experimentally tried and proved. I might, indeed, present you an ideal picture of the law, abstractly and apart, in its own intrinsic beauty, harmony, and heavenly grace. I might ask you to view it, pure and simple, coming straight from the pure and holy heart of God. And I might enlarge on the elements of inexpressible sweetness that there are in it, considered in itself; such sweetness to the pure spiritual taste as no cloying gratification of any bodily appetite can for a moment pretend to rival. But it is not thus that the law is here set forth. It appears not simply as displaying itself in its own untouched and unsullied grace and glory, but as working, energetically working, coming into contact with all the parts of our corrupt nature - the conscience, the understanding, the affections, the whole soul - dealing with them closely, stirring the depths of thought and feeling in our carnal minds and perverse wills. It is in that view of its personal and pointed probing of the thoughts and intents of the heart that the law is said to be sweeter than honey. Is it really so? Do you who are spiritually exercised in what used to be called law-experience, exercised as Paul was in the 7th of the Romans, do you feel it to be so? When your sin is finding you out, and the Holy Spirit is destroying your refuges of lies, and a sense of the almighty Lawgiver’s holy wrath is smiting you, and but the faintest gleam of light from the altar keeps you from utter despair, is there sweetness in such law work as that? Yes, brother. There is the sweetness of fevered lips long debauched by noxious drugs or stimulants, now gently touched with a single drop of milk and honey. It will not be at once all the promised sweetness that is to challenge and overmatch the sweetness of the honeycomb. It is but a faint foretaste, a mere earnest of that. For there is this difference between the two things here compared. Honey, on its first contact with the lips and palate, gives forth at once all its sweetness. Its effect on Jonathan was instantaneous and complete (1 Samuel 14:27). But the prolonged and continuous eating of it tends to diminish or blunt its sweet relish. Becoming accustomed to it, we cease to feel its zest. Indulging freely in its use, we find it beginning to cloy and satiate the appetite. It is otherwise with the law of Jehovah, when it is eaten, and becomes the food of the soul. In its first entrance into the inner man, searching and trying the thoughts and intents of the heart, driven home by the Holy Spirit into the inmost depths of my spiritual nature, detecting and condemning the evil of ungodliness and carnality reigning there, it may be felt as altogether and only bitterness. It must be felt so all the more when it drags me out of my concealment and sets me naked and ashamed before the holy One. But Adam must have felt that there was a faint and feeble taste of sweetness when, in his awful consciousness of guilt, he heard the voice, “Where art thou?” It must have been, a sweeter moment for him than he had had since his deadly sin. It was a drop of heaven’s honey in the cup he had given him to drink. And from being but a sip at first, scarcely to be recognised or distinguished amid the overpowering sense of the guilt and loathsomeness of sin, the sweetness grows. As I am moved and enabled by the Spirit to accept the punishment of my sin; to consent to be dead by the law, crucified with Christ, and to be saved by grace through him; as, living in my living lord, I come to realise Jehovah’s law as being to me what it was to him; as I find experimentally the value of its guidance, ‘and of Jehovah’s government of me in terms of it; so the sweetness grows. Its honey flavour, instead of suffering decrease, becomes more and more congenial, and refreshing, and reviving, and fits me more and more for valiantly and joyfully fighting with Jonathan’s spirit the battles of the Lord.

II. The twofold commendation of the law in Psalms 19:10 may be taken in connection with what follows as well as with what goes before (Psalms 19:11). “Moreover by them is thy servant warned; and in keeping of them there is great reward.” By them is thy servant warned. This makes them in my esteem more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold. If indeed I am the Lord’s servant - if I can say from the heart, “O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds;” freed me from all other masters to make me thine only; “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that he have mercy upon us;” - if in this spirit I am the servant of Jehovah; I desire to be continually warned; admonished at every step; reminded of duty; cautioned against danger. And the law of Jehovah, in its various aspects and applications, is exceeding precious, because by it, by them, I get what I desire, I am warned. This indeed is not a natural desire. We do not for the most part care to be too closely watched, to be continually getting hints and advices, suggestions and remonstrances. We are willing enough to take our instructions in a general way from our master; but we like to be left very much to ourselves in carrying them out. To be perpetually superintended, and directed, as to every minute detail of the task entrusted to us, is irksome, irritating, humiliating. That however, will not be your feeling if, being on a right footing with him, you serve the Lord. You would have him ever at your hand, to counsel you at every turn. And so you have in some one or other of his various ways of applying and administering his wondrous law, wondrous as being so manifold and yet one. Jehovah is at every moment beside you, so that his word is a lamp unto your feet, and a light unto your path. “By these things,” you can say, “these rules and ordinances of thine, is thy servant warned.”

2. “And in keeping of them there is great reward.” This testimony of Jehovah’s servant explains their being sweeter than honey; as the former, “by them is thy servant warned,” shows how they are more desirable than gold. In keeping of them there is a great reward. Not only is there a reward promised for keeping them. In the keeping of them there is a great reward. It is the sentiment of a generous and loving heart, thoroughly on the side of Jehovah, thoroughly at one with him, as lawgiver, ruler, judge. I do not yield a grudging service to a hard master. I do not go through an irksome task as the condition of a prize to be won when it is over. I do not merely work for reward. I have my reward in working. But let me not be misunderstood. Let not these two sayings be regarded as irreconcilable. I do in a sense “work for reward. I may not under-rate the future recompense before me. For that would be to renounce my position as Jehovah’s servant, and almost to affect equality with himself. I am his servant, his emancipated servant; loosed from servile bonds that I may serve him freely; his hired servant, bought first from bondage and then hired. He has hired me, given me my work, and promised me my wages. I must accept my condition, as his hired servant, with all its obligations and responsibilities. Like Moses, I have respect to the recompense of the reward. My Lord requires me to be faithful in the trust committed to me now, to render service, to endure tribulation, having respect to the glory to be revealed at his coming. He himself, for the joy set before him, endured the cross. But my blessedness in connection with Jehovah and his law now is that I do not separate the service and the reward. To me now they are identical. The service is the reward begun; the reward is the service perfected. The one is the earnest, the foretaste of the other. In serving now, amid whatever sufferings, I have a taste of heaven’s joy. And heaven’s joy, when I reach it, is still the joy of serving. “His servants shall serve him.” Fix your thoughts on this little phrase, “thy servant.” It is most significant; it is all important here. It is the key to this whole eulogy of Jehovah’s law. It explains all that is said about its perfect sovereignty, and power, and beauty; its desirableness above gold; its sweetness beyond honey. All turns on this phrase “thy servant.” All turns, my brother, on your willingness to make that phrase yours; thoroughly and in good faith to take as yours the position which it indicates; and say to the Lord God of Hosts, “thy servant!” Ah! if you do not, if you will not say that, the whole of this praise of Jehovah’s law is, in your mouth, a delusion and mockery.

These two closing commendations suggest a searching test. To be warned; to be watched; to be reminded at every step you have to take of danger and of duty; to take well every check of conscience, every hint in providence, every suggestion of the Holy Spirit, every glance of the Father’s eye, every silent look, like what Peter saw, of the Son and Brother arresting you, bidding you pause and think; to take that well; to count a single such admonition from above, laying an arrest on what is now soliciting you from below, more precious than untold treasure; and then, when your feet are turned again into the right way, to find in the real work and service of the Lord, in self-denial, cross-bearing, witness-bearing, for the Lord’s sake; to find in the very work itself, be it common work sanctified, or special sacred work become, as it should become, common, a sweet relish of love and freedom and joy that no honey from earth’s choicest comb can rival; all that implies your being the servants of Jehovah, in a very thorough sense; his servants truly and indeed.

“His servants!” And what does that mean? It means entire self-surrender; it means “not my will but thine be done.” And this can come only, and blessed be God, it can come thoroughly, through your consenting, at once, and once for all consenting to be in Christ; to be in him what he is to the Father; what he manifested himself to be, when he said, “I must be about my Father’s business.” Thus only can you be brought to renounce your natural insubordination to divine authority and your natural assertion of self-will. Thus only can you be persuaded to accept the position of servant.

Hence my final appeal! Get out of the attitude of insubordination in which you stand towards God. Submit yourselves to him. Give in your submission to him. I beseech you, be reconciled to him. Yes! that is all. Get to be yourselves on right footing with God himself. And then all will be right as to his law. Therefore I close with the solemn testimony that you must be born again, that you may enter into the kingdom of God, which is the doing of God’s will, and not yours; and with the affectionate, tender, free and loving invitation: - “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we beseech you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”