A Sermon by Hugh Martin
Psalms 119:12. Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes.
2. “Teach me Thy statutes.”
Much might be said here. I fasten on the leading thought, the thought suggested by the word statutes – “Thy statutes”. The law of God is strictly moral law; it is commandment; it is authoritative and peremptory. It is statute: “Thou shalt”. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” “Thou shalt not covet.” We will notice two modern errors which contradict this simple truth.
(1.)
There are those who hold that the moral law is merely of the same kind as natural and physical laws, and they would explain the consequence of a breach of it, not as punishment, penalty, retribution or wrath inflicted by a personal offended lawgiver; but as the reaction caused by striking against the law itself, as when someone leaning incautiously over the top of a lofty tower falls by the law of gravity and, by the law of the impenetrability of matter, is dashed to pieces or is taken up bruised and bleeding. So, they hold, God rules intelligent men much as He rules planets, as He leaves them to circle round the sun in virtue of the laws of attraction and inertia; or as when He gave properties to fire which substantially say to man: Thou shalt not touch me, for when thou touchest me, thou shalt be burned.
Now, I ask, Is this a fair account of moral law? Does God lay as little responsibility upon me as when He rolls the moons and planets in their orbits, or sends a comet forth into the distant realms of space? And does He, by moral law, address Himself to me no more directly or personally than when He leaves me to discover that by violating the law of fire I am burned, or violating the laws of inertia and of prudence alike I dash my foot against a stone? Away with the futile absurdity! It is most miserable science – still more wretched philosophy. It is the destruction of morals; it makes Christianity an impossibility. Indeed it overthrows all evidence of the personality of God and refuses all recognition of the personality of man. For if God deals with me in such a fashion, I may recognise Him as a power, but I am not obliged to see Him as a Person. And I do not see that He deals with me as a person; He seems to count me as only a thing.
I ask also, Is this the sort of law by which earthly monarchs rule? Are the laws enacted and ordained in this land like physical, material laws that lay no responsibility upon us, and address themselves in no respect to our sense of obligation? Does our earthly monarch rule her subjects after such a fashion?
Taken with editing from the 1868 Family Treasury and preached on June 14 that year. The first head of this sermon, “The Blessedness of God”, was printed last month.
When our Queen desired to send a general to give deliverance to the captives and to quell the savage, did she dispatch him into the distant land bound to a camel and leave him there to work as laws of gravitation, of metals, of fire, of projectile might allow – observing these laws, but without any authoritative commandment from his sovereign? No, she called him to her counsels; personally she gave commandment; she dealt with him as her responsible subject – a free agent, able to accept or to refuse responsibility. And in the mutual action of her sovereign free will and his subject free will, she laid responsibility upon him, and duty: Your duty shall be to give deliverance to the captive and to quell the heathen’s pride.
He accepted the responsibility; and under its weighty burden, he went, bound in duty, free in will. In full free will he did his duty. He gave deliverance to the captive and he quelled the savage and he sheltered and comforted the heathen widow’s death-bed and he took her son to be the pupil of a man of God and missionary of the cross and he praised the Lord Most High for his success and he praised the soldiers under him, and he shall return to hear his monarch’s “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and to hear his country’s gratitude and praise. Do you not know how his monarch honoured him by saying to him, “Thou shalt . . . ?”
It is even so that God puts honour – perilous, yet grandest honour – on intelligent, responsible man, not dealing with him as with dead material substance, but calling his free will into play, laying it under obligation. He shows me that I am personally under law to Him, who is a living person, sovereign and giving me commandment. He shows me also a glorious One to whom He gave commandment also – a very different commandment – a commandment to lay down His life for the sheep; and He accepted the commandment and the responsibility. Not at the loss of the sinner’s life but the surrender of His own, He brings deliverance to the captive and quells the sinner’s pride and makes him the pupil, not of a man of God merely, but of the everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace.
He shows me a warfare in which not a single life was lost but in which one was freely given. And from the altar where that life was given He takes a live coal and lays it on my lips and says, “Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged”. Then I hear Him say, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” He enables me in personal responsibility and personal free will to say, “Here am I; send me”. And He answers, Thou shalt go unto all to whom I send thee and preach the preaching that I bid thee – deliverance to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; and all that I shall say unto thee thou shalt speak. He gives me authoritative commandment; I am under law to Him; He is always saying to me, “Thou shalt”. He is my Lord, my Sovereign, my Lawgiver, my King, and when my commission is at last finished, if it has been at all faithfully fulfilled, He will say, “Thou hast been faithful over a few things”; “Go thy way . . . thou shalt . . . stand in thy lot at the end of the days.”
That, I submit, is far more honourable to my nature and person than if He moved me about upon the broad plains of His government as if I were only susceptible of planetary movements and chemical affinities, rather than of willing obedience to His sovereign word and will. It concerns me greatly to prefer being under express, authoritative, statute law to “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Yes; “blessed art Thou, O Lord,” my Lawgiver and King; “teach me Thy statutes”.
(2.)
There is a second perversion of this truth. Some would have it that, although the moral law is imperative in itself, it is not so to the believer. Regenerated by the Spirit of God, the law is the law of his heart; and now he needs no outward commandment to rule and bind and obligate him. Inward principle moves him spontaneously, and external imperative law is removed. Is it so? Was it so with the first Adam or with the second Adam, either of them? And they are the two representative men of the race.
How was it with our first parent? If ever outward law, categorical and imperative, might have been dispensed with, it was in his case. God’s law was in his heart. In all of his holy, blessed nature there was nothing adverse to the law of God. He was a law unto himself. He was the moral law unto himself, loving God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself, in all things content, coveting nothing. Was imperative, authoritative, sovereign commandment therefore utterly unnecessary? Did God see it needless to say to him, Thou shalt, or, Thou shalt not? It was the very thing infinite wisdom saw he still needed; after being proved by it, he might obtain the crown of life, which was otherwise out of his reach. Therefore God gave that sovereign commandment which was not written on his heart and could not be by nature, but must be enjoined upon him outwardly by sovereignty: “Thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”.
How was it with the second Adam? All God’s law was in His heart. It operated there as an inward principle of grace, acted in Him by the Spirit of holiness, who was immeasurably His. Surely if anyone might have dispensed with strict, imperative, authoritative law and commandment, He might. “I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My heart.” Was no commandment therefore laid upon, no obedience ordained, unto Him? Or did He complain if there was? No, I hear him specially rejoicing in it. Every word He uttered, every work He did, was by commandment, and I hear Him rejoicing that it was so: “My Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak. . . . Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.”
Grand beyond compare as was His willing priestly act of laying down His life, and second only to it in grandeur as was His kingly act of taking it again, both these acts of Zion’s Royal High Priest were done in obedience to strict, imperative commandment. “I lay [My life] down of Myself. . . and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father.” At this moment, while He pleads at the right hand of the throne, an advocate for sinners, He is acting by commandment, by the imperative law and obligation of official duty. The vilest sinner seeking His aid can appeal to Him by the obligation of His office and by the force of His Father’s commandment, that “him that cometh” to Him, He “will in no wise cast out”. He at least counts it no dishonour to be under imperative commandment, to hear the Father say to Him, “Thou shalt”. How blessed to me that it should be so! I hear the Father’s “Thou shalt” to the Son take gracious, glorious forms like these: The bruised reed Thou shalt not break and the smoking flax Thou shalt not quench, till Thou bring forth judgement unto truth.
And shall His members, though the regenerating Spirit dwells in them, claim an exemption from what the Son was not exempt, from what the Son counts it honourable not to be exempt even in His heavenly glory? For even there He shall for ever be “subject to the Father, that God may be all in all”. Shall believers, because the Spirit puts the law into their hearts, claim a right to act merely at the dictate of inward gracious principle – untrammelled, uncontrolled by outward peremptory statute?
I appeal to Paul in Romans 7, where he says, “The law is holy”, and adds, “The commandment is holy, and just, and good”, as if to show that it was no inward actuating law of the heart, but God’s outward commanding law to the will. And I appeal to the sweet singer of Israel, a man whose heart was after God’s own heart, yet trusted not his obedience to the keeping of inward principle, but bowed to outward categorical commandment. For in Psalm 119, which is throughout the breathing of a heart in which the law of God is written, I find him, over and above that, owning his joy at being under peremptory external law: “Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy precepts diligently. O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes! Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Thy commandments” (vv 4-6).
3. What are the practical relations between God’s blessedness and our subjection to His statutes?
They are not expressly indicated in the text. The two topics are simply placed together, without any formal link. The bond that binds them is like a telegraph cable under the sea; yet the soul that understands them will read without difficulty the silent telegraphic message that hidden line conveys. The parts of this message supplement each other and may be stated thus: (1.) If I would effectually learn His statutes, let me constantly contemplate His blessedness; (2.) If I would safely contemplate His blessedness, let me cherish subjection to His statutes.
(1.)
If I would effectually and loyally learn His statutes, let me contemplate Him as the blessed God. If I would in good faith and love accept Him as my only King and Potentate, let me dwell much upon the thought that He is the blessed and only Potentate. For if I am to be His obedient servant hearkening to the voice of His commandment – under stringent, strict, imperative law to fulfill His will – it concerns me much to know what sort of God He is and, in particular, whether He is blessed for evermore. My perceptions of His blessedness will enter deeply into the style of spirit with which I set myself to learn His statutes.
Take the case as it appears in the infinitely-lower sphere of relation to a human teacher or master. I am to be indentured to a master as his servant or his pupil. I ask not only, Is he just; is he kindly? but, Is he a happy-minded man? Is he even-tempered? He may in the main be righteous and good, but is he dark, moody, gloomy, fitful? That certainly would make my obedience to him greatly more difficult, my relation to him greatly more uncomfortable.
I have oftener than once seen a truly blessed man, a father, a brother in the ministry, his face gleaming with gladness and love as he turned to me. I could gladly have served him to the utmost that health of body and power of soul permitted me; and as I have recalled that shining countenance – ripe alike in the rich joy of pious silvered age and in the golden youthfulness that “shall be fat and full of sap, and aye be flourishing” – I have felt as if I could understand somewhat of the depth of that prayer: “God be merciful unto us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us”. And if a brother’s or a father’s blessedness could make me serve him gladly, if God would but show me the blessedness of the blessed and only Potentate, I think I would cry out: O blessed God, I will not let Thee go until Thou bless me – by teaching me Thy statutes. The commandments of a God so blessed cannot possibly be grievous; Thy statutes cannot but be blessed too.
2.
If I would safely contemplate God’s blessedness, let me cherish subjection to His statutes. I say safely, for there is a danger of envy – of dark, malignant envy, grudging God His blessedness. Is this said to be a devilish and fanciful idea? Devilish? Yes. It is precisely what made angels devils. Fanciful? No. It is too terribly real, as must be confessed by the children of the two blessed beings who fell from their integrity by their desire to be “as gods”. And the carnal mind is too truly enmity against God; it is not subject to the statute-law of God, neither indeed can be. Rightly probed and interpreted, the carnal mind is envious of God – envious of His inviolable, independent blessedness and would excuse its own unholiness, if it dared, by saying, It is very easy for such a God to be holy – blasphemously grudging that it is not independent and independently blessed also.
This envious desire is a most insidious form of our malignant unbelief and vanity. Both by law and by gospel, both by wrath and by grace, God will have it avenged or annihilated. The very reconciliation proclaimed in “the gospel of the blessed God” is expressly framed for overthrowing it. That reconciliation takes place as a justification – judicial, in terms of law – contemplating the saved sinner as a subject under strict, imperative, inviolable law, standing at his Sovereign’s throne condemned and self-condemned.
Never is the soul of man made to feel more subject to the law of God than in being justified freely by His grace. The believer, in the very act of receiving forgiveness and acceptance in the Beloved, is most expressly presented to himself, to God, to all the universe, as a subject of his Sovereign. He is under peremptory obligation to authority and law, even by his very faith “submitting himself to the righteousness of God” (Rom 10:3) – the righteousness which God’s righteousness requires Him to require.
Never am I more profoundly in subjection than when tremblingly I take hold on that righteousness of Christ. Never do I more profoundly own the strict severity of law than when I seek to make use of the death of Christ, which the law demanded with such severity – the death of Him who took my place, and came to magnify the law and make it honourable. Most blessed is our reconciliation to God. A most painful quarrel is composed. Friendship with the Most High sweetly restored. All elements of generosity, good taste, good feeling are in it; and “blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered . . . unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity”.
Nevertheless, fundamentally it is a justification, a legal act, a sovereign deed – in a court of law, where all is prescribed by statute. Is not that indeed its charm and its strength – its exhaustless charm, its eternal strength? Again, I say, it is well it should be so, for this as for other reasons – well that I should be made to feel under God’s imperative commandment. Otherwise I might envy Him His blessedness by the very reason of its supreme and infinite independence; resting, as it does, on eternal, unchangeable perfection and on sovereign supremacy above all creatures and influences whatsoever.
What is my relief against the snare of envying the blessedness of God? Is it, on the one hand, the conviction that He rules me only as He rules material substances, binding me like a planet by iron fate to circle round His throne? Certainly that will never teach me to rejoice in contemplating His blessedness, as He is “God over all, blessed for evermore”. Is it, on the other hand, an indolent resigning myself to some principle in my heart, even if that is the grace of this blessed God Himself? No, as little will that qualify me to rejoice in the blessedness of the blessed and only Potentate. What I need is a personal, practical acknowledgment – of His supremacy, His absolute sovereignty. I need a personal, cordial recognition that “the Lord God omnipotent reigneth”; that He reigns over me; that I am under statute-law in His kingdom, “hearkening”, like the angels, “unto the voice of His word”.
That, and that alone, will keep me safe, as I gaze into the bright, fathomless abyss of the blessedness of God. That, and that alone, shall be my own reflected blessedness; while beholding the blessedness of God, I am changed into the same image from glory to glory, from blessedness to blessedness, as by the Spirit of the Lord. I may be in some measure like God in righteousness, by cultivating similar righteousness; or like God in wisdom, by cultivating similar wisdom, in my measure, by the Spirit of wisdom. I may be like God in holiness by sharing His holiness, being made partaker of His holiness, partaker of a divine nature through His “exceeding great and precious promises”. In all these I may be like God by cultivating similarity.
But I can be like God, I can bear the image of God in His sovereignty, as the blessed and only Potentate, only by cultivating dissimilarity. That is the paradox, and it has its real ground in reason. I sympathise with God in righteousness, in holiness, in wisdom, by sharing these attributes in their direct reflection. I sympathize with Him in His sovereignty only by a reverse reflection. I sympathize with His sovereignty only by being in subjection – subjection absolute, unconditional, unqualified, even as His sovereignty is absolute, unconditional, unqualified. By claiming to share with Him here, I would be repudiating His sovereignty, envying Him His independence, invading, if I could, the inviolable blessedness which is His as the only Potentate. I have no relief against this snare apart from learning His statutes; and the more I learn and am subject, the more I see – and the more deeply I rejoice in seeing – that He is the blessed and only Potentate. I can safely see His blessedness then. Blessed art Thou, O Lord; teach me Thy statutes.
I close with two brief appeals, founded on the clauses of the text:
1.
I appeal to you to cherish a deep sense of God’s statutes as authoritative, imperative, of absolute and unchangeable obligation. “Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy precepts.” They are His commandments, for ever binding all men, regenerate and unregenerate alike; and they are enforced by authority most absolute, from which there is and can be no appeal. Unless we feel that we are in this sense under law to God, spiritual life is utterly impossible. We are under an error that is fundamental, pervasive and fatal.
Unless we realise that God’s law is continually and absolutely binding, we will be incapable of understanding what sin is, for sin is the transgression of the law; incapable of conviction of sin; incapable of self-condemnation; incapable of contrition, of repentance unto life; incapable of faith in Jesus Christ, who magnified the law; incapable of receiving the sprinkling of His blood, which is God’s infinitely-wise device for placing a once-dishonoured law again in perfect honour in the conscience, unto the sinner’s perfect peace and salvation and adoring gratitude for ever. We will therefore be incapable of sanctification; for a man is sanctified insofar as, and no further than, he is obedient to the law of God. I know of no spirituality that is not unqualified, unconditional obedience to God’s unconditional, sovereign authority. “If any man think himself to be . . . spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.
2.
I appeal to you to ascribe blessedness to our God. My text is not a cold, assertion of the proposition that God is a blessed Being. It is a warm, adoring, direct ascription of blessedness to Him by a soul in communion with Him, rejoicing in His blessedness: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord”. Therefore, brethren, join with me in thus ascribing blessedness unto our God. “Bless ye God in the congregations, even the Lord from the fountain of Israel.” “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me bless His holy name.” “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David.” And “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”.
And blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who does not keep His blessedness to Himself, but has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. “His name shall endure for ever; His name shall be continued as long as the sun; and men shall be blessed in Him: all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious name for ever.” “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting, and let all the people say, Amen.” “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. From every voice on the crowded battlements of Zion let the joyful shout ascend, and let it be echoed back from all that are around the throne. “Bless the Lord, ye His angels that excel in strength, that do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye His hosts; ye ministers of His that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, all His works, in all places of His dominions. Bless the Lord, O my soul.” Amen.