• The strange thing about Ps. 119 is David speaks about the “law” and the Lord’s “statutes” in just the way that we speak about His love and grace: “my comfort in affliction” (v.50); “my hope is in your rules” (v.43); “I find my delight in your commandments” (v.47); “I delight in your law” (v.70). Although generally we love David and resonate with his heart, this seems odd to us.
• No one says it out loud, but we (unlike David) tend to think the heart of God as revealed in the law, especially when it results in judgment and wrath, leads to questions about God’s character. We have secret doubts about whether a wrathful God can be considered just. Non-believers ask us about God’s judgment and we waffle. But for the Incarnation (so we think), and its expression of grace and unconditional love, we would be hard-pressed to defend God.
• One reason for our thinking this way is we have been nurtured in an Evangelical climate that identifies good relative to the individual, relative to ourselves. And this is where we depart radically from David. To David, all good was identified with God. He gave little weight to humankind: “Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath” (Ps. 62:9); similarly Isaiah: “Before him all the nations are as nothing; they are regarded by him as worthless and less than nothing” (Isa 40:17).
• What is so remarkable about God is He willingly loves, and gives Himself for, those who are but a “breath” and a “delusion.” It is precisely our lowness, our depravity, that makes God’s love so stunning, so exquisite. The more highly we regard ourselves, the less impressive His love seems to us. When we feel worthy, His love for us seems merely reasonable, warranted. Such people make apathetic Christians, but they are often excited about all the sub-heaven endeavors of the Church (because they value humankind over God).
• So, the ability to love God’s law, His commands, His statutes, is the simple product of loving God more than we love ourselves — and our own kind. As we learn to love what He loves, our affections become identified with His. We have fewer complaints about life in His kingdom and more thanksgiving, begging with David that He would “teach us his statutes” or, as Paul says more generally, “find out what pleases the Lord.”