What is Delightful about the Law of the Lord?

This year’s theme is “delight in the law of the Lord (Ps 1:2).”  It is a command from the Lord.  In the context of comparing the lifestyle between someone who is on the “way of the righteous,” and someone who is on the “way of the wicked.”  Delighting in the law of the Lord is the distinguishing feature of a “blessed” person, meaning a happy person.  But how?  What does it mean to delight in the law of the Lord?  Why is the law of the Lord delightful?

As Christians, we know theoretically why God would say that meditating on the law of the Lord is delightful.  The problem is that we rarely experience it.  Do you meditate on the law of the Lord often?  Or when you do, do you delight in it?  If you do, why?

I discovered in a providential way, good reasons why the law of the Lord is delightful.  I was reading through Deuteronomy as my own daily devotional, and discovered why the law of the Lord is so important in our lives.  The background to the book of Deuteronomy is that Moses is giving speeches to the people of Israelites just before they are about to enter the promised land of Canaan.  When you begin reading Deuteronomy, Moses reminds Israelites that God told them to go conquer these lands, meaning take them away from people who are living there.  Immediately, you will ask: Why did God do this?  Why did he ask them to conquer a land that includes destruction of people?  Is this how he gives us his “promised land”?  It’s difficult to understand, until you understand the historical context.  God’s call for conquest is in the context of God’s judgment toward people, who are filled with sins (idolatry, child sacrifice, prostitution, and extreme violence).  God makes it clear in Dt 9:4-6 that God is not giving Israelites this land because of their righteousness, but because of the wickedness of the people living there.  But does that justify conquering their land?  The short answer is that Canaan Conquest was unique in God’s redemptive history in that God used the Israelite nation to judge the wickedness of the pagan nations, but he holds the same standard for his own people.  This is where the law of the Lord comes in.

At the beginning of Deut 4, God says to the Israelite people through Moses, “And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go on in and take possession of the land that the Lord the God of your fathers is giving you.”  This command includes the principle of grace, and the principle of the law.  God is giving the land, which symbolizes all the blessings from God, because of his promise to Abraham.  We do not deserve it.  But God gives it to those who believe in God’s promise in Christ, who is the fulfillment of Abrahamic covenant.  Thus, we are saved.  But the quality of our blessing after salvation is determined by the principle of the law.  Can we listen to the statutes and the rules God is teaching us, and do them, so that we may live, and take possession of the land?  Notice that “taking possession of the land” is done through obeying God’s statutes and doing them, not by military conquest.  

Finally, to obey the laws of the Lord, is not slavish legalistic keeping of rules.  To those who are already saved by God’s grace (which is what the people of Israelites are), keeping the laws of God makes an entire nation truly wise and understanding, because their law-keeping is empowered by God’s grace (Dt 4:6-7).  This is why it is so delightful to meditate on the law of the Lord.  Because empowered by God’s grace, law-keeping makes us wise and understanding, and life-giving to all nations around us.  It reflects God’s glory and transforms our culture at the same time.  It is in the context of such mercy and hope to the people of Israelites that God gives them the Ten Commandments, as a summary of his laws (Dt 4:13-14).     

To summarize, 1) The law of the Lord is a reflection of God’s holiness, and God will judge us based on it, whether we are Christians or not.  2) Even though we deserve to be destroyed, just like the Canaanites, we have been shown mercy to those who put their faith in Christ, 3) God expects us to “conquer” the land in the sense of obeying God’s laws that reflects the holiness of God, not military conquest, 4) Obeying and doing the law is fully possible because of God’s grace, and our personal relationship with God, not because of our own strength, 5) Grace-empowered keeping of God’s law makes us wise and understanding, a prosperous nation, and transformers of culture.

One more thing.  How does God expect us to actually make this grace-empowered law-keeping happen, so that we can become a blessed influential nation?  Education of our children. “Make them known to your children and your children’s children. . . so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.” (Dt 4:9-10)