THE FIRST FOUR COUPLETS of Psalm 119 are written to propose how the perfect person lives out their life, beginning with: “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord.” (cf. Psa. 119:1-4) The second four deal with the realities of life for most—they start with: “Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!” (cf. Psa. 119:5-8) These are all thoughts that you and I have expressed in our most honest contemplation of our relationship with God. We grasped at some point in time that our flawed worldview disclosed the disparity between life as lived, and life as truly desired; beyond that, we have discovered that the way in which we were shaped has become our frequent enemy on the metaphorical pathway of life. We know by experience that on our upward path we may unexpectedly encounter our foe at any of the switchbacks leading to the summit. And, as we labor upward, we know that at each encounter both of us will engage in a life-or-death battle.
The old self is a fearful and powerful adversary who has to great advantage the intimate knowledge of everything that made us who we are and therefore every weakness that can be exploited. The old self is fighting for survival and will never give up easily—it is his right, for it is his life that we are, in a very real sense, taking away from him. The new self has a much-shorter history of life—in fact, it is a life still and always in the process of formation, and which is very vulnerable and therefore must be protected by all means and at all cost. But the reserves are limited within the new self, and this self must have an ally if he is to survive. We sense, as a much-needed gift, that our desperate requirement for strength can only be met by the one calling upward towards our best self. You and I would call this grace, but grace was not the abiding external force of Torah.
Psalm 119 doesn’t feel like one of David’s own psalms, nor is the way the literary structure constructed like anything else that he has been attributed with writing. He did use parallelism, evident here, but never anything so tightly composed from beginning to end. This psalm is a literary masterpiece, written in twenty-two stanzas, each one framed successively after the letters of the Hebrew alphabet from aleph to taw. Each stanza uses balanced couplets with that particular letter starting the word at the beginning of each couplet. The structure itself brings an intentional feeling of walking a step at a time more deeply into the theme of the work, which is one of committing fully to the will of God. It has the hallmark of someone highly educated in Torah, mostly likely of the priesthood.
Far more than all this, it is the desperate heart-cry of someone who has tasted deeply of the bitterness of life’s poorer choices, and has turned away from former things to make an intentional and informed practice of walking towards God. It’s underlying driving force seems rooted in similar thoughts expressed elsewhere in the Psalms by Moses: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psa. 90:12) It stands as the finest ode to obedience ever written in any language of the world.
The Psalmist understands these struggles well—they are universal to the human condition. There is a way out, or ‘up.’ “You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.” ((cf. Psa. 119:4) In the new covenant of grace, Paul says “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Cor. 10:13) The Psalmist vows, “I will obey your decrees; do not utterly forsake me.” (cf. Psa. 119:8) Jesus teaches, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.” (John 14:15-17) The Psalmist believes, “Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong; they walk in his ways. You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed.” (cf. Psa. 119:2) John, the one that Jesus loved, says, “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” (1 John 2;5-6)
The standards for approaching God are high, in Old Testament and New. In every way, the new covenant of Grace is a better covenant than the old covenant of Law. God has made the pathway clearer, albeit perhaps even more difficult in some respects. Jesus teaches, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.” (John 15:22) Though he said this to the Pharisees, those rigid proponents of the Law, it applies to all not under God’s grace. Elsewhere, Paul similarly says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Rom. 1:20)
The battle between the old self and the new self, the real versus the ideal, still remains. The tension felt by the one separated from God is the same, Old Testament and New, but the pathway is now far more clear, and it is Jesus who offers the way out: “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.” (John 10:9) He is also the way up: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) We remain mindful that he also told us, “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matt. 7:14) Together with the Psalmist, you and I unite in prayer, “Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!” (cf. Psa. 119:5) But unlike the Psalmist, you and I can conclude our prayer with, in the words of Paul, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24-25) And so it is we daily gain victory over the old self.
Q. Am I in the process of being dead to self but alive in Christ? (cf. Gal. 2:20)
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