Justified and blessed
Justified and blessed
Years ago, I remember being startled by King David’s delight in the Law of God. I remember wondering how and why it was beautiful to him.
I was also a bit suspicious about treasuring the Law of God. After all, Paul says, “...we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Romans 3:28). The Reformation led by Martin Luther was built on a fresh rediscovery of the truth that salvation is a gift from God through Christ and not something we earn by keeping at law.
In light of all this, I used to be a bit skittish regarding the Law of God. I didn’t have categories for understanding verses like the ones we see at the beginning of Psalm 119.
“Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the Law of the Lord!
Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
who seek Him with their whole heart,
who also do no wrong;
but walk in His ways!
You have commanded your precepts
to be kept diligently.
Oh that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
Then I shall not be put to shame,
having my eye fixed on all your commandments.
I will praise you with an upright heart,
when I learn your righteous rules.
I will keep your statutes;
do not utterly forsake me!”
In these verses, David sees the Law of God as something beautiful and desirable. There is a deep sense of longing in these verses.
For a long time, my fear of legalism kept me from understanding where to place a longing and desire to keep the commandments of God and walk in His ways.
Something that helped was paying closer attention to the differences in the words “blessed” and “justified.” No amount of delight in the Law of God and no amount of keeping the Law of God can justify me. But that truth doesn’t counteract the blessing that comes from keeping His commandments.
It helped me to think through an extreme scenario. If I committed murder yesterday, keeping the good Law of God today, which says “do not murder,” will not justify me. But is there a blessing in not committing any more murder? Yes, absolutely. Murder brings a curse on the one who has committed it. Sin introduces fear, shame, guilt, despair, and mistrust. Because of this, the one who has murdered might find more beauty in the Law of God, which says, “Do not murder,” than one who has not murdered. Having experienced the curse of murder, it’s not hard to imagine that a murderer might have a deep longing to walk in the ways of God from now on.
I suspect that is why Paul says at the end of Romans 3,
“Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.”
Keeping God’s Law will never justify us, but justification isn’t the only reason why we might desire to walk His ways.
We desire to walk in His ways because they are beautiful to us. We desire to walk in His ways because we see that they are the way of life, goodness, and ongoing blessing.
We need God to justify us, and we need Him to help us desire the blessing of His ways.
I talked about this in a former post, but Jesus came to earth to accomplish both of these things. Jesus is the most blessed of any man or woman who has walked the earth because He alone walked in the full blessing of keeping God’s commandments. We marvel at the earthly life of Jesus because it was beautiful. Even nonChristians can’t deny that Jesus was good. His care, compassion, generosity, gentleness, boldness, and love are undeniably desirable. And because Jesus alone lived a sinless life that was fully committed to walking in the ways of God, He is the only one who can justify us and give us the blessing of being blameless.
“…what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The gift of eternal life isn’t just a future salvation but a blessing that begins today.
Jesus saved us so that we could have a future forever with Him, and He is leading us even now into blessing as we find in ourselves a deeper and deeper longing to be like Him.
