I hate and abhor lying:
but thy law do I love (Psa 119.163).
True religion is a matter of the heart and stirs one’s deepest feelings, arousing both profound detestation and intense approbation and craving for God and his righteousness. Jonathan Edwards made a convincing case for this proposition in his masterful work entitled, “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.”1 To quote him, “True religion, in great part, consists in holy affections.”2 Edwards first calls upon 1 Peter 1.8 for supporting testimony, which remarks upon the Christian’s relationship with Christ in this way: “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Intellectual apprehension of truth and consent to it there must be—that is indispensable—but if we remain cold and unmoved with respect to truth and error, if we feel no attraction toward the one and aversion to the other, then we can be very sure that we have experienced nothing or next to nothing of what it means to be a sincere Christian.
Our text verse from Psalm 119 also affirms this. Its strong language with an economy of words that is sparse yet sufficient makes the point unmistakably. It furnishes ample substance for meditation to the godly soul, especially when we call to mind the plentiful witness of all Scripture upon this worthy topic.
The form of the text is personal testimony before God in the form of prayer before the assembled congregation, and commended to the whole church for singing in divine worship. That is, every true worshiper truly relates to this on some level already, and ought to aspire toward the great elevation of these holy feelings in his life and walk with God.
I LOATHE THE LIES
Intensity of feeling leads to vigorous expression of the sentiment. “I hate and abhor lying.” We have a whole spectrum of words to characterize our feelings of disapproval and aversion to things, starting with “dislike,” but by the time we get to “hate” and especially “abhor,” we aim to convey the strongest detestation possible in the human heart. When only one strong verb is insufficient and two reinforce each other like this, the expression is forceful indeed. The first of the two in the original Hebrew has been defined as “hate, abhor, detest, loathe, be hostile, have a feeling of open hostility and intense dislike.”3 The second, besides many of these same words, has to “have a hate or very strong dislike for an object, implying contempt and low opinion of the value of the object.”4 Such hatred is not only morally allowable but mandatory.
So what was it that provoked the ire of David, the man after God’s own heart (1 Sam 13.14; Acts 13.22)? Not merely the act of “lying,” but the “falsehood” which was its substance (alt. translations). The original word’s semantic range includes lying, falsehood, deception, fraud, and whatever is wrong.5 Such spiritual realities, or rather, aberrations from the highest realities, found no shrine for worship within the psalmist, but rather strong, animated opposition.
Such a notion sounds passing strange upon the ears of modern skeptics and cynics. “I hate falsehood? Who knows even what falsehood is!” If only such would submit their minds to God’s truth in Scripture, they would know.
Falsehood is the means by which Satan from the very beginning made mankind his miserable subjects, and it is also the way he holds sway over them, while he continues his slow murder of their souls. As long as Adam and Eve knew the truth and acted consistently with it, they enjoyed sweet communion with their Lord and Maker. There was a harmony of fellowship between man and his God. Then the one that Jesus labeled “a liar, and the father of it” (John 8.44) entered the paradisiacal scene and ruined it. His infernal remark, “Yea, hath God said?” (Gen 3.1), introduced the possibility of doubting God, and taking the bait, our first parents were horribly ensnared with the devil in his daring rebellion, and doomed to share his wretched fate, except for the grace of God. In a just judgment upon their sin, God sends certain ones “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess 2.11-12). Note well the connection between one’s beliefs and one’s destiny. With all this in view, is it any wonder that a man of faith and love and piety like David should glorify God in prayer by announcing, “I hate and abhor falsehood,” and recommend the same spiritual position to his brethren?
Some doubtless think, “Well, what difference does it make what we believe anyway, as long as we love one another?” Their slogan is, “Deeds not creeds!” Ah, but without gospel truth, love is impossible for sinners like us. Love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (1 Cor 13.6). Falsehood keeps us bound in the shackles of idolatry. Falsehood blinds our minds, hardens our hearts, rationalizes every self-serving propensity with which we were born, and which is reinforced by the selfish society in which we live. Jesus said, “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8.32). Knowing the truth is knowing Christ himself who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14.6).
I LOVE GOD’S TRUTH
The first line of this inspired couplet does not identify the lying parties, for there are many, both demonic and human. In contrast, the second line uses the possessive pronoun “thy” to identify the single Source of all truth, namely, God himself, as the psalmist addresses the Lord in this prayer. He is “the LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth” (Exod 34.6). “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut 32.4). God has sent forth many agents to speak his truth, but the truthfulness of the message preached streams from the very nature of God himself, who “is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1.5).
While for a time “God . . . at sundry times and divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,” now he “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Heb 1.1-2). Furthermore, “for the better preserving, and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment, and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan, and of the world, [God has been pleased] to commit the same [truth] wholly unto writing; which maketh the Holy Scriptures to be most necessary, those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased” (1689 LCBF, I.1).
Since the Scriptures began to be written long ago for the same purposes, even long before David lived, he praised them as God’s truth. By writing, “thy law do I love,” the psalmist without doubt refers to the sacred Scriptures then in existence, and as we read his holy affirmation today, we know it applies to the entire canon, from Genesis to Revelation.
As professing Christians, we are quick to say that we believe the Bible, but this is not enough. We should be able to affirm before God in prayer that we love his Word, that we actually experience the most intense feelings of disapproval for all falsehood, and that our approval of and craving for his truth in Scripture is no less intense. Many may even dare to make this profession, but how many of them have actually read the Bible, and persevere in reading it daily? If you cannot testify that this is your habit, then unless you are providentially hindered by illness or something comparable, how is that neglect of Scripture compatible with a sincere love of it? Let each of us examine himself, whether we are in the faith, and whether the faith is in us.
Can you sincerely say to God that Scripture is truth beloved to your soul? This one verse is a call to repent of Bible coldness and to excel in religious affections toward Truth written and Incarnate, even God’s Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
Notes:
1 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/affections
2 From Part 1 of 3.
3 DBLSD #8533.
4 Ibid., #9493.
5 Various lexicons.