I have chosen the way of truth: Thy judgments have I laid before me (Psa 119.30).
Thinking and living as a follower of Jesus Christ involves very deliberate decision and intentional perseverance, while these spiritual activities of the soul are fruits of a God-given faith. Believers know about themselves that “it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2.13). This truth does not cancel out the believer’s willing and doing, but rather establishes and enables it. God works in you to will (original: intend, desire) His good pleasure, and so you do indeed will it, when you had no desire whatsoever in this direction before His working in you to create it. God works in you to do (original: work, perform) His good pleasure, and so you do indeed do it, when you had no success whatsoever in these good works before His working in you to achieve them. John Newton remarked on the phrase “to will and to do”: “Not at the same time – first to will, then to do,”1 as our purpose precedes our act. God always takes the initiative, but we were always responsible to believe and obey Him, even before He worked in us, and afterward, we are the active agents believing and obeying while He is working in us. He does not believe instead of us—we believe. He does not obey instead of us—we obey. If we never believe and obey God, we are criminally blameworthy. If we receive faith and repentance and find ourselves believing and obeying, then God deserves the credit for it.
These basics of divine sovereignty and human responsibility are foundational to understanding true Christian experience.
Here the psalmist testifies in prayer of his deliberate discipleship, pleading that the Lord who had brought him to this point in his spiritual life would continue to strengthen (119.28), teach (119.29), and vindicate (119.31) him.
True believers have deliberately chosen to follow the Lord and to persevere in His commands.
A DISCIPLE’S DECISION
“I have chosen the way of truth.” The only significant variation in English translation recognizes that the original can mean “faithfulness” as well as “truth.” The term for “way” is the same as in 119.29, “the way of lying,” and the context obviously influenced the AV translators’ choice. These two concepts, truth and faithfulness, amount to the same thing in this context. The way of truth is the way of faithfulness. In view here is a course or manner of life that is transparent and principled, conducted habitually according to the standard of God’s Word. We might call it a biblical lifestyle. This is just the opposite of how the psalmist’s enemies were living, and by implication, of how the psalmist himself was living before his conversion.
“I have chosen” it, he testifies. The original connotes a careful weighing of the alternatives and a deliberate selection of this way over other ways. It means “choose, select, desire, prefer, i.e., to make a selection between two or more options.”2 This word’s first two uses in Scripture are mundane: “the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Gen 6.2); “Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan” (Gen 13.11). From a menu of potential wives or fields, these men weighed their options and made selections.
It may be that in an overreaction to popular Arminianism, we have sometimes failed to give due weight to the reality of man’s free will and choice in matters evangelical. Our reliable confession of faith speaks bluntly about it, without embarrassment, in its chapter entitled, “Of Free Will:”
God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice; that it is neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.3
To put it plainly, you always do exactly what you want. You make your own choices and act according to your own beliefs and judgments. This is no small part of an ethical foundation for personal responsibility and divine judgment. We lie to ourselves about this to rationalize our sins. This self-deception imprisons us needlessly.
Even Calvin, commenting on this verse, quotes “the old adage, that man’s life is as it were where two ways meet,” and emphasizes that this “refers not simply in the general tenor of human life, but to every particular action of it. For no sooner do we undertake any thing, no matter how small, than we are grievously perplexed, and . . . confounded by conflicting counsels.”
Neither Moses nor Joshua were denying God’s absolute sovereignty when they preached this:
I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live (Deut 30.19).
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Josh 24.15).
True believers, then, are those who have deliberately chosen the way of truth instead of false ways. They follow Jesus on purpose, and admittedly, solely by God’s enabling grace. Unbelievers have so far failed, inexcusable and culpably, to make this virtuous choice, and God’s just wrath abides on them.
A DISCIPLES’S DETERMINATION
The second part of the psalmist’s prayerful testimony is, “Thy judgments [God’s commands; i.e., Scripture] have I laid before me.”
The Hebrew is simply “I have placed your judgments,” which most take to mean . . . “I set Your rules before me.” The meaning is that he pays attention to, is always conscious of, God’s laws.4
The AV rendering employs a graphic image. The psalmist places the unrolled scroll right before his face where he can see, read, study, and ponder it. The Hebrew may possibly have another sense as reflected in the NET: “I am committed to your regulations.” Again, both amount to the same thing. The psalmist’s spiritual experience is saturated with the biblical text through obsessive attention to it. He is a Bible man. “His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psa 1.2).
The Christian life would be easy if all it required were one, momentary choice to believe and follow Christ, for, having made that choice, we could hypothetically rest in a lifelong confirmation of it, and keep believing and doing right without struggle or effort. Any spiritually-minded Bible student knows this is not the doctrine of Scripture, and real Christians know that this is not their own actual experience.
No one drifts into holiness. It requires a deliberate choice of the way of truth as revealed in the Sacred Scriptures. Spurgeon says, “The commands of God must be set before us as the mark to aim at, the model to work by, and the road to walk in.”5
I know that sometimes I come across as plucking a harp of one string, but the Bible itself emphasizes the absolutely indispensable role of disciplined, daily Scripture-intake. Wayne Mack has aptly called speaking to God (effective prayer) and hearing God (disciplined Bible study) “the twin pillars of the Christian life.”6
Just as you must eat food daily as a rule for the strength of your body, so you must do with spiritual food for your soul. Your body does not die from fasting for a day and neither will your soul, but both body and soul do become weaker and weaker through malnutrition. In both physical and spiritual realms, having an appetite is a sign of life, and a vigorous appetite, of health. How is your appetite for Scripture from day to day? Are you spiritually alive? Do you read your Bible before you take that first bite of daily food? If not, why not? Which is more important to your true well-being? Are your days of fasting from food much more rare than your fasting from Scripture? Job said,
I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food (Job 23:12).
and Peter exhorts us,
As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby (1 Pet 2.2).
Please pardon my grammar and candor, but this ain’t gonna happen unless you quit making excuses for your wretched neglect and determine with all your heart and soul that by the grace of God, you will be disciplined as a student of Scripture—daily, unless providentially-hindered. There is no shortcut or substitute for this kind of deliberate discipleship. You will never experience the mythical “holy zap” that brings spiritual maturity instantaneously. Like everyone else who will be saved on Judgment Day, you must deliberately choose to follow the Lord and to persevere in His commands, while the reprobate continue drifting in the direction of their own sinful lusts leading to hell. “Choose you this day whom you will serve,” whether Jesus, or yourself. The Lord incline and strengthen your heart. Amen.
Notes:
1. The Banner of Truth magazine (Aug-Sep 2007), p.29.
2. DBL #1047.
3. 1689 London Baptist Confession, IX.1.
4. UBS Hdbk, in loc.
5. Believer’s Bible Commentary (MacDonald), in loc.
6. www.trinitybookservice.org offers his book by this title.
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