Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; For therein do I delight (Psa 119:35).
Immediately I would credit A. W. Pink for the striking title of our meditation1, which brings our attention to the fact that
Even true saints need compelling grace.
AN EVIDENCE OF SAINTHOOD
Let us consider the second line first, “For therein do I delight,” that is, not just “thy commandments,” but “the path of thy commandments,” that godly pattern of life which they recommend.
Admittedly, the inspired laws of divine righteousness are beautiful in themselves, for they reflect the glory of their Author and His ineffable holiness, but mere speculative admiration of God’s Word is not proof of conversion. Even worldly philosophers have been constrained to confess the moral excellence of the ethic Jesus taught, for example, and yet these philosophers are no saints because they have no heart to love God as He requires of them. Likewise, being able to approve sincerely of the faithfulness of sound biblical preaching is not sufficient grounds for one’s assurance of salvation.
Only regeneration writes God’s law on a man’s heart so that he has an inclination toward keeping it, with ability to keep it (Ezek 36.25-27; note the word “cause”). If anyone has a sincere, deep, earnest, reverent and loving desire to please God from the heart for His glory, then this is proof of their being a new creation in Christ, a true saint. Calvin wonderfully commented that this second line of the verse
is an indication of rare excellence when a person so arranges his sentiments and affections as to renounce all the enticements pleasant to the flesh, and take delight in nothing so much as in the service of God.2
Of course if one truly delights in this path of holiness, then he desires to walk in it, but this is much easier said than done, as the first line of the psalmist’s couplet suggests.
THE NEED OF SAINTS
“Make me to go in the path of thy commandments.” This is an amazing, even a startling, prayer. Some modern translations have weakened it, e.g., “Help me to stay on the path,” etc. (HCSB). An Arminian commentary also lessens its source by interpreting, “We should pray for guidance.”3 These dilutions of the forceful Hebrew just will not do, where the verb can have the sense of “to cause to go.”4 While the concept of guidance is altogether possible, compulsion is not illegitimate in the slightest. “Make me to go” is a phrase which captures that sense because it means “to compel, to constrain.”5
This verse is a cry of desperation from one who sees the desirable end (going in the path of God’s commandments) but does not find it within himself naturally to attain it.
Here we find David praying for compelling grace. Though he was a regenerate man and delighted in the divine precepts, he was painfully conscious of the fact that there was still much in him which pulled the other way. The flesh lusted against the spirit, so that he could not do the things which he would. True, divine grace has placed within the born-again soul an inclination and tendency toward that which is good, yet fresh supplies of grace are needed daily before he has strength to perform that which is good. And for this grace God would be sought unto.6
TWO ENCOURAGING IMPLICATIONS
Consider two great spiritual truths which flow from these things and may encourage you much.
First, divine compulsion does not negate the virtue of your obedience to God. Reasoning from human experience, people argue otherwise. If one person should coerce another, forcing him to act against his own will, obviously it vitiates the act itself, whether virtue or vice. For example, if one holds up a bank only because the real thief has his finger on the button of a vest-bomb on the victim that could explode at any moment, his act is less criminal. Likewise, if a father threatened his son with punishment unless he hugged his mother, the hug shows little if any affection for her. Some people reason from this that the doctrine of divine compulsion is not compatible with real and Christian love, which must be totally free and voluntary, but God operates on the heart in a way like no human being. God is able to turn the heart toward righteousness as effectively as if He did coerce the object of His grace, but His turning of the heart makes obedience the fully voluntary act of the one who was before unwilling. Spurgeon often preached along these lines and provoked criticism.
I remember meeting once with a man who said to me, “Sir, you preach that Christ takes people by the hair of their heads and drags them to himself” I asked him whether he could refer to the date of the sermon wherein I preached that extraordinary doctrine, for if he could, I should be very much obliged. However, he could not. But said I, while Christ does not drag people to himself by the hair of their heads, I believe that he draws them by the heart quite as powerfully as your caricature would suggest.7
No matter how constrained your prayers and Bible reading and putting others first and the suppression of your temper with every other sin seems to be, do whatever is right anyway, and thank God that He is working in you for your purification.
A second encouraging spiritual truth from this follows. A painful awareness of one’s natural inability “to will and to do of God’s good pleasure” (Phil 2.13) is no evidence against your spiritual sincerity. Some may be apt to think,
Now if I were a real Christian, if I really did delight in God’s law, then I would find obedience to flow from such a renewed heart quite naturally and easily, without hardly even having to think about it. After all, doesn’t the Bible say, “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things” (Matt 12.34)?
From this faulty premise comes a thoroughly demoralizing conclusion. “I must not then be a real Christian, sincere in my religion, because my supposed obedience to God is only the outcome of a great struggle taking place in my heart, and victories are so few and paltry.”
Dear afflicted brother or sister, if you do speak this way, then you only sound like that great saint and apostle Paul as he lamented his own personal miseries in Romans 7.14ff., the experiences of not only a regenerate but also a spiritually-mature soul.
Now come back to the first major point. Do you truly delight in the path of God’s commandments? If you could have any blessing at all from the Lord, would it be the consummation of your entire sanctification? This was Paul’s great desire, and so he confessed with the psalmist and all saints through the ages, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (7.22).
This is the same man who also had to confess, “but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am!” (7.23-24).
This is just the kind of person who loves the prayer for divine compulsion, “Make me to go in the path of thy commandments.” Paul was looking to Christ for deliverance from this uncomfortable half-redeemed condition. “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (7.24-25).
If you love holiness but are frustrated because you cannot attain it to the extent you wish, then you are not evidently still an unbeliever, nor an insincere Christian. You are in the good company of David and Paul and all real Christians who have known a beginning of grace in their souls, but who constantly need that same grace to compel them forward in the straight and narrow way of obedience to all God’s commandments, and to the imitation of that great Savior who was perfect in all His ways. The means by which you may have that compelling grace is pleading with your heavenly Father for it, and He is willing to bestow it according to His wisdom in the time and measure that promotes your ultimate salvation the most.
Therefore, never, ever cease to pray for compelling grace. Ask and keep on asking, and you shall receive. Amen.
Notes
1. A. W. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, p. 1291.
2. In loc.
3. Believer’s Bible Commentary, in loc.
4. Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon, #1869 1B3.
5. Webster’s 1828, first definition fits this context.
6. 6 Pink, ibid.
7. MTP #182, “Human Inability.”