This I had,
Because I kept thy precepts (Psa 119.56).
When God’s law in Scripture is the standard, obedience is intimately bound together with blessing and blessedness. This may be one of the most important spiritual lessons we can ever learn. To believe this is the kind of faith that leads to ultimate salvation; to doubt it opens the door to sin and judgment.
Recall our original test in the Garden of Eden. The primeval liar and murderer (John 8.44) spread a net for the feet of our first parents by denying that misery would follow from transgressing God’s law, and by insisting that greater blessing could be enjoyed through disobedience than obedience.
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Gen 3.4-5).
With this suggestion in her mind, Eve began to think of the forbidden fruit in a new and perverse way, and Adam joined her.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat (Gen 3.6).
They evidenced a departure from their previous love/trust/fear of God and His Word, and embraced the love of the “world” (in its worst and sinful sense), namely, “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2.15-16). These things are “not of the Father,” but “of the world.”
Even as sincere Christians, we need to keep coming back to these basic spiritual truths, reminding ourselves of them, and being reminded. The way to ultimate happiness is through an obedient faith. Possessing an obedient faith is itself a great blessing and sufficient grounds for assurance of salvation.
Now we come to consider more carefully our text for this study, Psa 119.56, only eight simple words, both in the original Hebrew and in the Authorized Version (KJV). Its linguistic simplicity is not matched by ease of interpretation.
The accurate translation and interpretation of biblical texts are closely interdependent and depend very much on the deep piety, technical knowledge, and profound biblical grasp of the scholar who would translate and interpret them, especially when it comes to microscopic portions and their meanings like the verse before us. It should not be surprising that some passages are difficult to nail down precisely with respect to their exact intent, and therefore good teachers differ. Sometimes ambiguity may be intentional and an expression deliberately has more than one sense. On the other hand, both senses may be objectively true and it remains very hard to judge which one was the Holy Spirit’s original intent. In this case we may not responsibly do more than offer an opinion. But we should not despair. Thankfully, we remember that though
all things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them.1
I would set before you two basic senses of this verse for your consideration.
BLESSING COMES THROUGH OBEDIENCE
The traditional rendering of the AV conveys this sense well. “This I had, because I kept thy precepts.” Although the referent of “this” is not explicitly stated, it seems to be implied by the preceding verses (perhaps especially vv. 54-55). There the psalmist testified about how that day and night, even while living in the midst of a society characterized by outrageous wickedness (cf. vv. 51, 53), he had been able to rejoice in God’s statutes and remember (that is, fix his thoughts upon) God’s name. The psalmist’s life was a spiritual oasis in a desert. He walked with God, was the friend of God, took delight in God. Despite hardships and persecution, this man was “blessed” in the highest sense of that word. “THIS [blessedness] I had, because I kept thy precepts.” This is the interpretation of other renderings. “This blessing has fallen to me, for I have kept your precepts” (NRSV). “You have blessed me because I have always followed your teachings” (CEV paraphrase).
A pitfall we must avoid here is thinking that the blessings we experience in the wake of obedience are merited by our obedience. They are not; rather, God’s free grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone accounts for all the blessing that come to obedient believers.
Few men in the history of the church have had the “deep piety, technical knowledge, and profound biblical grasp” of John Calvin, and therefore his exegetical commentaries upon the biblical text, while not infallible of course, remain a rich treasury of sound interpretation. Consider his explanation here.
I doubt not that the prophet, under the term זאת, zoth [“this”], comprehends all God’s benefits; but as he comes before God in relation to blessings then being enjoyed by him, he speaks as if he were pointing to them. Hence, under this term is included an acknowledgment of all the benefits with which he had been crowned; or, at all events, he declares that God had borne testimony, by some signal deliverance, to the integrity of his conduct. He does not boast of meriting anything, as the Pharisees in our day do, who, when they meet with any such matter in Scripture, pervert it to prove the merit of works. But the prophet had no other design, than to set himself in diametrical opposition to the despisers of God, who either impute all their prosperity to their own industry, or ascribe it to chance, and malignantly overlook or conceal God’s superintending providence. He therefore calls upon himself to return to God, and invites others to follow his example, and exhorts them, that as God is an impartial judge, he will always reserve a recompense for piety.
Besides this, there is the possibility of an important alternative sense.
OBEDIENCE ITSELF IS A BLESSING
“This” may be referring not to what immediately precedes, but what immediately follows, namely, the psalmist’s obedience, with the idea of blessing still implied. In other words, the text could reasonably be translated as, “This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts” (ESV), and, “This has become mine, that I observe Thy precepts” (NASB). Taking it this way, the psalmist is exulting in God’s grace toward him, that he who was before such a great sinner unworthy of the least of God’s blessing, had now received the blessing of being made by God an obedient believer.
Only a godly person thinks of obedience to God itself as a blessing, and sin itself as a curse or misery. For only in walking with God can we have the pleasure of communion with Him (Amos 3.3; 1 John 1.5-7), and those who live in constant opposition and enmity toward Him (Rom 8.6-7) are miserable whether they realize it or not (Prov 4.19; 13.15; Jer 2.19). God’s wrath abides on them (John 3.36) and except they repent, they shall be turned into hell (Psa 9.17; Luke 13.3, 5).
My opinion is that while both of these basic interpretations express important truths, the first one is more likely the correct sense of Psa 119.56. In closing, ponder these choice quotations.
• In the mysterious chemistry of God’s mercy, a man’s very obedience is made a blessing to him (John Blanchard).
• Only in obedience can we discover the great joy of the will of God (Sinclair Ferguson).
• The fundamental deception of Satan is the lie that obedience can never bring happiness (R.C. Sproul).
• The punishment of sin is sin (Augustine).
• The sinner sins against himself; the wrongdoer wrongs himself, becoming the worse by his own action (Marcus Aurelius).
• Sin puts hell into the soul and the soul into hell (Anonymous).2
Notes:
1. 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, I.7
2. Quotes from The Complete Gathered Gold, Blanchard.