I have refrained my feet from every evil way,
That I might keep thy word.
I have not departed from thy judgments:
For thou hast taught me (Psa 119.101-102).
We may speak of human motivation in two senses, intrinsically and extrinsically. Everyone grants that what moves a man psychologically to behave in a certain way is his aim or purpose. Belief leads to action, whatever that belief may be. A biblical worldview adds to this truism the more profound teaching that distinct from every man is the God of providence, who most holily, wisely, and powerfully preserves and governs all his creatures and all their actions (Westminster Shorter Catechism #11). While God operates secretly in the hearts of all men without coercing them to act against their will (Prov 16.9; Jer 10.23), he is nevertheless not an intrinsic part of the human nature. The Bible teaches that he hardens the reprobate, while in the case of the godly, God works in them graciously, both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Phil 2.13).
In these two verses the psalmist in prayer testifies of his motivation to live a righteous life—that is, what moved him, intrinsically and extrinsically. The first line of each are complementary statements that he had, indeed, been living a righteous life. The second lines relate the compelling force which produced it.
A RIGHTEOUS LIFE DESCRIBED
These are not words of boasting, but of personal responsibility. “I have [done this]; I have not [done that.” A certain strain of bad teaching among Christians about sanctification runs like this, “Let go and let God.” It exalts soul-passivity as a virtue, and a patient waiting for God to work within us, causing us to think right, feel right, do right. Another motto of this error is, “Stop trying and start trusting.” Speaking against this, J. C. Ryle wrote,
It would not be difficult to point out at least twenty-five or thirty distinct passages in the Epistles where believers are plainly taught to use active personal exertion, and are addressed as responsible for doing energetically what Christ would have them do, and are not told to “yield themselves” up as passive agents and sit still, but to arise and work. A holy violence, a conflict, a warfare, a fight, a soldier’s life, a wrestling, are spoken of as characteristic of the true Christian.
The psalmist uses the familiar biblical metaphor of walking down a path for the course of one’s life. “I hold back [have restrained, NASB] my feet from every evil way . . . I do not turn aside from your rules” (ESV). This seems a confession of an innate tendency to wander from the straight and narrow way of holiness and life, and therefore a humbling admission of remaining sin. No one keeps to a righteous course by chance or accident. It requires deliberate effort and vigilance. There are countless ways to go wrong, and only one right way. You will never keep to it unless you constantly avoid every evil way which leads eventually to misery. In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian was distracted into By-path Meadow by a left hand road, and soon he found himself in Doubting Castle, abused by Giant Despair—a painful lesson indeed.
A comparison of these first two lines also yields a definition of “every evil way”—it is every way which is not according to “thy judgments,” that is, God’s revealed will in Scripture. God’s Word is a perfect rule of the good life, the life that is truly blessed. Any transgression of God’s commandments, or any indulgence in things forbidden, is by definition, evil—bad, wicked, no good, as the original means. And unless we come to embrace wholeheartedly the blessedness of living according to biblical standards of right and wrong, we cannot expect to make much progress in heart holiness and practical righteousness. Even within the church, people denigrate any attempt of a scrupulous conformity to the moral law of Scripture as “legalistic.” Obedience to God’s precepts is the antinomian’s greatest fear, so with a false piety he ridicules it, and “legalist” is his favorite term for intimidating those of sensitive conscience.
So the righteous life envisioned here is a steady practice of careful conformity to God’s Word in heart and conduct, carrying into action all its virtues and duties, properly interpreted and applied, and avoiding all its vices, even at the level of the heart. This is what Reformed theology calls “the third use of the law,” its didactic (teaching) use for believers. The Father lovingly and graciously gives the law to his children to teach us how to please him in all things, and the grateful children receive it with joy for the opportunity to know and serve him.
Therefore, the best Christian is the one who is in most close conformity to God’s commandments, and therefore the nearest in spirit and practice to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who always does those things that please his Father in heaven (John 8.29), and who delights to do his will, since God’s law is within the Messiah’s heart (Psa 40.8). No fault was found in Jesus, and he went about doing good (Luke 23.4; Acts 10.38).
A RIGHTEOUS LIFE EXPLAINED
Why then did the psalmist live righteously? As he explains in the second lines of these two verses, there was an intrinsic motivation and an extrinsic one, and the latter was the impelling power, the ultimate cause of the former.
The human aim is expressed this way: “That I might [or, in order to, ESV] keep your word.” To paraphrase, “I avoided every enticing bad thing, because this was necessary to my keeping of your Word, your expressed wishes, O Lord, my Lord.” For every true believer, obedience to righteous law springs from love for its Author, God himself. Sanctification is personal and relational. We feel that his wish is our command, and love makes his command our wish. We have not engaged in a course of self-improvement for its own sake. We are learning to live in ever closer conformity to our God and Redeemer. Real Christians are like a wife who knows herself privileged in marriage, and with a passion to know her beloved husband intimately so that she may become to him an occasion of joy, not grief. We are exhorted, “Grieve not the holy Spirit of God,” not to be saved or to keep our salvation, but because by him we are “sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph 4.30). This resonates deeply in the heart of one who is genuinely born of the Spirit, radically changed from a sinner into a saint.
For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, . . . that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again (2 Cor 5.14-15).
The original for “constraineth” means to exercise continuous control over someone, to restrain —very close to the sense of the first line of our text.
As powerful as that motive is in a spiritually-healthy believer, it must be traced back to omnipotence. The praiseworthy cause of a righteous life is not the human aim, but divine grace. “I have not departed from thy judgments, for thou hast taught me.” This refers not merely to imparting information, but effectual instruction and discipline which reforms the man and his walk before God. The literal sense of the Hebrew for “taught” here is to throw or to cast, “with the strong sense of control by the subject.” It has the sense of “authoritative direction.” This illustrates the conspicuous Hebrew concept of teaching as the development of wisdom and skill for living in the fear of God. The psalmist is giving ultimate credit for his moral transformation and commitment to God alone. Without God’s effective instruction no one would even be inclined to a biblically-defined righteous life, much less attain any consistency in it. Away with any applause for man’s free will; let all praise be to God’s free grace instead!
God’s regenerating work in a man fills the renewed soul with love toward God, zeal for God’s Word, and a willing steadfastness in the path of obedience. All these abilities are not from ourselves, but from him, and real Christians prize them. “So then of ourselves we can do nothing, but when God inwardly instructs us with his spirit, we feel his graces sweeter than honey” (1599 Geneva Bible notes). Charles Bridges put it beautifully.
Remember—it was no superior virtue or discernment that has restrained your departure from God, but—Thou hast taught me the way to come to God; the way to abide in him—Christ the way—Christ the end. And his teaching will abide with you. It will win you by light and by love, and by a conquering power allure your heart with that delight in his judgments, and fear of offending against them, that shall prove an effectual safeguard in the hour of temptation.
Examine yourselves, whether this be your own authentic personal experience, my dear friends. And then hasten to look away from yourself to Jesus the Savior, whose grace will be found sufficent to win the heart of any who depend on it. Amen.
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