Delighting in God's Word: A Lesson from Psalm 1, Part II

"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish." Psalm 1

Two Roads to Examine

Although without a doubt the Psalms are rightly seen as the emotional heartbeat of Scripture, they are also often misunderstood as merely a treasure trove of prayers and laments. They are seldom seen for what they are: arguably Scripture's greatest tribute to the Word of God. The gateway to the Psalter opens upon the hinges of a profound love for God's Word, and through this gate, we are allowed to peer down two roads of life that culminate in exactly opposite destinies. As almost "The Road Not Taken" of Scripture, Psalm 1 leads us to agree with Robert Frost that the road the "blessed" man travels has indeed "made all the difference." That this road is "less traveled" is the grand tragedy of life, for the roadmap is plain enough, as is the cause of blessedness leading to the effect of eternal life.

One Gate to Open

Here we face our one true barrier to reading God's Word: it is not the difficulty of the text, after all, that gives us pause; it is the difficulty of obeying what we find in that text. The wise men--John Bunyan and Dwight L. Moody--who said, "This Book will keep you from sin, and sin will keep you from this Book" spoke a mouthful of theology and doctrine in a single sentence. There is no way to begin but by beginning, and with the first opening of this little gate, we hear it squeaking plaintively upon its rusty hinges, inviting "here and there a traveler." And what is this lovely little lane so much avoided by the world? It is none other than the soul's delight in God's law. Yes, that's right. God's law. But how can this be? Have we not been taught even by the "greats" of times past that the law "was a dispensation of terror, which drove men before it as with a scourge" or that "the law repels [whereas] the gospel attracts" (Charles Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, December 16)?

Multiple Strategies to Employ

Ironically, the Pharisees did see the law as a scourge, and they used it freely to whip the layman into submission to themselves, conflating that submission with true obedience to God. Jesus rightly takes this whip away from them by reminding them that the entirety of Scripture is a testimony to Himself. When He commands the Pharisees in John 5:39 to "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me," He also gives them the pathway of true Bible study: the method (search), the scope (the Scriptures), and the focus (Himself). Psalm 1 serves as the perfect model of this process by its very structure. If we apply simple reading strategies to allow the text to speak for itself, we see that the law is not a scourge at all but a pathway inviting the "blessed" to enter. Because the Psalm opens with that most wonderful of words, "Blessed," we are compelled to determine the main idea of what causes this blessing. We do not expect the cause to be an immediate contrast, but because it is, we actually experience grammatically what the Psalm features thematically: before setting one foot on this path, the godly man is blessed at the outset for what he does not do.

The text, therefore, necessitates careful attention to word order and to the contrast between what is blessed and what is not. Clearly, what is not blessed is an ungodly worldview, but the text adds layers that imply not mere contrast but also chronology or natural sequence. We cannot help noticing that the blessed man walks not (I love the inverted word order of the King James) in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. Walks, stands, sits--yes, that is indeed the progression of moral decay in the ungodly man. Walking the wrong path in the counsel of his own conceit not only leads to standing idle in the devil's workshop; it inevitably leads to the entropy of sitting in the seat of the scornful. But this "lump of vanity" will meet its logical end: in the final judgment, the ungodly man will not sit at all but will be blown away like chaff in the wind. The contrast begun in verse 1 finds its counterpart in verse 6. All this begins with walking down the wrong path.

We are reminded of the exact opposite progression for the godly man who waits upon the Lord: his "way" does not begin with walking; it ends with it. After mounting up with wings as eagles and running without growing weary, he must walk and not faint. All the more vital, then, is the godly man's attention to where he walks without fainting, for the longing to sit down and fraternize with earthly companions can become overpowering on his uphill climb to glory. We may logically infer by making connections between Isaiah 40:31 and Psalm 1 that the godly man's "walk" not only appears at times similar to the ungodly man's "walk" but that it also intersects with it. There is, after all, a dailyness of life amid the mundane that besets all of us. But we are here also reminded that the wayfaring fool who walks at times parallel to the godly man can also follow the less traveled way if he will but walk through the gate (Isaiah 35:8).

The path of the godly requires not only total dedication but also full concentration, exactly as Paul commands believers in Ephesians 5:15 to "walk circumspectly." But this does not mean that the godly man studies his own feet, for that is the surest way to stumble. He is not self-absorbed or preoccupied with a morbid and slavish fear of making a misstep. His walk is a delight, which the text makes clear. But even here, the wording takes us by surprise. And what a richness we discover when we slow our pace and reread, for all readers make predictions while they read, and sometimes misreading a text occurs for this exact reason. Given the parallel structure of "walketh not, nor standeth, nor sitteth," we naturally assume that the Psalmist will continue with contrasting verbs, saying, "but he delights in the Lord," but he doesn't. The structure follows a much greater complexity of meaning.

He writes, "but his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night." We weren't expecting that at all. By using "delight" as a noun, the Psalmist delays the action until the verb "meditate." Reading for detail here prevents us from glossing over what we think we already know. That little word "in" implies a static state--one that is perpetually characterized by delight. It also implies that this permanent state requires the lifetime maintenance of the blessed man's entire being day and night--which it does, as we soon see. We also notice that the godly man's focus is not upon how he can use the law to whip people or to slip through loopholes, as the Pharisees were notorious for doing; his focus is the moral beauty of the law itself, which the little words "is in" tell us. The being verb "is" now meets an action verb--"meditates," which in Hebrew is hagah and which means to murmur, to mutter, to muse as if talking to oneself, and almost to chew, as a cow chewing the cud. This murmuring and chewing never ends but goes on day and night. It is, in fact, the cause of the effect "delight."

By placing the effect--"delight"--before the cause--"doth . . . meditate," the Psalmist mirrors back to us the reverse of our own assumptions. We think the godly man meditates because he delights, but he

delights because he meditates. And this makes perfect sense. The Psalmist also emphasizes the source of the delight--"the law of the Lord; His law"--mentioning it twice in the space of eight words. In this way, the law itself--and not the godly man's actions--presents the weighty counterpoint to the "counsel" of the ungodly, the "way" of sinners, and the "seat"(implying legal status in the kingdoms of this world) of the scornful. The wording is here even more intriguing when we reread to discover that the text says--not "on his law doth he meditate day and night"--but "in." The law is the godly man's entire identity; he is steeped in it, for he delights to meditate in it day and night, and it is the soil of all his thoughts and actions. We can imagine this godly man presenting each new day's moral riddles to the Lord and finding every time the exact solution to life's dilemmas. Why else did Solomon pray for wisdom rather than for riches or long life?

Conclusions to Draw

The law here has clearly captured the godly man's heart. It is the very center--the "is"--of his being. As a result, he is blessed not merely because [or after] he meditates in God's law; he is blessed while meditating in God's law, for it requires not only his full concentration but his final consecration. The law is not merely to be studied; it is to be obeyed, for it is the path to follow. This holistic view of Scripture is entirely different than the piecemeal view of God's Word we so often see promoted today. God's Word is not a mere tool but a way. We do not use it as candy or medicine or even as a bludgeon. Neither do we pick and choose the parts we like while tossing out the parts we don't like--like Old Testament law. It is the law--and obedience to it--that transforms the godly man. And here the Psalm foreshadows its chief irony: as the Apostle Paul points out in Romans 7, the unredeemed man cannot follow the law even when he wants to. But Psalm 1 does not leave us stranded; if we peek ahead to the end, the Lord Himself is with us; He "knows the way of the righteous," for Jesus Himself is that Way.

The reward of following God's law is not merely external as an escape from punishment; it is experiential through transformation. Instead of sitting on his haughty, scornful haunches like a couch-potato-scoffer critiquing the whole world but himself, the godly man is planted by the rivers of water: "and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water." The effect of this planting, although not instantaneous, is not only continuous but miraculous. Lest we discredit the miracle of daily obedience over a lifetime, look at the godly man's growth: not only is he "planted," which requires taking root over time, he "bringeth forth his fruit in his season," which we would expect, and even his "leaf also shall not wither." That little word "also" presents a paradox: the leaves of fruit-bearing trees do wither, but not in the godly man! Let the ungodly man scoff at that! The tree goes back to being a man here, and "whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." But this isn't the prosperity gospel. Neither is this works salvation. Thank the Lord, it is The Gospel; it is salvation, for it is none other than the Word of God that has produced such a beautiful and fruitful life.

We are now ready to experience the Psalm's ultimate contrast: the pivot of verse 4 says in stark simplicity, "the ungodly are not so." The repetition of the word "ungodly" is intentional, for we met this ungodly man at the fork in the road back in verse 1 when he was walking in his own ungodly counsel. This worldly wise man, instead of being planted by rivers of water, has stagnated and fermented in his own stew. His lazy cynicism--the trait Solomon identifies with the sluggard--is dysfunctional. Not only is the critic-turned-cynic incapable of mowing his own backyard as Solomon would note, he turns into stubble himself. He becomes a tragedy, for he reaches a state of spiritual inertia from which he cannot repent.

Unlike the path of the godly that ends up in a virtual Garden of Eden complete with eternal life--for the godly man's leaves do not wither--the path of the ungodly is tiresomely predictable: his counsel or worldview leads to a way or habit of life which detours into a seat of defeated destiny. The implied overlap of progressive states is exquisite here: the ungodly (who ends up standing in the way of sinners) shall not "stand in the judgment," and the sinners (whom we last saw standing but who ultimately sit in the seat of the scornful) shall not [sit] in the "congregation of the righteous." Here the reader instinctively infers the missing words in the grammatical structure left incomplete: not only is the verb "sits" implied as the mind recalls the progression in verse 1, the verb "stand" is also implied. The previous phrase--"shall not stand in the judgment"--reminds us that it was the sinner whom we originally saw "standing" in verse 1. But not anymore.

Commitments to Make

The ending to Psalm 1 not only invites us to summarize everything we have read into a single sentence, it leads us to make generalizations that evaluate the final destiny of life's dailyness. We have two roads and two destinies. There is no third alternative, for the antithesis could not be more clear: "For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish." While the Psalmist has shown us a long peek down the road which the godly man has not traveled as he follows the road less traveled, he also directs us right back to the ultimate blessing of his life: his eternal destiny. Not only does the godly man become a tree with perpetual life, his way shall not "perish" because he shall "have everlasting life" (John 3:16). This eternal life by definition is not the end of the journey but is the beginning always beginning again, for the blessed man walks with the Lord forever in His "way."

The Psalm that begins with blessing ends with warning, forcing us to evaluate, not its message this time, but our own lives. The Psalm's structure has formed the full circle of antithesis: as verse 1 has shown, blessing begins in warning--the walking "not." The first verse is itself the structural gate that sections off two entirely separate ways of life. This is why we can never entertain our culture's false moral equivalence of the sinner and the saint. It is a logical impossibility that the terms be used interchangeably. We cannot sit on the fence without sitting in the seat of the scornful. He who would flatter himself that he can walk alongside the ungodly man without adopting the sinner's ways and reaping the scornful man's fate will find himself hopelessly lost. But the problem is not with the markers on the road less traveled; the problem is with the traveler who ignores life's divine directions.

Psalm 1 presents more than a roadmap of destinies. It celebrates a central focus of Scripture, leading the soul to adore our Lord Jesus, Himself the Blessed Man who has completely fulfilled the law as the Word made flesh. How interesting that our Lord quoted from the Psalms more than from any other book of Scripture. His endorsement of the Psalter as being Himself the Word confirms our sense of the Psalms as possibly Scripture's greatest tribute to God's Word. The immense practicality of making God's Word central to our lives should therefore be obvious: the godly man delights in his Creator and in His Redeemer. He understands that Christ in wisdom framed the worlds, and he knows he dare not buck the universe without destroying his own life in it. He has discovered the rhythms of reality in the way things are. He finds truth to be absolute, for it never fails, no matter how dark the way or how steep the climb.

Psalm 1 does not dwell on the difficulty of the journey, even though we know from the sharp divergence of life's choices that the path will often be rough. What the Psalm does do is to invite us to take the long look both ways before opening the gate to blessing. Up, up, up, beyond the hill called Calvary, peeks Zion's Hill. The road taking us there is none other than the King's Highway, the Highway of Holiness (Isaiah 35:8), and at the road's end lies, not a cozy cottage, but the Celestial City Bunyan described in The Pilgrim's Progress. Here, our Lord has prepared a place for us (John 14:2-3), and He graciously calls us to "Come" while there is yet time (Revelation 22:17). We dare not delay, for His final words in Revelation warn us, "Surely I come quickly" (22:20). Can we with John breathe our homeward greeting, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus" (22:20)? Let us open the gate and step onto the path our Savior has trod. We do not travel alone, for, be it the road not many have taken, this road is Jesus, Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Delighting in God's Word, A Lesson from the Psalms, Part I