I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart- Psalm
40:8.
To have Christ shrined in the heart is the heart of Christianity, and Christ
Himself is our law. So, in another sense than that which I have been already
touching, the law is written on the heart on which, by faith and
self-surrender, the name of Christ is written. And when it becomes our whole
duty to become like Him, then He, being enthroned in our hearts, our law is
within, and Himself to His “darlings” shall be, as the poet writes about
another matter, “both law and impulse.” Write His name upon your hearts, and
your law of life is thereby written there. The very specific gift of
Christianity to men is the gift of a new nature, which is “created in
righteousness and holiness that flows from truth.” The communication of a
Divine life kindred with, and percipient of, and submissive to, the Divine
will, is the gift that Christianity-or, rather, let us put away the
abstraction and say that Christ-offers to us all, and gives to every man who
will accept it. And thus, and in other ways on which I cannot dwell now,
this great article of the New Covenant lies at the very foundation of the
Christian life, and gives its peculiar tinge and cast to all Christian
morality, commandment, and obligation. But let me remind you how this great
truth has to be held with caution. The evidence of this letter (Hebrews)
itself shows that, while the writer regarded it as a distinctive
characteristic of the Gospel, that by it men’s wills were stamped with a
delight in the law of God, and a transcript thereof, he still regarded these
wills as unstable, as capable of losing the sharp lettering, of having the
writing of God obliterated, and still regarded it as possible that there
should be apostasy and departure. So there is nothing in God’s promise which
suspends the need for effort and for conflict. Still “the flesh lusteth
against the spirit” [Gal. 5:7]. Still there are parts of the nature on which
that law is not written. It is the final triumph, that the whole man, body,
soul, and spirit, is, through and through, penetrated with and joyfully
obedient to the commandments of the Lord. There is need, too, not only for
continuous progress, effort, conflict, in order to keep our hearts open for
His handwriting, but also for much caution, lest at any time we should
mistake our own self-will for the utterance of the Divine voice. “Love, and
do what thou wilt,” said a great Christian teacher. It is an unguarded
statement; but, profoundly true as in some respects it is, it is only
absolutely true if we have made sure that the “thou” that “wills” is the
heart on which God has written His law. Only God can do this for us. One Man
has transcribed the Divine will on His will without blurring a letter or
omitting a clause. One Man has been able to say, in the presence of the most
fearful temptations, “Not my will, but thine, be done” [Luke 22:42]. One Man
has so completely written, perceived, and obeyed the law of His Father,
that, looking back on all His life, He was conscious of no defect or
divergence, either in motive or in act, and could affirm on the Cross, “It
is finished” [John 19:30]. He who thus perfectly kept that divine law will
give to us, if we ask Him, His Spirit, to write it upon our hearts, and “the
law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus shall make us free from the law of
sin and death” [Rom. 8:2].
In Celebration of Life in Him,
Dr. Jim DeBruhl, gembeaux@bellsouth.net
