Sweeter Than Honey
"My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off."
- Proverbs 24:13-14
"How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will mediate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word."
- Psalms 119:9-16
"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes"
- Psalms 19:1-9
"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he mediates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers."
- Psalms 1:1-3
This article seeks to show that the law of the LORD in Scripture is necessarily sweet and pleasant to the born-again Christian and that it is the business of every Christian to grow in the knowledge of God through Scripture.
The Sweetness of the Law
If a person loves the Lord, finding God to be sweet and lovely, he, by logical necessity, also loves reading the bible and finds the words of Scripture to be sweet to his taste, for God is revealed nowhere else as directly and clearly as he is revealed in Scripture. For it is through, and in, the word of God that we come to know and love God.
Let us take the example of David, the "man after God's own heart". David everywhere in his holy songs has left us with expressions of his humble and fervent love to God, his admiration of his glorious perfections and wonderful works, his delight and joy in God, and his sweet and melting gratitude to God. It is without doubt that David loved the Lord. God was his treasure. And it is also clear that David's affection for God was inseparable from an affection for His law. "O how I love your law!" David writes, "It is my meditation all the day" (Ps. 119:97). In his exposition of this Psalm, St Augustine asks this very important question: "How can it be that what God commandeth to be loved, be loved, and yet the commandment itself be not loved?" Love for God and for what He has commanded us to love is inseparable from love for the very commands of God. Therefore, as put forth by Sproul, "If we love God, we will love His law, for His law is a reflection of who He is... one cannot be a Christian and have a disdain for the law of God. To hate the law of God is to hate God Himself. This means that we cannot love the law unless we truly love God".[1] Conversely, if a person truly loves God, then it necessarily follows that he loves the word of God also. To such a person, the law of God would captivate his heart and mind, and appear to him as a thing most beautiful, sweet, excellent, and glorious - just as it did for David.
The Law of the Lord Appearing Sweet to the Christian, as a Sure Sign of his Conversion
Indeed, such must be the experience of every true believer of Christ, for the Apostle John says: "by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected... No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God" (1 John 3:3-9). Instead of sinning, those who are born of God obey his commandments, as it is written: "Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him" (1 John 3:24). And the hallmark of one who keeps the commandments was helpfully laid out by Jesus: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment" (Matt. 22:37-38). Make no mistake - Christ calls for our affections. It is the mark of a saving belief in Christ, and it comes from having one eyes opened to behold the superlative beauty and loveliness of God. It is this sight of the infinite excellence, glory, and majesty of God which causes a supreme love to God. It is the foundation of it. And this begets true spiritual and holy joy in the soul, which is indeed joy in God, and the glorification of God, and not ourselves. Saving belief in the gospel arises from a view of the divine glory and beauty of what it exhibits, and this is very much implied in the words of Paul, who says "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God" (2 Cor. 4:3-4). All who are saved are saved because they have first seen the "light of the gospel of the glory of Christ". Consequently, they put their trust in Him (Ps. 9:10), and grow to earnestly love Him and His word. Indeed, they cannot help it, for they have seen the majesty of the king. Therefore, the Apostle writes: "no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him" (1 John 3:6).
Indeed, Scripture makes it clear that it is not merely the knowledge of God that makes up a Christian, since the devil undoubtedly possesses a far more extensive knowledge of the works of God than any human being. James writes: "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe - and shudder!" (James 2:19). The devils know of God's almighty power, for they saw a great manifestation of it, when they saw God lay the foundation of the earth. They even know of God's hatred of sin and infinite holiness, for they themselves suffer the dreadful effects of that hatred, which is like a consuming fire which burns with infinite vehemence against sin. So doubtless, the devils have a far greater sense of God's awful greatness and terrible majesty than any human being. But what the devils are utterly destitute and devoid of, is the sense of the supreme holy beauty and loveliness of God. The sight of this beauty excites true desires and longings of the soul in the believer of Christ. Indeed, as Jonathan Edwards writes, "[t]his sense of divine beauty is the first thing in the actual change made in the soul in true conversion, and is the foundation of every thing else belonging to that change; as is evident by the words of the apostle in 2 Cor. 3:18: "But we all with open face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of God, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."[2]
It then follows that if one is captivated by the divine beauty of God, he is necessarily also captivated by the divine law of God, as laid out in the first paragraph one of this article. Consequently, the true Christian cannot help but be wholly drawn and attracted to the reading of Scripture because of the divine light and truth that shines forth from it, through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is as Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him: "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples" (John 8:31).
The Business of Every Christian: To Grow in the Knowledge of God through Scripture
As written by Edwards, "He that does not understand, can receive no faith, nor any other grace, for God deals with man as with a rational creature... Therefore hearing is absolutely necessary to faith; because hearing is necessary to understanding", for Romans 10:14-17 says: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heartd? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?" ...So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ". Thus, there can be no love without knowledge, for it is not according to the nature of the human soul to love an object which is entirely unknown. The heart cannot be set upon an object of which there is no idea in the understanding. The reasons which induce the soul to love, must first be understood, before they can have a reasonable influence on the heart. No one can have a taste of the sweetness of divine things without the knowledge that these things exist. And so God has given us the Bible, to profit us by conveying to our minds the knowledge of Him.[3] Conversely, we now turn to the great detriment to the Christian's soul of a lack of a thorough knowledge of the bible.
The Bible must be read and understood for us to worship God "in spirit and in truth", and not fall into idolatory
It is through the Word that the Spirit creates worship - in spirit and in truth - within the hearts of the listeners (John 4:24). As Calvin said, "God is only worshipped properly in the certainty of faith, which is necessarily born of the Word of God; and hence it follows that all who forsake the Word fall into idolatory."[4] For if we do not have the light of Scripture, we would "substitude monstrous fictions for the one living and true God", and devise for ourselves "some peculiar form of divinity, to meet [our] own views", becoming "vain in [our] imaginations", and worshipping we know not what (John 4:22). "For no sooner do we, from a survey of the world, obtain some slight knowledge of Deity, than we pass by the true God, and set up in his stead the dream and phantom of our own brain".[5]
But God, in his grace, has given us the light of Scripture, which "dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly". "[I]t was by this help [that] Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the other patriarchs, attained to that familiar knowledge which, in a manner, distinguished them from unbelievers... there cannot be a doubt that the certainty of what he taught them was firmly engraved on their hearts, so that they felt assured and knew that the things which they learned came forth from God, who invariably accompanied his word with a sure testimony, infinitely superior to mere opinion". Therefore, "if true religion is to beam upon us, our principle must be, that it is necessary to begin with heavenly teaching, and that it is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine without being a disciple of Scripture. Hence, the first step in true knowledge is taken, when we reverently embrace the testimony which God has been pleased therein to give of himself. For not only does faith, full and perfect faith, but all correct knowledge of God, originate in obedience". "For if we reflect on how prone the human mind is to lapse into forgetfulness of God, how readily inclined to every kind of error, how bent every now and then on devising new and fictitious religions",[6] it will be easy to understand the exceeding importance of Scripture and sound doctrine.
The Bible should be read because of its worthiness of being known and understood
If anything, the bible should be studied for its pure worthiness of being studied. The Bible contains firstly the knowledge of God himself, the eternal trinity; and in the next place, Jesus Christ, as God-man and Mediator, and the glorious work of redemption - the most glorious work that was ever done; and then also the great things of the heavenly world, the glorious and eternal inheritance purchased by Christ and promised in the gospel; then the work of the Holy Spirit of God on the hearts of men; and also our duty to God, and the way in which we ourselves are made holy and like God himself in our measure. These things have been the main subject of the study of prophets and apostles, and the most excellent men that ever lived, and are also the subject of the study of the angels in heaven (1 Peter 1:10-12). These things are so excellent and worthy to be known - far better than all kinds of treasure, and the knowledge of them will richly pay for all the pains and labour of an earnest seeking of them.[7]
To be knowledgable in the word God is not only for Ministers and Pastors, but is the profession of every single Christian
The truths of the bible do not only concern pastors and minsiters, but are of infinite importance to all Christians. For it is written:
"Seek and read from the book of the LORD"
- Isaiah 34:16; and
"Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near."
- Rev. 1:3 - If this is true for the particular book of Revelation, it is also true of the Bible in general.
Just as one who is called to be a soldier and go to warfare should endeavor to excel in the art of war, all who profess to be Christians should devote themselves to the practice of Christianity and endeavor to excel in their knowledge of God, for the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Cor. 1:4-5: "I give thanks to my God always for you becuase of the grace of God that was given you in Chirst Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge". And again in Phil. 1:9-10: "And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ". Likewise, the apostle Peter advises Christians to "make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge".
In the same way, the author of Hebrews writes:
"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need, milk, not solid food".
- Hebrews 5:12
The Apostle here complains of a defect in the Christian Hebrews: they lacked proficiency in the knowledge of the doctrines and mysteries of the Christian faith. He complains that they have not made progress in the oracles of God, that they ought to have made. And therefore he reproves them, "not merely for their deficiency in the spiritual and experimental knowledge of divine things, but for their deficiency in a doctrinal acquiantance with the principles of religion, and the truths of Christian divinity". Christians should not always remain babes, but should grow in Christian knowledge; and leaving the food of babes, which is milk, should learn to digest solid food.[8]
A treasure far richer than one of gold and pearls
Finally, I end this article with a passage by J.C. Ryle:
"The Bible is God's merciful provision for sinful man's soul, - the map by which he must steer his course, if he would attain eternal life. All that we need to know, in order to make us peaceful, holy, or happy, is there richly contained... It is the book from which Kind David got wisdom and understanding... [and] which young Timothy knew from his childhood. Never be ashamed of reading it. Do not "despise the word" (Prov. 13:13)... Be very sure that every practice in your life which is contrary to Scripture, is sinful and must be given up... Remember how differently two kings of Judah read the Word of God: Jehoiakim read it, and at once cut the writing to pieces, and burned it on the fire (Jer. 36:23). And why? - Because his heart rebelled against it, and he was resolved not to obey. Josiah read it, and at once rent his clothes, and cried mightily to the Lord (2 Chron. 34:19). And why? - Because his heart was tender and obedient. He was ready to do anything which Scripture showed him was his duty."
"Get your mind stored with Scripture, by diligent reading, and you will soon discover its value and power. Texts will rise up in your hearts in the moment of temptation. Commands will suggest themselves in seasons of doubt. Promises will come across your thoughts in the time of discouragement. - And thus you will experience the truth of... Solomon's words, "When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee" (Prov. 6:22).[9]
[1] R.C. Sproul, Love for God's Law, retrieved from <https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/love-gods-law/>.
[2] Jonathan Edwards, True Grace Distinguished, "The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader", edited by Wilson H. Kimnach, et al., Yale University Press, 1999.
[3] Jonathan Edwards, The Importance and Advantage of a Thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth (1739), The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader", edited by Wilson H. Kimnach, et al., Yale University Press, 1999.
[4] John Calvin on John 4:23, in CNTC 4:99.
[5] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, at Chapter 5-6.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Supra n 3.
[8] Supra n 3.
[9] J.C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, at p 63-66.
