The Word
of God Is Living and Active – Hebrews 4:12.
.A
Meditation on Psalm 119
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by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Psalm 119:9 How shall a young man cleanse
his way? By keeping to your words.
It was a young man who prayed this psalm and
this verse (cf. w. 99-100). So this is not the question of an older person
looking at the evils of youth. This question grows out of personal experiences
of temptations and personal encounters with the Word of God. A young man
here asks the question of his life, and he asks it not because of flaming
idealism or enthusiasm for the good and noble in general, but because he
has experienced the power of the Word of God and his own weakness.
Does this question about the blameless and pure
way sound inconsistent with youth, freedom, and affirmation of life? If
so, it is only because we have become accustomed to a very godless conception
of youth and are no longer able to understand the power and fullness of
life that is found in innocence. It is very presumptuous and wrongheaded
to think that the human being has to become entangled deeply in the guilt
of life in order to know life itself, and finally God. We do not learn
to know life and guilt from our own experience, but only from God’s judgment
of humanity and his grace in the cross of Jesus Christ. To want to bring
in sin at a particular point in one’s education is a frivolous game for
which a heavy price must be paid. “Remember also your Creator in the days
of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when
you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’ ” (Eccl. 12:1). “Before falling
ill, humble yourself, and when you are on the point of sinning, turn back”
(Sir. 18:21). “Shun youthful passions” (2 Tim. 2:22).
To be pure then, when impurity is still a danger,
to be blameless not as a result of middle-class contentment, but love of
God, that is no renunciation of life, rather it is life’s fulfillment;
it is no contempt for God’s creation, rather it sanctifies creation through
obedience to the Creator. “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth . . . ;
walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that
for all these things God will bring you into judgment” (Eccl. 11:9). He
who brings his coarse sins with him into mature adulthood will often find
it too late to become their master. God is the ruler of the human being
from his first breath, and he will not relinquish his rule for a moment.
God does not ask about our more or less modern ideals concerning youth;
he only asks whether a life has been surrendered to his rule.
In asking the question about the cleansing of
his way, the young person acknowledges the sin that dwells within him.
Otherwise he would not need to ask. And it is only because he knows the
power of sin over his heart and his nature that he no longer looks for
help by human means. Not good intentions, burning ideals, not even work
and fulfillment of duty can keep the way pure, only God’s Word can do that.
For only God himself can deal with sin. He has done it by forgiving us
all our sins in Jesus Christ (cf. Jn. 15:3); he does it by enabling us
to know his Word of grace and judgment, and by leading us and giving us
his grace day by day. To what shall I keep in the hour of temptation and
trial? To God’s Word alone. So will my way be cleansed.
Psalm 119:10 With my whole heart I
seek you; let me not stray from your commandments.
Whoever has received God’s Word has to seek God;
she can do no other. The more clearly and deeply God’s Word shows itself
to her, the more lively will be her desire for the total clarity and the
unfathomable depth of God himself. Through the gift of his Word, God drives
us to seek for an ever richer knowledge and a more glorious gift. He does
not intend any false contentment for us. The more we receive, the more
we must seek him, and the more we seek, the more we will receive from him.
“To the one who has will more be given.” God wants to fully glorify himself
and make himself known to us in his complete richness. Of course, we can
only seek God in his Word, but this Word is lively and inexhaustible, for
God himself lives in it. If we are responding to God’s Word we will say:
I seek you with my whole heart. For with half a heart we might be seeking
an idol, but never God himself. God requires the whole heart. He wants
nothing (no thing) from us, but he wants us, and completely. His Word has
told us that. Therefore, we seek him with our whole heart.
We have only one remaining concern, that we might
stray from the way that has been begun for us, from the commandments we
have heard. The psalmist speaks of straying; he is not thinking here of
a deliberate, willful transgressing of the divine commandments. But how
easily we stray when our vision is clouded by that which is evil. We wander
into byways, lose our sense of direction, and cannot find our way back
to the commandments of God. We must daily pray to God to keep us from the
sin of straying, the unconscious sin (Num. 15:22ff.); for we at first move
unconsciously onto ways that are wrong, then we often experience pleasures
there, and from what was a mistake there grows an evil intention. But the
one who seeks God with her whole heart will not go astray.
Psalm 119:11 I treasure your promise
in my heart, that I may not sin against you.
I do not treasure God’s promise in my understanding
but in my heart. It is not to be analysed by my intellect, but to be pondered
in my heart. It is like the word of a dear friend that lives in my heart
even when I do not think about it at all. That is the intended destination
of the promise that comes from God’s mouth. If I have God’s Word only in
my mind, then my mind will often be busy with other things and I will sin
against God. Therefore, it is never sufficient simply to have read God’s
Word. It must penetrate deep within us, dwell in us, like the Holy of Holies
in the Sanctuary, so that we do not sin in thought, word, or deed. It is
often better to read a little in the Scriptures and slowly, waiting until
it has penetrated within us, than to know a great deal of God’s Word but
not to treasure it in our hearts.
Psalm 119:12 Blessed are you, O LORD;
instruct me in your statutes.
Do we praise the holiness and piety of human
beings here? Are we concerned with ourselves and our own purity? Does the
“I,” which is so noticeably repeated in these psalm verses, signify preoccupation
with the self in self-criticism and self-justification? Blessed are you,
O Lord! May God alone be blest, who has made the new beginning with us,
who has revealed his Word to us, who allows himself to be sought and served
by us, who lets his Word dwell within us and protects us from sin. On the
way of the faithful, there is praise only for God. All their strength and
confidence reside in this praise for God. However, we must ask God again
and again, like beggars: “Instruct me in your statutes!” (Job 23:12). In
blessing God, we confess what we have received. In making our request of
God, we confess our poverty. Never, as long as we live, will the request
for enlightenment, knowledge, and growth in understanding of the Word come
to an end; but the praise of him who has given us by his grace enough and
more than enough will never come to an end in this life or in the life
to come.
Psalm 119:13 With my lips will I recite
all the judgments of your mouth.
The judgments of God go forth from his mouth
and should come upon my lips. It is often easy to carry God’s Word in our
heart, but very difficult to bring it upon our lips! Of course, we are
not concerned here with empty lip-service, but with bringing to expression
that which fills our heart. Do we not often find our mouth closed in the
presence of great sorrow because we fear to put a pious formula in place
of the divine Word? Is there not an atmosphere of frivolity and godlessness
in which we no longer find the right word and simply become silent? Does
not false modesty and fear of others often keep our mouths shut? The warning
and exhortation remain unspoken, words of comfort and encouragement are
denied the one who needs them. In what a tortured and anxious way does
the name of Jesus Christ sometimes cross our lips! It requires a great
deal of spiritual experience and practice, and at the same time a child-like
faith and confidence, to be able to recite with one’s lips “all the judgments”
of God; and to do so without becoming a spiritual “old hand,” a moralizing
apostle, an endless prattler. Our whole heart must belong to the Word of
God before we learn to place our lips, too, entirely in the service of
Jesus Christ.
Psalm 119:14 I have taken greater
delight in the way of your decrees than in all manner of riches.
“Delight” is the great word, without which there
can be no walking in the way of God. In Matthew we read about the man who
found the treasure buried in the field. In his delight he went and sold
all that he had and bought that field (Mt. 13:44). All riches and possessions
were of no account to him compared to the divine treasure. Yes, in it he
found all the riches he could desire.
The one who finds the way of God must first lose
all his own riches in order to find in God all manner of riches. God’s
word creates joy and delight in the one who receives it. It is delight
about restored fellowship with God. It is delight about deliverance from
fear and sin. It is the joy of the one who had gone astray and, after a
long night, has found the right way again. God prepares festive delight
for us. He is himself the source of all joy and delight. Yes, he himself
knows joy: “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God
rejoice over you” (Is. 62:5). “He will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing
as on a day of festival” (Zeph. 3:17).
We are invited to participate in this festival
in which God delights in the deliverance and the faith of his people. God’s
Word itself is full of this joy which ought to break forth in us. There
is the great proclamation of joy about the incarnation of the Word of God
in Jesus Christ in Luke—“Behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which
will come to all the people” (Lk. 2:10). The days of our Lord on earth
were like the dawning of a single marriage day (Mk. 2:19, cf. Lk. 19:6).
There is joy in heaven over the repentance and salvation of each sinner
(Lk. 15:7,10). The resurrection and ascension of the Lord fill the disciples
with joy (Mt. 28:8; Lk. 24:41,52; Jn. 20:20), and the early church received
the communion of Jesus with joyful hearts (Acts 2:46f.). Where the Word
of God is, there is joy. As Jesus left the disciples to go to the Father,
he said to them: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be
in you, and that your joy may be full” (Jn. 15:11). The Word of God brings
fullness of joy to its hearers. God intends joy for us; of course, it is
a joy “with trembling” (Ps. 2:11) just because it is joy before the holy
God.
God’s Word is the source of all joy, and the way
of his decrees is full of delight, because it is the way that God himself
has gone and goes with us. Where God is with us, there is joy, and this
joy no one will take away from us (Jn. 16:22). In days of affliction and
persecution, however, this joy attaches to the promise made by him who
has gone before us: “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute
you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice
and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Mt. 5:11f.). These are
the riches of the one who follows Jesus.
But the one who will not or cannot go on the way
of God knows sadness instead of joy (Mt. 19:22; 17:23). “But I fear that
we will have neither the joy nor the cross as long as we accept the gospel
so little. We remain as in our old nature, despising the precious treasure
of the gospel” (Luther).
[Instructions in Daily
Scripture Meditation were first given by Bonhoeffer to a group of seminarians
he was training at Finkenwalde, Germany in 1935-36. They were written down
by Eberhard Bethge, a seminarian who later became Bonhoeffer’s biographer
and editor of his collected works. Reprinted in Meditating on the Word,
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, edited and translated by
David McI. Gracie,© 1986, Rowman and Littlefield Edition, UK and Cowley
Publications, US.]
See related articles:
-
The
Unity of the Scriptures, An introduction by Don Schwager
-
Christ
In All the Scriptures, by Dr. John Yocum
-
How
to Read the Bible, by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware
-
The
Authority of Scripture, by Steve Clark
-
The
Scriptures Are One Book in Christ, quotes from early church fathers
-
Approaching
Scripture As God's Word, by J.I. Packer
-
In
the Bible It Is God Who Is Speaking to Us, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
-
You
Can Understand the Bible, by Peter Kreeft
-
Formational
Versus Informational Reading of the Scriptures, by M. Robert Mulholland
Jr.
-
How
to Silence the Scriptures, by Soren Kierkegaard
-
Reading
the Scriptures with the Early Church Fathers, by Don Schwager
-
Scripture
Study Course, by Don Schwager
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