EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (3)

Verse 8.—“I delight to do thy will, O my God.” The will of God to redeem sinners by the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ, was most grateful and pleasing to the very heart of Christ. It is said, Prov. viii. 31, when he was solacing himself in the sweetest enjoyment of his Father, whilst he lay in that blessed bosom of delights, yet the very prospect of this work gave him pleasure, then his “delights were with the sons of men.” And when he was come into the world, and had endured many abuses and injuries, and was even now come to the most difficult part of the work; yet, “how am I straitened, or pained (saith he), till it be accomplished!” Luke xii. 50. Two things call our thoughts to stay upon them in this point. First.—The decency of it—why it ought to be so. 1.—It became Christ to go about this work with cheerfulness and delight, that thereby he might give his death the nature and formality of a sacrifice. In all sacrifices you shall find that God had still a regard, a special respect to the will of the offerer. See Exod. xxxv. 5, 21, and Levit. i. 3. 2.—It ought to be so in view of the unity of Christ’s will with the Father’s. 3.—This was necessary to commend the love of Jesus Christ to us for whom he gave himself. That he came into the world to die for us is a mercy of the first magnitude; but that he came in love to our souls, and underwent all his sufferings with such willingness for our sakes, this heightens it above all apprehension. 4.—It was necessary to be so for the regulating of all our obedience to God, according to this pattern; that seeing and setting this great example of obedience before us, we might never grudge nor grumble at any duty or suffering that God should call us to. Secondly.—Let us consider and examine whence it came to be so pleasant and acceptable to Jesus Christ, to come into the world and die for poor sinners. 1.—That in his sufferings there would be made a glorious display and manifestation of the divine attributes. 2.—Another delightful prospect Christ had of the fruit of his sufferings, was the recovery and salvation of all the elect by his death; and though his sufferings were exceedingly bitter, yet such fruit of them as this was exceedingly sweet. 3.—Add to this, the glory which would redound to him from his redeemed ones to all eternity, for it will be the everlasting employment of the saints in heaven to be ascribing glory, praise, and honour to the Redeemer. Did Christ find pleasure in abasement and torment, in suffering and dying for me, and can I find no pleasure in praying, hearing, meditating, and enjoying the sweet duties of communion with him? Did he come so cheerfully to die for me, and do I go so deadheartedly to prayers and sacraments to enjoy fellowship with him? Was it a pleasure to him to shed his blood, and is it none to me to apply it, and reap the benefits of it? O let there be no more grumblings, lazy excuses, shiftings of duty, or dead-hearted and listless performances of them, after such an example as this. Be ready to do the will of God, be ye also ready to suffer it. And as to sufferings for Christ, they should not be grievous to Christians that know how cheerfully Christ came from the bosom of the Father to die for them. What have we to leave or lose, in comparison with him? What are our sufferings to Christ’s. Alas! there is no compare; there was more bitterness in one drop of his sufferings than in a sea of ours. To conclude: your delight and readiness in the paths of obedience is the very measure of your sanctification.—Condensed from John Flavel.

Verse 8.—Now, saith Christ, “I delight to do thy will, O my God;” it is the joy and rejoicing of my heart to be a-seeking and a-saving lost sinners. When Christ was an hungry, he went not into a victualling house but into the temple, and taught the people most part of the day, to show how much he delighted in the salvation of sinners, etc. Christ did so much delight, and his heart was so much set upon the conversion and salvation of the Samaritans, that he neglected his own body to save their souls, as you may clearly see in John iv.—Thomas Brooks.

Verse 8.—“To do.” It was Jesus who was the doer of the work. The Father willed it; but he did not do it. It was Jesus who did it, who wrought it out; who brought it in; who carried it within the veil, and laid it as an acceptable and meritorious offering at the feet of his well-pleased Father. The work then is done; it is finished. We need not attempt to do it. We cannot do it. We cannot do that which is already done; and we could not do it, though it were yet undone. There is much that man can do, but he cannot make a propitiation.—James Frame.

Verse 8.—“Thy will.” The covenant between the Father and the Son, as elsewhere, so it is most clearly expressed (Heb. x. 7, from Ps. xl. 7, 8), “Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God.” And what will? Verse 10, “The will by which we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” The will of God was, that Jesus should be offered; and to this end, that we might be sanctified and saved. It is called “The offering of the body of Jesus Christ,” in answer to what was said before, “A body hast thou prepared me,” or a human nature, by a synecdoche. “My will,” says God the Father, “is that thou have a body, and that thy body be offered up; and all to this end, that the children, the elect, might be sanctified.” Says the Son to this, “Lo, I come to do thy will;”—“I accept of the condition, and give up myself to the performance of thy will.”—John Owen.

Verse 8.—“Thy law is within my heart.” The law of God is not to be kept in books, but in the midst of our hearts, that we may rightly understand the same, admire it, and observe it.—Martin Geier.

Verse 8.—“Thy law is within my heart.” The will of God in which Christ delighted, was (as appears by the coherence, and the quotation of Heb. x. 5) that Christ should make his soul an offering for sin, as more acceptable to God than all other burnt-offerings and sin-offerings. This law was in his heart, בְּתֹוךְ מֵעָי, in the midst of his bowels. He did as much delight in it as we do in following those inclinations which nature has implanted in our hearts, as we do in eating and drinking. So he expresses it (John iv. 34), “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” He was as willing to bleed and die for thee as thou art to eat when hungry. He was delighted as much to be scourged, wounded, crucified, as thou delightest in meat when most delicious.—David Clarkson.

Verse 8.—“Within my heart,” margin, my bowels. The intestines or viscera are here mentioned as the place of the most profound spiritual occupation.—Franz Delitzsch.

Verse 9.—“I have preached righteousness,” etc. It is Jesus who speaks, and he speaks of himself as a PREACHER. He was a preacher, and a great preacher too. He was great—1. In genuine eloquence. All the handmaids of the choicest rhetoric ministered to him as he spake. His mind touched the minds of his auditors on all sides. 2. He was great in knowledge. Many who have an astonishing command of words, and who can use their words with astonishing rhetorical adroitness, spoil their influence by their “lack of knowledge.” They go blunderingly onward when they attempt to think for themselves, or to guide their hearers into fields of thought which have not been tracked by minds of the pioneer order. 3. He was great also in goodness. There is a greatness in goodness, and the greatness of goodness is an important element in the greatness of a preacher. 4. Jesus was great, too, in official status. Official status, whether in things civil, literary, or sacred, when conferred on worthy individuals, confers, in its turn, undoubted weight and moral authority. Now Jesus was the highest official in the universe. His authority extended to all other office-bearers, his office exceeded all other offices. He came from above, and was “above all.” He was Lord of lords, and King of kings. 5. Another element still in the greatness of Jesus, as a preacher, consisted in the greatness of his essential dignity. He was God as well as man. Such was Christ as a preacher. True he was more than a preacher; he was likewise a pattern, and a priest, and a propitiator; and as pattern, priest, and propitiator, he stands without a peer. But he was a preacher, too, and as a preacher, he has never had, and never will have an equal.—Condensed from James Frame.

Verse 9.—“The great congregation.” The “congregation” here referred to was “great” not only in numbers, but “great” also in the necessities of its individual members, and great in pollution.—James Frame.

Verses 9, 10.—“I have published.... I would not refrain.... I have not covered ... I have uttered ... I have not hid:” words are heaped upon words to express the eager forwardness of a heart burning to show forth its gratitude. No elaborate description could so well have given us the likeness of one whose “life was a thanksgiving.”—J. J. Stewart Perowne.

Verses 9, 10.—The true way of justification of sinners by faith is a jewel so precious and necessary for poor souls, that it should not be concealed: “I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart.” One sermon on this subject is not sufficient; it is necessary to make this mystery plain, how by faith in Christ the man that flieth to him is justified from his sins, and saved according to the covenant passed between the suffering Mediator and God the faithful promiser, to justify and save by his own way. “I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation.”—David Dickson.

Verses 9, 10.—“Thy.” The adding thy to every one of them is emphatical; it was thy righteousness I had commission to declare, thy faithfulness I had order to proclaim, thy mercy I had charge to publish; thou wert as much interested in all that I did as I myself was. I shall be counted false and a liar, thou wilt be counted unjust and cruel, if all be not fulfilled as I have spoken. Since it was thy rule I observed, and thy glory I aimed at in declaring it, disgrace not thyself and me in refusing the petition of such a suppliant, who believes in my word which I gave out by thy authority.—Stephen Charnock.

Verse 10.—“I have not hid.” This intimates, that whoever undertook to preach the gospel of Christ would be in great temptation to hide it, and conceal it, because it must be preached with great contention, and in the face of great opposition.—Matthew Henry.

Verse 10.—“I have not hid,” etc. What God has done for us, or for the church, we should lay to heart; but not lock up in our heart.—Carl Bernhard Moll in Lange’s “Bibelwerk,” 1869.

Verse 11.—“Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me.” Do not hinder them from coming showering down upon me. “Let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me;” or, do thou employ them in preserving me.—John Diodati.

Verse 12.—“For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head.” We lose ourselves when we speak of the sins of our lives. It may astonish any considering man to take notice how many sins he is guilty of any one day; how many sins accompany any one single act; nay, how many bewray themselves in any one religious duty. Whensoever ye do anything forbidden, you omit the duty at that time commanded; and whenever you neglect that which is enjoined, the omission is joined with the acting of something forbidden; so that the sin, whether omission or commission, is always double; nay, the apostle makes every sin tenfold. James ii. 10. That which seems one to us, according to the sense of the law, and the account of God, is multiplied by ten. He breaks every command by sinning directly against one, and so sins ten times at once; besides that swarm of sinful circumstances and aggravations which surround every act in such numbers, as atoms use to surround your body in a dusty room; you may more easily number these than those. And though some count these but fractions, incomplete sins, yet even from hence it is more difficult to take an account of their number. And, which is more for astonishment, pick out the best religious duty that ever you performed, and even in that performance you may find such a swarm of sins as cannot be numbered. In the best prayer that ever you put up to God, irreverence, lukewarmness, unbelief, spiritual pride, self-seeking, hypocrisy, distractions, etc., and many more, that an enlightened soul grieves and bewails; and yet there are many more that the pure eye of God discerns, than any man does take notice of.—David Clarkson.