Psalm 119:45, “…I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.”
Our natural mind tells us that doing “whatever we want” is the path of freedom, but that is like the man with an anchor tied around his neck saying that true freedom is to follow wherever his anchor leads….Not so says this passage from Psalm 119. According to this verse, following the Lord’s precepts / will is the way to the “wide place” of true freedom.
“My will be done” is the path of slavery and constriction that leads finally to the hell of utter separation from Him who is Life. “Your will be done” is the path of freedom and wide places that leads finally to the far green country of fellowship in God’s own life.
Obedience is like the Narnian Wardrobe; at first it seems like entering it will be terribly restrictive compared to the free reign we’ve had of the rest of the house….but once we pass the doors and press in, we find world upon world of glory. The cruciform wardrobe of true obedience is filled not only with mansions greater than the house we left, but castles and towers and mountains and waterfalls and beauty upon beauty we could never have found in the cramped space we used to call “what I want to do.”
And what are these precepts we are to seek? In short, they are what Jesus Christ embodies (Heb 10:7). Jesus is the incarnate precept of God, the will of God personified. And so the precepts of God are ultimately what—and, indeed, who—we see in Christ….most especially in the self-giving love that flows from satisfaction in God and gives God as supreme satisfaction which we see in His death and His resurrection (Jn 14:31).
Christ embodies the precepts of YHWH not merely as an example, but as our own Representative and Head. He does for us what we could not do for ourselves, and by our union to Him in the Spirit, His embodiment of the precepts becomes our embodiment of the precepts—just as a husband’s home that he worked for and that he built becomes his wife’s home upon marriage, even though she did not work for or build it herself.
And the freedom we find in conformity to Christ is analogous to God’s own freedom….Consider it, God’s freedom is not a libertarian openness to do one thing one day and one thing another day….No, God’s freedom is to ever, always, and perfectly be Himself, which is to say, to ever and always and perfectly love. And as we are gathered up into God’s own life in Christ by the Spirit, this is increasingly our freedom as well.
