Exceedingly broad

"I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad" (Psalm 119:96).

The psalmist experiences God's commandment as very broad. He has been gushing over the law of God for 96 verses, and is not finished yet. The law of God is a positive thing in his daily life. It is impossible to read Psalm 119 and come to any other conclusion. God's law is meant to bless those who love and obey it: "I find my delight in your commandments, which I love" (v.47).

But what does he mean when he says that God's commandment is "exceedingly broad"? Many of us have experienced that strange "broadening." We have discovered it the same way the psalmist did-by meditating on God's word constantly:

"Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. . . . I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation" (vv.97-99).

And by obeying it, with heart, soul, mind, and strength:

"I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts" (v.100).

There is a mystery about God's Word that is activated in a person by only two means: continuous mediation and obedience.

If that sounds like mysticism, well it is a kind of Christian mysticism, as described here by Francis Schaeffer in True Spirituality:

"Here is true Christian mysticism. Christian mysticism is not the same as non-Christian mysticism, but I would insist that it is not a lesser mysticism. Indeed, eventually it is a deeper mysticism, for it is not based merely on contentless experience, but on historic, space-time reality-on propositional truth. . . . Christian mysticism is communion with Christ. It is Christ bringing forth fruit through me."

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