Sermon Bible Commentary
Psalms 119:96
It is not difficult, at least for an earnest and thoughtful person, to see "an end of all perfection" among men; and here below nothing comes to perfection. But we are reminded that there is something else that does not come to an end, something that cannot be exhausted, lost, depreciated, something that rises above us immeasurably high and stretches away around us immeasurably far, with which, too, we are in vital relations from which we can never be released. "Thy commandment is exceeding broad."
I. We understand the word "commandment" in its proper meaning: a law, an authoritative announcement of the will of God. "As the man is, so is his strength." As God is, so are His commandment, word, will, and way.
II. This commandment extends over all the universe of intelligent life, higher and lower, over angels of every rank and men of every colour and clime, over them, again, in no merely external way, for restraint and direction, but over all intelligence, over all responsibility, over all emotion, over all motive, and of course over words, and action, and conduct.
III. The law or commandment is "exceeding broad" because it is gospel. It is an education, a development, a joy that never palls, a prospect that is never darkened, although our eyes are not always open to see it. This commandment of God, with the Gospel in it, is the very soul of consideration, and tenderness, and grace. It drops down rest on the weary, and brings balm to the wounded, and breathes fresh hope into despairing hearts. It seems to speak to us as though it were a God, and says, "Cast all your cares on me. I am broad enough and strong enough to bear them all."
A. Raleigh, The Way to the City,p. 126.
The lesson of the Psalmist, in modern Christian language, is this: "Amidst all the limitations of nature there is one law which has an infinite working; it is the law of righteousness. And there is one form of life which is exempted from the general decay; it is the life of holiness, truth, and love."
I. Consider this truth with reference to the lives of individuals. Life may be compared to a various web, in which the bright woof is crossed with many sombre threads; and while the dark warp becomes closer at the further end, the strength of the whole fabric depends in part on the skill and care of the weaver, who is the human soul. Mankind have tried various devices with a view to obviating the great, dark, inevitable fact of human loss and change. Christ clearly taught the blessedness of sorrow. "Blessed are they that mourn." (1) In sorrow we are often best able to realise the love and faithfulness of God. (2) The experience of sorrow gives a deeper and more comprehensive view of the whole meaning and purpose of our existence. (3) The power of sympathy is also increased. (4) Out of the ashes of sorrow there break forth new fires of practical devotion. (5) Suffering, change, logs, appear generally to strengthen in reflective minds the hope of immortality.
II. The life of a community has often been compared to that of an individual. The resemblance is necessarily imperfect. No community can have a unity or continuity of life approaching that of personal consciousness. But the individual and the community have at least this in common, that they are alike liable to change. They have a past and future and also a present, which is different from either past or future, while possessing the elements of both. They have in them the certainty of alteration, the possibilities of progress and decay. They have also their crises of transition, when old things are passing and the new things are not yet clearly seen. What is the practical religious lesson for such a time? How is the reality of progress to be secured? How shall men secure that change be not decay? It may be answered briefly, By the candid recognition of facts; by unabated faith in God and His goodwill to men; and by labouring honestly, according to the light that is given us, to promote what seems to us to be the cause of truth and goodness.
L. Campbell, Some Aspects of the Christian Ideal,p. 109.
Our text means not the wide compass of the scene and subjects, but the quality of the law, as imperative on man; its authority and requirement applied to so many points; the comprehensiveness, the universality, of its jurisdiction. It reaches and comprehends the whole extent of things in which there is the distinction of right and wrong, good and evil.
I. In multitudes of minds there is apprehension enough of such a widely extended law to cause disquietude, to excite reaction and a recourse to anything that will seem to narrow that law. We might notice several of the expedients and the aiding causes for this effect of contracting and reducing the extent and magnitude of the Divine law. (1) The bold, direct, decisive one is infidelity, to deny the existence of the supreme Lawgiver Himself. (2) To reject revelation is an expedient little less summary and effectual for the purpose. (3) The indulgence of sin in action or in the heart throws a thick obscurity over the whole vision of the Divine law. (4) The general operation of self-love in a corrupted being is adverse to any clear and effectual acknowledgment of the exceeding breadth of the Divine law. (5) Add to this the influence of the maxims and customs of the world. There is among us a great deal of an accommodating way of thinking of the Divine law, an unsound and treacherous casuistry, a sort of middle principles, by which those of Divine authority are altered, and qualified, and shaped to suit better the habits of the world and the temper of the times, and a defective faith in our Lord's declaration, "No man can serve two masters."
II. All the while, and after all, the Divine law remains in its exceeding breadth. (1) It is "exceeding broad" by the comprehensive applicableness of its grand, simple rules. (2) It is so by the ample order of its special injunctions. (3) It is so by laying an authoritative hand on the first principles and origin from which anything can proceed in human spirit and action; then it reaches to all things that do or can proceed thence.
III. We infer from this: (1) Great self-complacency is a treacherous, deluded, and dangerous state. (2) If such be the law, how impossible is human salvation by it! This gives beforehand a high and rational probability to the new economy constituted in the Mediator: acceptance, justification, salvation, solely and entirely through the work and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
J. Foster, Lectures,1st series, p. 324.
If we use the word "perfection" as meaning the attainment of completeness, the writer would seem to say this: "I have seen that everything has its limits; it grows up to a certain stature, it develops certain qualities, and then comes the end: it finishes its work, and can be and do no more. But the Divine law, the truth of God, is not of this character; its boundaries have never yet been reached; it knows nothing of age, of limitations, of decay. Its heights and lengths, its breadths and depths, have never yet been fully perceived by man, and assuredly never yet manifested in his life and conduct. There is far more than he has yet understood, far more than he has ever obeyed."
Consider:
I. Present attainments. Few persons will dispute the statement that it is every man's duty to make his nature as complete as possible, to set before himself some ideal of perfection and to work towards that. Having souls capable of growing into the beauty of Divine virtue, capable of becoming Christlike, we ought to have that object as a clear, constant, unfailing purpose before us. Yet with all this, with such an ideal and such aspirations, what cause there is to take up the lament of the words, "I have seen an end of all perfection"! The results of the struggle do sometimes seem to be very disheartening and full of disappointment. The attainments are exceedingly limited when judged by the expectation. There is no reason for despair, for despair even of the ultimate result; but there is reason that we should cast ourselves more on God. Though we are often disappointed, and exclaim, "I have seen an end of all perfection," yet we ought to add, "I will reach toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
II. Unfulfilled demands. By this I understand that, though our attainments in the Divine life are limited, the law of the Divine life is unlimited, and always will be so, so that we set over in direct contrast against human frailty and imperfection the demands which are made by God upon us. The law of life is embodied in Christ; what He is we are to be; the commandment is as broad as that, and nothing less. We are called to be imitators of Him, to be perfect even as He is perfect. It is better to have a perfect law to obey even though the obedience fail again and yet again. We shall be more like Christ, because we try to be perfect even as He was perfect.
"Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky
Shoots higher much than he who means a tree."
W. Braden, Catholic Sermons,vol. ii., p. 49.
The text describes the difference between everything that is of man and everything that is of God. The one has limits, has an end; the other is exceeding broad.
I. "I see that all things come to an end, but Thy word endureth for ever in heaven." What an impression is forced upon us, by the progress of life, of the poverty of man and all that belongs to him in point of duration! It is not only as observers that we feel this. How fleeting are our own possessions, our own treasures, our own topics of absorbing interest. "I see that all things come to an end," not least human wishes, human aims, and human ambitions. How comforting, then, how satisfying, ought it to be to us to know of just one thing which will not thus fail and terminate. "Thy commandment, Thy word, endureth for ever in heaven." The march of centuries affects not that. That is still right which God commanded; that is still wrong which God has forbidden: that is still true which God has revealed; that is still false which God has contradicted.
II. "I have seen an end of all perfection." That which has been said of human life may be said also of human character. Human excellence, human goodness, have a bound, and a narrow one; if you sound it, you reach the bottom; if you measure it, you can take its compass: there is an end of all human perfection, as there is an end of all human duration. We turn with relief to that character, that mind, that word, "exceeding broad," in which there has been no risk of reaching the end, of sounding the depth, or exhausting the fulness.
III. The breadth of God's word, in contrast with the narrowness of human doctrine, is a topic full of interest. How does the Bible comprehend and gather into one all the good parts of all the human systems of theology that were ever framed! The revelation of God as made by Himself is exceeding broad, and the largest of minds and hearts can find room for themselves within it.
C. J. Vaughan, Lessons of Life and Godliness,p. 239.
References: Psalms 119:96. Bishop King, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 149; C. Pritchard, Good Words,1875, p. 843; H. Thompson, Concionalia: Outlines of Sermons for Parochial Use,1st series, vol. i., p. 341.Psalms 119:97. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. i., p. 17.