For thou delightest not in sacrifice, else would I give it: Thou hast no pleasure in burnt
‘For thou delightest not in sacrifice, else would I give it: Thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering. ’ — Ver. 16.
TN the joy of deliverance and thanksgiving, David has surrendered himself to God: from henceforth he will live only to honor and to praise God. He nevertheless feels how little it is that he can do, and the question arises within him, if there be not still something more that the Lord might possibly desire and receive from him. He thinks of sacrifices. Might he not, by multiplying these, accomplish a work that would be acceptable to the Lord? No: as soon as the question arises, it becomes clear to him that God has neither delight nor pleasure in sacrifices.
The clearness with which David feels and expresses this is one of the deep spiritual lessons of this Psalm. In the hidden part, God has made him to know wisdom. Sin has become better known to him in the deep spiritual misery it entails than ever before. Grace has become known to him in its high spiritual power. He had experienced what the wonderful work of God in forgiveness and renewal was. He had learned to understand what the symbolical sprinklings and washings of the Old Testament indicated: he had experienced how God Himself washes and purifies the soul. And now along with this spiritual insight into sin and redemption, the Spirit has also unfolded to him the spirituality of the life of thankfulness, and shown how insufficient the service of external sacrifices would be. Under the old covenant there were two kinds of sacrifices: sin-offerings and guilt-offerings for atonement, thank-offerings and burnt-offerings to represent dedication to God. The discovery of the depths of sin has caused him to feel the need of something more than an external atonement by means of a sin-offering, namely, an effectual and divine atonement. Now also he understands that the power of such an atonement enables him to carry out more than a mere external thank-offering, that is, an inward and spiritual dedication.
This connection in the knowledge of cognate divine truths will always be seen. The deeper the acknowledgment of sin, the higher the apprehension of a divine supernatural grace, of the divinity of the Redeemer, of the working of the Spirit; and the more spiritual also the insight into the glory of that new life which grace is to enable us to live.
In all these respects this Psalm, indeed, is a prophecy of the grace of the New Testament. It is always just in this utterance: £ Thou delightest not in sacrifice, that the difference betwixt the Old and Newr Testaments lies. Under the old covenant and according to the law, man must always bring to God and give to God something for taking away sin. In the gospel, on the other hand, God brings to man and gives him what can atone for sin. Under the oW covenant man must bring to God sacrifice in the hope that He may receive it. Under the new, on the contrary, God comes to man with a sacrifice, in order that he may receive it, and be blessed thereby. This is the meaning of the word of the prophet, repeated by the Lord Jesus when He said to the Pharisees: 4 Go ye and learn wrhat this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ ISTot to require and bring sacrifices — for that was the characteristic of the old covenant — but to show and receive mercy, is the glory of the new covenant. And thus one who would fully enjoy the salvation of the gospel must above all endeavor to understand the utterance: ‘Thou delightest not in sacrifice.’
This word reminds us of the freedom of God’s grace as a source of blessing. The spirit of law-righteousness and work-righteousness is so natural to us that we are always inclined to deal with God as 6 an hard and austere man,1 who makes heavy demands upon us. Would that we could abandon this tendency. God is a God who does not demand but gives, and gives freely; and the secret of intercourse with Him is always to look to Him as a God from whom one may ask and expect everything. He delights in mercy, and not in sacrifice.
That is true of the first grace of forgiveness. O soul, how long did you imagine that there was something for you to do in order to become prepared for grace; that there was something which you had to bring and offer in order to be acceptable to God. And when faith became plain to you in its simplicity as the reception of what God had done for yoio and offered to you, your response was: ‘Is that all? Is salvation so near, and so easy to find? ‘Then you learned to understand what is meant by saying: ‘Thou delightest not in sacrifices.’
The same thing is also true of the higher grace of sanctification. Holiness is not something that we must accomplish. Holiness is only in God, and we become holy only as He makes us partake of His holiness. Christ has been given to us for justification, but just as truly for sanctification. One who rightly understands that truth enjoys the salvation of the life of grace as a continuous appropriation and reception of the fullness that is in Christ. He knows now no longer to represent the life of the divine salvation as a severe and continued sacrifice, but as a glorious experience of what the grace of God in its power and riches works in him, Obedience is better, is something higher than sacrifice: this deeply significant utterance lays bare to us the secret of the true service of God. Kot what man does or brings, although it is also apparently the performance of the law, but the childlike disposition of loving subjection, is the true fulfilling of the law. If the chief thought suggested by the service of God was once the earnestness, the difficulty, the self-sacrifice involved in it, he who believes comes in the long run to the discovery of the joy and the power of the life prepared for him through the compassion of God in Christ. His service of God becomes a service in the joy of love. Love speaks of no sacrifices. Others may indeed glory in the sacrifices which love brings: love itself does not reckon them to be sacrifices. They are to it a necessity, a delight: they are its life.
A disposition like this, which has already acknowledgede th gracious attitude of God towards us, also discerns the application to our fellow-men of the word: ‘I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.’ It knows how to meet with the fallen in the compassion and tenderness of love, not with the hard requirements and sentences of the law. It understands the secret of the love through which transgressors shall learn God’s ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Him. ‘Thou delightest not in sacrifice,’ is the gospel of personal comfort which in turn is joyfully proclaimed to others.