For I delight in the law of God
This an unregenerate man cannot do; he does not like its
commands, they are disagreeable to his corrupt nature; and as it
is a threatening, cursing, damning law, it can never be delighted
in by him: the moralist, the Pharisee, who obeys it externally,
do not love it, nor delight in it; he obeys it not from love to
its precepts, but from fear of its threatenings; from a desire of
popular esteem, and from low, mercenary, selfish views, in order
to gain the applause of men, and favour of God: only a regenerate
man delights in the law of God; which he does, as it is fulfilled
by Christ, who has answered all the demands of it: and as it is
in the hands of Christ, held forth by him as a rule of holy walk
and conversation; and as it is written upon his heart by the
Spirit of God, to which he yields a voluntary and cheerful
obedience: he serves it with his mind, of a ready mind freely,
and without any constraint but that of love; he delights together
with the law, as the word here used signifies; the delight is
mutual and reciprocal, the law delights in him, and he delights
in the law; and they both delight in the selfsame things, and
particularly in the perfect obedience which the Son of God has
yielded to it. The apostle adds,
after the inward man;
by which he means the renewed man, the new man, or new nature,
formed in his soul; which had its seat in the inward part, is an
internal principle, oil in the vessel of the heart, a seed under
ground, the kingdom within us, the hidden man of the heart, which
is not obvious to everyone's view, it being not anything that is
external, though never so good: this in its nature is agreeable
to the law of God, and according to this a regenerate man
delights in it: but then this restrictive limiting clause
supposes another man, the old man, the carnal I, according to
which the apostle did not delight in the law of God; and proves,
that he speaks of himself as regenerate, and not as unregenerate,
or as representing an unregenerate man, because no such
distinction is to be found in such a person; nor does such a
person delight at all, in any sense, upon any consideration in
the law of God, but is enmity against it, and not subjected to
it; nor can he be otherwise, without the grace of God.