“O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.” These are the words of David, the second king of ancient Israel. He realized that keeping God’s commandments made him wiser than his enemies, and gave him more understanding than all his teachers (Ps. 119:97-100). Did you know that Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the entire Bible, has nothing but glowing praise for God’s commandments, statutes, precepts and judgments?

Why did David love God’s law so much? There are many reasons, but this article will focus on only one feature about God’s law which makes it far superior to any legal system man has devised: God’s law has no loopholes!

No Law, No Sin!

Have you ever heard the expression, “There ought to be a law against that!”?

Why is that such a common lament? Romans 5:13 explains that “sin is not imputed where there is no law.” This principle applies to both God’s law and man’s law. If there is no law, no punishment can be administered by God or man.

Let’s look at a true-life example. In a small community in the state of Washington, there was a man who would buy wooded land with little or no down payment. Then he would quickly market the timber for a huge profit and immediately default on making the mortgage payments. Of course, the sellers would foreclose and receive back their property, but not until the timber was gone, and their once-beautiful land was completely torn up and marred by piles of limbs, crushed underbrush and unsightly stumps. As you can imagine, it would take at least a generation or two for the land to once again resemble its original condition.

Several people brought this man to court seeking to be justly compensated for their lost timber and the damages to their property, but they could never convict him because there was no law on the books specifically covering such a crime. As a result, this man repeated this crime on at least 32 occasions. The profits from the scam enabled him to enjoy an expensive home on the waterfront in the same community with many of the people he had conned out of their valuable timber.

Once his actions became more widely known, local authorities began scrambling to pass a law against such hurtful and destructive activity. As you can imagine, passing new laws is not easy, and it takes a lot of time before any state legislature can respond. Before such a law is passed, care must be taken to word it in such a way that it covers every possible loophole, or this man will find a way to circumvent the law and continue his life of crime anyway. In addition, the new law will do little or nothing for the 32 previous victims seeking restitution for all their losses! That is the sad reality of how man’s legal system works.

How would King David, who had the power to administer God’s law, have handled this man’s crime? First, there would have been no need to pass any new law. God’s law has no loopholes. God’s law of love covers every evil that man can devise. God’s two great commandments are love toward God and love toward neighbor (Matt. 22:36-40). This man’s approach to business showed absolutely no love for either his Creator or for his fellowman. His actions harmed the community, the nation and the world! A righteous judge could easily convict this man of breaking several of God’s Ten Commandments:

The First Commandment: He definitely placed his love of money and all the things money can buy above love for God and His way of life.

The Fifth Commandment: This man’s actions certainly did not show honor to his father or mother. In spite of the fact that he was able to avoid conviction, he brought shame upon his family name.

The Eighth Commandment: This man clearly robbed the sellers of the overall value of their land.

The Ninth Commandment: He clearly lied. He entered a contract to buy the land when all he really wanted was the money he could make by selling the timber.

The Tenth Commandment: He coveted his neighbor’s timber—so much so that he actively plotted an evil scheme to acquire it for himself and then executed his plan.

Once this man discovered that the courts would not punish him for his evil, he repeated his crime over and over again, proving his lack of regard for other people. Even a grade-school child knows that this man undoubtedly was doing the wrong thing!

Though God’s law has no specific law that covers this exact crime, this evildoer most certainly trampled all over God’s law of love. A righteous judge, given the power to make judgments based upon the Ten Command­ments, would have had the authority to punish this man severely after the first offense. According to the Bible, this man most likely would have been ordered to “pay double” for all that was taken from his neighbor (Ex. 22:7-9). A sure conviction after the first offense, coupled with a stiff penalty, would most assuredly have prevented the repeat of this disaster upon 31 other victims. Such a judgment shows God’s love for the innocent victims of crime.

A sure conviction and just restitution for the first victim would also have shown God’s love for the offender. It would have encouraged this man and others like him to find a more constructive way to make a living—one that will benefit his community, his nation and the world. It would have changed this man’s direction in life before he became so committed to a lifestyle based on greed and corruption.

God’s legal system is interested in justice for all—criminals and victims alike! True justice is only possible when all the loopholes are closed. God’s law has no loopholes. What a fantastic blessing God’s law truly is.

Unfortunately, God’s law of love, based upon the Ten Commandments, is not valued in this nation or this world.

Where Is Justice?

Do you know anyone who can honestly say he loves America’s laws and legal system? The truth is, justice is lacking in America, and everyone knows it! Why? America’s legal system is not really interested in justice!

Many people do “meditate” on our laws day and night. Unfortunately, they are looking for loopholes! The multitude of loopholes in man’s laws only serves to encourage lawyers to find any excuse that would allow their clients to go free—even if it means that known criminals are allowed to avoid a just penalty for their crimes.

It may be true that America’s legal system does a fairly good job of protecting the innocent from wrongly being convicted of a crime, but does it really protect innocent people from being victimized again and again by known criminals? Most often, the courts punish the victims of crime once again. Rather than the restitution they seek, victims often receive even more heartache and financial loss at the hands of a system devoid of justice!

God is interested in justice, but He is also merciful. He delights in extending forgiveness, but God’s mercy is only for those who confess their sins. For­giveness and mercy are never granted to those who try to justify their sin or find a way around the law! (i John 1:9-10). God wants people to learn from their mistakes and to realize that obedience to God’s commandments is the best way for man to live.

God granted King Solomon, David’s son, the gift of wisdom. Near the end of his life, Solomon summed up life’s most important lesson: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Eccl. 12:13-14).

Unfortunately, all nations today live under a wide variety of man-made laws and man-made legal systems. None of them follows God’s law. Do you know anyone who truly loves and respects God’s law the way David did? Can you understand how different this world would be if all mankind lived in a society that taught and administered God’s law? Believe it or not, that will happen on this Earth some day!

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth” (Jer. 23:5). That righteous Branch will be Jesus Christ. When He returns to this Earth as King of kings and Lord of lords, He will establish a government that will eventually administer God’s law over all nations.

“Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Isa. 9:7).

Jesus Christ will not need to waste any time establishing a set of righteous laws for His government. They already exist. They are the same laws He kept perfectly when He lived on Earth as a mortal man some 2,000 years ago.

Right now Jesus Christ is sitting on the right hand of God the Father. He is teaching a small group of people to live by those same laws today. That’s right—Jesus Christ is using the gift of the Holy Spirit to write God’s commandments in the hearts and minds of a few individuals dwelling on Earth right now (Heb. 10:16). Those people are learning to love God’s law as David did. David was one of the few people ever to learn to value God’s law. He will be resurrected to rule with Jesus Christ. God’s law is the primary education required of every king and priest who will rule with Jesus Christ in His future world-ruling Kingdom (Rev. 5:10; 20:4-5).

When we see and understand that the magnificent plan of God begins and ends with the law of God, is it any wonder that David could say, “O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.”