95-Disputations on Psalm 1:2 and the Demonstration of the Law

By M.A. Petillo, D.Th., D.Min., & Reformed Baptist Preacher

“But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he mediates day and night.” (Psalm 1:2 NASB).

1.       The Christian engages in a non-meritorious demonstration.

2.       The reason the Christian engages in a non-meritorious demonstration of Christian faith is because the demonstration is tainted with the sinfulness of sin and yet a gift of His hand.

3.       All the good of obedience of the Old and New Testament commandments is a civil goodness that could never possibly add to the untainted unified righteousness of His imputed merit of Jesus Christ that is the unequaled gift of His invisible Hand.

4.       The Father’s design is for the joy of His people to obey the law as an authentic demonstration of obedience of the gift of His Hand.

5.       The Son’s delight is the Father’s will in His perfect life in earning spiritual salvation for His chosen people unto mercy.

6.       The Son’s delight is the Father’s will in His perfect death in propitiation (appeasement of the Father by the Cross in sole divine satisfaction) and expiation (removing sin as far as the east is from the west).

7.       The delight of the Christian in obeying the moral law in the Ten Commandments is not meritorious but nonetheless the gift of His invisible Hand that exalts the glory of Jesus Christ.

8.       Jesus perfectly obeyed the law of God for His people that earned salvation for His people unto everlasting mercy.

9.       The law of God in the Ten Commandments teaches that only Jesus Christ could perfectly obey God but no Christian is able to obey the law of God in the Ten Commandments perfectly.

10.  Jesus perfectly delighted in the perfect law of God.

11.  Christians imperfectly delight in the perfect law of God.

12.  The law of God in the Old & New Testament could never be enough to earn spiritual salvation because of thorough depravity and radical corruption in the historical, moral and theological original sin.

13.  The delight of a Christian in God’s law is by His Spirit.

14.  The Christian delights in the law because the law is His Word.

15.  The Old Testament law of God is to be obeyed in the context of the direct meaning and general applications of the Ten Commandments.

16.  The Ten Commandments do not make a Christian right before God because only Incarnate Grace could do this!

17.  How does a Christian be right with a holy Triune God?  It is simply through the unified imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ alone in His life and death for justification by faith alone.

18.  Is justification by Jesus won by the Virgin Mary and the saints?  By no means whatsoever!  It is the all-exclusive Christ alone for who did the Father says He was well-pleased?  Did He not say “This is my well-beloved Son; listen to Him!”

19.  The delight of the Christian is the Father’s design of obedience as a foredetermined demonstration as a gift of His Hand.

20.  The unequaled gift of the Father is imputed righteousness.

21.  Nothing compares to the unified imputed merit of Jesus.

22.  The Father delights in the Son alone and through the Son alone.

23.  The Son delights in the will of the Father.

24.  The Spirit delights in the Father and the Son.

25.  The Lord delights in those who He has chosen.

26.  The Lord does not understand delight in His saints as meritorious but in and through His Son without His saints becoming Jesus.

27.  We are called to be a little Jesus without literally being Him.

28.  The sinless life of Jesus was to obey the law of God to earn salvation for God’s elect people but New Perspectivism does this essential truth of redemption for God’s way of salvation.

29.  All the chosen unto mercy are loved equally through Jesus despite, beyond and failure of the law of God in obedience.

30.  The obedience of the saints is dependent upon the Spirit of God.

31.  Being kept by God is found in God’s Spirit and Word.

32.  Delighting in God’s law in the Ten Commandments is His gift unto civil goodness but never compares unto imputation of righteousness that shines like the sun through Jesus.

33.  Jesus perfectly obeyed God’s law night and day.

34.  Jesus perfectly obeyed God’s law moment by moment.

35.  There was never a particle of disobedience upon Jesus that He committed in His sinless life on earth.

36.  Obedience of the law of God remains with the people of God unto human responsibility by the work of God’s Holy Spirit.

37.  Only God the Son could walk a sinless life in human flesh: namely, we must think of Jesus Christ who is God’s final answer to the only way to heaven in defiance of thieves and robbers of false religions, atheism and agnosticism.

38.  Islam believes in scaling the balances between good and bad, but to excel in good but the problem is no one is good by nature.

39.  Rome believes in excess merit won by the Virgin Mary and the saints but it is so far removed from imputed unified, untainted, perfect and alien righteousness of the Son of Man alone that is higher then them all because it alone is what the Father has designed to accept as a covering over His saints through Jesus Christ, His eternal Son, who carries no blemish.

40.  Buddhism relies on self-reliance but a depraved mind will only yield depraved thoughts, words and deeds that are also eternally removed from the Righteousness of the Son that they all stand fallen with everlasting condemnation in outer destruction by the Father’s designed love of justice.

41.  The sinner delights in his great and deep sin that is unwashable.

42.  The civil good of a Christian is Spirit-led in a special sense but it could never add to the matchlessness of Jesus Christ due to a soot-stained civil goodness that resembles a dunghill more than the gift of His Hand but only the gift of His Hand by the good and only because of Him who lives forevermore.

43.  The Father delights in His Son’s active obedience alone in a redemptive sense in how someone is right with a holy God.

44.  The Father delights in His Son’s passive obedience alone in a salvational sense in justification by faith alone.

45.  The Triune Lord in the law of God is the only object of worship.

46.  The law of God is about the double edged-sword of God in His written Word of God for His people to cut us apart in conviction of the sinfulness of sin unto a confessional repentance to Him.

47.  Christians should not place an idol over the Triune God.

48.  The Triune God is eternally self-existent or Triune Aseity.

49.  Christians should not worship an idol over the Triune God.

50.  A holy Triune God alone is worthy of worship.

51.  The Father is jealous to keep His children holy.

52.  The Son is jealous to keep His chosen through Him.

53.  The Spirit is jealous to apply Christ to His people alone.

54.  The Triune God shows mercy to thousands but reserves judgment to those whom He is pleased to judge.

55.  A holy Triune God does not want Christians to take His name in vain but also people from every tribe, tongue, nation and people.

56.  The Bible does not call for a theocracy while sin dwells among the sons and daughters of Adam but it calls for a democratic-republic where the constitution does not establish a religion but also does not prohibit the right to practicing the law of God in public.

57.  The name of God is precious and holy for His people.

58.  The name of God is blasphemed among the reprobate.

59.  A good God is hated by a wayward people who will reside in everlasting destruction.

60.  We are called to obey the Christian Lord’s Day or Sabbath.

61.  We are called to work for six days in honor of Jesus Christ.

62.  We are called to rest on the seventh day like our great God in the literal creation account of Genesis chapter 1.

63.  God calls His people to honor our fathers and mothers because Jesus as God the Son in human flesh honored His mother in a family relationship but surely she worshiped her Son.

64.  A holy Triune God teaches us not to murder.

65.  A holy Triune God teaches us not to murder the unborn.

66.  Jesus teaches us not to commit adultery.

67.  God teaches us not to steal in His perfect law.

68.  Have you borne false witness?  God says do not bear false witness.

69.  We are commanded to not covet anything.

70.  We are commanded to obey Jesus in love of our enemies.

71.  Jesus calls us to use biblical discernment.

72.  Jesus thought perfectly.

73.  Jesus spoke perfectly.

74.  Jesus worked perfectly.

75.  Jesus perfectly prayed to the Father in His economic distinction.

76.  Jesus perfectly obeyed all the commands of the Father.

77.  The saints wearing the white robes of Jesus could not shine any brighter but by Jesus who makes them shine like the sun in final and future glorification.

78.  Do you wish to be right with a holy God through law?  You have not loved your neighbor perfectly!

79.  Do you still wish to be made right with God through law?  You have hated your enemies without cause!

80.  Do you see your own soul upon reflection upon yourself?  It is as black as soot and rivals the blackness of the sea! 

81.  Do you want a second chance to make it by law?  Whoops!  You failed again, but this pursuit is futile because once you disobey a holy God, you have broken all the commands of God.

82.  Have you broken one command of God? 

83.  Do you not realize you have broken every single commandment unless you deny James 2:10? 

84.  How will you wash away an eternal amount of commandments that only Jesus could live before the Father perfectly? 

85.  Have you seen a shadow?  Imagine the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea!  You surpass that in all of your sin!

86.  The law is essential for obedience in foredetermined demonstration, but Jesus is essential for how someone is right with a holy God by the work of the Spirit.

87.  Sin, in some limited sense, should be like pointing out the stars of heaven but bringing it before God in repentance through Christ crucified.

88.  Sin is also like the sands of the sea where imagine if you reduced each sea particle to its own but that would not equal all your little sins but in a limited sense shows us what our eternal sin is like.

89.  Imagine your depravity defies the universe in cosmic villainy but there is Someone who is greater than the universe: namely, His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and He cleanses from all sin.

90.  Satan hates the unified work of Jesus Christ.

91.  Satan hates the Christian to work out their salvation in faithful obedience to His laws by the gift of His Triune Hand because he hates whatsoever is right.

92.  The commandments of God are about whatsoever is right.

93.  Why do what is right?  God requires it but we have failed!

94.  Should total depravity be an excuse to sin?  In light of God’s meticulous foredetermination it is not an excuse to sin, but it is an establishment of seeking the face of Jesus Christ.

95.  The essence of goodness is not anyone but Jesus the Divine.