God’s requirements. They are good. Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with thy God. The two tables of the law. Here they are reversed. When the second table is broken, so that we do injustice and hate mercy, we are not walking humbly with our God, and the first table is broken. The law and its keeping are good for man: in the keeping of God’s testimony there is a great reward.

That keeping is required of all men. None will have an excuse in the judgment day. For Israel has the law, and the Gentiles have the testimony that God is and that he must be served written in the blue heavens and in every creature.

Required! That is ominous for fallen man. There is damnation in that word. Adam heard it and rejoiced. But for fallen man there is terror in that word, so they dare not die, and all their lifetime through fear of death they are subject to bondage.

To do justly is required: that in all your heart, mind, and works you are in harmony with goodness. Having righteousness in your heart, you do justly. That is God. That is his people in principle.

To love mercy is required: the inmost desire of your heart is to bow before your brother in misery and to deliver him out of his distresses, even to those who despitefully use you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely. Then you are very near to the heart of God.

To walk humbly with your God is required: to press your heart down before God. Because God is infinite and you are a creature of the dust; because God is perfect and you are an abominable sinner. To do God’s will, even if you lose family, job, name, honor, or life; that you will not take one step in your life without his direction; that God is all in all in your heart, and you are nothing.

What does man do with that? By nature he will have nothing of it. Proof? When God came to us doing that perfectly, we crucified him. “Do justly” thunders from heaven, but we are crooked. “Love mercy” sounds from the heavenly tribunal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. “Walk humbly before God” is proclaimed, and we say there is no God of might! Corrupt are we and base our deeds and in evil we delight, even as we give a trifle of religion but our hearts are not in it.

Only one man fulfilled that whole law. Jesus. His meat and drink was to do God’s will. A hearing ear and a willing heart he had. What did it mean for him to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with his God? It meant the cross, where he had to suffer hell and damnation to make satisfaction to God. He humbled himself before God, became a worm and no man, and suffered himself to be mocked, ridiculed, crucified, and cursed for God and for his people.

If a man does justly, loves mercy, and walks humbly with his God, the only explanation is that Jesus Christ has come and taken his abode in that man’s heart. That alone explains his life. He has a new heart where Christ reigns, and from that new heart his whole life proceeds. Now he sees his wretchedness, he sees Jesus, and he desires as God desires.