Why God’s Way Is Always Right

“Righteous are you, O LORD,

and right are your rules.”

— Psalm 119:137

Why should we believe that God’s way is always right? His ways are not our ways, and when his way is difficult, his commands cut across our desires, or when another way seems better to us, this becomes an important question.

Psalm 119:137 gives us an answer: God’s way is always right because God himself is righteous.

The psalmist begins with who God is and then moves immediately to what God has said: “Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules.” The Hebrew words translated righteous and right are not identical, but they are closely related in meaning. “Righteous” describes the moral character of the Lawgiver, while “right” describes the moral quality of the law he gives.

In other words, God’s laws are a reflection of God’s character. There can be nothing crooked in what God commands because there is nothing crooked in God himself. He is perfectly righteous. There is no fault in his character, no injustice in his judgments, and no selfishness in his motives. Everything God is, is right. Therefore, everything he commands is right.

This means God’s commandments are not an arbitrary collection of rules. God did not simply decide that certain things would be right and other things wrong. Nor did God look outside himself to some higher moral standard and conform his commandments to it. There is no standard of righteousness above God. God himself is the standard.

When God tells us what is right, he is revealing something of who he is. He commands us to tell the truth because he is true. He calls us to faithfulness because he is faithful. He requires justice because he is just. He commands us to be holy because he is holy, and to love because he is love.

This should change the way we think about our obedience. We can easily think of God’s law primarily as a list of restrictions, or things God permits and things God forbids. But Psalm 119 helps us see something more beautiful. Behind the law stands the Lawgiver. His commandments show us what he loves because they reveal something of who he is.

So when the psalmist loves God’s law, he is ultimately saying he loves the God whose character shines through it. When he calls God’s Word wonderful, he is responding to the wonder of God himself. And when we obey God’s Word, we are learning to reflect the character of the God who gave it.

This also helps us understand why obedience can sometimes be so difficult. When God’s way conflicts with what we want, we're tempted to think another way seems more reasonable, more satisfying, or even more right. And in those moments, the real question is not simply whether we will obey a particular command. The question is whether we trust the character of the One who gave it.

When I disobey God, I am choosing another standard of what is good. At least for that moment, I am saying, There is a better way than God’s way. And what I desire is better than what God has commanded.

But Psalm 119:137 points us back to the One we can trust: “Righteous are you, O LORD.” When I cannot immediately understand his command, I can trust his character. When obedience is costly, I can trust his character. When my desires pull me in another direction, I can trust his character. God will never command something that contradicts his own perfect goodness.

And this is why we need more than information about God’s commandments. We need the Holy Spirit to make the character of God beautiful and desirable to our sin-craving hearts. We need him to teach us not merely to submit to God’s ways, but increasingly to love them because we love Him.

The goal of obedience isn't that we would grudgingly admit, God is right. It is that we would come to know the God behind his commands and say with growing confidence, “You are righteous. Your ways are right. And even when your way is not the way I would choose, I can trust you.”

Why is God’s way always right? Because God is always righteous. And the more we know the character of the God who gave his Word, the more we can trust the wisdom and goodness of everything he has said.