The motto of R. C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries has become famous: Coram Deo. It’s a Latin phrase that means before the face of God. The idea is that we’re to live and carry ourselves as before His face or under His eye. Our lives are to be lived as those who know that He looks on. Well enough. But is this not doing one’s work by way of eye-service, which Paul condemns in Col 3.22?
It is of course something to make the thought of Christ’s presence a check to our every thought, word, affection, and deed. For Christ is everywhere present and sees all that we do and hears all that we say. And by His Spirit He indwells us, fully aware, then, of our every thought and affection. As David says in Ps 139.7-12, there’s no place in all the world that we can go without being under His watchful eye.
In Job 31 Job explained that he’d made a covenant with his eyes not to look lustfully upon a virgin. And the reason he gives for it is this: Does not [God] see my ways and number all my steps? (v. 4). The thought of God being able to see all his ways–whether they be in the path of righteousness or not, and watchfully numbering all his steps–whether they be righteous or ill, greatly affected Job.
We see this also in Joseph. We read in Gen 39 that his master’s wife lusted after him and eventually said to him, “Lie with me” (v. 7). Joseph of course refuses; and the reason he gives is that to do so would be to sin against God (v. 9). But notice what happens next. A day came when no one was in the house but Joseph and his master’s wife (v. 11). To her, the coast was clear. So she grabbed Joseph’s garment and said again, “Lie with me” (v. 12). But Joseph left his garment in her hands and ran out of the house! Why? Because in Joseph’s mind, there was someone else in the house. Joseph knew that God looked on and he carried himself as under His eye.
Nothing should be taken away from the blessed reality that we do indeed live our lives before the face of God. He does look on and we should indeed be constantly mindful of it. In fact, as it was for David in Ps 139, it should be one of our greatest comforts and joys that our God is with us and that we are ever in His loving, caring, and providential hands.
And yet, the searching question I posed at the beginning is this: are we living before our God by way of eye-service (Col 3.22)? Which is to say, is our obedience to God an obedience that’s only because He’s looking? Are we no better than children who, for fear of punishment, only do as their parents say when their parents are looking, and then when they turn their backs do what they want?
God’s never not looking, because God is omnipresent and omniscient. So this is not a question of how we act when He’s not watching. Instead, it’s a question of the heart’s desires and motives behind our obedience. Ask yourself this: “Would I do the same things and forbear the same things for His sake, and out of love for His Commandments, if I knew He did not see me?”
If it were possible for God not to look on, for you to be alone in the room, for you to be alone at the point of temptation, for you to be alone in your head and heart, would you still chose the path of righteousness? would you still take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ? would you still put to death all immoral desires and still put away all angry motives? Or is your obedience only for fear of punishment?
May the Lord so increase our love for Him and so increase our delight in His Commandments that our obedience won’t merely be because He looks on but will ever be because we love Him who first loved us.
