i. True
[05/13/19]
There is a challenge to including this section on the characteristics God reveals about Himself, for so many of them parallel the names by which He is known. If you recall the discussion regarding names in the culture of Old Testament Israel particularly, and the Middle East more generally, this really ought not to surprise us, for names are given to convey not just an identification, but an identity. Jacob was Jacob because from the day of his birth he was a trickster, and this shows in the story of his life, right up to the day his name is changed. He is but one example, and perhaps the most obvious. My point is simply this: We have every reason to expect that the characteristics of God will tend to parallel the names by which He reveals Himself, for He knows the significance His people assign to names.
The first characteristic, or group of characteristics I have chosen to explore center on this central feature of the Godhead, this essential aspect of God’s character: God is True. This is revealed, amongst many places, in the words of Balaam, of all things. As Moses led Israel towards their entry into the Promised Land, Balak, king of Moab sought to curse the Israelites, and hired Balaam to that end. Now, Balaam was not a good man, nor can he be said to have been a prophet of God, although God chose to speak through him. Yet, because God had His purpose in the matter, He gave Balaam words to speak when Balak paid him to do so. As we follow the account of these events in Numbers 23, it’s pretty clear that Balaam is, at best, serving many masters, for he instructs Balak to build seven altars.
I suppose one could try and spin the story and present those seven altars as Balaam seeking to present the perfect number of the sacrifice or some such nonsense, but the fact that he has seven altars built suggests he intends to appeal to seven gods, seven spirits, what have you. That he has Balak build these altars would seem to indicate as well that he has no idea, or at least no concern as to the proper worship of the True God. But, however screwed up his religion, and however impure his motives, yet “The LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth” (Nu 23:5). Those words are hardly the ones Balak wanted to hear, and he is hardly pleased to have this return for his money. Balaam tries again. After all, he rather values his life if not his soul, and an unhappy king is a distinct threat to life. That he failed to observe that an unhappy God was likely to be an even greater threat is shocking for one who seems clearly enough to be a prophet. But, then, we know too well the blinding powers of sin.
At any rate, coming back the second time, Balaam reports to the king, and the king asks, “What has the LORD spoken?” (Nu 23:17). Now, one has to wonder what Balak’s perspective of God or on gods in general was, that he thought he could simply pay the god to do his bidding. One suspects he accounted himself more powerful than the gods, if he gave it any thought at all, else how could he think to buy God off? At any rate, Balaam replies with what we are told are God’s own words, God having once more put them in his mouth (Nu 23:16). Hear, then, what God, not Balaam, has to say. “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Nu 23:19). Balaam, to give him what minimal credit he is due, recognizes this much about his position: “Whatever the LORD speaks, that I must do” (Nu 23:26).
But, we are not here to consider Balaam, nor is his story written to be a memorial to his name. Rather, it is there to inform us about God. The first thing it informs us in regard to God is that He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t lie because He is true. We hear that in the testimony of John the Baptist as he carefully rejects the notion that he is the Messiah. “I already told you plainly, “I am not the Christ. I have been sent before Him” (Jn 3:28). He, John says, comes from above, from heaven. He is therefore above all. Further, “What He has seen and heard, of that He bears witness” (Jn 3:32). In other words, He has this much in common with Balaam (and only this much, I dare say): “Whatever the LORD speaks, that I must do.” That, we might add, and no more. Then John speaks as one who is, as it were, witness to the witness of Christ. “He who has received His witness has set his seal to this: God is True” (Jn 3:33). This One God sent speaks the words of God (Jn 3:34) because God has given Him the Spirit without measure.
God is True. We could as readily say God is Truth. What, after all, is the great condemnation under which mankind toils? “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Ro 1:25a). But, our eyes are upon God and His essential character at present, and a key factor of His character for us is that He is True. Because He is True, He is Trustworthy. That, too shines through the message Balaam delivers. God not only does not lie, He does not repent. His word given is the certainty of outcome. What He says He will do He does.
As I have observed already in this exercise, God alone is of sufficient power and authority as would enable so certain a declaration of intent. If God has purposed, who will say Him otherwise? He speaks and it is. As was observed yesterday as Pastor Dana preached through the Lord’s High Priestly prayer in John 17, much of what Jesus says there is given in the past tense, stated as accomplished fact, even though He speaks of future events. He can speak of them as already done for they are as good as done, as certain to be done as if they already were. God has spoken. He will do it. I could make the somewhat esoteric argument that from His eternal perspective He already has, but it’s unnecessary for us to see it thus, and not particularly helpful. We cannot, as temporal creatures, think outside of time. We can conceive the concept, just barely, but beyond seeing that it points to something greater than us, it really doesn’t do much for us. We can see the argument. We cannot, however, draw strength from it because we don’t really get it, however hard we try.
So, yes, God is Trustworthy. Remember that name David gives Him? My Rock, Ha Tsuwr. He is reliable, unchanging, certain. He is, to put it in another way, faithful – utterly faithful. “The LORD will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the LORD has been pleased to make you a people for Himself” (1Sa 12:22). Note that Samuel delivers this message in the midst of rebuking Israel for seeking a king like those of the surrounding nations. Having God as king was apparently not good enough. No, and we often find ourselves thinking along similar lines if we’re honest. But, God is faithful – observe – not because we are something wonderful, but “on account of His great name.” It is wholly self-interested in this regard. God isn’t faithful to His people because they are faithful to Him. Rather, it is blatantly obvious throughout the Scriptures that He is faithful to His people in spite of their bad faith towards Him. Yahweh, the covenant establishing, covenant keeping God, established covenant with His people, and He will keep that covenant.
Go back to the establishment of that covenant with Abram, and we see that Abram didn’t even have a part in the establishment of that covenant. Typically, a covenant is established between two parties, both parties swearing to abide by its terms. Those terms cover both. I shall do this, you shall do that. I shall refrain from doing this, you shall refrain from doing that. And the whole, sealed in that path of blood between the halved sacrifices, looks to those carcasses as the example of failure. If I don’t uphold my end, do to me as was done to these animals. But, Abram was never required to walk out that promise. God alone took upon Himself the oath, sworn by Himself, that if He failed of His promises to Abram, and by proxy, to all who are the descendants of Abraham (as he would be renamed by God), so might it be done to Him.
Observe the full power of that promise. For God to fail of His promise is for God to cease being God, for God cannot die, and assuredly, to be rent in half and the lifeblood drained out would be death even to God, were such a thing possible. He is Trustworthy, Faithful. Again, I have to stress that does not speak (though it should) to the character of His people who are called by His name. Observe Paul, writing to that most troubled of churches in Corinth, “God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1Co 1:9). This whole letter is effectively a corrective action taken in hope of rescuing a faithless church, or at least a church with faith misplaced and misguided. But, God is faithful. He did call these wayward ones His own, and His own they are. God is not a man that He should lie.
If ever there was an argument for the perseverance of the saints, I think we could find it right here in Paul’s opening address to the wayward children of Corinth. In spite of the accumulation of egregious error in your belief and in your practice, in spite of your abuse of those gifts the Spirit of the Holy God has chosen to give you, in spite of your corruption even of the observance of the Lord’s Supper, and your abandonment of the critical doctrine of bodily resurrection, even so, God is faithful to you, though you are so unfaithful to Him. Even so, He has called you and you shall be His. Take no pride in gifts, for Balaam was gifted to speak the very word of the LORD, but it did not save him. Take no pride in your obedience, for there’s nothing of obedience to be found in you. Take no pride in your works, for the best of your works are as filthy rags in the light of a Holy God.
ii. Light
[05/14/19]
If, as is the case, God is faithful and true, it stands to reason that He, the source and very definition of Truth, is also the font of knowledge. His knowledge extends in many directions. Samuel’s mother Hannah speaks of Him in the sense of His knowledge comprehending the hidden ways and thoughts of man. She is hardly alone in this observation, but her observation is marvelous. We have had cause to consider her prayers before, but here is another that deserves some attention for all that it has to say about God. Truly, this is a marvelous text.
“My heart exults in Yahweh; my horn is exalted in Yahweh, my mouth speaks boldly against my enemies because I rejoice in Thy salvation” (1Sa 2:1). Exultation is both passive and active here, and from the same source, for the same cause. Yahweh is Salvation. He is the sovereign, eternal, self-existent One, and because He is my God, I can (and am) bold against my enemies. This, I have to observe, carries a prerequisite condition that my enemies are His enemies. That, in turn, holds not because He takes my side, but because I have taken His. All of this is wrapped up in that declaration, and backed up by what follows.
“There is no one holy like Yahweh. Indeed, there is no one besides Thee, nor is there any rock like our God” (1Sa 2:2). What a confession! He alone is God, He alone is Holy. He alone is steadfast, certain, rock-like in His unchanging being. Here is the essence of I am that I am. Here is certainty in an ever-shifting world. Here is strength in the midst of interminable trial. Hannah had experienced much trial, and abuse at the hand of her peer. But, she had not been shaken from her Rock, from faith in her holy God. Her prayer life had not suffered because she had suffered. If anything, it had flourished amidst her adversity. And so she continues.
“Boast no more so very proudly, do not let arrogance come out of your mouth; for Yahweh is a God of knowledge, and with Him actions are weighed” (1Sa 2:3). This is the verse which has brought us here. God knows. What you have been doing in secret, He is well aware of, and weighs your deeds in the scales of justice. That will be made clear in what follows. Justice will be served, but that is a separate topic in the days ahead. Here, I focus on knowledge. God knows.
We see that theme appear in the life of Jesus, God Incarnate. “Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew what was in man” (Jn 2:24-25). This is something that comes to light repeatedly in the record of Christ’s earthly ministry. We saw it with the first encounter with Nathanael. When Jesus declared that He had seen Nathanael under the fig tree, it wasn’t a revealing of great eyesight or chance observation. It was a revealing of knowing Nathanael’s heart. Here was one praying for God’s people. The same can be said of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4:7-18). She was hiding her shame, or so she thought. At the very least, she was avoiding the open ridicule that would come of attending to her needs at the well at a more normal hour. But even with Jesus, she is seeking to cloak her reasons for being there at such an unusual time. She cloaks it with a sort of spiritual arrogance, but Jesus will have none of it. He tells her point blank why it is she comes at that time, and why it is she cannot bring her husband to meet Him. He knows.
This is well for us to remember as we go through our days, for we too readily fool ourselves into thinking that what man cannot see God does not see. But, He does. “Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down, and art intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, Thou dost know it all” (Ps 139:3-4). David got it. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is too high. I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from Thy Spirit? OR where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Thy hand will lead me, and Thy right hand will lay hold of me” (Ps 139:6-10). “Even darkness is not dark to Thee, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to Thee. For Thou didst form my inward parts. Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb” (Ps 139:12-13). Not only is there no place where God isn’t, where He cannot and does not observe the ways and thoughts of His creatures, there is no time in our existence with which He is not intimately familiar.
Here in David’s psalm to the God who has searched and known him (Ps 139:1), we begin to see this connection of knowledge and light. This is a theme that John, in the New Testament, will make central to his unique perspective on the Son of God who came and dwelt among men. “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all” (1Jn 1:5). You can hear the echoes of David in that. “Even darkness is not dark to Thee.” It can’t be, for He is Light. But, as I say, it’s not just a statement of John’s, it’s a major theme throughout his gospel. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (Jn 1:4). That light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend or overwhelm it (Jn 1:5). Considering the story to come, it might seem that indeed, the Light had been lost to darkness. In our own day, it would not be hard to begin reaching a similar conclusion as faith seems to be dwindling from the scene of modern life. God? Who needs Him? God knows me? Nah. God is dead. But, no, John says. God is Life, and Light.
This takes on a particularly Greek perspective on the idea of light. Light, for the philosophical Greek of that age, signifies knowledge. God, you see, not only possesses all knowledge, He has also chosen quite purposefully to share that knowledge with us, at least in part. He retains His secret counsels, but the whole of the life of Jesus, the whole message and mission of Christianity is this revelation of knowledge by God to man. “There was a true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (Jn 1:9). Light, truth, knowledge: Connecting ideas which John observes came to benefit not just a select few, but every man, all humanity. But, with that clear revelation of God came a certain moral responsibility. In fairness, the responsibility was already present, but now the excuse for moral failure is removed. Judgment must follow. “And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil” (Jn 3:19).
There can be no doubt of this fact: No man desires to have his sins exposed. He does not even want those sins exposed to his own, ostensibly private considerations. Again, they are never truly private, for God knows. God knows, and thus sees to it that man knows, whether he wishes to or not. So, then, Jesus makes clear, at the feast of lights, that what man fabricated in that feast, He fulfills in reality. “I AM the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (Jn 8:12). Exchange ignorance and knowledge for darkness and light and you begin to see the point more clearly. Light does that to us. “He who follows Me shall not walk in ignorance, but shall have knowledge of life.”
By the work of Jesus, particularly among the Apostles, that light, that knowledge, is made knowable, if not known, to all. “While you have the Light, believe in the Light in order that you may become sons of Light” (Jn 12:36). “I have come as a light into the world, that everyone who believes in Me may not remain in darkness” (Jn 12:46). “I know that His commandment is eternal life. Therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me” (Jn 12:50). Observe that faith, belief, hinges not on willing ignorance or unfounded hopes and wishes. It hinges on light, on knowledge. It represents a departure from the ignorance of darkness into the light of Life. What Jesus speaks, what He taught, is what the Father commanded, for what the Father commanded is the key to eternal life. Don’t try and bend this around to the Father decreeing that all shall have eternal life. That’s not it. But, He has made known through His Son and through His word, the pathways that lead to Life. Those pathways consist in obedience to His commandments. Those pathways, every one of them, lead to His Son, Who is the Life. They lead to that One that Hannah recognized: Yahweh is Salvation.
They must, for we need saving from our own choking ignorance. We are included in that number who rejected the Light because we preferred our ignorant darkness of sin. Our deeds were evil, and we knew it. We just did our best to keep that knowledge well out of sight so that we could go on doing as we pleased. Too often, we still continue in that pursuit of willful disobedience. Left to our own devices, we would do no other. We needed the Son. We continue to need the Son. We ever shall. He is the Light of Life. To know Jesus is to know life. To belong to Jesus is to possess life, or perhaps, if you prefer to be possessed of life.
Knowledge rests with God. In His graciousness, He has made His knowledge known to man, that we may be true sons of the living God. This was not a necessary act on His part, but an act of utmost grace and condescension towards His creatures. He has shed His light abroad upon all. That, as I say, carries a great moral weight for all. For those who have received the light and believed, it is the weight of relief, as we discover that most marvelous good news that God has provided for our redemption, has seen fit to pay our penalty to His own court in order that His justice may be upheld without our destruction.
For the reprobate, however, the weight of this knowledge is great indeed, however much he may seek to dismiss it in his willful darkness. The Light is not comprehended by darkness. The darkness cannot ultimately win, for the Light will penetrate. There will come a time of judgment, of Justice upheld. It will not be a happy day for the reprobate, for God’s Justice will be upheld, but the time for redemption will have passed. There remains an eternal bill due for sins against an eternal God. Knowledge and redemption were offered, but darkness and sin were chosen. So be it. So be it into all eternity. There cannot be a worse sentence to be heard.
iii. Holy
[05/15/19]
“I will meditate on all Thy work, and muse on Thy deeds. Thy way, O God, is holy.” (Ps 77:11-12a). The psalmist writes these words as a response to his own misgivings. In a time of trouble, thought of God disturbs, for it leaves him thinking that God has turned His back. Such a feeling can’t help but bring worse. Is this permanent? Has He given up on us? These thoughts occupy the first half of this psalm and the passage I quoted, set in the middle, marks the turning point.
Here is a lesson for us. In those times when we feel God has abandoned us, the cure is to stop meditating on circumstances and begin to meditate on the Lord and His works. The cure is to recall to mind that God is holy. This is God who instructs His own, “Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy; for I am holy” (Lev 11:44-45). “I am Yahweh, who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God. Thus you shall be holy for I am holy.” Now, I dare not try to suggest that the shall of this verse carries the weight of necessity, that necessity that is of God’s essence, wherein it cannot possibly be otherwise. But, I notice that throughout the texts of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, there is something of a refrain in this formulation. That which belongs to God is holy because He is holy. It is, I think, both a commandment and a simple declaration of fact. “The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you will keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and walk in His ways” (Dt 28:9).
But, what does it mean, to be holy? The ISBE offers that this is the chief characteristic of God, certainly in the Old Testament, and that understanding is effectively presumed knowledge in the New. I think we tend to view holiness as demarking a particular purity, perhaps an excellence or glory due to such purity. But, the root from which the term holy derives suggests something different: separateness, uniqueness. God is wholly unlike other gods that men have proposed. He is wholly unlike anything in the created order, being Himself uncreated. The purity, the ‘moral perfection’ is a secondary, although highly significant aspect of the term. “Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David” (Ps 89:35). There is an appeal to his moral perfection there. He is trustworthy because He has no moral blemish. He is not a man that He should lie.
We are pointed to Isaiah’s declaration of heavenly vision in Isaiah 6:5, where we find the hosts of heaven proclaiming the superlative holiness of God. This emphatic proclamation of God’s holiness has the effect of putting Isaiah, and through his words, ourselves, into an overwhelming awareness of personal sinfulness. Even in Isaiah’s response we discover the impact of God’s holiness on our own actions. We see the commandment side of “you shall be holy, for I am holy.” If He is thus, and I am His, then I must be holy, and this sinfulness must be addressed, and addressed most thoroughly. This aspect of God’s holiness and its required conformity from man carry forward into the New Testament even as the ceremonial depictions of holiness fall away.
I want to observe, at this juncture, that there is nothing in that shedding of ceremonial depictions of holiness that precludes introduction of such depictions in future. I could observe that while there was certainly an aspect of separating from the rather empty Jewish practices of the time, there was also the simple factor of not having the wherewithal. Let me expand that thought a bit. It is clear from the interactions Jesus had with the Pharisees and the Sadducees that their religious practice had become empty, devoid of real spiritual involvement and containing nothing of moral worth. Like the fig tree that Jesus cursed outside Jerusalem, they looked good, but had nothing of good in them. Their way was declared at an end by the Lord Himself. That’s over with. I’d say it was a failed experiment except God neither experiments nor does He fail. It was simply an end to types and shadows, and a new economy of abiding in the fulfillment. That’s perhaps a bit cryptic for this stage in what I’m trying to do here, but I’m going to let it stand. After all, I write primarily for my own benefit, if indeed there is benefit in it.
So, yes, this new Christian faith found it needful to set aside old Jewish practices, primarily because they not only ran the risk of usurping the place of true faith with empty ceremony, but practically (and historically) assured such a misplacement of faith. We all know of cases even in the present day where folks have erred in supposing attendance at church, whether regularly or only on the high holy days, would suffice to secure their place in heaven, or those who have supposed that having been baptized, whether as a child or as a matter of personal choice, sealed the deal and they can just get on with life now. Plenty of unredeemed folk sit in the pews week by week and remain blissfully unaware that true entrance into that holiness which belongs to the people of God has yet to transpire for them. They may sing. They may pray, or at least put on the appearance of praying, and yet their hearts are far from the Lord. This is not just my observation. This is God’s assessment from His place of perfect knowledge.
But, as I say, I don’t think this is the whole story of the departure of evident ceremonial acts of holiness in the church. From the outset, the church was a persecuted people. They could, for a time, worship in the temple, but not so openly as they might have liked. And the temple was destroyed in relatively short order, so even if they were still welcome there, there no longer existed. In foreign lands, near as we can tell, most churches were holding services in whoever’s house could accommodate them. It may have been slightly different in the earliest days in Jerusalem, when we find the whole body of believers effectively living in a commune. That commune, I suppose, could have been accounted an early church building of sorts. But, even then, there was the concern for unwanted attention from the temple authorities. Ostentation and ornamentation would hardly serve the needs of the church in that season. I do not use those terms in a derogatory sense, but merely to say, a humble edifice was far more likely, as everything seemed pretty temporary and transient.
I don’t suppose there is anything inherently wrong with the edifices built by the Roman Catholic church, or the Eastern Orthodox, or what have you. These structures, however impure the motives of the individuals involved in their commissioning, were structures designed to proclaim the excellencies of God, and to put man in mind of His exalted holiness. That purpose pervaded the building of churches for ages. The buildings ought to remind us of Who it is we have come to meet therein, and it ain’t the priest. He is there to meet as well. It is God with whom we have to deal, God holy and exalted, God perfect in holiness, unopposable in power, and utterly in control of humble, sinful, little old me.
While there is nothing untoward about a humble, simple church, nor for that matter, a home church, there is also nothing untoward about a church building that seeks to provide visual enhancement of our recognition of God’s holy and exalted state. It really ought to be the case that when we enter into a place that has been set aside for the worship of God, and is therefore holy in that sense of the term, that said place should reflect His holiness in its forms. God is beautiful, and we see from the instructions for the first tabernacle, and also the later temple, that He designs for that which is His to be beautiful as He is beautiful, which is to say, holy as He is holy.
[05/16/19]
I want to return, however, to that aspect of holiness as singularity, separateness. His singularity is marked as primary cause for the primary commandment. Jesus speaks of it, bringing the Scriptures forward to answer the question posed Him as to which is the most important commandment. “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’” (Mk 12:29-30). He is One Lord, and over all else that might claim any sort of allegiance or fealty of you.
This is more than an argument against polytheism such as was common at the time. The Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians; all these had their array of deities. Nor were they alone in this. It seems monotheism has been historically more the exception than the rule, and it continues thus even to this day. But it is soon found that polytheistic systems have more of attempting to explain natural phenomena and render them potentially controllable if the right god can be appealed to. They have more of excusing human foibles and impulses by providing a higher power example with those foibles amplified. After all, if one of the gods does these things, how can it be an issue for me to do so? But, these sorts of things fall away with monotheism, except to the degree that there is a single source to whom one may appeal in regards to managing natural phenomena and, if that single god is indeed fashioned after our own image or from our own proclivities, we may yet find that god an excuse for all manner of egregious sins.
If this were all that was proposed in that declaration of singularity, it would be a step forward from polytheism, but it wouldn’t tell us a great deal about this god’s character. Okay, there’s only one of Him. But, still, what’s He like? What has been said that can’t be said even of me? There’s only one of me, after all. Nothing about that suggests cause for such devotion as Jesus and Scripture require on this basis. Is the mere identification of Him as God sufficient? Perhaps if we hear the term Yahweh echoing down through that recitation, it could serve. The singular, self-existent, all powerful, answering to no one God is your Lord? Yeah, that starts to require attention, doesn’t it?
But, even then, if that was the sum of it, we have a God we must fear, perhaps even cower before, especially as we recognize our failure to comply with His demand for all out commitment to His call. Indeed, it’s not even obedience that we are called to, but love. That love will obey is all well and good, but it is to love that we are called, and the raw power of Yahweh doesn’t give us sufficient cause for love. Obedience, yes, but love needs more than realizing this One could squash us in an instant and be fully justified in doing so. A tyrant or dictator could do as much, but would garner no love for being able.
If this One God were not perfect in moral holiness, we should have great cause to fear rather than love. Given such power without such moral perfection, who could be safe from such a God? Here, it seems to me, we find the god proposed by Islam. He is powerful and singular, yes, but no matter how hard one tries to abide by the conflicting demands of the Koran, it seems there is no assurance as to the final outcome.
But, the God revealed in Scripture is Holy. He is perfect. His judgments are perfectly just. His word is certain. He does not contradict Himself, for He is True. He does not renege on a promise, for He is Faithful. Even, we discover, when we have turned our backs on Him and gone our own way, still He remains faithful to His promises. Still He pursues His covenanted course with utmost Righteousness and certainty. Our final outcome is not certain because we have been such obedient children. Far from it! But, our final outcome is certain because this God, this singular, Holy God, has said it. He has chosen to show mercy, and having so chosen, His mercy is certain.
He has said, “I will be your God,” and so He will be, so He is. In this sense at least, He is holy, and therefore those whom He has called His own are likewise holy. No, we have not as yet attained to such moral perfection as is the very definition of God’s character. But, we have been given assurance that we shall be in due time. We shall be because God has determined it must be so. He is doing it. We have our part, but we have also His promise.
This singularity does in fact speak to His power as well, for what God does, no other can do. But, as I have observed, if His power were able to operate apart from moral perfection, we should be in dread of what might befall. Hear, for example, the declaration of Job’s friend Elihu. “Behold, God is exalted in His power; who is a teacher like Him? Who has appointed Him His way, and who has said, ‘Thou hast done wrong’? Remember that you should exalt His work, of which men have sung. All men have seen it; man beholds from afar. Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him. The number of His years is unsearchable” (Job 36:22-26).
Now, this being Elihu, we may wish to be a bit careful of taking his words as entirely accurate, but what they say of God is true enough. He is exalted in His power. None can match Him Who sets the universe in its course, and governs the most minute of its actions every day. None can claim authority to correct Him in what He chooses to do. He is Yahweh, after all. He answers to no one. His knowledge, this great Teacher of ours, far exceeds our capacity to learn, though He teaches marvelously well. He must limit what He seeks to impart to us, for we are not capable of the full expanse of His knowledge, any more than we can think to discern a beginning or an end to His eternal being. We have issues even contemplating the idea of eternality, because it so far exceeds anything in our own experience. We live in a world of, “All things must pass,” as the Beatle said, but there is that one exception. God mustn’t. God doesn’t.
What Elihu seems to perhaps have missed is that moral perfection that guides this awesomely powerful God. He is singular in Purity. He is a God of glory, as Stephen reminded the Sanhedrin. “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia” (Ac 7:2).
But once again we face a term for which we have need to find definition. What is this glory? There is something of beauty in it the idea. Certainly, as we have explored already, the temple and its accoutrements were fashioned to be beautiful, even awe-inspiringly beautiful. But, that beauty came not for its own exaltation, but to give visual, sensual representation of the glorious God who was honored in that temple. It is more than beauty, both in the Old Testament terminology and the New. It bespeaks honor and dignity, praiseworthy reputation. In the Hebrew term, there is that sense of heaviness, weightiness. That seems to get lost a bit in the Greek, but it again points us to His singularly perfect morality, His unique grandeur, being God Who is One.
This singularly Holy God is Exalted as no other can be. He is exalted precisely because He is singularly holy, and unchangeably so. His glory is such as He will not share with another (Isa 42:8). It is unequaled. To properly understand the glory of God, we must understand that His glory is unique, as he is unique. It is unrivaled, as He is unrivaled. He does indeed imbue His people with a certain glory, but not such as is His own. We might well say that the glory of God’s people is God. As the ISBE reminds, “He occupies a solitary throne that allows no place for a rival.”
His glory is shown distinct in that He is Spirit. Idols cannot hope to capture or depict His glory, because His glory exceeds and excels all that can be rendered from material sources. So, we find Jesus declaring, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:24). This is not some call to charismatic modes of prayer and ecstatic utterance. It is a call to worship that is more than form, more than idolatry. God is not contained in His creation, nor in any works of man. Manmade approaches to worship cannot suffice to honor this God. It must be worship in accord with His instruction. Thus, the great penalty on His own priests for having offered strange fire on His altars. This is not what He instructed. It is presumption of the worst sort, and presumption will not be tolerated in the worship of this perfectly holy God.
The sanctuary, the temple, we are forced to recognize, becomes a thing most hideous if God is not in it. We must needs be careful. Religion is not in itself a great evil, as many try and present the case today. But, empty religiosity is a poison with few if any equals. It is dangerous precisely because it renders its practitioner confident when he has no cause for confidence. It leaves one thinking himself holy and righteous when in fact his every action and thought is an intolerable stench in the nostrils of the truly Holy God of Glory.
This God of glory is greater than His works. He is Light, but His Light is such of such refulgence as becomes unapproachable by man in his fallen state. His glory manifests in mercy towards a most unworthy people. We see it in God’s revealing of Himself to Moses on that occasion when Moses sought to be shown His glory. “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.” It’s hardly a universalist promise, but it is an assurance of sorts. God will not settle for untempered justice, for untampered justice would not do justice to His glory.
Let me circle back around to that declaration from Jesus, that God is Spirit. He excels His creation in every way. He is not constrained by material or temporal limits of any sort, for both time and matter have their source in Him, not He in them. We must be careful not to arrive at some sort of doctrine of spiritual primacy over matter, as the Manicheans devised. It’s not a case of spirit good, matter evil. But, the spiritual excels the material. “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man” (1Co 2:14-15).
It requires the work of the Holy Spirit in us that we can understand the gospel so clearly revealed in Scripture, and accept it. It requires the Holy Spirit within us to worship in spirit and in truth. But, again, this is not to say true worship consists only in (or even partly, for that matter) in bursts of tongues, words of knowledge and so on. It does not preclude such things, but neither does it require them. What is required is true, heartfelt, wholly committed devotion to this God Who is Holy, Who is Glorious, Who is One. It gets right back to that prime commandment Jesus pointed out, doesn’t it? If it’s not love from the whole of you, it’s not worship in spirit and truth.
If it’s an act of appeasement, a response of fear, it’s not worship in spirit and truth. It’s superstition. If it’s an act undertaken out of some sense of necessity, or for the sake of appearances, it’s not worship in spirit and truth. It’s play acting, and of no value to anybody. This is rather the point of the whole thing. True worship isn’t about form, although it follows those forms which God has ordained. True worship can’t be satisfied with going through the motions, although it will abide by those motions God has required. It’s not a free for all, for God is a god of order – BECAUSE of His moral perfection. This will shock some, I suppose, but Holiness is orderly. Moral perfection is not messy.
[05/19/19]
He is our Prince of Peace, as Isaiah recognized, and He gives His peace to us. But, peace is more than a feeling. Peace, Biblical peace, has about it the sense of all things being as they should be, all things set in order according to God’s good and perfect plan. Absence of war? Yes, that would count as peace, largely because war is by nature chaotic. Absence of want or lack? Sure, that also counts as peace, because want or lack suggest something is not as it should be. The central measure of peace, however, remains this idea of orderliness. We see that opposition of peace and disorder in Paul’s declaration. “God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (1Co 14:33). That is not simply saying that everything’s mellow, man. It’s not a statement of go along to get along. The bulk of that epistle is clear that there was much going on that could not be condoned or even tolerated. There was confusion in the church of the Prince of Peace, and this ought not to be.
This God of peace, he writes to the Thessalonians, is the God who sanctifies and preserves (1Th 5:23). What is sanctification but the making holy of that one who belongs to God? It is setting that individual back in order, back in the shalom of being as he should be, and then preserving him complete in that orderly state of holiness, such that he shall be ‘without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’. You see the ideas come together here: Holiness and peace are united, and as such, holiness and orderliness are united.
Now, I am also going to include the essential love of God under this head of holiness. For some, I think, this comes to be the only essential attribute of God, but as God is perfect and unchanging, it cannot be so. I suspect, as well, that where this one attribute is posited as the sole, or even the chief attribute, it is not truly understood what the love of God is. But, we can assuredly attest to this much: God is love. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1Jn 4:8). “And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1Jn 4:16).
Many hear this, like the call to peace, as if it meant we should all just get along. Differences don’t matter. Eventually, with such a mindset, truth doesn’t matter, at least not as much as loving one another. Love, it is supposed, means ignoring one another’s sins and idolatries. Isn’t that what it means when Scripture says that love covers a multitude of sins (1Pe 4:8)? To be sure, Peter is using the term agape, which is the same sort of love that John was writing about. But, then, it is clear that he has Proverbs 10:12 in view as he writes, and the love of that verse, ahabah, is affection. I don’t know as I wish to build much of a theory on that distinction, but merely observe it from here.
What I can say is this: God is holy. God is love. But, Holy God hates sin, as He must for sin, by very definition, is disorder. It is opposition to God’s design, rebellion against His commandment. It is a force for chaos, and God, this Holy, Loving, God of Peace, opposes chaos. Arguably, that first act of Creation was the opening salvo of God’s war on chaos. “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep” (Ge 1:2). But, God called things to order. Light and darkness separated to their proper periods. Land and water separated to their boundaries. Life sprang forth. All was in order, and God saw that it was good. Love was demonstrated in creation. Holiness was in the very air of Eden, and God walked with man in harmony… for so brief a window of time.
But, man is inherently sinful, it seems. It showed in Adam’s willingness to be deceived, and even more in his willingness to point the finger elsewhere when confronted. We are sinful by nature, and God would be well within His rights to simply destroy this corruption and move on to something else. But here is exactly where love covers a multitude of sin. The Proverbs passage paints it more clearly. “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions.” Love is opposed to hatred. It’s a question of response. What shall you do when confronted with the sin of another? Do you choose to hate that person for his sins? Here is where the example of God must govern our response. God could have hated us. He hated Esau, much as the very idea of God hating anybody bothers us (Ro 9:13). But, if holiness and the eradication of sin were the sum of it, it would be the end of us. Instead, God has chosen the course of love. This does not mean He has opted to ignore our sins. He cannot. It does not mean that He is, as it were, winking at our sins. He cannot. What it does mean is that God, out of love for those He has called His own, took action on behalf of those He has called His own, to rescue them from their sins.
Love, it must be observed, took action even when that action was wholly unwanted. “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Ro 5:10a). Jesus didn’t go to the cross because the disciples asked that He do something about their sins. He certainly didn’t go because we were anxiously waiting for Him to do so. He went because His love was such as would do what we needed to have done even though it was not our desire to see it done. He would do what needed doing, even though we hated God, even though we fought every moment to be free of His reign and do our own thing. This leads John to write, “We love, because He first loved us” (1Jn 4:19). The context demonstrates that he is writing of our treatment of one another, our care for one another. But it holds in regard to our love for God as well. We cannot love God except He first loved us. Sin won’t have it, and Holiness won’t have sin.
So, for the duration of this lifelong process of sanctification, it holds. Love covers a multitude of sins. God’s love, expressed on God’s terms and in light of God’s knowledge. Love covers because love knows that the sinner is redeemed and set on the path of sanctification, a path that, because it is established and overseen by God, is assured of leading to the completion of that work. God, it may rightly be said, hates the sin but loves the sinner. That is something of a trite saying amongst Christians, but it is on point. If we hate the sinner, we have overshot the goal, and sinned ourselves. Contemplate that for awhile. But, that does not mean we simply condone sin, or refuse to bring up our differences. It does not mean we leave matters unaddressed and uncorrected.
John, the so-called Apostle of Love, leaves us no room for such a conclusion. This is the same one who advises his charges not to so much as offer greeting to one who comes with false doctrines. “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds” (2Jn 10-11). Well, that’s some kind of love covering sin, isn’t it? The son of Boanerges still has some of that thunder in him (Mk 3:17), when it comes to those who seek to corrupt the testimony of God’s Church.
Love defends Truth. Love promotes Peace, insofar as Peace reflects Holiness. Love, does not, however, pursue peace at all cost. It is not complacent, but in reality quite fierce. Love of the sort that God is will go to any lengths to see the loved one benefited – truly benefited. Love of the sort that God is will go even to the cross, even on behalf of those who hate Him in their benighted foolishness. Love will cover sins, oh yes! By putting paid to sin’s penalty and by so addressing sin that no further penalty shall accrue. This theme of love, I suspect, we shall have to return to again and again as I proceed in this exercise, but as concerns the character of God, and love’s connection to holiness, I think I am satisfied with what I have said here.
iv. Justice
[05/20/19]
Now I come to a collection of characteristics that I think we often rather wish God didn’t possess. But, He does, and He possesses them in perfection. Chief among these, as my section title suggests, is Justice. If God is the great Judge of all creation, let alone all humanity, we have reason to hope that He is Just. An unjust judge would hardly count as holy, and hardly be one we would desire to be deciding our case. At the same time, the perfect Justice of God is rightly to be feared, for if God were perfectly Just, in exclusion of all else, no man could stand.
There are times when we are pleased to know that God is Justice, for we feel ourselves wronged and maligned, and it is in our natural inclination to suppose ourselves somehow the injured party even when we have been the one to inflict injury. We are forever certain that our actions, however deplorable, were just, and the other person, however benign his offense against us, is truly at fault. We cry out for God’s justice to avenge us. We are not alone in such feelings. The Psalms are full of them. I must observe, however, that the same Psalms that cry out to God for vengeance tend almost without exclusion to turn that appeal around as they recognize the full character of God and discover their own need for forgiveness and mercy.
Paul, having laid out his discussion of the state of man and the grace of God, reaches this question: “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!” (Ro 9:14). You may recall that at the outset of this study, I observed that God, in order to be God, must retain His essential characteristics in perfect fullness. For Him to fail in part is for Him to fail in whole. The God Who fails to be Who He Is must, by very definition, not be the God Who Is. If He is Just, His Justice must be perfect. If He is Love, His Love must be perfect. If He is both, as He is, then both of these statements must, of necessity, hold true simultaneously, and we might add, must hold true without doing damage to the essential characteristic of Truth.
This has informed my earlier discussion of what it means that love covers a multitude of sins, or at the very least, what it cannot mean. God is Just – entirely so. He is also, being the God of all-knowing Knowledge, witness to all that we say, do, or even think. “The LORD is witness against you, and His anointed is witness this day that you have found nothing in my hand” (1Sa 12:5). The point Samuel was making was that he had never defrauded anybody in his role as judge, and God Himself was witness to this truth, as the people must necessarily affirm. No evidence could be found by them to contradict, and Samuel’s avowal here is that neither did God, all-knowing God, discover any evidence upon which to condemn him for such a charge. Who among us would be ready to make so bold a claim as to our complete innocence of life? We should be a fool to try and offer it, and ought rightly to fear being struck down for seeking to appeal to God to lie on our behalf. God is not a man that He might lie. He is God of Truth, of Justice.
He is trustworthy because His judgment is not subject to favoritism. Peter finally recognized this when God caused him to be a first agent to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. This was unthinkable! A Jew going into the house of a Gentile? A Jew even sitting to meal with that Gentile? It was not to be contemplated. But, God had made it abundantly clear to Peter that yes, this was not only to be contemplated, but to be acted upon. He was being sent to Cornelius, a God-fearer, which is to say, a Gentile who had taken to worshipping God. He had not, so far as we know, been circumcised, and would not have been permitted beyond the Court of the Gentiles, but he was one who loved God, and now Peter was being sent to him, only to discover that Cornelius had had vision concerning Peter coming even as Peter had had vision concerning going to meet Cornelius.
He hears of this and responds, “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right, is welcome to Him” (Ac 10:33). Elsewhere, although I cannot seem to find the reference this morning, we are told that He is no respecter of persons. The point, again, is that He offers the gospel to one and all, and does not discriminate based on categories of race, sex, age, wealth, or power as to whom He will receive as His own. They are drawn from every nation, from every level of society, from every background and profession, and in no case does the starting point give one a leg up, nor does it inhibit one’s potential. We all start on equal footing.
That sounds pretty wonderful, doesn’t it? Here is that Utopia that the idealists have been seeking out. Finally, life is color-blind, age-blind, gender-blind, and presumably, utterly meritorious. This must be bliss! Sadly, if that were the whole of the story, we should discover this was indeed hell, for where all men are equal before God is in their deserving the full wrath of God. Don’t, dear friend, cry out to God for Justice, for His Justice must be the death of you, if not for the death of His Son on your behalf.
If God’s grace in presenting the Gospel to needy mankind is free of favoritism, so is His just punishment upon those who reject the gospel, those whose names are not to be found in the Book of Life. God is not unjust. He cannot be. He is not unjust to forgive our sins, but has instead devised a wholly Just means by which to see our sins properly penalized by His Court, and yet to preserve us alive to His glory. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful AND righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1Jn 1:9). John does not preach a perfection gospel. Indeed, he makes plain in the very same epistle that the one who claims to have no sin not only lies himself, but by his lie makes God out to be a liar. Not even the same letter: It’s the very next verse!
God is Justice. You can imagine, then, the offense He must take with His own people perverting justice, and that’s not something that only happened with Old Testament Israel, or with the Pharisees and Sadducees who sentenced Jesus to death. Look at that scene, and it must become quickly evident that the bulk of the population was every bit as guilty of supporting a wholly unjust outcome in the crucifixion of Christ. But, go back a bit farther, just prior to the so-called silent period between the testaments, and we hear Malachi, or rather, God through Malachi, delivering the same verdict. “You have wearied Yahweh with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them’, or, ‘Where is the God of justice?’” (Mal 2:17).
I hear twin complaints in that rebuke. On the one hand you have the complacent gospel, if you will, that not only nods and winks at sin, but even encourages it. Look around the modern church of the west, and you needn’t look far to find this perspective in action. God didn’t mean He hated sexual perversions when He punished Sodom. No, no. That’s all a misunderstanding. God created sexuality and desires us to explore and even celebrate it in all its myriad approaches. Indeed, he welcomes such practitioners to the pulpit. Do not be fooled by this. God will not be mocked (Gal 6:7). To continue Paul’s thought in that place, “for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”
That is the voice of Justice. It is the same voice heard in the opening salvoes of Romans. “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Ro 1:25). Calling the thing good won’t make it so, no matter how many voices join in the chant. God is Good, and God determines Good. God defines Good. You and I do not get to, except insofar as to apply His definition to our assessments. If we do that, we cannot be celebrators of evil.
We can, however, fall into the other error of Malachi’s assessment. We may fall into questioning God’s justice because we do not see it meted out according to our assessment of things. I think of Jonah as a prime example. He was sent to a hated enemy of Israel to preach salvation. Jonah was not at all pleased with the idea, but he went, for what else could he do but obey? Yet, even so, he did his best to skate free of this duty, taking ship to the farthest remove he could fathom at the time. But, God had determined and God had appointed and, well, He is God. What He decides goes. Jonah found his mode of transport shifted from ship to fish, and then found himself cast upon, or spat out upon the shores of that nation to which he had been sent in the first place. He would preach and, much to his dismay, they would hear and repent. Oh, God! That’s what I was afraid of. I knew You’d do something like this, and that’s why I didn’t want to come. I wanted Justice on these enemies, and You have shown mercy! Where is the God of Justice?
Jonah, He is right there. He has not been unjust. He has but upheld His justice on their behalf by offering a means of meeting their obligation to His court, no differently than He has done with you, O, man. God, as Peter observed, is free of favoritism. They get the same opportunity Israel got. And they get as many opportunities for repentance as Israel got. And if, Lord willing, their repentance turns out to be more than a reaction of the moment, but results in heartfelt change and commitment to the Lord, then they shall be His, the same as Israel is His. They shall be, in fact, His Israel.
[05/20/19]
If God is Just, there comes with that a necessary companion attribute. Justice, while it is greatly pleased to pronounce innocence where innocence is determined, cannot be pleased in the same sense when guilt is determined. Justice, if it is Just, does not take pleasure in meting out its penalties, but knows those penalties are a necessary part of Justice. That is to say, of course, that God cannot leave sin unpunished, for sin is an offense against His perfect Justice, and His perfect Justice, being perfect, must be upheld without fail.
So, then, when it comes to addressing sin, we discover an uncomfortable truth: God is Wrath. God can be provoked, though I would insist, not in the same sense as we are so easily provoked. God is moved to wrath, we might say required to be wrathful, when man sins, and particularly when man is unrepentant in his sins. This is not reserved, I must observe, for those who are His enemies. It holds every bit as much, perhaps more, for those who are His own. Moses observed it in the nation he led out of Egypt. “Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath. Yahweh was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you” (Dt 9:8). Why? Was God merely annoyed? Was He ruing a mistake in His judgment? No. If there was wrath it was in the need to uphold Justice. It was because His holiness had been maligned by their acts of doubt.
Sin would have to be addressed. The clear and declared penalty for sin is death, which we might readily recognize as our destruction. God being Holy and True, must also be Just, and His Justice cannot brook such blatant defiance. So, God is Wrath, and but for the rather constant intercession of Moses, His wrath would have crushed the nascent nation of Israel before it had a chance to properly get started.
Now, I have to recognize this as something of a hypothetical, for God’s word had already gone forth in regard to that people, and in regard to the whole scope of salvation. It was necessary, just as necessary as upholding His Justice, that there would be a nation of Israelites, possessed of the land of Canaan, into which the promised Seed of Abraham could be born. That was, as Paul observes in writing to Rome, no assurance that every last man, woman, and child descended from the sons of Abraham would arrive there, nor that those who did would persist in all cases. It was assurance that some would. It was also assurance that every one of them would have need to consider the Just God, and His Just demands. If, in that consideration, they found themselves inclined to rebel, then the full wrath of Justice would also have to be met.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them” (Ro 1:18-19). Ignorance is no excuse. It holds true in the courts of law among men. It holds true in the Court of Heaven. Ignorance is no excuse because, in the end, there isn’t really any ignorance. There is willful suppression of evidence, in the desire to persist in rebellion against being ruled. And God’s wrath is revealed against such.
It may not always seem so. It often seems to our poor sight as though the guilty go unpunished and the innocent suffer. Of course, a clear view of events would soon discover that there is on one innocent, and a clearer view yet would discern that Justice, though it may not be visible to us in this earthly plane, has an eternity to work itself out, and the assurance of Almighty God that it will do so.
Consider the message that Nahum gives to the Assyrians. “A jealous and avenging God is the LORD. Yahweh is avenging and wrathful. Yahweh takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” (Nah 1:2-3a). The clear target of wrath in this passage consists in those who have been harassing those whom God has called His own. That is not to say that those whom God has called His own are innocent. But, they are His. He has made certain and covenanted assurances to His people. Their sins will be addressed in their own right, but as to those who think to take justice into their own hands, or simply to impose their own will upon those whom God has made His own? He will avenge.
Justice requires it. Why? Because Justice must uphold covenant. That which operates to oppose God’s declared will must be met with the wrath of God’s Justice. That is not a call for His people to take up holy war against His enemies. Honestly, He doesn’t need our help. He has the full host of heaven should He choose to engage in such a war. He may, and likely will give His people duties in such an engagement, and may even call upon them to take up the weapons of warfare. But, our battle is not with flesh and blood, to be won with weapons of bloodshed. Our battle is with spiritual powers, and our weapons consist in the Word and prayer. And these, we are assured, are powerful to the destruction of strongholds. Vengeance, however, belongs to the LORD (Dt 32:35). And we, who are known by Him, know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” (Heb 10:30). Far be it from us to take vengeance into our own hands, for our judgment is partial, and our wisdom imperfect. Our wrath is too poorly directed and controlled to allow justice to be upheld by such as ourselves.
That does not leave us free to dismiss the powers of earthly systems of justice and governance, for these are deputized by God in the service of His Justice, for the good of His creatures. They may not always get it right, and corruption may be discovered to be as great within those systems of justice as without – indeed, we ought reasonably to expect that this is the case, for those systems are populated by sinful men, just as the general populace. But, if the powers of earthly justice become bent, and become tools of injustice, we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” It is not for us to overthrow these powers, but to obey so far as righteousness allows. Beyond that, trust in God. “And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished” (Rev 15:1).
This is, at least in some sense, a word of assurance to God’s people, that Justice, particularly as it must punish the enemies of God, will be met in full. But, it is also a great comfort, I think, to know that there comes a point when that pouring out of vengeance on sin comes to an end, and is finished. This, I think, may cause me some consternation further into this study, for I’m not certain how this finishing of wrath can coordinate with that eternal punishment that is the Lake of Fire, and which crimes against a holy and eternal God demand. That death which comes as punishment for sin, the second death of Revelation 20:14 and companion references, is not some momentary agony beyond which lies the surcease of non-existence. No. It is an eternal death in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.
That will be ‘their part’ who are cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and liars (Rev 21:8). This has to give one pause. I would hope that for most of us, there are at least some entries in that list that we can claim to have avoided. But, then there are others, like cowardliness, and like lying, that I think we might find ourselves harder pressed to defend against. As to the charge of idolatry, I doubt there is so much as one who could muster a valid defense against such charge.
This is where we arrive at the images of Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. Unless something is done about it, this is our certain future. There can be no defense, for the Judge is perfectly aware of every fact, every supposed extenuating circumstance, every motive, every secret act undertaken throughout life, and as He has clearly declared for our edification, “There is none righteous, not even one” (Ro 3:10).
To be sure, God’s Justice will be served, and served in full. God’s Wrath will be poured out, and in full. But, God’s Covenant will stand, and in full. For that to be the case, it is as necessary to God’s Justice that He is Deliverer as it is that He is Wrath. “God is to us a God of deliverances; and to God the Lord belong escapes from death” (Ps 68:20). If anybody knew this aspect of God’s Providence over his life, it had to be David, who penned these words. Here was a man promised the rule of Israel by God, only to find himself on the run from Israel’s first king for years on end. Many a trap was laid for him by Saul, and many an occasion came when death seemed imminent. But, God saw him through them all. God was to him a God of deliverances – plural.
Was David so innocent? No. The Scriptural record is very clear that he was a sinful man, not so very unlike ourselves. But, he was a man after God’s own heart. He knew his sins. He knew his God. He knew his need, and he knew his Provider. It can be readily observed that this deliverance did not consist in leading David down pleasant garden paths. It did not render him somehow free of conflict and danger. Far from it. It also did not come as an insurance policy against any possible punishment that might come his way in the name of Justice. He would know God’s justice the hard way. But, he would, even under God’s just punishment, maintain trust in God and turn to Him for his deliverance. This required that David knew well that God, for all that He is Just and Justice requires that He is Wrath, is also Compassionate.
v. Compassionate
[05/22/19]
As I have been looking at the hard side of God’s character, His Justice and His Wrath, how needful, how great a balm, to turn now to that counterbalancing aspect of His character; His Grace and Compassion. I start with something Moses reminded the Israelites as he prepared them for entry into the Promised Land. “For the LORD your God is a compassionate God. He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them” (Dt 4:31). Here, while it is translated compassionate, we might do better to read merciful. The BDB observes that the particular form of the term used in this verse is only used of God, which is interesting to note.
We are considering a deep love rooted in a natural bond between the compassionate one and the object of his compassion. The TWOT notes that this is typically an expression of such love from superior to inferior in the relationship. It is the sort of caring love we might show for our own babies, or for others we consider to be helpless. It indicates, then, God’s strong ties with His children, expressing the Father, if you will, and also the utter freedom of action God demonstrates in His compassion. No one is in any position to compel His compassion. It is the choice, the gift of His grace.
You can see that in the declaration of Moses. His compassion is shown not so much in that He will not fail you, but in that He will not destroy you. You, if you have any self-awareness, know what you deserve. So does He. In fact, even if you are utterly lacking in self-awareness, yet He knows what you deserve. But, He also remembers the covenant He swore, and He is faithful to His word, whatever our track-record may be. He will not fail you because He will not fail His covenant promise. I would make it stronger. He cannot. And so, God is compassionate; God is gracious.
These ideas combine rather frequently, because, as observed, His compassion is ever and always an act of grace on His part. He needn’t show mercy. It is not earned that He should feel Himself required to repay. He does so of His own deep love for us in our helpless state. Where Justice untampered would require our life, He instead demonstrates a tender care. “He has made His wonders to be remembered,” writes the Psalmist. “The LORD is gracious and compassionate” (Ps 111:4). Here again we find words used only in regard to God. This grace, this free bestowal of kindness on one with no claim, is perhaps our favorite understanding in regard to God. Certainly, it is the characteristic most critical to us in our need for restoration. The cry for forgiveness depends on it for answer. The desire for repentance might be said to be evidence of that answer already given.
I think, however, my favorite sense of God’s grace is that which, if I recall correctly, I read in the lexicon that Zhodiates put together. It is that idea of God stooping down to our level. This is not to suggest in any way that He, in stooping to our level, becomes like us. That’s not the point, nor could He take upon Himself our sinful state. Even in His Incarnation, that could not transpire, which is what required the virgin birth of Jesus. “In sin my mother conceived me,” is what David wrote (Ps 51:5), and it wasn’t for him alone, but a basic fact of all mankind. But, not for Jesus. He was conceived in holiness, by the very Spirit of Holiness which is the Spirit of God Himself and is God Himself.
But, this perfectly holy God stoops down to sinful man, not to become like him in sinfulness, but to make Himself known to him in spite of sinfulness. He bends down to open eyes, and open hearts. He condescends to make His ways known to man, at least so far as is needful for salvation. He condescends to change hearts and souls, that man may live, rather than destroy him utterly as his sins have deserved.
As Moses prayed in recognition of the truth, “The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression. But He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generations” (Nu 14:18). Much has been made of this verse as if it proclaimed the inevitability of heritable sin. While that may seek to explain the seeming repetition of sins from father to son, and does in many ways describe what we see in life, yet it winds up misrepresenting the matter, and all but excuses the following generations their sin on no valid basis. It becomes a ground for saying, “It’s not their fault.” But, it is their fault. The financial advisors’ favored phrase applies. “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” Indeed, as I see here on the web, asset managers are required by law to remind their clients of this fact. And it holds in earthly economies because it holds in God’s economy.
Even as Moses observes this reality that sin will not be left unpunished, he adds to his prayer. “Pardon, I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Thy lovingkindness, just as Thou also hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now” (Nu 14:19). And God answered in no uncertain terms. “I have pardoned them according to your word. But indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD” (Nu 14:20-21). This comes as warning. You’ve seen what I do, who I AM. You have repeatedly tested Me and repeatedly refused to heed Me. Such as do this shall by no means enter the land of promise. And so it was. Of all who were there to require Moses’ prayer for forgiveness, only two stood who had not thus acted, and only those two would survive to enter the land.
But, the larger significance is for us and for all who, like us, have come to faith in and through Christ Jesus. We, together with Moses, and with Joshua, and with Caleb, seek entrance into a better land, into the true realm of the True King. Our pursuits are not those of an earthly domain or earthly blessings, but rather entrance into the kingdom of our God, into the heaven of heavens wherein we may dwell with Him forever, finally freed of all sin and all temptation, and restored to full peace, full shalom; everything finally and forever as it should be.
Oh! Praise be to God that He is indeed slow to anger and rich in mercy! Praise be to God, for His abundant, faithful, covenanted chesed; His lovingkindess shown to us in spite of our many rebellions and in spite of our myriad sins. He has not forgotten them. He has addressed them. He has healed us of that most dread disease of our soul, which is our sinful fallen condition. This is the ultimate act of grace. He Who gave us life in the first place, Who created us in the womb, and Who suffered and continues to suffer so many wrongs and abuses from our hands, yet chose to provide for our helpless estate. We were born condemned men, destined only to die for our sins. Never for a moment did we know innocence in the sight of God. Never! Never could we look upon His Justice and find hope in asking for fairness from our Judge. He is fair – utterly fair. Death, were it to come upon every last man ever known, and rendered permanent for every last man ever known, would be utterly fair. But, it would give God no opportunity to demonstrate His Grace, His Mercy, His Compassion.
So, He is patient with us, and provides the way for redemption where there was no way. We who had no reasonable hope of reprieve have been given an irrevocable reprieve, established on His covenant promise, established in His Word which cannot fail. And this, alongside the righteousness of God, is revealed from faith to faith (Ro 1:17). It is His righteousness that drives us to recognize our sinfulness. It is recognition of our sinfulness that drives us to seek His forgiveness. It is His lovingkindness, His grace towards us, which assures us of receiving forgiveness. I dare say, though it is once again so very far ahead of my plan of pursuit here, that were it not for His preceding grace shown us, we should never consider even approaching Him, for fear of our destruction, let alone come to Him seeking forgiveness. But, God is gracious. We have not received from Him a spirit of slavery and fear, but rather a spirit of adoption as sons, a recognition that we can come to Him as those crying out, “Abba! Father!” (Ro 8:15). He is, by His own choice and in spite of our terrible treatment of Him, our Father.
vi. Life
[05/23/19]
As our Father, He is Life to us. He is the living God, and God of the living. Joshua speaks of the first in Joshua 3:10. This is spoken by way of contrast to the idols of the Canaanites. That is a theme that plays out often in the Old Testament. The gods of the nations are mere statues, fashioned from wood, stone, and perhaps plated in metal. But, however ornate the artistry involved, the truth remains plain: They are lifeless figures of man’s own making. God is not so. Whether this plays into His commandment not to make images of Him for worship or not, it certainly offers a good reason. To worship the image, whether one we create or one amongst those He has created, detracts from the worship due God alone. In fairness, no image we could create could hope to capture the full glory of God, and we would almost inevitably find ourselves enamored of something less.
Consider to what degree thoughts of God conjure up images of a large, white-haired, white-bearded man in flowing robes. He’s probably of the same race as you are, whatever that might be, so far as this image is concerned. But, the image in your mind likely has little to nothing to do with anything discussed in Scripture. The image in your mind is far more likely to be the product of movies, paintings and what have you, where depictions of God are pretty consistent; enough so that the cartoonist can depict Him in caricature and be confident of being understood by his readers. Michelangelo could depict his conceptualization of God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with expectation that all would see and recognize who this was.
But, God is not an image. He cannot be captured or contained in an image. He is not dead, that we need honor Him with statues and memorials. He is living, and ever present to witness the works of man, to hear the prayers of His children, and to answer. Proof of this living God, Joshua observed, was going to come in that He would dispossess the Canaanites from before the Israelites as they entered the Promised Land. The Living God is Strong, and He will Deliver on His promises. He is strong, says David, and sets the blameless in His way (2Sa 22:33). I observe that it is God’s way, not the blameless one’s in which God sets him. There is a hint here, that the blameless one is not set there on merit, but is in fact blameless because God has set him on His way, and continues to guide him along that way.
God is the Living God. He is able to come alongside His own, to shepherd them, and keep them on the true course that leads to Life. So strong is life in God that He even preserves the lives of the wicked to a point. This is something we must recognize that Elihu got wrong when he was afflicting Job with his wisdom. He says that God does not keep the wicked alive, but gives justice to the afflicted (Job 36:6). But, in truth, if God did not keep the wicked alive, no man should be found living! If we look carefully, we will discover that God causes His sun to shine on the good and the wicked alike, He causes the rains to water the crops of good and wicked alike, even as Jesus reminds us (Mt 5:45). The wicked, it is often the case, are preserved alive far longer than we, in our vindictive sense of justice, think ought to be the case. But, they are preserved for judgment. As for those of whom it can rightly be said that God is our Father, that preservation goes farther, and becomes a source of life in them.
Being the living God, life and death are in His hands, are His to determine. “The LORD kills and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol and raises up” (1Sa 2:6). Life, in fact, is the free gift of God – and eternal life, at that! “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ro 6:23). To march very far ahead, if it is a free gift, it must be clear that it is not wages paid for labors performed. It is not reward given for deeds done. All are rightly repaid by the first clause, for all have sinned. But God in His gracious mercy determined that there would be a remnant, a populace drawn from every nation and tribe to become a new people, reborn of the Spirit, and given this glorious, free gift of life. Indeed, except He gives us this gift of life, we are all of us dead men walking, for we all labor through this life under the sentence of death imposed for sins we cannot escape. However perfectly we might manage to walk out the remainder of our dies, there remains the eternal penalty of death for past actions. We cannot rewrite our own history, as much as it has become popular to try and erase our nation’s history.
This is something worth observing for just a moment. What is going on with all this effort to tear down and dismiss those who have been upheld as heroes of the nation for centuries? Set aside the politics, for politics is mere window dressing on true motive. There is, in this whole effort, some sense that by removing reminders of past sins, we can move forward as if those sins hadn’t happened. They needn’t be atoned for, because the reminder of them has been removed. There is, of course, also the sinful propensity for seeking to make ourselves look better by remonstrating against the sins of others. It’s the old Pharisaical cry of, “At least I’m not like him!” But, in fact you are like him, and quite likely worse. The sins we most decry in others do, after all, tend to be the ones we most recognize in ourselves. I suppose, that being the case, I should take time to reflect on this and see to what degree I am doing the self-same thing in pointing this out.
But, my larger point is simply this: We cannot, in fact, rectify the past; not our own past, not our collective past. We cannot properly atone for sins committed. They can’t be uncommitted. What’s been done has been done. We may seek to make amends. We may seek to repay the victim, and even, if we follow biblical directions, repay sevenfold. But, while that may help ease the fallout from sin, the sin remains. The sin, after all, whatever its impact on our fellow man, is in fact against God. How have you repaid Him? How could you hope to? He is eternal, and infinitely holy. Your offense is, in this sense, likewise eternal, and the penalty that is its due is eternal. As I believe I have already observed in these notes, that death which comes as penalty for sin is not some quick moment beyond which lies surcease. It is an eternal agony of repayment for crimes committed.
It will require our Deliverer to bring us out of our living death and into eternal life. It will require the eternal blood of the Living God, shed on our behalf in the Person of the Son, to truly and fully address those sins we have committed since conception. But, behold the glorious outcome, for this Son who would die on our behalf saved not only those who were with Him at the time, nor even only those who would come along thereafter and learn of His deeds in the course of their lives. No! His atoning work extends to all throughout the full arc of history, from the dawn of Creation to the Final Day, and makes alive those whose faith was and is in the Living God. It is thus that Jesus faced His accusers and reminded them of their Scriptures. In doing so, He laid down one of the most critical doctrines of the Church.
“Regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Mt 22:31-32). What a declaration! The words Jesus reminds them of are spoken present tense. It’s not that God was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it’s that He is. If He – continuous present – is their God, then the must – continuous present – be. It is indeed eternal life into which He has caused His own to be reborn, and that eternal life, as we shall doubtless explore more in due time, requires the resurrection of the dead, for this present body, as Paul observes in 1Corinthians 15, cannot possibly withstand eternity. Here is the reality of the grave, of temporal death: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body” (1Co 15:42). The God of the living is the giver of life.
“I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand” (Jn 10:28). “Even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life” (Jn 17:2). “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev 2:10b). There is much I could say of this, but I have already wandered about enough in this section. Suffice to observe that God gives life – eternal life – a free gift of grace to all whom the Father has given the Son. That gift is given by God’s own choosing, not by our deserving. That gift is given as He chooses, which requires that there be a choice made. To some it is given, to some it is not. Where that gift is given, it is certain. “No one shall snatch them out of My hand.” Who could? Those hands encompass the universe, or the multiverse if there be such a thing!
vii. Salvation
[05/24/19]
I come to one last characteristic or group of characteristics. This group might be difficult to observe as some sort of character trait, but it does speak much about the character of God. The chief, defining attribute here is that of salvation. This salvation is present in the sense of God giving life to us. It is present in His atonement for sin. It is present, as well, in His steadfast trustworthiness. We find these thoughts connecting in Jeremiah’s words. “Surely, the hills are a deception, a tumult on the mountains. Surely, in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel” (Jer 3:23). The concept here is that hills and mountains strike us as things of permanence. They are unchanging right up until they do. We know, of course, that they are not so unchanging as they appear. They are in fact growing or eroding, only at a rate that is all but imperceptible to us. I could again think of the Old Man of the Mountain up in New Hampshire, a feature older than our nation, and surely to be seen forever… until one day the outcropping fell, and the old man was no more.
But, mountain strongholds are the very ideal of security, aren’t they? Even into the Middle Ages, the castle on the mountaintop was practically impregnable, and the one that didn’t have a mountaintop would seek to fashion at least a hill upon which to rest the castle. The high ground is the secure ground, after all.
But, Jeremiah looks at these for what they are and finds them wanting. No, mountains, even were we to drill into their depths in hopes of being secure under their solidity, are no security, and we shall find no salvation in them. Our salvation is in the LORD, and in Him only.
There is another aspect to this which holds equally true, and that is that our salvation must be from Him because our crimes have been committed against Him. He is Judge, and if there is to be pardon for sin, it must be from Him. If there is no pardon from sin, we cannot be saved. That, too, plays into Jeremiah’s thoughts, for he speaks to address the sins of Israel. Even so, even in her sins, however, Israel could look to the LORD as their salvation. Even so must we.
“But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the LORD. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me” (Mic 7:7). Was Micah something special? Was he somehow free of sin that he could look with such glad expectations? No. He was a man like ourselves. But he knew his God. He knew that, whatever the present circumstance, and however dire things might appear to be to the eye of flesh, yet God remained God. He hears His children. He answers. He is hardly alone in this security as regards the God who is salvation. “Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food, though the flock should be cut off from the fold, and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation” (Hab 3:17-18). What a marvelous vote of confidence!
Circumstances, you see, are not to define our faith. That is not to say that we deny the evidence of the eyes, and insist that things are something other than they clearly are. It does not suggest a course of claiming perfect health and all the while hacking one’s head off. What it does suggest is confidence in God regardless of events. Whatever is my present, I know my God and my future. “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15). You ask how this might be? This is a man who knows God. I observe that he both recognizes the life-giving God in this, and also the sovereign God Who is in control of all things. If I die, he insists, it is by God’s determination. If I live, it is likewise. But, whether I live or I die, I will hope in Him. Why? Because death is not the end. There’s more. And therefore, with Paul, we can boldly declare that to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Php 1:21), for to die is but to be with Him forever.
And so we have these companion ideas that speak to the confidence that comes of God our salvation. He is our stronghold. This was an image that David in particular seems to have appreciated, and it’s easy enough to understand why. His years of preparation for the monarchy were of a sort that required a stronghold. He was on the run from the current monarch; not because he had done anything against the man, but because God had abandoned the man, and the man was therefore quite mad, and determined to kill David. David was a man on the run, with no fixed abode. He and his men would camp where they could, even taking up residence amongst his enemies, the Amalekites, on occasion. He had no fortress, no castle, no fortifications from which to sally forth in might. “In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Ps 56:11). “I love Thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Ps 18:1-2). Those words, we are told, David wrote upon being delivered from Saul and from his enemies alike. Ha Tsuwr, my Rock!
See the themes that weave together in that litany of praise. He is a fortress, a stronghold beyond even the mountains of Petra. He is Deliver and shield, defending His children from those who would destroy them. It is not that He necessarily guards every son of His from death by the hands of His enemies. No, there are plenty of martyrs down through the ages. Most of those who served as His prophets fell to man. Many a king in the line of David fell in war. To this day, in fact perhaps more so today than ever, the people of God are put to death for nothing more than their faith, and God is pleased to allow it. Why? I can only say that it is to His purpose that it should be so. “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His godly ones” (Ps 116:15). This is not new. It is not evidence of God failing. It is not evidence of sin destroying the man. It is God working out His good purpose.
As I tend to do when considering this, I turn to the example of Hezekiah, a good king, as kings go. He had served long and well, and proved to be one of the more godly kings to come of David’s line. But, something happened. He learned of his impending death and pled with God for a reprieve. He missed something. He had not, as Paul would, come to that place of recognizing death as gain. No, he was king! He was at the pinnacle of achievement, but what more might he do with a few more years? So, he pled, and God granted. Now, it must be said that God did not alter His plans or His purposes because Hezekiah wheedled Him so. His plan was going forward unaltered, but Hezekiah’s record, sadly, would alter considerably. The damage he did in those added years did much to undermine the good legacy he had established to that point. Far better had he accepted the schedule proposed to him and gone to his reward at the time advised.
Precious is the death of His godly ones. God does not strike capriciously, nor abandon because He’s busy elsewhere, or has simply lost interest. The whole outworking of history is a matter of most careful and precise planning on His part. It may seem an exercise in chaos theory, but that is primarily because our scope is limited. We cannot apprehend His ways in full, for we have not the benefit of eternity. But, even with the certainty of death, certainty of life remains. “Yet will I hope in Him.” “He is my Deliverer, my shield.”
He is also, says David, my strength. If I have power to prevail, it is not of my own. It is all due to God. If I have, in my workplace, wisdom to address, energy to achieve, a reputation of some value, it is not because I’m some wunderkind. It is because of God my horn, my fortress from which I can sally forth to meet the day. It is because He is my dwelling place that I can abide amidst the trials of the day, for though I sally forth, I do so with God in my vanguard, for He is ever with me.
“The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. And He drove out the enemy from before you and said, “Destroy!” (Dt 33:27). It seems odd, doesn’t it, to have that imagery of a dwelling place connected to a call to battle? But, before we can dwell in the land in peace, the land must be cleared of God’s enemies. Before God can be our dwelling place, sin must be destroyed.
These things seem obvious, and yet, these things seem obviously not to be the case. If the land must be cleared before we can enter in, then where are we now? But, that’s not the message is it? The message is that He already drove out the enemy. Then why are they here, and why this command to destroy? It is, it must be, because He speaks with past tense certainty in spite of present tense, ongoing activity. It must be because, while it is He who shall do it, it is us through whom He has determined to do it. How it shall come about will surprise, for the ways of God’s warfare are not really that much like our own. He may gain victory through shouts of praise, through hymns and psalms. He may gain victory, as He did in us, by saving His enemies and adopting them as children. That puts an end to the battle as readily as bloodshed. In this case, the command was, “Destroy,” because the immediate application pertained to Justice meted out upon sworn enemies of the holiness of God. Sin had need of being eradicated, not accommodated and not assimilated.
Similarly for us, the land of our own being needs clearing before God can be our dwelling place, or we His. And yet, He does indwell, and we know all too well that sin remains our nature. The work is not complete by any stretch, and yet He is here. We are secure in the everlasting arms of our Stronghold, our Salvation. The work is not complete, but insomuch as it is started we know with confidence that it shall be. “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Php 1:6). It is both an assurance of the guarantee that it shall be completed, and a strong notice that we mustn’t suppose we’ll arrive at that point in this life. He will perfect it until the day of Christ. It’s going to take that long to clear the land that is us. But, that land shall be clear, for God abides in us, and we in Him. It must be so. For in that day, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is (1Jn 3:2). So, we labor at our purification, and yet we rest in the confidence of our Salvation.
