“Out of the Cave”: The Stigma Remains

Almost sixty years ago, a gifted Bible teacher wrote, “In a sense a depressed Christian is a contradiction in terms, and he is a very poor recommendation for the gospel.” (1)  So it has long been.  To be paralyzed by depression brings a terrible stigma, a recognition of shameful weakness; but for a Christian this is doubled, because one has also failed both God and the church.

Now Chris Hodges, an Alabama pastor, has written a book that calls on the church to stop the stigmatizing. (2)  Out of the Cave recognizes the complexity of depression: some cases arise out of physiology while others react to circumstances, and there are physical, emotional, and social contributing factors as well as spiritual ones.  Hodges also shares his own struggles.

And yet I come away from Out of the Cave feeling that the stigma is very much in place, perhaps even that it has been reinforced.  “God has given us the tools we need to defeat depression and step forward into the light” (Hodges 215) — what then is wrong with me if I haven’t done so?  “We have to muster whatever faith we can and push through, even when we don’t think we can” (Hodges 164) — so if I can’t, now I am not only stuck but also lacking in faith.

Of course Hodges’s intentions are good, and I believe that his book will be helpful to many.  But for those who read it and only feel condemned, this essay will examine two subjects which I think he treats too narrowly: the nature of human emotions and the roles of suffering in the Christian life.

Keeping Emotions Under Wraps

Hodges adopts what might be called an enlightened Stoicism: we may not be able to control our emotions, but he’d sure like for us to try.  He presents them as alarms triggered by events; in theory, if we cultivate wholesome lifestyles and healthy habits, the alarms won’t go off.  Our emotions will at least have been “contained” (Hodges 50-53, 154).  Moreover, he pits emotions against reason and will: a commitment to external truth, and God’s truth, will help us to avoid “emotional reasoning” and to make wise decisions (Hodges 81-82).  “We still deal with the emotions — I was devastated to lose my father even though I have great peace and comfort knowing I’ll see him again someday in heaven” (Hodges 116), but, the implication is, this too can be contained.  Even grief is only an inconvenience to be “dealt with.”

Emotions are much more central to life than this picture implies.  So far from being purely reactive, they prompt us to initiate actions.  They accompany thought, and a healthy person channels rather than contains them.  God moves upon our emotions, awakening love in us (Song 2:7; 1 John 4:19); His Presence and His Word inspire joy (Matthew 13:20), fear (Exodus 20:18), sorrow (Nehemiah 8:9), shame (Job 42:6), and wonderfully mixed emotions (Matthew 28:8; 2 Corinthians 7:11).

Look at 1 Samuel 30.  David and his “mighty men” are operating in Philistine territory, hiding out from Saul, and one day while they are on the march the Amalekites carry off their wives and children.  Most of us recall two contrasting reactions: the men in their bitterness talk of stoning David, but he “strengthened himself in the LORD his God” (verse 6, NKJV) — precisely how, we aren’t told.  Yet look what precedes this: “David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep” (verse 4, NIV).  The difference is not that David feels less or contains more.  Nor is he simply drained of emotion and rational; after weeping himself out, he is still “greatly distressed” when his men turn on him (verse 6).  Somehow, messily, he locates his faith alongside and in the midst of his emotions.

Biblically, joy in God is not the suppression or denial of all grief.  David doesn’t pretend that nothing of eternal value has been lost; he doesn’t lead his men in a chorus of “It is well with my soul.”  That would be Stoicism. (3)  So too Habakkuk, as he chooses to “be joyful in God my Savior,” still takes inventory of his losses: no figs, grapes, olives, crops, sheep, cattle (3:17-18, NIV).  We mortify certain hopes and aims, we bow before unexpected calamities and deaths, but the pain persists.

Hodges holds up the apostle Paul as a model of self-mastery, someone who maintains peace and joy and perspective through all depressing circumstances (Hodges 107-15, 198).  This drastically understates the emotional volatility of Paul’s life.  After a “painful and distressing visit” to the Corinthian church, he wrote them a letter “out of great sorrow and deep distress [with mental torture and anxiety] of heart, [yes, and] with many tears” (2 Corinthians 2:1, 4, Amplified).  Waiting for news of them, he passed up a golden opportunity to preach the gospel because he “still had no peace of mind” (2:12-13, NIV).  This is no fluke; later he attests “the daily [inescapable pressure] of my care and anxiety for all the churches!” (11:28, Amplified).  So he is “afraid” for another church (1 Thessalonians 3:5, NIV), “in the pains of childbirth” and “perplexed” over a third (Galatians 4:19-20, NIV).  He wants his congregations to be “free from anxieties” (1 Corinthians 7:32, NRSV; compare Philippians 4:6) while he bears them.  Even in the Letter to the Philippians, where Hodges finds equanimity, Paul’s peace and joy coexist with “sorrow” and “anxiety” (2:27-28, NIV).

We all need emotional healing, including God’s gift of tears.  We do not heal by hardening our hearts, containing our emotions.  Rather, God summons an indifferent people to “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning” (Joel 2:12, NIV).

The Bible is incredibly profound on emotions.  The God of Israel is passionate, a world away from the impassibility or indifference of the Buddha or the god of Greek philosophy. (4)  Jesus reveals His divinity, no less than His perfect humanity, in part through expressions of compassion, anger, joy, fear, zeal, and sorrow; He models for us not only how to think and behave but how to feel.  Even Paul’s injunction not to let the sun go down on our anger (Ephesians 4:26) is quite insightful: we now recognize that anger is a secondary emotion, a cover for hurt or shame, frustration or fear or grief.  We set limits to the expression of a secondary emotion, not so that we may feel nothing at all, but so that we may release and explore the primary emotions welling up in us.  To these Paul sets no time limit; he only reminds us to hold on to our God-given hope as we wade into grief (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Israel’s God-shaped culture is richly emotional.  When someone died, the period of mourning might be thirty days (Numbers 20:29; Deuteronomy 34:8), or even seventy (Genesis 50:3), while some refused to be comforted and continued to grieve indefinitely (Genesis 37:35; 2 Samuel 12:17; 2 Kings 4:27-30; Psalm 77:2; Jeremiah 31:15).  This “getting stuck” is not condemned but commended (Matthew 5:4).  When Jesus is about to raise Jairus’s daughter from death, He banishes the mourners not because they are emotional (as if emotion is automatically antithetical to faith) but because they mock His word of hope in unbelief (Mark 5:38-40), and perhaps because some were professionals hired to feign grief (Matthew 9:23).  Jesus never encourages anyone to “work up” or manipulate emotion: after kicking out the mourners, He doesn’t bring in a praise band.  But He also doesn’t stifle genuine emotion: at the tomb of Lazarus, He asks no one to leave, and Himself shares their grief (John 11:32-44).

Admittedly, fear is different.  It is set over against faith.  Jairus is one of a multitude to be told, “Don’t be afraid; just believe” (Mark 5:36, NIV; compare Exodus 14:13; Isaiah 12:2; Matthew 14:30-31; Mark 4:40; Hebrews 13:6; Revelation 2:10).  Fear is an emotion that can paralyze.  Frequently in Scripture we see God not only urging people forward but helping them to take a brave step (Exodus 3:11-4:17; Judges 6:14-40; 7:9-15; 2 Kings 6:15-17).  We may not be able to smother fear, but we can resist it and act in spite of it: “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You” (Psalm 56:3, NASB).

Many western Christians, influenced by Stoicism and Gnostic perfectionism, have let go of the emotional richness of the Bible.  Because of this, church is often the worst place to be when one is grieving or struggling against the fog of depression.  Laura Story, a Christian musician and worship leader, has described how hard it was for her to sing “upbeat and fun songs celebrating God’s goodness” as her husband Martin adjusted to brain injury.  “I didn’t know how to lead the church in singing a song I didn’t feel,” she says.  “I wanted to be authentic in leading the congregation in what I believed.  If I didn’t feel it, I didn’t sing it.”  Her solution came in discovering, from Psalm 40, that God could put “a new song” in her mouth, God’s own words that she didn’t have to feel.  Worship proceeded from the will rather than the emotions, though the emotions “usually followed.” (5)

I honor Story’s journey and her faithfulness, but there is a double confusion here: the equation of what I really believe with what I really feel, and the assumption that public worship is a happy time for happy people, a setting exclusively for “upbeat and fun songs.”  Church ought to school our emotions, not teach us to be hypocrites who have all put on our “church faces.”  Depressed and traumatized people soon learn to stay away.

Some pastors and theologians have begun to teach the importance of lament in Scripture and the church. (6)  There are seasons in every life when we need to pour out our hearts before God, corporately if possible, to support one another, and to wait upon Him.  This is not a quick fix, any more than the dialogues in the Book of Job could be compressed to fit into a TV talk show segment.

Chris Hodges is not against lament, though (like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, like Laura Story) he shoves it into a back room.  Paradoxically, he calls for full and open emotional expression once we’re alone with God.  “God actually likes for us to . . . share all that we’re feeling without holding back. . . .  God made us and knows that it’s unhealthy to keep our feelings inside” (Hodges 160).

It has become a popular evangelical notion that, since “God can handle our anger,” we should simply unload on Him — Rick Warren gave the same advice in a recent televised sermon — but I find it troubling.  True, we are warned not to “murmur” or “grumble” against God (1 Corinthians 10:10, KJV, NIV), which I take to mean an undertone of complaint uttered at a distance; it’s better by far to exercise faith by bringing our gripes directly to God.  And He does receive the accusations of Job, Jeremiah, the psalmists, Jonah, and even the prodigal son’s elder brother.  But Job is called to account for “words without knowledge” (38:2, NIV) and Jeremiah is commanded to repent for “worthless” words (15:19, NIV).  I don’t aspire to keep repeating the psalmist’s confession:

When my heart was grieved

  and my spirit embittered,

I was senseless and ignorant;

  I was a brute beast before you.  (Psalm 73:21-22, NIV)

The rare passages that encourage us to “pour out our hearts” before God appear in a relational context:

Trust in him at all times, you people;

  pour out your hearts to him,

    for God is our refuge.  (Psalm 62:8, NIV)

Similarly, the injunction to “pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord” (Lamentations 2:19, NIV) follows the recognition that “The LORD has brought [Zion] grief because of her many sins” (1:5, NIV); that is, even amid devastation, there are no grounds for self-justification.

Numerous Christian writers helpfully advise us to pray the Psalms, specifically those of lament.  When we call out a situation that does not align with God’s justice, when we ask Him to honor His own promises, we do not “vent self-centered rage” (7); we ask that His kingdom come.  We accept His gift of sanctified words to help us express our pain.  We need the help of His own Word, and the help of Christian brothers and sisters, to learn how to open our hearts to God.

Hodges’s position is perplexing, to say the least.  Control your emotions, contain them, but, when it’s just you and God, vent freely!  Nor is this optional: he adds that, to maintain a relationship with God, we must be “completely honest” (Hodges 168).

This is a lot to ask.  In depression there may be a flood of emotions, or they may all go numb; in trauma they may be shattered and fragmented along with thoughts and memories.  It is well-nigh impossible either to keep them contained or to gather them up neatly in order to present them to God.  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV).  Yet Hodges demands self-knowledge.

He minimizes the devastation wrought by trauma.  At one point he cites the work of Bessel van der Kolk, who vividly describes the dissociated self and the fragmentation of thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. (8)  Yet Hodges’s takeaway is only this: “Our bodies hold on to elements of the past until our spirits make a course correction” (Hodges 179).

He also expects depressed people to worship: “If you’re having a hard time finding God, just worship him” (Hodges 170).  One of Job’s counselors said as much (36:24), and indeed Job did praise before his pain overtook him (1:21).  Then it seemed to him that God and His just ways had disappeared.  The only honest worship left to Job was to cry out after Him.  Many who are in the exile of trauma find themselves unable to “sing the songs of the LORD” (Psalm 137:4, NIV); to many who are depressed, our “upbeat and fun songs” register “like vinegar poured on a wound” (Proverbs 25:20, NIV).

Eventually, we do learn, like Laura Story, to sing what we believe rather than what we feel (just as “We live by what we believe will happen, not by what we can see,” 2 Corinthians 5:7, ERV).  But this is both gradual and messy; often, it requires our faith to change.  This takes time, and sometimes silence.  According to Isaiah, it is God who supplies “a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (61:3, NIV), and not we ourselves (contrast Hodges 171).

Hodges has some good things to say about the preparatory and preventive work of developing emotional resilience, and about opening up to others.  But he describes friends mostly as accountability partners (Hodges 103, 211-13), people who express empathy in the short term (Hodges 39, 100), but who are chafing to say, “Let’s talk through some options of what might be a helpful next step for you” (Hodges 40), “Let’s see how we can look at this battle from another angle” (Hodges 40), or — as Hodges himself declares — “you and I can win these daily battles and claim victory in the war” (Hodges 6).

A Christian doctor has commented on such help:

When well meaning Christian friends find out how depressed the person is, they will suggest a greater commitment to prayer and Bible study as a treatment for the condition.  This, of course, is impossible, since both acts require a great deal of concentration, which depression always interferes with.  Unfortunately, this inability to pray and study will indicate to the friends that the depressed person must have a spiritual problem or a lack of faith or that he doesn’t really want to get well.  Self help books and recordings will then be tried, perhaps along with pastoral counseling.  These methods only work when a person has total thought control, which allows him to change his thinking patterns.  When Christian self help methods fail, the depressed believer feels so spiritually dead and hopeless that he may give up Christianity completely. (9)

For Hodges, faith is a foundational belief system (Hodges 149-50), and the important thing is to reaffirm it as quickly as possible.  In contrast, I would suggest that faith comprises the whole of our relationship with God: the ups and downs of hope and love and fear, trust and unbelief and doubt.  Faith is not a static deposit but an ever-developing dialogue.  Its trajectory is not the same for all, and to be a friend is to share another’s path as best we can, at least for a time.  Jesus is the one Way for the sheep in the pasture, those that have strayed, those scattered by the wolf, and others still far away (John 10:9-16; Matthew 18:12-13); His “paths of righteousness” lead now to green grass and still waters, and now through a dark valley (Psalm 23).  If we pressure the wounded to “claim victory” prematurely, to get back on our track, then we perpetuate the stigma for all those who cannot meet our expectations.

The Outcomes of Suffering

Throughout the book, Hodges makes effective use of the Biblical account of the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 18-19; 2 Kings 2).  After presiding at God’s triumph over the prophets of Baal, Elijah crumbles at a death threat from Queen Jezebel, fleeing to the desert and succumbing to suicidal depression.  God provides for his physical needs, granting him rest and food, and then calls him into a fresh divine encounter and a renewed sense of purpose.  Even so, Elijah’s first response is to hide out in a cave.

This becomes Hodges’s guiding metaphor (Hodges xxii, 12, 94, 163).  It serves him well, but there is a problem: Elijah chose his cave.  This informs the whole dynamic of the book: If I am depressed, then I have chosen to turn aside, withdraw, isolate, shut down; and the resolution lies in my choosing — simply choosing — to come back out of this condition.  Using a slightly different metaphor, Beth Moore’s Get Out of That Pit is a far more nuanced book: there are pits we’re thrown into (affliction: Joseph), pits we slip into (despair, addiction), pits we jump into (sin).  Only God can deliver us, and we may need to wait on Him. (10)

But let’s stick with caves.  Even within the Elijah narrative, we read of Obadiah, the palace administrator for King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, hiding one hundred prophets of the LORD in two caves to save their lives (1 Kings 18:4, 13).  These caves cannot represent a sinful loss of nerve; they are the provision of God.  That is, just as the Good Shepherd sometimes leads His sheep into a dark valley, sometimes our loving God shuts us up inside a cave (compare Psalm 88:6; Jonah 2:3).

These hidden prophets are part of an important development that Hodges entirely overlooks: God is doing a new thing in Elijah’s day.  Always before in Israel’s history, He has dealt with His people as a national unit.  Throughout the period of the judges and the reigns of the early kings, Israel as a whole has turned aside to idols or repented and come back to the LORD.  Elijah expects the same outcome after the contest on Mount Carmel.  This was his dream; this is why he prayed, “. . . let it be known this day that You are God in Israel . . . and have turned their hearts back [to You]” (1 Kings18:36-37, Amplified).  Jezebel’s death threat shocks him, not because every spiritual high is followed by a low (Hodges 10-11, 107), but because it seems to indicate a new degree of hardhearted impenitence.  Elijah can repair the altar of twelve stones, but there is no rebuilding the nation of twelve believing tribes.

When God speaks to Elijah in 1 Kings 19:15-18, the “new assignment” He gives the prophet is also an explanation: He is bringing judgment on Israel — and He has reserved a remnant, including the cave dwellers (and including Gentiles like the Sidonian widow: 1 Kings 17; Luke 4:25-26).  From this time forward, God will not speak primarily in fireballs to crowds, but in whispers to individuals (Hebrews 12:18-24).  There may even be a subtle wordplay, and a reversal.  Elijah keeps saying, “I am the only one left” (1 Kings 18:22; 19:10, 14; Romans 11:3), using a word that can imply a remnant inferior in quality as well as in number.  The LORD replies, “I reserve seven thousand in Israel” (1 Kings 19:18; Romans 11:4), with a word that suggests a purified and faithful remnant. (11)

Few if any people today are in a cave of depression because God is ushering in a new phase in His plan of salvation.  But many of us are there because we cannot understand His ways or our own sufferings.  This too is part of the dance that is faith, when we follow Him only to find ourselves, for a time, in utter darkness (Isaiah 50:10-11; 59:9; Lamentations 3:2). (12)

Hodges ventures the suspicion that, with Elisha to mentor and confide in, Elijah is never depressed again (Hodges 207-08, 214).  Oswald Chambers says something similar, that Elijah’s obedience cures his depression. (13)  We don’t know this; certainly, to the end, he remains stern and uncompromising rather than joyful.

But we do know that George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, Charles Spurgeon, and many others have struggled against recurrent melancholy.  John the Baptist was, according to Jesus, both a latter-day Elijah and “the lamp that kept on burning and shining [to show you the way]” (John 5:35, Amplified; Matthew 11:14; 17:11-13); yet this bright light suffered his own darkness in the discouragement, isolation, and forced inactivity of prison.  He reached the point of doubting whether Jesus was the promised One (Matthew 11:2-3).  He never got out of that prison in this life, but Jesus claimed him as His own, spoke of him warmly, and sent words to encourage him and feed his faith.

And so, again, to suggest that depression, or all our suffering, is a cave that we have chosen to dwell in, and that we can simply walk out, falls short of truth, and sets up a standard that many cannot meet.  The stigma remains.

Alternatives

I cannot claim to have digested the vast Christian literature on depression, but here are a few books that I have found helpful:

• Elizabeth Ruth Skoglund, Bright Days, Dark Nights: With Charles Spurgeon in Triumph over Emotional Pain (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker, 2000)
• Thomas Griffith Lewis, Finding God: Praying the Psalms in Times of Depression (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002)
• Elizabeth Sherrill, All the Way to Heaven: A Surprising Faith Journey (Grand Rapids, MI.: Fleming H. Revell-Baker, 2002)
• Edward T. Welch, Depression: A Stubborn Darkness: Light for the Path (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Punch, 2004)
• Leslie Vernick, Getting Over the Blues (Eugene, OR.: Harvest House, 2005)
• Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness (Grand Rapids, MI.: Brazos-Baker, 2006)
• John Piper, When the Darkness Will Not Lift: Doing What We Can While We Wait for God — and Joy (2006; Wheaton, IL.: Crossway, 2007) — and Piper, The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd (Wheaton, IL.: Crossway, 2001)
• Matt Rogers, Losing God: Clinging to Faith through Doubt and Depression (Downers Grove, IL.: IVP-InterVarsity, 2008)
• Tim Farrington, A Hell of Mercy: A Meditation on Depression and the Dark Night of the Soul (New York: HarperOne-HarperCollins, 2009)

Personally, I would give one or more of these books to a struggling Christian in preference to Out of the Cave.

(1) D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure (Grand Rapids, MI.: William B. Eerdmans, 1965, 1968), 11.

(2) Chris Hodges, Out of the Cave: Stepping into the Light When Depression Darkens What You See (Nashville: Nelson-HarperCollins, 2021), 37.

(3) Compare Barry Pearman’s comment on the Horatio Spafford hymn (specifically, on the change from “Thou hast taught me to know” to “Thou hast taught me to say”): “We have sung a belief into our brains to have a stoic, stiff upper lip attitude and keep saying ‘It is well’ when it’s not.  Knowing — deep, deep knowing — takes time.” “How is it With Your Soul?” Turning the Page, https://turningthepage.co.nz/how-is-it-with-your-soul/, accessed January 17, 2024.

(4) See, for example, Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (1962; New York: HarperPerennial-HarperCollins, 2001), on the divine pathos; and Terence E. Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).

(5) Laura Story with Jennifer Schuchmann, When God Doesn’t Fix it: Lessons You Never Wanted to Learn, Truths You Can’t Live Without (Nashville: W-Thomas Nelson, 2015), 147-48, 152-54.

(6) See Mark Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament (Wheaton, IL.: Crossway, 2019), and the works in his bibliography.

(7) Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, 43-44.

(8) Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014; New York: Penguin, 2015).

(9) Grant Mullen, Emotionally Free: A Prescription for Healing Body, Soul, and Spirit, 2nd ed. (Mustang, OK.: Tate, 2013), 61-62.

(10) Beth Moore, Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God’s Deliverance (Nashville: Integrity-Thomas Nelson, 2007).

(11) Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 451-52, 983-84.

(12) It may be objected that Jesus Himself promises, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12, NIV).  I don’t believe this should be read as a guarantee that no true believer will ever experience overwhelming trial or a time of depression and confusion concerning one’s identity and purpose.  Frederick Dale Bruner interprets it as applying to practical guidance, which even then may not come immediately: one “will not remain unsure (for we are sometimes unsure) of what Jesus would want done on given occasions”: The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI. and Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans, 2012), 513; emphasis in original.

(13) Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (1935; Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, n.d.), 48 (February 17).

You May Not Be a Joseph, After All

Yesterday I heard another sermon about Joseph. You know the drill: God loves dreamers, misunderstood outsiders. Though people persecute you, you are robed in the Father’s favor. Though even now you may be in a pit, promotion is coming.

Except that, this time, I started wondering: Do these roles and characters mean quite the same thing once we come into the New Testament? Even in the Old Testament, are the distinctions separating the blessed and the excluded quite as rigid as we have taught?

A Circle of Blessing

There is, first, the question of God’s redemptive genealogical line. The promised Seed Jesus will come through Isaac and not Ishmael, through Jacob and not Esau. Thus far, each new branch on the family chart means a narrowing focus and more people left out. But, in the next generation, all of Jacob’s sons are in some sense chosen, and Jesus descends not from Joseph but from Judah, a man who first appears as a mere opportunist (Genesis 37:26-27; 38) before a crisis calls forth faith and love (43:8-9; 44:16-34). The siblings who never receive a personal vision or a special mark of the Father’s devotion — and who, partly because they lack a calling, succumb to envy, and some (Reuben, Judah) to instability and sexual misconduct, and others (Simeon, Levi) to fury and violence — all are forgiven, included; their descendants become prophets, judges, priests, and kings. Perhaps there is even a blessing and a place for their traumatized, wounded sister, Dinah.

Once Jesus has been born, the circle widens further. The gospel proclamation radiates from Jerusalem to “the ends of the earth,” embracing all peoples. Jesus cautions that, though many are called, few are chosen (Matthew 22:14), but now the “remnant chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5) culls some from every nation and condition (Colossians 3:11-12), creating a people chosen yet “scattered” (1 Peter 1:1-2), and so the call must be heard everywhere.

Surprising Inclusions

So we revisit even Ishmael and Esau. All of us, beyond our anticipation or control, are object lessons to one another, and this is heightened for many of the people in the Bible. Ishmael, the child born of purely human effort, comes to represent the flesh, the Law, and slavery (Galatians 4); Esau stands for all the ”godless” — not chosen but “hated” (Romans 9:10-13) — who despise a divine inheritance and miss the blessing (Hebrews 12:16-17). Violent natures are prophesied for both (Genesis 16:12; 27:40) and, in time, God declares that their descendants will be few (Isaiah 21:17; Obadiah 18; Malachi 1:4).

Yet the person is more than the type. After Abraham intercedes, Ishmael too receives a blessing (Genesis 17:18-20; 21:13). Esau mysteriously acquires the grace to forgive his brother and to say, “I have plenty” (33:9). Perhaps most significantly, a passage announcing “light for the Gentiles” specifically mentions joy among some descendants of Ishmael and Esau (Isaiah 42:6, 11). We dare not minimize the grace of God in Jesus Christ, which is able to graft in the wildest shoot (Romans 11:17) and to transform even seemingly hopeless cases into “children of promise” (Galatians 4:28). The prodigal in Jesus’ parable commits precisely the sin of Esau when he squanders the Father’s gifts, yet he is redeemed as he recognizes, belatedly, the Father’s calling (Luke 15:13, 17).

The point of all this is that we should not preach as if everyone (all thirteen siblings!) is a Joseph, singled out, vividly aware of a divine destiny. Or at least we should follow the dreamer to maturity. In Genesis the young Joseph glories in self-importance; then in middle life he craves vindication and toys with retaliation. Only when he has faced his pain, grieved his losses, and forgiven, can he enter into the fullness of God’s purposes, which have almost nothing to do with people bowing down in recognition of his greatness, and everything to do with saving lives (Genesis 45:5; 50:20). To participate in this, he is even willing to lay aside his status and, like his fathers (23:7, 12; 33:3, 7), to bow down to others in humble service, submission, respect, and love (48:12).

The Way Forward

In one sense, if we live long enough, most of us will resemble Joseph. The universal element isn’t a God-sent dream or persecution by one’s brethren or exaltation to a position of great responsibility. It is that we will undergo a significant loss or injury. We, and our church, will pray for healing, but God’s purpose in such painful experiences is never mere restoration, any more than He intended Joseph to go back to being the eleventh son of a pastoralist. Rather, in suffering God takes us through a low door into a new place of service.

So we recapitulate the late period of Old Testament history. After the exile, Israel is restored, but things are not entirely as before. Old-timers weep at the foundation-laying of the new temple (Ezra 3:12-13); people chafe under the yoke of foreign, pagan kings (Nehemiah 9:36-37; Ezra 9:7). And there arises a new yearning for something better than mere restoration of the monarchy. This, I submit, is the whole purpose of the post-exilic period, of the second temple and Nehemiah’s wall. The community is no more perseveringly devout than before, no better equipped to keep God’s law; but God stirs a deep hunger for Messiah. There are no present-day Davids to draw aside their hopes; Zerubbabel and Nehemiah are only governors, as Daniel was third in the kingdom (Daniel 5:29), Esther queen, and Mordecai and long-ago Joseph second-in-command (Esther 10:3; Genesis 41:43). A “ruler of this world” stands over the people of God, and will stand until Messiah comes.

We today are in a similar position — like Paul, raised from apparent death (Acts 14:19-20) yet not simply restored, but “always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:10, NKJV). Often, we seek the fulfilment of some private exalting dream or, perhaps worse, a return to some imagined past glory. But God is cultivating in us a crying out for Christ’s return.

The true and perfect Joseph, as it turns out, is the Lord Jesus, and His elevation offers life and hope to Ishmaels, Esaus, Reubens, and Dinahs everywhere. In Him we find, not the fulfillment of our personal dreams, but something better, a corporate identity and mission: “From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:16).

Faith: Holy, Hidden, Intimate

“Do not gloat over me, my enemies! For though I fall, I will rise again. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.” — Micah 7:8, NLT

We value intelligence in people — and strength, some skills, experiences of certain types, and a shifting set of appearances that we call “character” or “leadership.”

God values faith. This is scandalous to us; it levels and defeats our hierarchies. Admittedly, there is a thoughtfulness to faith, and it is strong. Skills serve it, sometimes, though they ever strive to run ahead. Faith is shaped by experience, while refusing to be bound or defined by it. But the great scandal, to minds steeped in human culture, is that faith presents no consistent face, not even for one generation. Often, it does not appear at all.

In the wild, fierce stories of Elisha, one moment stands out. A wealthy married woman, known to us only as “the Shunammite,” sets apart a room for the “holy man of God” (2 Kings 4:9, NIV). In return — and over her anguished, doubting protest (verse 16) — he prophesies that she will bear a son, and she does. Years pass, and the little boy dies suddenly, perhaps of heat stroke. The mother stretches him on Elisha’s bed, like a mute accusation, and then with steely determination sets out to confront the prophet. To her husband and Elisha’s servant she will say only, “All is well” (verse 26, ESV; Msg “Everything’s fine”; compare verse 23), a false screen of shalom, “peace.” Behind it, she is single-minded, all her fear and grief and rage and hope channeled in one direction.

The prophet sees her coming, watches her dismiss his servant. He does not move to meet her, but stands on his mountain, waiting, waiting, till she completes her journey and seizes his feet. Yet when his servant starts to intervene, he barks out, “Leave her alone, for she is in bitter distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me” (verse 27, MEV).

The remarkable note here is precisely Elisha’s ignorance. Two chapters later, we read about the intense frustration of the king of Aram (Syria), because the king of Israel routinely anticipates his troop movements. Summoning his military council, the Aramean king demands to know which of them is the spy; one officer replies, “None of us, my lord the king, but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom” (6:12, NIV).

Elisha can overhear the distant plotting of men in another country, but he cannot discern the sorrow of a woman at his feet. God honors as something holy the grief of a mother, the anguish of a parent; it is a pain that He knows better than anyone. He draws a curtain round it, like the dense darkness of Good Friday (Matthew 27:45; compare Exodus 10:21; 20:21). Even His prophet is not allowed to peer within. God shuts her in, alone, with Him.

It is in such hidden places that faith takes root and grows. The heart of God for us may be still waters and soft, abundant grass; but His path to the next meadow leads through the dark valley. Somehow, only there can “He” become “You” (Psalm 23:1-4). A lifelong intimacy (verses 5-6) is forged; we come out of the wilderness leaning on our Beloved (Song of Songs 8:5). Something in us relaxes and yields, even to the rod, as we find Him sufficient in our suffering.

Granted, the process is not pretty. The Shunammite’s faith is a flickering candle, a tent under siege: “My master, did I ask you for a son? Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t make me hope for something that won’t happen’?” (2 Kings 4:28, NIRV). She will not even entertain the possibility that the servant bearing the prophet’s staff may resolve the crisis; she is adamant that Elisha must go with her (verses 29-30). I for one am tempted to keep score, ranking her lower in faith than the centurion content to have Jesus “just say the word” (Matthew 8:8, NIV). But this, I strongly suspect, is beside the point. God is not keeping score; He is drawing a space, around an affliction, so that the faint embers of faith that are in the heart may stand out against a backdrop of darkness, and fan into flame. See, already, how focused she is, and how wholehearted! God honors the Shunammite, and she continues to walk with Him (2 Kings 8:1-6).

We see something like this in the Gospels, when a widow steps into the temple to make her last two coins an offering to God. Her poverty serves as a cloak; nobody except Jesus pays any attention to her. And He, so far as we know, gives her no word, no touch, no blessing of abundance; He leaves her in the holy place of commitment, alone with God. The Savior, who went out of His way to pick Zacchaeus out of a tree, takes not one step toward this woman. Yet He shares her secret, calling the disciples to Him (Mark 12:43), commending her to them (and us). He lets us glimpse how, in heaven, the Father does the same, summoning angels, pointing proudly, bragging on those who trust in Him (compare Job 1:8; 2:3).

No doubt He watches over her. But the curtain descends. We are not told any more of her story; we must await the day when all such hidden devotion comes to light. For now, on our pages, she trundles slowly out of view, perhaps resting in joyful hope, perhaps despairing and reproaching herself.

This is in the very nature of faith: frequently the attaboys, the assurances, the felt Presence are withdrawn. Night presses in. “God has driven me away and made me walk in darkness instead of light,” cries the survivor in the devastated city (Lamentations 3:2, GW). “We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows,” laments the erring nation (Isaiah 59:9, NIV). Job longs for the days “when He caused His lamp to shine upon my head, and by His light I walked through darkness” (Job 29:3, NET); now he has no light. Faith is the great leveler: to raise it, strength, skill, wisdom, authority are all snuffed out. Faith blooms in hiddenness.

But God looks on — catching His breath, betraying the glimmer of a smile. “Do you see that one?” He whispers. He draws the curtain round, but inside He is already working. The stricken child is stretched out on His bed. He stands watching, ready to act — to heal and restore, or to comfort and receive — when faith is fully uttered or alight.

“Who among you walks in darkness, and has no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord; let him lean on his God” (Isaiah 50:10, CSB).

To be sure, Isaiah goes on to warn those who respond by kindling their own fires, making their own light (verse 11, ICB). But you who read this are not in that place. The word of faith has taken root in your heart; it trembles on the tip of your tongue (Romans 10:8). Stay within the curtained darkness. Take hold of His feet. Hold fast.

Ringing In the New Year with Ezekiel

Some Christians treat the turning of the calendars as an opportunity to take stock spiritually.  Others emphasize gratitude, setting up memorials and declaring, “Hitherto the Lord has helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12, RSV).  Looking ahead to a new year, some elaborate goals, while others fast and pray.

All of these practices have merit.  Yet one Old Testament prophet, at one new year, was led in a different direction.  God gave him a fresh vision, renewing his hope, not for the next twelvemonth but for a much longer vista:

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was conquered, on that very day, the hand of the Lord was upon me, and brought me in the visions of God into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain, on which was a structure like a city opposite me.  When He brought me there, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like bronze, with a line of flax and a measuring reed in his hand; and he was standing in the gateway.  And the man said to me, “Son of man, look with your eyes, and hear with your ears, and set your mind upon all that I shall show you, for you were brought here in order that I might show it to you; declare all that you see to the house of Israel.”  (Ezekiel 40:1-4, RSV)

This new year — the date was perhaps April 28, 573 B.C. by our calendar (1) — did not begin auspiciously.  Ezekiel was part of a second group of deportees, who had now lived a full quarter-century in exile in Babylon, a 900-mile journey from the city where the Lord had caused His Name to dwell. (2)  Jerusalem lay in ruins; the temple — of which the Lord had said, “I have chosen and consecrated this house that My Name may be there for ever; My eyes and My heart will be there for all time” (2 Chronicles 7:16, RSV) — was no more, the Glory departed (Ezekiel 8:3-11:23).  And the prophet’s wife, “the delight of his eyes” (24:16), had died.

No doubt Ezekiel, who even in a distant land saw visions of God, who upheld the Lord’s justice and declared His love, promising that He would gather His people (even from long death) and shepherd them once more — no doubt he could still have produced a gratitude list.  But sometimes God comes graciously to lift our eyes and set our hearts on all the goodness He has in store.

In the vision, Mount Zion has become “a very high mountain” (verse 2), “chief among the mountains” (Isaiah 2:2; Micah 4:1, NIV).  A new temple stands and, as the prophet looks on, the Glory of the Lord enters and fills it, never again to leave (Ezekiel 43:1-9).  The rebuilt city around it receives a new name, which closes the vision and the book: “The Lord Is There” (48:35).

This is a remarkably long and detailed vision, but much of it makes dull reading.  The angel with the yardstick leads the prophet through the temple buildings, and we get the dimensions of every wall and alcove.  It’s about as exciting as a building inspector’s notes, except that here we don’t even find the occasional substandard flaw.  Everything is perfect: the Lord reestablishes the covenant of holiness as separation, with daily blood sacrifices to cover sin.  The very layout of the temple, along with its regulations, is intended to instruct the people in holiness and the fear of the Lord (43:10-12).  Only, since they will never forget their exile, and the sins that provoked it, this temple is the center of a spirituality steeped in shame.  Every distance and dimension is a reminder of falling short, every perfection a shining mirror in which to see the heart that must be covered:

Son of man, describe the temple to the people of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their sins.  (43:10, NIV)

In fact, this is something of a theme in Ezekiel: the restored people of God will bear their shame (16:52, 54; 44:13), perhaps forever:

. . . that you may [earnestly] remember and be ashamed and confounded and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I have forgiven you all that you have done, says the Lord God.  (16:63, Ampl)

Yet there is a tension, for He also says:

They will forget their shame and all the unfaithfulness they showed toward Me . . .   I will no longer hide My face from them, for I will pour out My Spirit on the house of Israel, declares the Sovereign Lord.  (39:26, 29, NIV)

One is left with the impression of an ineradicable shame, an incurable disposition toward sin, that nevertheless is swallowed up by the power of His Presence.

There are many discrepancies, both small and significant, between the temples built by Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Herod and the one seen by Ezekiel.  None is more striking than the life-giving stream that flows out from it:

The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east).  The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar.  He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was flowing from the south side.

As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle-deep.  He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep.  He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist.  He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in — a river that no one could cross.  He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”

Then he led me back to the bank of the river.  When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river.  He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Sea.  When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh.  Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows.  There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live.  Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets.  The fish will be of many kinds — like the fish of the Great Sea.  But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt.  Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river.  Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail.  Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them.  Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”  (47:1-12, NIV)

Jerusalem had no river, and none of Israel’s temples featured flowing waters, but the psalmist speaks of “a river whose streams make glad the city of God” (Psalm 46:4, RSV, NIV) and “Your river of delights . . . the fountain of life” (Psalm 36:8-9, NIV).  The Lord pours out His Spirit, His own life-giving Presence, and “where the river flows everything will live.”  Even the Dead Sea loses its salinity, confounding our expectations; just so, the Presence of the Lord will overturn the very limits established by His Law.  For in Mosaic Law, sin and uncleanness are more powerful than holiness; as the priests confirm to the prophet Haggai, a holy object consecrates only what it directly touches, while defilement continues to spread (Haggai 2:11-14).  By all the logic of the Old Testament, when Jesus touches a leper, He should be unclean and the leper unchanged.  Instead, like the potent, ever-fresh river, His touch banishes sickness and sin, while He remains pure.  Sorrow and sighing flee away (Isaiah 35:10).

We picture Ezekiel standing amid his measurements, scratching his head and wondering, Lord, how can this be?  Hasn’t God Himself said that our sin and shame must be reckoned up and remembered forever?  Yes, it is all counted, before our eyes — and then canceled and set aside:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.  On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.  And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.  No longer will there be any curse.  (Revelation 22:1-3, NIV)

God practices immersion learning.  Zeke is being set up, and he never quite realizes it.  He walks all around and through grace, gathers its dimensions incrementally, and knows nothing about it until he’s engulfed.  Look at him, solemnly led along by the Angel of Measurement: ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep, splash!  And he’s in over his head, baptized, floundering in the immeasurable, hearing the angel asking, Do you get it?

Six centuries later, Paul writes:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  (Ephesians 3:17-19, NIV; Ampl “wholly filled and flooded with God Himself!”)

A river grows deeper only as tributaries feed into it, or as it runs through narrow channels. The river Ezekiel enters, the river of God, is fed by no other sources, and is spreading out.  The water rises, as it flows, because God does more than start it.  He sustains, feeds, and indwells the life-giving river. (3)

Corrie ten Boom said that we can never use our imaginations too strongly in thinking about heaven or things to come, (4) because “no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.  But God has revealed it to us by His Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10, NIV; Isaiah 64:4) — and He revealed it, by His Spirit, to Ezekiel.

Sometimes life seems like a railroad track, straight and fixed.  When we look back, we see it stretching afar, the iron rails of our forced march, our banishment.  With hunch-shouldered heaviness, we turn and face forward, expecting more of the same.

Our past may be a long exile, our hopes in ruins, our delight more than a decade dead.  Our shame may appear inexpungible, and never more so than when we contemplate a holy God.  But a new year need not spell mere continuation.  The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has a way of surpassing all measuring sticks, even the ones He has furnished.  When He chooses, He comes in power.  There is no deadness or uncleanness that His life cannot purify and make fruitful.  We cannot fathom His love, and yet it can fill us and flow out of us.  Even now, He calls us and carries us toward a future we cannot imagine, though we know its name: The Lord Is There.

 

(1) Mark Hillmer, note on Ezekiel 40:1, in Kenneth Barker, ed., The NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), 1283.

(2) Edwin Yamauchi and Ronald Youngblood, note on Ezra 7:7-9, in NIV Study Bible, 684.

(3) This sense of the Divine Presence, rather than the movement of heavenly bodies, also underlies the picture of the path of the righteous shining “brighter and brighter” as they walk with God (Proverbs 4:18, RSV; compare 2 Corinthians 3:18).  The philosophers Descartes and Malebranche argued that, since a cause must be greater than its effect, it is not enough to say that an object exists because it existed a moment ago; the greater cause must be the sustaining will of God, choosing to keep it in being.  Thus God is ever active, willing, sustaining, perhaps augmenting.  Jonathan Edwards drew on this idea in his misunderstood and vilified 1741 sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” arguing that only the forbearing will of God preserves the life of the wicked.  See Sermons and Discourses, 1739-1742 (Works of Jonathan Edwards Online Vol. 22), ed. Harry S. Stout and Nathan O. Hatch with Kyle P. Farley (New Haven: Yale, 1957, 2003), 404-18; available at http://edwards.yale.edu/research/browse.

(4) Pamela Rosewell Moore, The Five Silent Years of Corrie ten Boom (Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan-HarperCollins, 1986), 132.

Peace Through His Blood

Every year at this season, I get suckered in again.  I start yearning for peace, both as an inner condition of soothing tranquility and as an outward ease and warmth in relationships.  As Christmas approaches, I expect the peace of God to descend and enfold me like a comforting blanket, or like Isaiah’s river of peace (Isaiah 48:18; 66:12): wave upon wave, spreading out and bringing life.  But every year, in me and around me, I find tension, anxiety, conflict, resentment.  My wife and I talk with people who dread the holidays with their family gatherings and memories.  Perhaps it may help to remind ourselves of some basic truths concerning Biblical peace:

 1.  Lasting peace, the healing reconciliation of God doesn’t come to us simply by contemplating the baby Jesus. Here part of the problem may lie in all the cards and carols that have the angels proclaiming,

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace, good will toward men.  (Luke 2:14, KJV)

In our best texts, eudokia (“good pleasure”) is in the dative rather than the nominative case, and so most modern translations say “and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests” (NIV) or “peace among men with whom He is pleased” (RSV); one could also render it “peace among men of good will.” (1)

The angels’ declaration is made to the shepherds, indicating that it may be God’s pleasure to extend peace along different lines than we would expect, whether our criteria are based on Mosaic Law or on Santa’s “nice” and “naughty” lists.  Even outcasts who sleep outside, who have not waited patiently nor searched diligently for God’s salvation — even the unworthy and unlikely — are invited into peace; but we are given fair warning that it will change us to receive the peace of God.  This echoes the prophecy of John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, that the Coming One will rise upon us like the sun and “guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79, KJV, RSV), a way we have not known (Romans 3:17; Isaiah 59:8).

2.  Peace does not come to us automatically even when we direct our attention to Jesus and sing His praise. Nothing is easier, at a modern Christmas, than to go through these motions.  But peace with God requires that we acknowledge that we are rebels, and lay down our arms, and even die.

Some 30 years after the nativity, on Palm Sunday, a crowd forms, centered on Jesus, hailing Him as their King, rejoicing, praising God.  They cheer about “peace in heaven” (Luke 19:38).  Even the great throng gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover joins in welcoming Him (John 12:12-13).  Yet Jesus weeps, telling the city named for peace, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace!  But now they are hid from your eyes” (Luke 19:42, RSV).  The people laid down their garments rather than their hearts; they received Him in accordance with their own expectations, and thought He would make peace by destroying their enemies.

Jesus Himself says that He comes to bring, not peace on earth, but division, a sword (Luke 12:51; Matthew 10:34).  Simeon, rejoicing over the baby Jesus, is ready to depart in peace, but also sees that disruption is coming for many, and that a dividing sword will go through Mary’s soul (Luke 2:29, 34-35).  Something in her will die.  And I too stand under the swordlike word of God (Hebrews 4:12-13; Revelation 1:16).

3.  The birth announces the gift of peace, but peace cannot reign in our hearts until we have followed Jesus to the cross. He is our peace offering (Leviticus 3); His is “the punishment that brought us peace” (Isaiah 53:5, NIV).

Paul says that God has made peace with us through Jesus, in a process that began in the Bethlehem manger and ended at Calvary:

For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.  (Colossians 1:19-20, NIV)

We have peace with God as we receive Jesus by faith (Romans 5:1-2), and we enter into peace with other people as we allow Jesus to put to death our hostility.  He is our peace (Ephesians 2:14-17; Micah 5:5).

God’s peace in me begins with the Incarnation, not because the baby “sleep[s] in heavenly peace,” (2) but because He is “wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12, NIV).  As Luther says, God “sends, as it were, an earthworm lying in weakness, helpless without his mother, and [later] he suffers him to be nailed to a cross.” (3)  Both in the manger and on the cross, He puts to death all my proud expectations.  There is nothing left in me to draw me to Him, except the faith He gives; and so I die, and faith rises up in me.  His life, wholeness, righteousness, salvation, health, well-being, reconciliation, rest — all the richness of the Hebrew shalom — become mine as I enter into His death.

4.  The world still does not know “the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:42), but “the God of peace” continues to sanctify His Church, and each believer (1 Thessalonians 5:23). His river of peace washes over us and heals us.  I like the Amplified Bible’s expansion of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper:

. . . in Me you may have perfect peace and confidence.  In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer — take courage, be confident, certain, undaunted — for I have overcome the world.  — I have deprived it of power to harm, have conquered it [for you].  (John 16:33)

“Let the peace of Christ rule [brabeuo] in your hearts” and in the Church, urges Paul (Colossians 3:15, NIV), even though others, particularly legalists, may try to rule against [katabrabeuo] us or disqualify us (2:18). (4)  His peace rules in us as we die to earthly hopes and desires (3:2, 5).  He is “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) as His peace rules in us, and Isaiah also promises, “Of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end” (9:7, Ampl).

Around us, the whole creation continues to groan (Romans 8:22), and peace will yet be taken from the earth (Revelation 6:4).  All are bound over to disobedience and unbelief, that all may receive mercy through faith (Romans 11:32, 20), finding life “from Him and through Him and to Him” (11:36), united with all creation, and at peace.

Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace at all times in all ways.  The Lord be with you all.  (2 Thessalonians 3:16, RSV)

 

(1) William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1952, 1957), 319; Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984, 1996), New Testament section, 671.  Compare Lewis Foster, note on Luke 2:14, in Kenneth Barker, ed., The NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), 1539: “Peace is not assured to all, but only to those pleasing to God — the objects of his good pleasure . . .”  Through the risen Jesus, “the God of peace” now works in believers what is “well-pleasing” [euarestos] in His sight (Hebrews 13:20-21).

(2) Joseph Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber, Stille Nacht (1818), tr. as Silent Night by John Freeman Young (1859).

(3) Roland H. Bainton, The Martin Luther Christmas Book (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1948), 48.

(4) Vine’s, New Testament section, 540, 537; Arndt and Gingrich, 146, 410.

 

The Adventure Gospel

Not long ago, I heard a sermon that shocked me — and, at the same time, took me back in time.  “Life is a great adventure,” said the preacher in his peroration.  “And if you’ve lost sight of that, you need to repent.”

I looked around at the familiar faces of the congregation.  Here was a man dying of stage 4 cancer; there, a family forced by financial pressures to sell their home.  This couple has a son who harbors resentment amounting to rage and will not speak to them.  And so on and on through all of us, divorced, bereaved, addicted, ill, injured, unemployed, uprooted, depressed.  The poor and needy.

And I thought, So now it’s not enough that we put our hope in God (Psalm 42:5; 130:7), and wait for His salvation (Psalm 27:14; 130:5-6; Lamentations 3:26; Romans 8:19-25; 1 Thessalonians 1:10); that we turn from idols and keep from grumbling (1 Corinthians 10:7, 10); that we attempt to count our trials joy (James 1:2) and to rejoice in God alone (Habakkuk 3:17-18; Philippians 4:4); that we retain our confidence that we shall still see His goodness in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13); that we sow in and through our tears (Psalm 126:5-6) and do good without wearying, expecting a harvest (Galatians 6:9; 1 Corinthians 15:58); that we consider ourselves dead (Romans 6:11; Galatians 2:20), take up our cross each day (Luke 9:23; 14:27), present our bodies as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), accept our share of the suffering (2 Timothy 2:3; Philippians 3:10) to which we have been called (1 Peter 2:21; 4:13), abide in the Lord Jesus (John 15:4-10), and allow the Holy Spirit to refresh in us our first love for Him (Revelation 2:4); and that we clothe ourselves with Christ (Romans 13:14; Galatians 3:27) and with His love for others (Colossians 3:14).  Now, if we do not also deem the journey and each of its phases a thrilling adventure ride, we have turned our hearts to rebellion and require cleansing and correction.

In dismay I asked, Where is this coming from?  And then I remembered: Oh, yeah.  John Eldredge.

Diminished Men

I couldn’t find my copies of The Sacred Romance and Wild at Heart — the books never resonated with me as they have with many men.  But my local public library furnished the latter volume, as well as a book called Desire.  From these, I gather that Eldredge starts from a place of compassion.  He sees Christian men, frustrated and bored with their lives, struggling to remain faithful or even engaged with God and family and church, silently screaming, “Is this all there is?”  Feeling stuck and short-changed, they may bust out or break down or quit.

Most Christians I know, women as well as men, are disappointed with their churches.  Decades ago, the promise of charismatic renewal was that we would rediscover the gifts distributed among all believers, and enter upon new forms of “body ministry.”  Today, in our church services, we are neither trained nor equipped; two or three people do all the talking, while the rest of us listen passively, put money in the plate, help rearrange the furniture, and go home.  We are left to find life “in the Spirit,” life “in Christ,” in a small group or at home.

Eldredge goes further, though.  He doesn’t hope to reform our churches.  They are, he believes, an essentially “feminine” domain, places of nice manners (1) and “sanctified resignation.” (2)  For the most part, he is quite ready to abandon them, to venture outdoors into wilderness to encounter the God who Himself is “fierce” (Wild 31) and “wild” (Wild 33) at heart:

Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of man.  The masculine heart needs a place where nothing is prefabricated, modular, nonfat, zip lock, franchised, on-line, microwavable. . . .  Look at the heroes of the biblical text: Moses does not encounter the living God at the mall.  He finds him (or is found by him) somewhere out in the deserts of Sinai, a long way from the comforts of Egypt.  The same is true of Jacob, who has his wrestling match with God not on the living room sofa but in a wadi somewhere east of the Jabbok, in Mesopotamia.  Where did the great prophet Elijah go to recover his strength?  To the wild.  As did John the Baptist, and his cousin, Jesus, who is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.  (Wild 5-6; emphasis in original)

You might even need to give up going to church for a while or reading your Bible.  I stopped going to church for a year; it was one of the most refreshing years of my life.  I hadn’t abandoned God, and I very much sought out the company of my spiritual companions.  What I gave up was the performance of having to show up every Sunday morning with my happy face on.  (Desire 169)

The settings for Eldredge’s books have to do with mountain climbing and fly-fishing; in addition to Scripture, his reference points include movies like Braveheart and Gladiator.  He also draws more than a little from the “men’s movement” of the 1990s, particularly Robert Bly’s Iron John.  So, when he speaks of “adventure,” Eldredge actually means a spiritual quest.  Every man secretly wonders, “Do I have what it takes?  Am I powerful?” (Wild 64).  We need to be “initiated” (Bly’s word), and God is the One who can do it (Wild 103-07).

More recently, Mark Batterson has taken up the theme of adventure.  But in his hands, the quest disappears; there’s no wound to be healed, nor any initiation to be accomplished.  Instead, life itself becomes a rich and rewarding series of surprises:

You are hardwired for an adventure that is as unique as you are. . . .
The very nature of the gospel is Jesus inviting the disciples on an adventure.  (3)

If you follow Jesus, adventure comes looking for you.  (Trip 18)

. . . I’m going to squeeze as much adventure out of every day as I possibly can.  (Trip 172)

Eternity is adventure without end.  (Trip 191)

Batterson acknowledges that his “life motto” — “Another day, another adventure” — is taken, not from the Word of God, but from a Spanish can of Sprite (Trip 197).  Still, his message may engage jaded, disaffected teens.  The larger question is whether it is the right message — God’s message — for adult believers in the midst of life.  Has God really promised us endless variety, a personal roller coaster of excitement?  Or does He in fact call us to something far more difficult, to a road shadowed by a Cross, described by Eugene Peterson as “a long obedience in the same direction”? (4)  I believe this question deserves further consideration.

A Road Less Traveled

The metaphor of the journey is one of the oldest pictures of the Christian life.  As “strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13, RSV; compare 1 Peter 2:11), we wander.  The “way” by which God leads believers is more than a road; it becomes a course of life.  Ultimately, Jesus Himself is the Way (John 14:6), the “new and living way” into the Father’s presence (Hebrews 10:20).

The Bible has much to say about this road, but a few of its adjectives are particularly relevant here.  Contrary to Batterson, although the paths of God are “pleasantness” and “peace” (Proverbs 3:17; compare Isaiah 59:8; Luke 1:79), they are also “narrow” and “hard” (Matthew 7:14, RSV), and often “solitary” (Psalm 107:4, KJV, Amplified).  Batterson’s co-author writes, “Adventuring, for me, is going somewhere new, by any means, with Jesus and friends” (Foth, Trip 196).  But we may not insist  on the newness, nor the friends, and we will often be assailed by the wrenching doubt that whispers relentlessly that we have been abandoned.  As Peterson says, there are no shortcuts on the way, and it is not for “tourists” who “only want the high points” (Obedience 17).

Eldredge is entirely prepared for hardship, and to some extent for loneliness.  He sees that, though the paths of God are “ancient” (Jeremiah 6:16) and “established” (Proverbs 4:26, KJV, Amplified), they also appear “hidden” (Job 3:23), and that at times He leads us by ways “not known” and “unfamiliar” (Isaiah 42:16, NIV).  He even accepts, at least in the short term, that following God may sap rather than increase our strength; in the psalmist’s words, “He weakened my strength in the way” (Psalm 102:23, KJV; Amplified “He has afflicted and weakened my strength, humbling and bringing me low [with sorrow] in the way”).  What Eldredge seems to forget sometimes is that God leads us in “paths of righteousness” (Psalm 23:3; Proverbs 16:31; 2 Peter 2:21), “the Way of Holiness” (Isaiah 35:8, NIV) — from which it is all too easy to turn aside quickly (Exodus 32:8; Deuteronomy 9:12, 16; Judges 2:17) in order to follow some “way that seems right to a man” (Proverbs 14:12). (5)

Both writers tend to overlook the fact that the journey is one metaphor among many.  The believer is also compared in Scripture to “a tree planted by streams of water” (Psalm 1:3, NIV; Jeremiah 17:7-8), “rooted and grounded” (Ephesians 3:17, KJV, RSV; Colossians 2:7) in Christ the Vine (John 15:1-8; Romans 11:17-24).  If Eldredge should complain that this image is not “masculine” enough, note that, for the psalmists, godly daughters are “pillars carved to adorn a palace,” while it is the sons, explicitly, who are “well-nurtured plants” (Psalm 144:12, NIV; compare 128:3; 52:8).

Eldredge and Batterson take a heroic view of life.  God is “wild” and “fierce.”  Jesus is “the quintessential adventurer” (Trip 42), a leader much like Braveheart‘s William Wallace (Wild 26).  Since they begin with the assumption that every man desires “a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue” (Wild 9-10) — whereas every woman, though she wants “an adventure to share,” especially needs “to be fought for” and “chosen” (Wild 16-17, 184) — they are naturally drawn to the Biblical narratives about Jacob, David, Elijah, Paul.

But if the Lord is “a man of war” (Exodus 15:3, KJV, Amplified, RSV), the God who strolls in His garden (Genesis 3:8), and teaches toddlers to walk (Hosea 11:3), and yearns to gather His brood (Luke 13:34), and gazes longingly down the road (Luke 15:20), may almost be called a divine Homebody.  He is not so much wild as surprising, and never more so than in His faithfulness.

And while Jesus is a Champion, He consistently disappoints every human, fleshly expectation concerning a Savior.  His words confound (Matthew 13:10-15), and cause many to take offense and leave (John 6:60-66), and this is largely because He does not invite people to go adventuring, but to follow Him — to receive Him by faith as Lord and Messiah.  Batterson defines “disciple” as “learner,” (6) but the New Testament disciples are led and shaped and broken, not merely instructed and amused.  Soon enough, Jesus tells them that following Him means death to self and a daily cross (Luke 9:23-24).  The man who enlists in a spirit of adventure — “I will always follow You no matter where You go” (Luke 9:57, Living) — is quickly dismissed.

He would not let His casual hearers turn Him into the king they imagined (John 6:15).  He will not allow us to separate the Lion in Him from the Lamb, submissive to the Father unto death.

As for the men (and women) of the Bible, “hero” is not the best word to sum up most of their careers.  Abraham wanders and waits; Jacob and Moses spend decades tending sheep (vividly described in Genesis 31:40-42).  An aging David tires in battle (2 Samuel 21:15-17), and must make a difficult transition out of his identity as a warrior.  Peter discovers in Gethsemane that he is neither called nor cut out to be a sword-wielding Braveheart.  Paul is most like an “adventurer” or a “hero” when he is Saul the persecutor; (7) after he meets Christ, true to his theology of the Cross, he is conscious of “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:10, RSV) — and he calls upon his converts, not to embark on a great adventure, but “to live quietly and peacefully, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands” (1 Thessalonians 4:11, Amplified).

A “typical” person in Scripture is not a king, a judge, or even a common foot soldier.  It might be someone like the man we meet in Acts 3.  “Crippled from birth” (verse 2, NIV), and now more than 40 years old (4:22), he has spent most of his life sitting outside one of the Temple gates, begging.  There is nothing remotely exciting or adventurous about this existence.  He has no trade, no social status; at worst he is despised and abused, at best a figure of pity and charity.  Wholly dependent on others, he must be carried to and from his post each day (3:2).  From day to hardscrabble day, he makes do, as best he can.  But he has been placed in this condition (as Jesus says of another man, born blind) “in order that the workings of God should be manifested — displayed and illustrated — in him” (John 9:3, Amplified).  Healed through Peter and John, he becomes a walking, leaping demonstration of the power of the risen Lord.

Can’t this be said of every believer?  We carry “treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:7, NIV).  This is not a matter of exploits, but of receiving grace and strength to rise and walk in newness of life.

We each tend to have a story that we tell ourselves, explaining who we are and what our lives are about.  If Paul is right, this is a form of whistling in the dark, a cloak for ignorance — because, in truth, we rarely glimpse the “treasure” of God’s “all-surpassing power” in our lives; it is on display for others, not for us.  Part of the value of the Adventure Gospel is that it shows the harm done by our make-believe.  Let’s look briefly at three key components of one popular version of the story — two from Eldredge, one from Batterson — to see the types of glaze we bake onto our clay jars.

The Illusion of Self-Fulfillment

Eldredge is fond of saying that believers are not just “sinners saved by grace”; we are new creations with good hearts (Wild 146), and our deepest desires are good (Desire 168):

Sin is not the deepest thing about you.  You have a new heart.  Did you hear me?  Your heart is good.  (Wild 136; emphasis in original)

Now follow me very closely here: we are never, ever told to crucify our heart.  We are never told to kill the true man within us, never told to get rid of those deep desires for battle and adventure and beauty.  (Wild 147)

On Eldredge’s view, we need to learn to listen to our deep desires (Desire viii – ix).  We are desire (Desire 11), and desire or longing is faith (Desire 57-59).  Whatever brings me back to my own heart brings me to the heart of God (Wild 173).  The statement in Jeremiah 17:9 — “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt” (RSV) — no longer applies; it has been replaced by Jeremiah 31:33: “I will put My law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts” (RSV) (Wild 136).

These are reckless statements — as when the prophet Nathan says to David, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you” (2 Samuel 7:3, NIV).  The Lord soon overrules this blanket approval (7:4-5).  Samuel gives similar encouragement to Saul (1 Samuel 10:7), with disastrous results.

The New Testament consistently teaches that the transformation of our hearts, and the purification of our desires, constitute a gradual, ongoing process:

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.  (Ephesians 4:22-24, NIV)

This “putting off” and “putting on” is neither quick nor painless.  It requires the crucifixion of hopes and feelings that go very deep, as well as an ongoing watchfulness lest we revert to old ways:

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with [or “walk in line with”] (8) the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.  (Galatians 5:24-26, NIV)

It is irresponsible to suggest that we can somehow “die to self” and become Christ’s while still insisting on our own way, clinging to the “core desires” of our hearts.  God demands nothing less than our death — as when He tells Abraham to offer up his only son, whom he loves (Genesis 22:2), the boy who is his heart and his hope.  Abraham’s faith during those three days was emphatically not the same as his desire; rather, he “against [this-worldly] hope believed in hope [of a life beyond this world]” (Romans 4:18), placing his trust in a God who can raise the dead (Hebrews 11:19).  When he receives Isaac back, it is not as if his desire has never been relinquished; rather, more than ever, he lives as one “having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10, RSV, NIV).

It is wrong to say that we are asked only to crucify a false self (Wild 147) — and, even if it were true, we are in no condition to exercise discernment.  For the New Testament warns that we are easily deceived (Hebrews 3:13), often by ourselves (James 1:26), and not least when we cling to heroic images and agendas: “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself” (Galatians 6:3, NIV).

The frustrating thing is that Eldredge knows better.  In scattered comments, he acknowledges that we can’t simply follow our hearts (Desire 202), that the Law of God helps guide us to legitimate desires (Desire 176), and that it takes Christian maturity to know what we’ve been made for (Wild 208).  He has a good chapter about God thwarting our (apparent or illegitimate) desires (Desire 89-105).  He even has a warning for “adventure addicts,” arguing that they have settled for a “counterfeit” (Wild 151).

But the confusion is there.  So long as Eldredge paints Jesus as an action hero, and talks more about uncovering desires than about the Cross, his message is one of self-fulfillment.

John Piper, who has written a much better book on godly desire than Eldredge’s, follows Jonathan Edwards in suggesting that, in regeneration, God implants a new sense or taste: a longing for, and delight in, the person of Christ. (9)  This means that the believer is no longer limited to the original (since the Fall) set of human or “typically male” desires that Eldredge makes so much of.  Instead of finding a Christian way to fulfill adolescent desires for adventure, we should be living from new and God-centered desires.

At present we are still engaged in “putting off” as well as “putting on.”  Our new desire for God exists alongside all of our old hopes, and some conflicts and confusions are inevitable. Batterson is quick to quote the words of Jesus, “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance — to the full, till it overflows” (John 10:10, Amplified), and he links this to the adventure, here and now (Trip 17).  But what if the “abundant life” is less about varied scenery and events, and more about becoming spiritually alive, even in the midst of a “quiet life” of servanthood and suffering?  Meditating on 1 Corinthians 15:19 (“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied,” RSV), Piper concludes that Paul chooses present suffering and future hope, repudiating any middling view that “Life goes better with Christ” (Desiring God 214-15).  In effect, Paul rejects the Sprite can.

This extends as well to frustrations concerning the present state of churches and Christian fellowship.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who, amid very difficult circumstances, devoted himself to building Christian community, penned these words:

We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.

That dismisses once and for all every clamorous desire for something more.  One who wants more than what Christ has established does not want Christian brotherhood.  He is looking for some extraordinary social experience which he has not found elsewhere; he is bringing muddled and impure desires into Christian brotherhood. (10)

In fact, knowingly or not, we go to other Christians to be pared down, to have “the secrets of [our] heart[s] laid bare” (1 Corinthians 14:25, Amplified).  Christ must increase in our hearts and lives, and we must decrease (John 3:30).

The Illusion of Significance (11)

At least since the 1590s, and the exploits of Edmund Spenser’s Redcrosse Knight in The Faerie Queene, we have had explicitly Christian adventure stories.  Why then should we question the modern offshoots?

Well, for one thing, the early writers knew that they were working with metaphors and symbols.  And the quest was not their only model; they were apt to be as steeped in The Song of Solomon as in the life of David.

It’s also noteworthy that the adventure, in and of itself, has not always been seen in a positive light.  In The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678, 1684), Christian has no love for the open road; he sets out because he is convinced that wrath is coming and that there is an incorruptible inheritance for those who believe. (12)  His wife Christiana is even warned by Mrs. Timorous that it is a “desperate adventure” to follow him (Progress 179) — all risk and danger, with little hope of enjoyment.  “Adventuring” here is no end in itself, and not to be undertaken lightly.

By 1908, the year of G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, we are in a different world.  Christianity is perceived as established, traditional, stale, predictable, and dull.  Against this background, Chesterton ably argues that people need “adventure and romance,” (13) that life itself is a wonder-filled adventure (Orthodoxy 35).  Still, for him, the great adventure is not the journey of an individual but the career of the Christian Church, a thundering chariot miraculously steered between extremes, maintaining a perilous equilibrium, a dramatic sanity (Orthodoxy 68-70).

Historian Douglas Frank describes American evangelicals contemporary with Chesterton as cultivating a “hero system,” holding forth examples of “overcoming” and “victorious” Christian living (Conquerors 250-51).  No one expressed this more forcefully than the revivalist Billy Sunday: “Let me tell you the manliest man is the man who will acknowledge Jesus Christ.” (14)  Sunday preached against alcohol while feeding his hearers’ deep thirst for more — more things, experiences, adventures (Conquerors 273).  Frank pores over Sunday’s sermons, with their constant theme of heroic manhood, and concludes:

All this would indicate that perhaps Sunday’s deepest purpose in preaching was not to speak of God, of his victory and his salvation, but to speak of humanity and its possibilities for strength and heroism and goodness.  (Conquerors 193)

The hero venturing forth to vanquish monsters has ceased to be a metaphor in Sunday’s words.  And this is the world Eldredge inhabits, too.  In one especially sad and telling passage, he tries to encourage a man who fears he’s not cut out to be a hero:

“I’d love to be William Wallace, leading the charge with a big sword in my hand,” sighed a friend.  “But I feel like I’m the guy back there in the fourth row, with a hoe.”  That’s a lie of the Enemy — that your place is really insignificant, that you aren’t really armed for it anyway.  In your life you are William Wallace — who else could be?  There is no other man who can replace you in your life, in the arena you’ve been called to.  If you leave your place in the line, it will remain empty.  No one else can be who you are meant to be.  You are the hero in your story.  Not a bit player, not an extra, but the main man.  (Wild 144; emphasis in original)

Earlier, Jesus was William Wallace (Wild 26).  Now every man can be his own William Wallace — and his own Jesus Christ.

The Illusion of Constant Engagement

Batterson sounds a curious refrain: “Trust me, you cannot follow Jesus and be bored at the same time!” he writes in a chapter titled “Never a Dull Moment” (Trip 120).  Of course this isn’t literally true, as he acknowledges elsewhere, but he is sure that it should be:

Anything less than leveraging all our strength for God’s purposes is boring at best and hypocritical at worst.  So many Christians are so bored.  So many Christians are so frustrated by the gap between their theology and reality.  The way to close the gap, and the way to experience that holy rush of adrenaline again, is to break a sweat serving others.  (Primal 135)

The promise of a life free from boredom is perhaps an effective carrot to dangle before the eyes of jaded and apathetic young people.  But it’s a promise that God never makes.  Never bored?  Even the wise virgins drop off to sleep (Matthew 25:5)!  If anything, it’s the rich fool (Luke 12:18-19) who manages to keep himself entertained.

Batterson’s insistence on this point — and his setting in opposition to boredom, not contentment, not hope, not worship and praise, but a “rush of adrenaline” — indicate something deeper: a horror of being found to have lived an ordinary life.  Because her story influenced his conversion, he seizes upon Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian sent to a Nazi extermination camp for rescuing Jews; after her release, she spent decades traveling the world, sharing her message that the light of Christ is deeper and stronger than the darkest pit. (15)  Batterson makes this odd remark:

One thing is for sure: Corrie ten Boom may have been scared, anxious, brave, courageous, wounded, triumphant, weak, powerful, desperate, and hope filled . . . but she was never bored.  (Trip 121-22)

This is a throwaway line, but it is also an article of faith, and so it merits examination.  Let us take a moment to see how Corrie ten Boom herself described her exemplary life of service.

Arrested at the end of February 1944, she was taken first to Scheveningen prison in the Netherlands.  She spent four months there, mostly in a solitary cell.  She entered what she calls “the dull routine of prison life.” (16)  “Then a prison boredom — which I soon learned to fear above all else — settled over the cell” (Hiding Place 142; compare Prisoner 24).

It was oppressively quiet in the prison.  The time dragged slowly by.  So unlike former days!  I always had been so very busy.  There was never a moment in the day that I was not doing something.  And now . . . !  However, my days of imprisonment would not be over until I had served my time; and my one purpose therefore had to be to pass away the time, somehow.  (Prisoner 33-34)

Through the bars I could see the blue skies of Spring and now and then a bird.  I lay for hours gazing at that window, my thinking at a complete standstill.  Was I becoming dull?  Never before had there been such an emptiness in my life.  (Prisoner 34)

Well, but surely this was just an effect of solitary confinement.  Next, Corrie ten Boom was transferred to the Vught prison camp, still in the Netherlands, for a couple of months.  Now she was surrounded by other prisoners — and of course Jesus was with her.  So boredom was out of the question.  Or was it?

For hours we now sat side by side at the tables doing nothing.  Boredom gradually crept over us.  (Prisoner 50)

Our biggest problem was idleness, wedged together as we were around the long rows of tables with nothing to do.  (Hiding Place 172)

All right, but all of this was merely preparatory.  The real work began, the mission field opened, when she was transported to the Ravensbruck extermination camp in Germany.  That must have been tremendously exciting! — except that, here too, she writes of the “sheer boredom” of prisoners (Prisoner 127).  She longed for an end (Prisoner 133); grief and fear joined with the emptiness, and “the accumulated misery threatened to overwhelm me” (Hiding Place 212).  “How dark and burdensome days can be!” (Prisoner 151).

Still, Batterson might say, Corrie ten Boom’s entire prison ordeal, which set the course for the rest of her life, lasted only a little less than a year.  Once released, equipped with a message and a mission, she must never again have been troubled by boredom.

Indeed, she had 30 years of travel and ministry.  Though “often lonely” (Life Lessons 141), she experienced considerable variety.  But this was followed by a very different life stage, which many people know nothing about.  In August 1978, this valiant servant — who hoped to die “in harness”; (17) who with all her heart believed, “God does not take away from us” (Tramp 158) — suffered the first of three major strokes.  “Tante Corrie no longer had the ability to speak and understand, nor could she read, write, interpret gestures, or make meaningful signs to those around her.” (18)  She lived another five years, once again in “a kind of imprisonment” (Silent 128, 138).  She accepted a straitened life, with “moments of frustration and an emotional debility” (Silent 155).  For a time she struggled to relearn the names of simple objects, but the speech therapist had to stop the lessons when she showed insufficient improvement.  Presented with “the news that she would in all probability never speak again,” she wept (Silent 122-23).

Settled into a home of her own in California, cared for by loving companions, her life was not desolate, but it was . . . boring:

The days went slowly by.  We heard the familiar whirring of the electric bed as we lowered it to change her position, the metallic clicking of the rails as we raised and lowered them to turn our patient, the ticking of the brown clock.  Nine months passed.  It was not easy for her or for us.  It was very hard sometimes.  There were days when the routine seemed endless and the hours seemed to last for days.  (Silent 158)

It is good that none of us knew that at eighty-eight years of age more than two years of complete physical helplessness were still ahead of Tante Corrie.  (Silent 169)

The plodding routine became almost numbing.  (Silent 170)

“One thing is for sure,” writes Batterson: “Corrie ten Boom . . . was never bored” (Trip 121-22).  As we have seen, nothing is less assured.  One must create a mythical Corrie ten Boom with a heroic, action-movie life story in order to maintain this fatuous fiction.

From the real Corrie ten Boom, we may learn several lessons:

1. There are worse things than boredom.

Only people who are rich, pampered, spoiled, full wish to be delivered from boredom.  The oppressed of this world, the homeless, the refugees, the abused, the terrified and traumatized don’t ask for an adventure; they seek a shelter.  Usually God saves the rich by first making them poor.

Corrie ten Boom endured terrible boredom, all the while keeping her eye on a deadlier foe: “the most dangerous disease of the concentration camp, egoism” (Prisoner 155).  When she first arrived in Ravensbruck, others advised, “You can hold out provided you learn to take care only of yourself” (Prisoner 123). (19)  She came to see just how pernicious this reasoning was:

Now that I had been here for some time I could see what a great danger this camp life was for us spiritually.  Egoism would creep into our hearts before we were aware of it, and it was a tenacious devil, most difficult to dislodge.  For instance, a sweater was for sale.  Who should have it?  At once one thought, “I should, because I was so cold this morning.”  That others needed it just as badly you would be tempted to forget.  Need teaches us to pray, but need can also make us selfish.  (Prisoner 123; emphasis in original)

In the camp hospital, the suffering of others threatened to overwhelm compassion, and egoism offered a way to keep one’s head above water:

Even in the other patients I saw that stony indifference to others that was the most fatal disease of the concentration camp.  I felt it spread to myself: how could one survive if one kept on feeling!  The paralyzed and the unconscious kept falling out of the crowded narrow cots; that first night four women fell from upper bunks and died on the floor.  It was better to narrow the mind to one’s own need, not to see, not to think.  (Hiding Place 224)

John Piper makes the case that it is not selfish or idolatrous to take joy in worshiping God (Desiring God 84-87).  And we are invited to come to Him with our wounds, needs, and cares.  But is it not egoism — the same spiritual toxin that Corrie ten Boom describes — when I stand before God demanding fresh adventures, or insisting that He cast me as the lead in Braveheart?

2. There is something better than adventure.

Corrie ten Boom uses the word “adventure” in describing several seasons of her life.  Writing about the late 1930s, before the German occupation and her work with the underground, she says that she and her family “were about to be given adventure such as we had never dreamed of” (Hiding Place 7).  Her arrest closed “an exciting chapter” of her life (Prisoner 20).

After her release from Ravensbruck, she returned to her old life as a watchmaker, but experienced persistent “restlessness” (Hiding Place 232).  She began her travels, which she described in 1967 as an “adventurous life of dependence on the Lord” (qtd. in Life Lessons 165).  Her companion, Pamela Rosewell Moore, also found that their itinerant life “fulfilled my longing for adventure perfectly” (Silent 41).

Notice, though, what Ten Boom does not say.  She does not regard her 50 quiet years, before the Germans came, as deficient in some way; in fact, she was very fond of her family, their neighbors, and the life she led.  Much less does she call the lack of adventure a sin for which she must repent.

More importantly, when a period of adventure is brought to an end — first by imprisonment, and again, years later, by a stroke — she submits.  She trusts.  She seeks to honor God, even when she does not understand the path along which He leads her.  She resists the egoism in her and around her, giving, serving, loving.  After her stroke, Moore observed her closely:

I had not yet detected in my silent leader any attitude that balked at these strange new circumstances, although she sometimes seemed a little depressed.  What I did notice was a sweetness and patience in her spirit that were there to a more marked degree than I had ever seen before.  (Silent 113-14)

Even in this serious illness there was an inner tranquility that had not been disturbed.  We knew it was the Lord’s doing.  For His own reasons He was allowing a further testing of her faith, and she was going through it with Him.  (Silent 146-47)

Meditating on the silence of Jesus during His trial (Isaiah 53:7; Matthew 27:12-14; Luke 23:8-9; 1 Peter 2:23), Moore sees that Tante Corrie is being made like Him to a new degree:

He had been silent for her sake and mine.  And she had been silent, too.  Silent because she had to be, but silent also in the attitude of her will.  She had not protested.  (Silent 185)

And this leads to the third lesson:

3. God works in the place of “boredom” and suffering.

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5, NIV; Proverbs 3:34).  To prepare us for grace, God allows our pride to be stripped away, as Joseph’s brothers tear away his gaudy robe (Genesis 37:23). (20)  But this is not the end.  When humiliation has done its work, He removes the sackcloth of mourning and clothes us with joy (Psalm 30:11).

I doubt that Corrie ten Boom was ever particularly proud.  But even Jesus humbled Himself, laying aside His dignity (John 13:4), stripping or emptying Himself to serve (Philippians 2:5-8).  His grace is released, His power made perfect, when we follow Him on the path of weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

In the prisons much was stripped away from Ten Boom:

There was a constant feeling of helplessness.  We no longer had things under control.  (Prisoner 71)

But in her need she began to sound the depths of the faithfulness and the reality of God:

The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God.  “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . .  Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”  [Romans 8:35, 37, KJV]

I would look about us as Betsie read, watching the light leap from face to face.  More than conquerors. . . .  It was not a wish.  It was a fact.  (Hiding Place 194-95)

Similarly, in the stillness following the stroke, the grace of God was working.  Tante Corrie had asked God for a new ministry (Silent 14), and she and her companions believed that His answer had come, bound up with suffering:

Had the Lord allowed her to come into this state of silence, helplessness, and utter dependence on Himself in order to show her more of His glory?  We became more sensitive to watch for God’s handiwork in this suffering, wondering how this seemingly endless situation was going to work out in conformity with His nature of goodness and love.  We thought of Tante Corrie’s attitude.  It was saying to us that although she did not like to suffer, seeing it had come to her, she was not fighting it.  She was accepting it, believing that somehow He was going to turn it into freedom and glory in His time.  Could it be that this mysterious time in her life was not only for her own sake, but for the sake of the people immediately around her and of those to whom she was reaching out?  (Silent 134)

Yes, Paul says, “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13, RSV), but he says it two chapters after reminding us of Jesus pouring Himself out in service.  That is the One he lives and moves “in.”  And Jonathan says, “Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few” (1 Samuel 14:6, NIV); but Jonathan will lay down his own life so that God may save by David (1 Samuel 18:4; 23:17; 31:6).  There are mysteries here: some believers conquer kingdoms and some wander destitute; some are raised to life while others submit to death (Hebrews 11:33-38).  We are not to compare our lot with others’, nor to strive to prove ourselves by anyone’s developmental yardstick.  “What is that to you?” says Jesus.  “Follow Me” (John 21:22, RSV).

350 years ago, Blaise Pascal wrote about the spiritual state of “boredom” — a stripped-down awareness very much like the “constant feeling of helplessness” Corrie ten Boom knew during her imprisonments (Prisoner 71).  Pascal says that we will do anything to flee this awareness, to divert ourselves.  Above all, we crave the distraction of excitement:

. . . I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. . . .

Imagine any situation you like, add up all the blessings with which you could be endowed, to be king is still the finest thing in the world; yet if you imagine one with all the advantages of his rank, but no means of diversion, left to ponder and reflect on what he is, this limp felicity will not keep him going; he is bound to start thinking of all the threats facing him, of possible revolts, finally of inescapable death and disease, with the result that if he is deprived of so-called diversion he is unhappy, indeed more unhappy than the humblest of his subjects who can enjoy sport and diversion.

The only good thing for men therefore is to be diverted from thinking of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their mind off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy, like gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is called diversion.

That is why gaming and feminine society, war and high office are so popular.  It is not that they really bring happiness, nor that anyone imagines that true bliss comes from possessing the money to be won at gaming or the hare that is hunted: no one would take it as a gift.  What people want is not the easy peaceful life that allows us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the burdens of office, but the agitation that takes our mind off it and diverts us.  That is why we prefer the hunt to the capture. . . .

All our life passes in this way: we seek rest by struggling against certain obstacles, and once they are overcome, rest proves intolerable because of the boredom it produces.  We must get away from it and crave excitement.

We think either of present or of threatened miseries, and even if we felt quite safe on every side, boredom on its own account would not fail to emerge from the depths of our hearts, where it is naturally rooted, and poison our whole mind.

Man is so unhappy that he would be bored even if he had no cause for boredom, by the very nature of his temperament, and he is so vain that, though he has a thousand and one basic reasons for being bored, the slightest thing, like pushing a ball with a billiard cue, will be enough to divert him. . . .

A given man lives a life free from boredom by gambling a small sum every day.  Give him every morning the money he might win that day, but on condition that he does not gamble, and you will make him unhappy.  It might be argued that what he wants is the entertainment of gaming and not the winnings.  Make him play then for nothing; his interest will not be fired and he will become bored, so it is not just entertainment he wants.  A half-hearted entertainment without excitement will bore him.  He must have excitement, he must delude himself into imagining that he would be happy to win what he would not want as a gift if it meant giving up gambling. (21)

Transformation occurs when we stand in our “boredom” and emptiness and accept the truth of our condition: that we are helpless, powerless to save ourselves.  This is why I cannot agree with those who suggest that adventure is simply a positive attitude, and that Christians should cultivate a “spirit of adventure” no less than a “spirit of wonder.”  Wonder is truly an attitude — literally, a posture or position; we can choose to go through life looking for signs of God’s presence and traces of His handiwork — as Corrie ten Boom, in all her imprisonments, delighted in trees, flowers, sunrises, hummingbirds, the song of a lark.  But adventure is properly a genre, characterized by an eventful plot (often at the expense of character development) and by plenty of diverting danger and excitement.  The main character is usually a hero and always the center of attention.

In Scheveningen prison, Corrie ten Boom was tempted by a diversion.  She soon saw the deception that lurked in the mild excitement:

To escape boredom I learned to play solitaire.  What an innocent game it seemed to be!  I thought about Father, who had scruples against all card playing.  But he certainly could have nothing against this game.

After a few days, however, I understood the danger of even this apparently innocent game.  If the cards came out right our spirits soared, there was hope and confidence that our release would come soon; if not, our spirits sank into the depths.

What a lot of superstition everywhere! Fortune telling with cards was also a favorite pastime of many prisoners.  And they attached such great significance to the outcome.  (Prisoner 25)

If adventure could fairly be called an attitude, it might be described as a posture of being “ready for anything.”  And this is a snare for those who follow the One who “emptied Himself” (Philippians 2:7, RSV). (22)  For we may be called upon to be ready for nothing.

The Lowest Place

Eldredge, as we have seen, finds it natural and even commendable that people (or at least men) should ask, “Do I have what it takes?  Am I powerful?” (Wild 64).  We need to be tested — to test our mettle against others’ — and God Himself stands ready to lead us out into the arena (Wild 101-04).

After one has read this, the actual words of Jesus come as quite a shock:

When He noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, He told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited.  If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’  Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.  But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’  Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests.  For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Then Jesus said to His host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”  (Luke 14:7-14, NIV)

In Jesus’ day, local social rankings were on public display every time someone threw a banquet.  The couches nearest the host were places of honor; any guest might claim them, but you ran the risk of — literally — being “put in your place.”  Your position at the table told you and everyone else exactly where you stood.  This sign of status was important both to Jews and Greeks: the Pharisees “love the place of honor at banquets” (Matthew 23:6, NIV), while:

The Greek writers refer to the absurd contentions which sometimes arose for the chief seats at table.  Theophrastus designates one who thrusts himself into the place next the host as mikrophilotimos, one who seeks petty distinctions. (23)

But Jesus turns this entire pecking order on its head:

• Guests should vie for the lowest place, not the highest.  Why?  Because they trust the Host.  He is not looking for strivers and self-promoters, but for humility.  Peter echoes the thought: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:6, RSV).  Both formulations are filled with hope: Jesus’ because we are still feasting on the abundance that is God’s presence (compare Psalm 36:8), Peter’s because we are submitting to the mighty hand of our Almighty God — the same hand that raised Jesus from death (1 Peter 1:21), indeed, the same hand that caught and held Peter when his faith faltered and he began to sink beneath the waves (Matthew 14:31).  Instead of asserting our value and struggling to prove it, we commit ourselves wholly to enjoying His presence, and we await His pleasure.

• Hosts should invite, not the rich who can return the favor and make them guests of honor next time, but the poor — the destitute and despised — who in this life can never repay.  These hosts recognize that in the Kingdom “many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Matthew 19:30, NIV): some who have been powerless in this life, and esteemed of little account, will one day be in a position to welcome us into an eternal celebration (Luke 16:9). (24)

Jesus Himself is better than His word.  He does what is unthinkable, stepping clear off the hierarchy; He ceases for a time to be a guest with any place at the table, choosing to become a slave.  (Similarly, He does not stop at making Himself the most generous of hosts, but Himself becomes the Supper.)  He does not wait passively for the Father’s promotion, but busies Himself where He is, serving others.  The “emptying” thus continues over time; in the prophet’s words, “He poured out His life unto death” (Isaiah 53:12, Amplified, NIV).

When Jesus rises from His place as host and lowers Himself to wash His disciples’ feet, John emphasizes His full awareness:

. . . Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, . . .  Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, . . .  (John 13:1, 3, RSV)

He acts in hope, but also with a clear consciousness of every new indignity to which He is descending.

He comes to Peter — perhaps first of all the 12. (25)  No one could miss the impropriety of the Teacher, the Master, the King, the Lord girt with a towel and bearing a basin, but I suggest that it is the adventurer in Peter that reacts so strongly.  It is a small step from defensive egoism: “You shall never wash my feet!” (John 13:8, Amplified) — setting boundaries even as he appears to submit — to sheer bravado: “I will lay down my life for You” (verse 37).

It is easy to overlook the significance of this exchange.  Jesus tells Peter that he doesn’t need to be bathed, but only to have his feet washed; on the other hand, if he balks at this, he will have no part or portion in Jesus (John 13:8-10).  Eldredge believes that Christians (who have been washed) have good hearts; therefore, their “core desires” are clean and good.  Perhaps.  But we still have other desires that get us into trouble, and the Bible often speaks of these using the imagery of feet.  Our steps determine our way (Job 23:11; Psalm 119:133), and feet have a tendency to stray from the path and rush into sin (Proverbs 4:27; 1:15-16; Psalm 119:101).  Judas’s rebellion is described as lifting his heel against Jesus (John 13:18; Psalm 41:9).  Like priests at the Temple, resorting to the bronze basin (Exodus 30:17-21), we require frequent cleansings.  And as Peter’s example shows, a slight or “superficial” washing may bring to light deeper issues of the heart.

What does it mean to take the lowest place?  I am very far from wishing to write a how-to piece; but I pray, “Show me Your ways, O Lord, teach me Your paths” (Psalm 25:4, NIV), and His “most excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31, NIV) seems to lead precisely here.  Consider five distinct components:

Those who take the lowest place stop striving.

Hemmed in by God, burned and hammered by His words, the prophet Jeremiah offers this confession:

I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself,
that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.  (Jeremiah 10:23, RSV)

He relinquishes the illusion of control, of being William Wallace or the “main man” in his own story.  He turns his eye away from the seats of honor.

Peter tries ever so hard to turn the story of Jesus into the action movie Gladiator, to take up a sword and defend Him in the arena.  This is not God initiating him, but his own adventurous flesh, refusing to die.  When he fails, and when Jesus succeeds in reaching the lowest place of all, they are reunited.  The Lord who once washed Peter’s feet now feeds him, and makes this strange pronouncement:

I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.  (John 21:18, NIV)

Jesus is speaking of the manner of Peter’s death, but He also points to a larger truth.  Already, from this point on, Peter does not “direct his steps.”  His way is “in Christ,” following “in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21).

Perhaps we have all spurned the Lord’s “gently flowing waters,” only to be overwhelmed by the “mighty floodwaters” (Isaiah 8:6-8, NIV).  We need to allow Him to lead us again “beside the still and restful waters” (Psalm 23:2, Amplified).  Our God is filled with compassion and longs to be gracious, but we must come to Him in repentance and rest, quietness and trust (Isaiah 30:15, 18, NIV), not “speed [our own course] on horses” (Isaiah 30:16, Amplified).

The lowest place involves waiting on God.

Particularly in the Old Testament, “waiting” takes on many different shades of meaning.  Yahal means to wait with expectant hope, whereas qavah suggests the tension of a stretched-out cord; damam is a stilling or silencing. (26)  Often, too, “wait” is simply understood, and must be supplied in English.

Overall, I like John Piper’s description:

To wait!  That means to pause and soberly consider our own inadequacy and the Lord’s all-sufficiency, and to seek counsel and help from the Lord, and to hope in him (Psalm 33:20-22; Isaiah 8:17).  Israel is rebuked that “they did not wait for his counsel” (Psalm 106:13).  Why?  Because in not seeking and waiting for God’s help, they robbed God of an occasion to glorify himself.  (Desiring God 146)

In much Biblical waiting, there is a strong sense of utter dependence on God:

Be still [damam] before the Lord, and wait patiently [hul] for Him; . . . (Psalm 37:7, RSV, NIV).

Sometimes God draws us into an intimate isolation.  I have taken jobs in which I became “invisible” to others: people ceased to care what they said or how they behaved in front of me, because I was completely off their social scale.  This was good for me, but not if I continued to gaze at them and their rankings.  Rather, these were opportunities to learn to fix my eyes on God, fully alert, like a slave looking to the master’s hand (Psalm 123:1-2); both patient and eager, like a watchman straining to see the first sign of daybreak (Psalm 130:5-6).  However long it takes, I must be fully invested: “My eyes grow dim with waiting [yahal] for my God” (Psalm 69:3, RSV; compare 119:82).

As we wait in the lowest place, Jesus washes our ways and cleanses our desires.

Waiting does much to focus our longings and challenge our priorities.  And so, quite often, our gracious Host comes along to “demote” us from our hard-won honors, humiliating us and positioning us to receive grace.

This interim is often bleak and painful.  Hosea and his faithless wife Gomer must live together for many days, not as husband and wife but in a state of waiting (Hosea 3:3).  Presumably this is a time of healing and of gradually renewed affection.  It also serves as a picture of the relationship of the Lord and Israel during the Exile (verses 4-5).

Ultimately, the intimacy that develops through our waiting on God becomes a joy, Piper’s “feast” of worship (Desiring God 85).  One of Isaiah’s word pictures of the Day of the Lord is, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3, RSV, NIV).  Against Eldredge, we are not quickly done being saved; but God’s provision and presence become for us a bottomless fountain of delight.

Looking back on 40 years of wilderness wanderings, and before that on his own decades marking time as a shepherd, Moses has this to say about the process:

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  (Deuteronomy 8:3, NIV)

There is a sharpening here, a learning to listen.  And in many way, the Israelites who entered Canaan under Joshua were the Old Testament’s greatest generation.

At the cleansing touch of Jesus, new desires rise in us.  We may become bolder. (27)  But we lose the immaturity of an action-movie hero.  Saul, who refuses to wait (1 Samuel 10:8; 13:8), remains a mere adventurer, and is rejected as king.

No, when the apostles and other believers “tarry” 10 days to be “clothed with power” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4), and when Paul abandons the Pharisaic pecking order and, conferring with no man, goes off into Arabia (Galatians 1:16-17), the most striking outcome is the same:

We begin to desire the salvation of the lost and, compelled by that desire, we serve.

Elisabeth Elliot makes a remarkable and pertinent statement.  Writing of her husband Jim Elliot and his four missionary companions — Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian — who were martyred by Waodani or Auca people of Ecuador in 1956, she says:

Was it the thrill of adventure that drew our husbands on?  No.  Their letters and journals make it abundantly clear that these men did not go out as some men go out to shoot a lion or climb a mountain.  Their compulsion was from a different source. . . .  God’s command “Go ye, and preach the gospel to every creature” [see Mark 16:15, KJV] was the categorical imperative. (28)

How can she say this?  These were young men.  Jim Elliot was characterized by a romantic temperament (29) and a youthful desire for adventure (Shadow 31).  He routinely expressed such convictions as, “The Lord made mountains to climb, not just to look at” (Shadow 175), and he called climbing them “the life we were made for” (Shadow 150).  It was “the thrill of Jim’s lifetime” when he met, close up, a member of a people group who had never been told of Jesus (Shadow 245).

And yet, while Jim Elliot confessed to a restless energy (Shadow 141-42), he tempered it by meditating on Jesus’ years in a carpenter’s shop (Shadow 176).  He learned to wait (Shadow 100, 106-07).

When at last he felt released to go, his motives were well summed up in a Christmas letter by Nate Saint:

As we weigh the future and seek the will of God, does it seem right that we   should hazard our lives for just a few savages?  As we ask ourselves this question, we realize that it is not the call of the needy thousands, rather it is the simple intimation of the prophetic Word that there shall be some from every tribe in His presence in the last day and in our hearts we feel that it is pleasing to Him that we should interest ourselves in making an opening into the Auca prison for Christ.

As we have a high old time this Christmas, may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever a chance.  May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was.  May we shed tears of repentance for these we have failed to bring out of darkness.  Beyond the smiling scenes of Bethlehem may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha.  May God give us a new vision of His will concerning the lost and our responsibility.  (December 18, 1955; qtd. in Gates, 177-78)

The lowest place of waiting becomes a lowly place of washing others’ feet.  So Corrie ten Boom, in the hospital at Ravensbruck, put to death her egoism by carrying bedpans to strangers (Hiding Place 224; Prisoner 156-57).  Decades later, weak and wordless after strokes, she could still serve and bless visitors, without embarrassment, because of “her lack of false pride” (Silent 150).

In the Church today, there is widespread confusion on this point.  The Identity Reveals Destiny curriculum from Dallas-based Gateway Church is a case in point.  It aims to assist believers in identifying their individual talents, spiritual gifts, and passions.  Apart from the dubious assumption that God, like modern psychology, is more interested in developing strengths than in fixing weaknesses, (30) this provides a useful service.  But the authors go too far when they appeal to the “Law of Pinnacle Attraction”: the idea that it is the best in us that most influences others and draws them to Christ. (31)  In fact, the combination of our weakness and the love of Christ is far more powerful.  Jesus’ enemies were enraged by His teachings and miracles, but deeply moved when they saw Him weep at Lazarus’s tomb (John 11:36).  Paul speaks of triumph and “manifesting” Christ, not when he is most eloquent, but when suffering love — anxiety over his rebellious converts — prevents him from opening his mouth (2 Corinthians 2:12-14).

But the real surprise in the Gateway curriculum appears in the Leader’s Guide, (32) on a final page appended as a “closing admonition”:

Are we serving for the benefit of the Body or for our own self-fulfillment?

Sometimes the need for a servant is greater than my need to use a specific gift or skill.

Serving in our local church is not meant to meet our needs for self-fulfillment or self-worth.  We don’t go to church to “find ourselves.”  Or if we do, we learn the only way to find our lives is to first lose them.  That’s the whole picking up our cross & following thing.

Sometimes the need for a servant is greater than my need to use a specific gift.  When you are part of a body that loves & serves & gives a beautiful bond forms.  You see the service of joy in others & you want to follow suit.  You see a need & you long to fill it.

It’s not about self-fulfillment, it is about the joy found through self-denial.  Phil 2:7 tells us Christ “took on the form of a servant” for us.  He freed us from trying to one-up each other.  He freed us to rest in the knowledge that our service does not earn our salvation.

We love because we have been loved & we serve because we have been served.

This is well said, but serving in love cannot be an afterthought, tacked on to the end of programs about self-fulfillment and maximizing our influence.  Jesus “emptied” Himself.  No disciple may aim higher.

We adopt the lowest place in our very thinking.

In the end, there is something more fundamental at stake than whether we see ourselves as adventurers or as demoted strivers waiting on God, as fulfilling or emptying our selves.  For the sake of Christian unity, Paul challenges us: “Honor one another above yourselves” (Romans 12:10, NIV).  One commentator softens this to, Lead the way in showing the honor that is due to all. (33)  That seems to let us off the hook a little, until we meet with these words:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  (Philippians 2:3, NIV)

Paul himself takes this quite literally.  Although he confronts Peter and rebukes those who fall into error, he describes himself as “less than the least of all God’s people” (Ephesians 3:8, NIV).

If this is not the lowest place, it is an important stepping stone toward it.  So let me close by acknowledging that John Eldredge, Mark Batterson, the Gateway curriculum authors, and the preacher who summoned me to adventure are all better Christians than I am.  Today we are quick to accuse others of preaching a false gospel, but what I have called the Adventure Gospel is at worst a misplaced emphasis.  All teachers of the Word make mistakes (James 3:1-2), and God is well able to supply correction (Philippians 3:15) and make His servants stand (Romans 14:4).  These guides have washed the feet of God’s people, and they should be honored.
(1) John Eldredge, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul (2001), rev. ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 7.  Hereafter cited in the text as Wild.

(2) John Eldredge, Desire: The Journey We Must Take to Find the Life God Offers (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 64.  Originally published as The Journey of Desire: Searching for the Life We’ve Only Dreamed Of (2000).  Hereafter cited in the text as Desire.

(3) Mark Batterson and Richard Foth with Susanna Foth Aughtmon, A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure of a Lifetime (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015), 26.  Hereafter cited in the text as Trip.  Batterson’s co-author, Richard Foth, suggests that some adventures may be internal and contemplative (Trip 22, 140).

(4) The phrase is actually Nietzsche’s (Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil [1886], tr. Helen Zimmern [London, 1907], sec. 188).  Peterson comments that Nietzsche “saw this area of spiritual truth at least with great clarity” (Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society [1980], 20th anniversary ed. [Downers Grove, IL.: InterVarsity, 2000], 17).  Hereafter cited in the text as Obedience.

(5) “If the Lord delights in a man’s way, He makes his steps firm,” writes the psalmist (Psalm 37:23, NIV).  But the context supplies the conditions for God’s delight: this man has committed his way to the Lord (verse 5); he continues to “wait for the Lord and keep His way” (verse 34, NIV).

(6) Mark Batterson, Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2009), 107: “By definition, a disciple is someone who never stops learning. . . .  A true disciple is consumed with holy curiosity that doesn’t take yes for an answer.”  Hereafter cited in the text as Primal.

(7) On this see Douglas W. Frank, Less Than Conquerors: How Evangelicals Entered the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids, MI.: William B. Eerdmans, 1986), 266-70.  Hereafter cited in the text as Conquerors.

(8) Robert Mounce, note on Galatians 5:25, in Kenneth Barker, ed., The NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan, 1985), 1787.

(9) John Piper, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist (1986), 10th anniversary expanded ed. (Sisters, OR.: Multnomah, 1996), 66-70.  Hereafter cited in the text as Desiring God.  I am not prepared to agree with Piper in all particulars.  His metaphor of two lenses (again drawn from Edwards) proposes that God is angry or grieved over sin and evil when He looks at the world through His narrow lens, but still delights in the big picture seen through His wide-angle lens (Desiring God 40).  This seems to me to reduce many prized expressions of the heart of God — His refusal to give up on Israel in Hosea, Jesus’ tears over Jerusalem or outrage at the tomb of Lazarus, and even the anguish of Gethsemane — to a mere parenthesis, a temporary loss of focus or perspective, and all for the sake of theological neatness.  I’m not really wild about any metaphor that begins with God “looking at” the world; the God of Scripture is far more involved in His creation than that.

(10) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (1938), tr. John W. Doberstein (1954; New York: HarperOne-HarperCollins, n.d.), 26.

(11) This heading is a deliberate echo of Robert S. McGee’s fine book The Search for Significance (2nd ed. 1990), rev. and expanded ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998, 2003).  Hereafter cited in the text as Search.  McGee addresses the feeling that “we must continually prove ourselves to others” (7).  Unlike Eldredge (Wild 47-50, 64, 101-04), McGee doesn’t respond by suggesting that God will initiate us so that we can prove ourselves.  Instead, he finds in justification “a secure self-worth totally apart from our ability to perform” (Search 42), and he sketches a Christian life that is not merely “like Christ” but “in Christ”:

We are to put on, or envelop ourselves in, this new self that progressively expresses Christian character in our attitudes and behavior.  We are marvelously unique, created to reflect the character of Christ through our individual personalities and behavior.  In a different and special way, each believer has the capability to shine forth the light of God.  No two will reflect light in exactly the same way.  (Search 107-08)

(12) John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (Old Tappan, N.J.: Spire-Fleming H. Revell, 1972), 14-18.  Hereafter cited in the text as Progress.

(13) Gilbert K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1908), 84, 78.  See the Christian Classics Ethereal Library online edition at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/orthodoxy.html. Hereafter cited in the text as Orthodoxy.

(14) William T. Ellis, Billy Sunday: The Man and His Message (Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1914), 204; qtd. in Conquerors, 193.

(15) Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, The Hiding Place (1971; Toronto and New York: Bantam, 1974, 1985), 201, 217, 234.  Hereafter cited in the text as Hiding Place.

(16) Corrie ten Boom, A Prisoner and Yet . . . (1945; Eng. tr. 1954; Fort Washington, PA.: Christian Literature Crusade, 1970, 1989), 47.  Hereafter cited in the text as Prisoner.  See the helpful chronology of Ten Boom’s life in Pam Rosewell Moore, Life Lessons from the Hiding Place: Discovering the Heart of Corrie ten Boom (Grand Rapids, MI.: Chosen-Baker, 2004, 2005), especially 211-20.  Hereafter cited in the text as Life Lessons.

(17) Corrie ten Boom with Jamie Buckingham, Tramp for the Lord (Fort Washington, PA.: Christian Literature Crusade and Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1974), 140.  Hereafter cited in the text as Tramp.

(18) Pamela Rosewell Moore, The Five Silent Years of Corrie ten Boom (Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan-HarperCollins, 1986), 108.  Hereafter cited in the text as Silent.

(19) Some of the counsel of Al-Anon — to detach, and to practice self-care — seems to border on this egoism.  See, for instance, How Al-Anon Works for Families and Friends of Alcoholics (Virginia Beach, VA.: Al-Anon Family Groups, 1995, 2008), 82-92.  I find it helpful to remember that the program supports drained caregivers, and also that in time it leads back to service.  But Ten Boom’s account illustrates how spiritually damaging, and how wrong, well-intentioned slogans and advice can be.

(20) William Barclay points out in New Testament Words (1964; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1974), 247-49, that “poor” in the New Testament — the poor to whom Jesus is sent (Matthew 11:5; Luke 4:18), the poor in spirit who are blessed (Matthew 5:3) — is the Greek word ptochos, which means utterly destitute and wholly dependent on God.

(21) Blaise Pascal, Pensees (1670), tr. A.J. Krailsheimer (1966; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), #136, 67-70.

(22) J.I. Packer defends this as the literal translation, and also argues that there is here no reduction of His deity, but rather the willing restraint of some divine capacities, as Jesus submits entirely to His Father’s will in moment-by-moment dependence.  See J.I. Packer, Knowing God (1973; Downers Grove, IL.: InterVarsity, 1975), 51-55.

(23) Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 2nd ed., 1888 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, n.d.), 1:379; emphasis in original.

(24) The banquets, as described by Jesus, express all four of the false beliefs discussed in Search (see, for example, 26).  The striving guests must meet certain standards in order to feel good about themselves; they depend on the approval of others; when exposed, they are crushed by shame.  Both guests and the host judge others harshly, responding to failure (or even overreaching) with blame and punishment.  Jesus models a different system, based on grace.

(25) See the discussion in Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1883, 1886), new updated ed. (1993; n.p.: Hendrickson, 2012), 815-19.

(26) Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 403-04, 875, 198-99.

(27) Thus far I agree with Francis Frangipane, This Day We Fight!: Breaking the Bondage of a Passive Spirit (Grand Rapids, MI.: Chosen-Baker, 2005, 2006): as suggested in Isaiah 61:3, we may have to contend against a spirit of heaviness or fainting or passivity (57).

(28) Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (1957; Peabody, MA.: Hendrickson, 2011), 176-77.  Hereafter cited in the text as Gates.

(29) Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot (New York: Harper, 1958), 129.  Hereafter cited in the text as Shadow.

(30) Allan Kelsey and Brad Stahl, ID: Identity Reveals Destiny (Grapevine, TX: Gateway Create, 2013, 2014, 2015), 57-58.

(31) Allan Kelsey and Brad Stahl, ID: Your Destiny Revealed (Southlake, TX: Gateway Create, 2013, 2015).  This is the accompanying video series on DVD.

(32) An undated binder.

(33) Vincent, 3:159.

Steadfast Love, Not Sacrifice

Recently, I was brought up short — again — by the words of God in Hosea 6:6:

For I desire steadfast love [Hebrew hesed] and not sacrifice,

the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.  (RSV)

Here God is a wounded Husband, His hands heavy with unrequited love: “For your [wavering] love and kindness [again, hesed] are as the night mist or as the dew that goes early away” (6:4, Amplified).  His anguish waves an accusing finger, as He points out that our hesed is not hesed at all.  Our hearts are not steadfast, but fickle as melting mist.  Through Isaiah (40:6) He puts it a little differently: all the hesed of men is like grass, quick to spring up and quicker still to wither away.

I keep getting it wrong, on both counts.  I decide that God is all about sacrifice — that our relationship is one of awkward distance, punctuated on either side by occasional costly actions.  Or I ease myself into the warm bath of thinking that God is Unconditional Love, which essentially hands me a Get Out of Jail Free card; it means that what He desires and expects from me is . . . nothing.

What then is the hesed of God?  And how does it take root in me?

The Nature of God’s Love

Hesed appears in our English Bibles as loving-kindness, steadfast or unfailing love, mercy, kindness, favor, goodness, pity, loyalty.  One lexicon cites authorities who find its “primary meaning in eager zeal or desire” (1); another concludes, “Its semantic core is best expressed by ‘devotion’” (2); elsewhere it is summarized as “befriending.” (3)  Perhaps the most helpful suggestion is that we need three English concepts — love, strength, and steadfastness — to do justice to the richness of this word. (4)

Hesed is committed love, pledged within a covenant, and expecting a return.  The Lord is good [tob] to all, and His mercy or compassion [rahamim] extends to all creation (Psalm 145:9), but His hesed — and its attendant blessings of provision, protection, redemption — are for those who fear and obey Him.  The Lord’s “unfailing love” for His people may be shown through His destroying their enemies, who are not His people (Psalm 143:12).  So this love, though fierce, is embattled.  The earth is filled with the Lord’s hesed (Psalm 33:5; 119:64), yet the faithful can fear that it has vanished utterly (Psalm 77:8; 89:49).  At least at times, it can be said that men of hesed are extinct (Micah 7:2), or that God has taken them away in order to spare them (Isaiah 57:1).

When we simply say “love” or “mercy,” we miss all that God puts into the relationship.  Rather, we are invited to ponder or meditate on the Lord’s hesed (Psalm 48:9); the wise consider it and seek to understand it (Psalm 107:43).  We are enjoined to bind it round our necks and write it on our hearts, so as never to forget it (Proverbs 3:3); it is the very sign of the covenant, like a marriage ring given us by God.  It is marvelous or wonderful (Psalm 17:7), “precious” beyond all reckoning (Psalm 36:7).  We are to tell of it (Isaiah 63:7), proclaim it through song (Psalm 92:1-2), respond to it with thanks and praise (Psalm 31:21; 107:8, 15, 21, 31).  Certainly we are not expected to tire of it, take it for granted, or (like Israel, Psalm 106:7) forget it.

The chief characteristic of the Lord’s hesed is that it does not fade like the fickle devotion of men; it is no short-lived mist or blade of grass.  This is so much the case that, in the frequent refrain “His hesed [endures] forever,” (5) the verb is understood: enduring, remaining steadfast and unfailing, is what hesed does.  Everything the Lord does expresses hesed toward His own, as the refrain in Psalm 136 underscores: creation and its maintenance, the Exodus and the Conquest, the destruction of Pharaoh and the kings of Canaan.  The hesed of God surrounds His people (Psalm 32:10), rests upon them and crowns them (Psalm 33:22; 103:4), supports and sustains them (Psalm 94:18) like the “everlasting arms” described by Moses (Deuteronomy 33:27).  It is a guardian, appointed by God as a constant protector (Psalm 23:6; 40:11; 57:3; 61:7); we can put our trust in His “unfailing love” (Psalm 13:5; 52:8; 143:8), and also our hope (Psalm 33:18; 130:7; 147:11).  The Lord’s hesed is “better than life” (Psalm 63:3) — richer, more satisfying, and more enduring.

At the same time, God’s faithful love is not simply permissive.  Hesed can take the form of a corrective blow, a slap in the face (Psalm 141:5).  The Lord does not spare Israel from exile, but He goes with them and shows them kindness and favor (Ezra 9:9): “Though the Lord brings grief, He will show compassion [raham], so great is His unfailing love” (Lamentations 3:32, NIV).  Because His love or affection [ahabah] is everlasting, His hesed, like a rope, draws us where we don’t want to go (Jeremiah 31:3).

When we first encounter the Lord’s hesed in the Biblical narratives, it is set against the tit-for-tat loyalties of human hesed.  Lot recognizes the divine loving-kindness, based on God’s covenant with Abraham, that has come to deliver him from Sodom (Genesis 19:19), and Jacob acknowledges that he is “not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness [emet]” the Lord has shown him (32:10, RSV).  Abraham asks Sarah to do him the “kindness” of telling a lie (20:13), but it is God’s loving-kindness that protects them both (compare 21:23).  Joseph asks a fellow prisoner for the kindness of a good word (40:14); the man forgets, but the Lord never stops showing him loving-kindness, even when he is locked away and overlooked by people (39:21).  God’s hesed is threatened, obscured, called into question, only to be revealed; as with Naomi, who changes her name from Pleasant to Bitter, and tells the town that the Almighty has dealt bitterly with her, ­only to realize with a start that the Lord “has not stopped showing His kindness” (Ruth 1:20, Amplified; 2:20, NIV).

Occasionally, hesed even has a transformative effect, rubbing off on the people of God.  The Lord recalls a bridelike “devotion,” on Israel’s part, in the early days of the wilderness wanderings (Jeremiah 2:2).  David extends “kindness” to Jonathan’s descendants, and even to those who honor Saul (2 Samuel 9:1; 2:4-6).  During the long period of the divided monarchy, we think of the northern kings as a parade of rebels and idolaters, but among neighboring nations they apparently developed a reputation for being “merciful” (1 Kings 20:31).  The earthen pot could not entirely conceal the glory of the Lord’s unfailing love.

Love and Other Divine Qualities

What lies back of hesed, and what accompanies it? When the Lord reveals Himself to Moses, He passes before him in glory [kabod], parades His goodness [tub], and proclaims His character:

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful [rahum] and gracious [hannun], slow to anger [erek ap], and abounding [rab] in steadfast love [hesed] and faithfulness [emet], keeping [nasar] steadfast love [hesed] for thousands, forgiving [nasa] iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear [naqah] the guilty, visiting [paqad] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”  And Moses made haste to bow his head toward the earth, and worshiped.  (Exodus 34:6-8, RSV)

This passage is a foundational revelation, echoed throughout the Old Testament.  Moses appeals to these words in interceding for Israel (Numbers 14:18), and the psalmist in making a personal plea (Psalm 86:15); Nehemiah uses them to make sense of the nation’s history (9:17, 31).  This picture of God also serves as a basis for praise (Psalm 103:7-18; 145:8).  Because of it, Joel dares to hope for national pardon (2:13-14); and because of it, ironically, Jonah worries that the Lord won’t obliterate Nineveh (4:2). (6)

Here there is a procession, a piling up, and a clashing together of words fraught with meaning.  Hesed appears twice; it gathers clarity and definition from all the other terms, as a quick review may show.

Merciful

The first adjective the Lord employs in this description of Himself is a deeply emotional word.  Rahum, compassionate or merciful, means being kind with the tender affection of a mother (Isaiah 49:15; 1 Kings 3:26), a father (Psalm 103:13), a brother (Genesis 43:30); it’s defined as “brotherly feeling, of those born from same womb.” (7)  We learn from Scripture that this feeling in human families is only a pale reflection of the heart of God: “He has compassion [rahamim] on all He has made” (Psalm 145:9, NIV).  Convicted of sin and presented with a choice of penalties, David declares, “Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercies [rahamim] are many and great; but let us not fall into the hands of men” (2 Samuel 24:14, Amplified).  The King James Version sometimes translates rahamim as “tender mercies” (Psalm 25:6; 40:11; 51:1; 69:16; 77:9; 79:8; 103:4; 119:77, 156; 145:9; Proverbs 12:10), but on several occasions renders the word by saying that the Lord is “full of compassion” (Psalm 78:38; 86:15; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8).

This mercy or compassion is one of the great wellsprings of God’s heart: “our God is merciful” (Psalm 116:5).  Even when He is justly angry with His son Ephraim or Israel, “My heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him” (Jeremiah 31:20, NIV).  John Bright comments that the Lord “cannot utter his name without being filled with longing for him.” (8)  The Lord’s rahamim becomes the basis for hope in prayer: “We do not make requests of You because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy” (Daniel 9:18, NIV).

Rahamim often appears side by side with hesed.  The Lord “crowns” His people “with love and compassion” (Psalm 103:4, NIV); He has dealt with them “according to His compassion and many kindnesses” (Isaiah 63:7, NIV), and He is asked still to remember His “great mercy and love . . . from of old” (Psalm 25:6, NIV).

Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of Your love [hesed];

in Your great mercy [rahamim] turn to me.  (Psalm 69:16, NIV)

Here unfailing love and abundant mercy are equal motives prompting divine intervention.

At other times, when human sin has harmed the relationship, hesed seems to provide the sure basis for emotional reconciliation:

In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid My face from you,

but with everlasting love [hesed] I will have compassion [raham] on you,

says the Lord, your Redeemer. . . .

For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed,

but My steadfast love [hesed] shall not depart from you,

and My covenant of peace shall not be removed,

says the Lord who has compassion [raham] on you.  (Isaiah 54:8, 10, RSV)

 

The steadfast love [hesed] of the Lord never ceases,

His mercies [rahamim] never come to an end; . . .

Though He cause grief, He will have compassion [raham]

according to the abundance of His steadfast love [hesed]; . . .  (Lamentations 3:22, 32, RSV)

In Micah 7:18-19, God will again have compassion [raham] because He delights to show mercy [hesed].

Loving

Rahum calls to mind another emotional word often used of the Lord, though not in Exodus 34.  Ahabah is love, “affection both pure & impure, divine & human.” (9)  It comes naturally, and yet it is not easy for fallen humanity to direct or to sustain.  We have many “lovers” (Ezekiel 16:32-37; Hosea 2:13; 8:9); we love evil (Micah 3:2; Psalm 52:3), detestable things (Hosea 9:10), and shameful ways (Hosea 4:18); so far from valuing constancy in our affections, we even love to wander (Jeremiah 14:10).  So we must be enjoined to be watchful and attentive in our love to God (Joshua 23:11).  The Lord must circumcise our hearts, surgically changing our inner beings, if we are to love Him faithfully (Deuteronomy 30:6).

This process is difficult; we must curb and cultivate our affections.  Abraham must offer up the son he loves (Genesis 22:2); Israel must learn to love the neighbor, even the alien (Leviticus 19:18, 34).  There is an element of holy fear in our love for God (Deuteronomy 10:12); only so shall we cleave or hold fast to Him (Deuteronomy 11:22; 30:20).  Ahabah is not hesed; its hallmark isn’t constancy so much as strength; still, no futile or fleeting affection can equip us to love the Lord entirely, heart and soul and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5).

One time, indeed, God testifies:

I remember the devotion [hesed] of your youth,

your love [ahabah] as a bride,

how you followed Me in the wilderness,

in a land not sown.  (Jeremiah 2:2, RSV)

Remarkably, this appears to be His recollection of the wilderness wanderings — when, at least intermittently, the people feared His voice (Deuteronomy 5:23-29).  This would explain why He keeps taking them back there, commanding them to camp in booths (Leviticus 23:42-43; Nehemiah 8:14-17), alluring them and speaking to their heart (Hosea 2:14).  But Israel’s “devotion” ends with the honeymoon; she never learns to “love [ahab] mercy [hesed]” (Micah 6:8).

With people, natural affection appears to be primary: because the king loves [ahab] Esther more than other women, she receives his grace [hen] and favor [hesed] (Esther 2:17).  Often, it seems to work similarly with the Lord.  His affection for Israel is simply there.  It is a strong attachment (Deuteronomy 7:7-8; 10:15); it persists even when the people are unfaithful (Hosea 3:1).  Because of this love, He redeems and ransoms them (Deuteronomy 4:37; 7:8; Isaiah 43:4; 63:9).

Yet there is a fundamental conflict.  Naturally, the Lord loves [ahab] righteousness and justice (Psalm 33:5; 37:28; 11:7; 99:4; Isaiah 61:8); therefore, He loves the righteous (Psalm 146:8) and those who pursue righteousness (Proverbs 15:9).  He loves those who love Him (Proverbs 8: 17), and His covenant of hesed love is particularly for those who love [ahab] Him (Exodus 20:6; Deuteronomy 5:10; 7:9; Nehemiah 1:5; Daniel 9:4).

The Bible says remarkably little about God hating [sane], but it is clear that His hatred of wickedness (Psalm 45:7; Hebrews 1:9) and abominable idols (Deuteronomy 12:31; 16:22; Jeremiah 44:4) extends to people who are ruled by these things.  His soul hates “the wicked and those who love [aheb] violence” (Psalm 11:5, NIV).  “You hate all who do wrong” (Psalm 5:5, NIV).  Most strikingly, of Israel:

I have forsaken My house,

I have abandoned My heritage;

I have given the beloved [yediduth] of My soul

into the hands of her enemies.

My heritage has become to Me

like a lion in the forest,

she has lifted up her voice against Me;

therefore I hate [sane] her.  (Jeremiah 12:7-8, RSV)

 

Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal,

I hated [sane] them there.

Because of their sinful deeds,

I will drive them out of My house.

I will no longer love [ahab] them; . . .  (Hosea 9:15, NIV)

The hatred is real and enduring; at times it eclipses ahabah and stifles rahamim.  We shall return to the problem of a steadfast, unfailing hesed that, like a beating heart, reverberates even in the midst of hot jealousy and spurning anger.

Gracious

Grace [hen] is an elusive concept.  It is elegance, favor, acceptance; from one side yearning toward and seeking favor, and from the other inclining toward and showing favor. (10)

At least since B.B. Warfield, we have come to think of grace as “unmerited favor” — as “neither expected nor deserved.” (11)  Jim McClure points out that ancient notions of grace often emphasize reciprocity, (12) and we may add that some passages speak of merit.  When Bildad advises Job that his supplication [hanan] or plea to God for grace will be heard so long as he is pure and upright (Job 8:5-6), he is only echoing the psalmists, who ask for grace on the grounds of their integrity (Psalm 26:11), and who declare that the Lord always shows grace to those who love [aheb] His name (Psalm 119:132).  Malachi 1:8-9 warns that God won’t be gracious to a people whose offerings are poor.

Working mostly with the New Testament, James Ryle has redefined grace as the empowering presence of God.  Ryle makes the point that “unmerited favor” is practically synonymous with mercy, so that, if we accept Warfield’s definition, apostolic benedictions imparting “grace and mercy” (1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2; Titus 1:4; 2 John 3) are redundant.  Moreover, “unmerited favor” makes little sense in a number of passages, including a key Old Testament verse:

He mocks proud mockers

but gives grace to the humble.  (Proverbs 3:34, NIV; James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5)

Surely proud mockers need unmerited favor as least as desperately as the lowly and afflicted do.  But it is the humble, the crushed, who are in a position to welcome His empowering presence. (13)

McClure finds “empowering presence” helpful in defining grace, but still too narrow. (14)  Particularly in the Old Testament, he calls grace “a most inadequate word” to describe either hen or hesed.   At the heart of both, he believes, “is the concept of a kindly disposition.” (15)

This is not very satisfactory.  The God revealed in Scripture doesn’t stop at dispositions; as He is, so He acts.  When He “remembers” or calls to mind, it isn’t simply so that He can think fond thoughts.  Rather, He remembers Noah, and clears away the floodwaters (Genesis 8:1-3); He remembers Rachel, and intervenes to open her womb (Genesis 30:22).  In the same way, He gives or releases or sends forth [natan] grace (Genesis 33:5, 11; Psalm 84:11; Proverbs 3:34).  Even on a human level, we are gracious particularly when we give (Psalm 37:21, 26; 112:5; Proverbs 14:21, 31; 19:17; 28:8; Daniel 4:27).  So when human speech is called gracious (Psalm 45:2; Proverbs 22:11; Ecclesiastes 10:12), one suspects that it is not simply characterized by elegance but unleashed “for the cause of truth and to defend the right” (Psalm 45:4, RSV).

Though it is difficult to define, we instinctively recognize grace.  William Barclay writes:

What the ancient world longed for, as Seneca said, was a hand let down to lift us up.  And that is precisely what Grace is.  It is the hand of God to lift us out of frustration into victory, out of helplessness into power, out of defeat into triumph. (16)

The outstretched hand is brought vividly to life when Esther goes before the king, her husband.  Already, because of an affectionate attraction [ahabah], he has shown her grace [hen] and kindness [hesed] (Esther 2:17).  Now, though she is so bold as to appear unbidden, she finds favor [hen] in his eyes — and the sign is that he extends to her the scepter in his hand (5:2), sparing her life (7:3; 8:3-6) and inviting her to draw near (5:2).  So, too, Jacob the grasper wrestles with men and with God; he is still clasping the angel (Genesis 32:26) when he begs for grace (Hosea 12:3-4), and grace appears through more extended hands, the embrace of his wronged brother Esau (Genesis 33:4).  These stories prefigure the New Testament hands of Jesus, touching a leper (Mark 1:41) and lifting up Peter (Matthew 14:31), and the loving embrace of the prodigal’s father (Luke 15:20).

Still, the great sign of grace is not a touch from God, but His continuous presence.  Moses says as much just before and just after God’s great revelation that we are considering:

For how shall it be known that I have found favor [grace, hen] in Thy sight, I and Thy people?  Is it not in Thy going with us . . . ?  (Exodus 33:16, RSV)

 

If now I have found favor [grace, hen] in Thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray Thee, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Thy inheritance.  (Exodus 34:9, RSV)

Repeatedly in Scripture, even on a human level, the sign of grace or favor is that you stay with me (Genesis 30:27; 1 Samuel 16:22).  How much more we cry to God, “If I have found favor in Your eyes, my Lord, do not pass Your servant by” (Genesis 18:3, NIV).  “Turn to me and be gracious to me” (Psalm 25:16, NIV; compare 119:132).  “O Lord, be gracious to us; we long for You (Isaiah 33:2, NIV).  David, fleeing from his son Absalom, refuses to take the ark of God with him out of Jerusalem, but acknowledges that his flight is also a banishment: “If I find favor in the Lord’s eyes, He will bring me back and let me see it and His dwelling place again” (2 Samuel 15:25, NIV).  The blessing “God be gracious” (Genesis 43:29; Numbers 6:25; Psalm 62:1) summarizes all blessings by inviting His presence.

The same verb hanan that describes the giving or showing of grace is also used to express the seeking for it: crying, begging, pleading, groaning.  When the Lord promises to pour out “a spirit of grace [hen] and supplication [tahanunim]” (Zechariah 12:10), we see that He is already present, and grace is already present, in the crying out.  Hunger itself is grace.  This also helps us to understand why Proverbs 3:34 says that the Lord mocks the proud but gives grace to the humble: those who have received the grace of humiliation are already crying out and seeking.  “Though the Lord is on high, He looks upon the lowly, but the proud (the haughty who are themselves lifted up on high) He knows from afar” (Psalm 138:6, NIV).  The heroes of faith are people who have pleaded and groaned (Genesis 42:21; Deuteronomy 3:23; Esther 4:8; 8:31; Daniel 6:11) — as, in the New Testament, grace is displayed when Jesus cries out with and for us (Hebrews 5:7), the merciful father pleads with us (Luke 15:28), and the Spirit of God groans in us (Romans 8:26).

In Psalm 77:8-9, during a true dark night of the soul, the psalmist wonders whether the Lord’s steadfast love [hesed] has ceased, whether He has forgotten to be gracious [hanan], and whether He has stifled His compassion [rahamim].  Normally, though, the hope for grace, like that for mercy, is founded on the Lord’s committed and unfailing hesed love.  The Lord is with Joseph in prison, and shows His hesed by granting him favor [hen] with the warden (Genesis 39:21).  In Psalm 51:1, a fallen David cries to God to be gracious [hanan] “according to” His unfailing love [hesed] and the multitude or abundance [rob] of His mercies [rahamim].  Though he is brought low in the pit of humiliation, his faith rises boldly, grace asking for grace: “Do not cast me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11, NIV).

Mercy [rahamim] is often joined with grace [hen] in the Old Testament, but grace almost always is named first.  In the revelation of Exodus 34, the order is reversed.  Perhaps the Lord wished to lead with His heart, with an assurance of deep and abiding attachment.

Slow to Anger

At first blush, God’s announcement that He is “slow to anger” [erek ap] comes as something of a surprise.  Many readers of the Old Testament have concluded simply that He is angry, and have placed this characteristic first, ahead of “merciful” and “gracious.”  There are a dozen Hebrew words for “anger,” and they trip over one another when God voices His anger against His own people:

I Myself will fight against you . . . in anger [ap], and in fury [hemah], and in great wrath [qatsaph].  (Jeremiah 21:5, RSV)

 

He let loose on them His fierce [haron] anger [ap], wrath [ebrah], indignation [zaam], and distress [tsarah], a company of destroying angels.  (Psalm 78:49, RSV)

Scripture leaves no doubt as to the power of God’s anger.  “Who can stand before You when You are angry?” (Psalm 76:7, NIV; Nahum 1:6; Revelation 6:17).  The Lord’s indignation saps human health (Psalm 38:3).  Even the godly wish to be hidden away till His anger has passed by (Job 14:13; Isaiah 26:20; compare Revelation 6:15-16).  For His anger is “fierce” [haron]; it “burns” [harah] like an all-devouring wildfire (Deuteronomy 32:22; Jeremiah 21:12; Hebrews 10:27) or a furnace (Ezekiel 22:20-22; Psalm 21:9), at best subsiding to a continuous smolder (Psalm 74:1; 80:4).  His anger is an earthquake that overturns mountains (Job 9:5; Psalm 18:7; Isaiah 13:13; Nahum 1:5), and a violent wind bringing hailstones and torrential rain (Ezekiel 13:13).  It is floodwaters rising to engulf all flesh (Genesis 7:20-23), the charred and smoking devastation of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:28; Deuteronomy 29:23-24), the step-by-step ruin of Egypt (Exodus 10:7), the casting away of the ten tribes (2 Kings 17:18), the ravaging of Jerusalem (Lamentations), and the agony of Jesus in His trial and crucifixion (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9).

The word for “anger” that appears in Exodus 34:6, ap, comes from a root that refers to the human nose.  “Slow to anger” thus calls to mind the picture of a face, “long of nostril,” (17) not so very different from the British “stiff upper lip.”  In contrast, “quick to anger” is “short of nostril,” snorting, flaring.  This is the “face” the Lord sometimes shows, as at the Red Sea:

You unleashed Your burning anger; . . .

By the blast of Your nostrils

the waters piled up. . . .

You blew with Your breath,

and the sea covered them.  (Exodus 15: 7, 8, 10, NIV)

A single breath, a slight twitch of His nose, and the wicked perish (Job 4:9; Psalm 18:8, 15; 2 Thessalonians 2:8).

Often, as we read, the divine nostrils seem to be quivering.  Just after the incident of the golden calf, the Lord says to Moses, “Now leave Me alone so that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them” (Exodus 32:10, NIV).  We say with reason that He speaks in this way in order to call forth Moses’ love for his people and faith to intercede; nevertheless, decades later, Moses still sees it differently: “I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for He was angry enough with you to destroy you” (Deuteronomy 9:19, NIV; compare verse 8).

But the consistent testimony of Scripture is that the Lord restrains His anger, saving it as a last resort.  When the psalmist warns, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for His wrath can flare up in a moment” (Psalm 2:12, NIV; “for His wrath is quickly kindled,” RSV), he is not describing a God who is quick-tempered and capricious.  Rather, this is the “suddenly” of God, when, after much correction and many pleadings, all at once He acts.  We see this, for example, when His anger burns against Moses only after He has patiently answered every objection to the prophet’s call, and Moses still asks Him to send someone else (Exodus 4:13-14).  Though His great heart feels more than we can imagine (Genesis 6:6), He never yields to the emotion of the moment in such a way as to forget His great and gracious purposes.  “For My own name’s sake I defer My wrath,” He declares (Isaiah 48:9, NIV).  Though His own people repeatedly and continually “provoke” [kaas] Him to anger (2 Kings 17:11, 17; Isaiah 65:3; Ezekiel 8:17), from the Exodus to the Exile (2 Kings 21:15), still we read, “Time after time He restrained His anger and did not stir up His full wrath” (Psalm 78:38, NIV).

We see this in numerous ways.  First, the Lord’s anger is just, a righteous and holy response to grievous sins.  We see His anger burn because we break covenant with Him (Deuteronomy 31:16-17), forsake Him (Judges 2:12-13), and go our own way (Deuteronomy 29:19-20); because He is jealous (Deuteronomy 6:15), and must watch as we refuse His gracious invitation (Luke 14:21) and turn our hearts away (1 Kings 11:9) to idols (Numbers 25:3; Deuteronomy 7:4); because we suppress His truth (Romans 1:18) and reject His Son (John 3:36); because His good law serves only as a catalyst for our sin (Romans 4:15); because we are proud (2 Chronicles 32:25) and greedy (Isaiah 57:17), stubbornly unrepentant, and self-seeking (Romans 2:5, 8); because we greet His words with mockery and scoffing (2 Chronicles 36:16) and His works with ungrateful complaints (Numbers 11:1, 10).  As if this were not enough, He is angry at our deeds and systems of injustice (Exodus 27:22-24), our hard hearts toward one another (Mark 3:5), our unforgiveness (Matthew 18:33-34) and insubordination (Romans 13:5) and deliberate efforts to block the extension of grace to those we despise (Mark 10:13-14).  Because the Lord’s anger is wholly aligned with goodness, it brings Him praise (Psalm 76:10, NIV).  There are fearful days of judgment when God not only clothes Himself with anger (Lamentations 3:43), but seems to be all anger, when His wrath sustains or upholds Him (Isaiah 63:5), when He is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29).  But the brightness at the heart of the flame is not anger as we understand it, but purity and holiness.

Vast and powerful though it may be, the divine anger can be deposited within a human being.  “I am full of the wrath of the Lord,” says the prophet; “I am weary of holding it in” (Jeremiah 6:11, RSV; compare 15:17) — and so he speaks it; he suffers, but isn’t consumed or driven mad (25:15-16).  Shortly after Saul is made king, “the Spirit of God came upon him in power, and he burned with anger” (1 Samuel 11:6, NIV), yet he is later condemned for failing to carry out the Lord’s fierce wrath (28:18).  Compared with the “controlling” or “compelling” love of Christ, which governs Paul’s entire life and perhaps carries him out of his mind (2 Corinthians 5:13-15), this anger is weak.

Consider, too, how long God’s anger continues.  We are treated to different impressions on this point.  The psalm attributed to Moses — the very man to whom it’s revealed that God is “slow to anger” — struggles to see any end or change:

We are consumed by Your anger

and terrified [RSV “overwhelmed”] by Your indignation. . . .

All our days pass away under Your wrath;

we finish our years with a moan [RSV “like a sigh”]. . . .

Who knows the power of Your anger?

For Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due You. . . .

Relent, O Lord!  How long will it be?  (Psalm 90:7-13, NIV)

Indeed, throughout the Old Testament, during the many bad times, the people of God cry out in a dismay that borders on despair:

Will You be angry with us forever?

Will You prolong Your anger through all generations?  (Psalm 85:5, NIV; compare Jeremiah 3:5)

 

How long, O Lord?  Will You be angry forever?

How long will Your jealousy burn like fire?  (Psalm 79:5, NIV)

Yet the faithful also testify, “His anger lasts only a moment” (Psalm 30:5, NIV; compare Isaiah 54:8).  The Lord Himself declares:

I will not accuse forever,

nor will I always be angry,

for then the spirit of man would grow faint before Me —

the breath of man that I have created.  (Isaiah 57:16, NIV)

Here He sets a limit to His anger because He is conscious of our frailty.  Then He goes on to acknowledge that angers fails to accomplish the deep purpose of His heart, which is to bring about repentance:

I was enraged by his sinful greed;

I punished him, and hid My face in anger,

yet he kept on in his willful ways.  (Isaiah 57:17, NIV; compare 42:25; 1:5)

So He wields anger, above all, as a temporary measure.  The Assyrians may serve as the rod of His anger against Israel (Isaiah 10:5), but “very soon” His wrath will not only come to an end, but turn against the instrument (10:25, NIV).  It is because we are “created to be like God” (Ephesians 4:24, NIV) that Paul can urge us, “When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down” (4:26, Amplified; compare Psalm 4:4).  For it is people, and not God, who are quick to wrath (Proverbs 12:16; 14:16-17; Ecclesiastes 7:9), and who allow our fierce anger to become a murderous rage that knows no bounds (Genesis 49:5-7; Amos 1:11; 2 Chronicles 28:9).  With reason David asks to be spared the wrath of men, and instead to be given over into the hands of the Lord, “for His mercy is very great” (1 Chronicles 21:13, NIV, RSV).  His is the love that “is not easily angered” (1 Corinthians 13:5, NIV).

A final point: The Lord demonstrates, again and again, that He is willing to turn from His anger.  He turns from anger (or turns His anger away from people) when someone intercedes, reminding Him of His covenant promises (Exodus 32:11-14; Psalm 106:23, 29-30; Jeremiah 18:20) and His righteous acts (Daniel 9:16); or because of human humility and repentance (2 Chronicles 12:7, 12; Jonah 3:6-9); or when atonement is made (Numbers 16:46-48); or for the sake of the “holy buffer” of His consecrated people, their sanctuary, and their worship (Numbers 1:53; 18:5; 2 Chronicles 30:8); or because of a new or renewed covenant (2 Chronicles 29:10).  Though one sinner can bring wrath upon the entire community (Numbers 16:22; Joshua 22:20), we also see wrath turned aside when the offender or offenders are executed (Numbers 25:4; Joshua 7:25-26).  In the midst of acts of judgment, Isaiah warns repeatedly:

For all this His anger is not turned away

and His hand is stretched out still.  (5:25; 9:12, 17, 21; 10:4, RSV)

But this is not the final word; a day of redemption is coming:

And in that day you will say, “I will give thanks to You, O Lord; for though You were angry with me, Your anger has turned away, and You comfort me.”  (12:1, Amplified)

Over against this must be set the passages which speak of the Lord giving “full vent” to His wrath (Lamentations 4:11, NIV, RSV), of His anger not turning back (Jeremiah 23:20; 30:24).  His anger is a fire that will “burn and not be quenched,” forever (Jeremiah 7:20; 17:4; 2 Chronicles 34:25).  At a certain point, shortly before the Exile, He appears implacable:

Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did — with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

Nevertheless, the Lord did not turn away from the heat of His fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke His anger.  So the Lord said, “I will remove Judah also from My presence as I removed Israel, and I will reject Jerusalem, the city I chose, and this temple, about which I said, ‘There shall My name be.’”  (2 Kings 23:25-27, NIV; compare Jeremiah 4:8)

A passage like this one reminds us that the Lord’s wrath — the “permanent attitude of the holy and just God when confronted by sin and evil”; personal, but “not wayward, fitful, or spasmodic, as human anger always is” (18) — is never simply dropped.  Prompted by injustice, it turns aside only when justice has in some measure been satisfied.  So we bear wrath (Micah 7:9) and store it up for ourselves (Romans 2:5); it rests on us (2 Chronicles 28:11, 13; John 3:36), “lies heavily” on us (Psalm 88:7, NIV).  We can become “the people of [God’s] wrath” (Isaiah 10:6, KJV, Amplified, RSV), “a people always under the wrath of the Lord” (Malachi 1:4, of Edom), “by nature children [NIV “objects’] of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3, RSV).  Yet the desire of God is always to turn from wrath.  His wrath is a cup that can be drained (Jeremiah 25:15-16), a set of bowls that can be emptied out (Revelation 15:7; 16:1), a winepress that can squeeze out the last drop (Revelation 19:15); when this is accomplished, “God’s wrath (indignation) is completely expressed [reaches its climax and is ended]” (Revelation 15:1, Amplified).  Quite apart from this termination, He has made provision for us to be “saved from God’s wrath” through the atoning death and resurrection life of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:9-10, NIV; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:9).

The Old Testament consistently portrays God as responding to sin with pure and perfect anger, and at the same time regarding His creation with mercy, grace, and steadfast love.  These aspects of His character are very much in tension; with our sin, we present Him with a wrenching dilemma, almost dividing Him against Himself.  Always He puts love first, tempering anger.  Even in wrath He remembers compassion or tender mercy [raham] (Habbakuk 3:2); He turns from anger to show mercy (Deuteronomy 13:17; Isaiah 60:10; Zechariah 1:12), because He is full of mercy (Psalm 78:38).  Elsewhere His steadfast love [hesed] sets a limit to wrath (Jeremiah 3:12); His anger will never choke off His committed, unfailing love (Psalm 77:9), by reason of which His gracious presence comes [hanan] to strengthen us (Psalm 6:1-4).  Because He delights in steadfast love, He will turn from anger and show mercy (Micah 7:18-19; Isaiah 54:8), even causing His people’s captors to be merciful (Psalm 106:45-46).

Jeremiah, who knows the divine indignation within and without, pleads:

Correct me, O Lord, but in just measure;

not in Thy anger, lest Thou bring me to nothing.  (Jeremiah 10:24, RSV)

The author of Lamentations, perhaps Jeremiah, asks whether “You . . . are angry with us beyond measure” (5:22, NIV).  The anger of God is always utterly overwhelming, impossible to fathom or long endure.  Job charges, “God does not restrain His anger” (Job 9:13, NIV), and while this is wildly inaccurate — later, he will complain that God is too soft on the wicked (21:17-21) (19) — we understand: he feels utterly crushed.  But the pledge of God’s character, as revealed to Moses in Exodus 34, is that anger, though strong, comes slowly; that mercy and grace come first; and that anger is followed by steadfast love.

Abounding in Love and Faithfulness

The next clause in God’s revelation to Moses in Exodus 34 offers the first of two statements about His steadfast love [hesed].  Here, it is linked with another quality, emet: His truth, reliability, or faithfulness.  Given our definition of hesed as unfailing covenant love, this term might seem redundant — of course such a God is trustworthy.  As Vine’s suggests, the pairing with emet underscores “the element of steadfastness (or strength)” in hesed. (20)

Emet is the word most frequently paired with hesed. (21)  In part, this is needed because human hesed is weak and fickle.  We see this in Rahab’s exchange with Joshua’s two spies, after she hides them and lies to their pursuers:

Now then, swear to me by the Lord that as I have dealt kindly [hesed] with you, you also will deal kindly [hesed] with my father’s house, and give me a sure [emet] sign, . . .  (Joshua 2:12, RSV)

Her act of hesed was immediate and risky.  In asking them to reciprocate — in effect, to include her within the Lord’s covenant — she recognizes that she is requesting a faithfulness whose expression lies in the future, when Jericho falls to the Israelites.  So, not content with the spies’ hesed, with a gratitude that may be short-lived, she demands as well their enduring emet.  And the spies agree:

Our lives for yours!  If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly [hesed] and faithfully [emet] with you when the Lord gives us the land.  (2:14, RSV)

Their “sure sign” or pledge to her is the scarlet cord that she binds in the window (2:18), symbolically placing her household “under the blood” of a past and coming Passover.

Rahab’s hesed was the bold act of a single hour, but, when human hesed must be maintained over time, and particularly when it extends into the future, it requires the sustaining power of emet.  When one Israelite enters into a covenant with another, or solicits a pledge, the partner is enjoined to “deal kindly [hesed] and truly [emet]” (Genesis 24:49; 47:29, KJV; RSV “deal loyally and truly,” NIV “show kindness and faithfulness”).

This combination is far-reaching.  Hesed brings into our relations with others the warmth and openness of the heart, while emet adds the integrity of keeping one’s word.  These are fundamental elements of godly character:

Let love [hesed] and faithfulness [emet] never leave you;

bind them around your neck;

write them on the tablet of your heart.

Then you will win favor [hen, grace] and a good name

in the sight of God and man.  (Proverbs 3:3-4, NIV)

The thought is echoed in the New Testament: “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) does not refer merely to softening our blunt criticisms and harsh judgments with tact, but calls for thoroughgoing integrity and committed love, as the Amplified Bible brings out:

. . . let our lives lovingly express truth [in all things, speaking truly, dealing truly, living truly].  Enfolded in love, let us grown up in every way and in all things into Him . . .

Among humans, emet represents trustworthiness.  Before revealing himself to his brothers, Joseph tests their words to see “whether there is any truth in you” (Genesis 42:16, Amplified).  We must be taught and reminded to speak truth from the heart (Psalm 15:2), to serve faithfully with all our heart and soul (1 Kings 2:4; 1 Samuel 12:24).

It seems natural, at first, to read statements about the Lord’s emet in the same light, and to interpret even His declaration in Exodus 34:6 as meaning simply that He is a God who keeps His word — or, as one commentary puts it, “that whatever he says is correct and reliable and may be trusted even to the extent of life and death issues, or indeed eternal life and death issues.” (22)

We do receive such assurances in Scripture.  The Lord’s words don’t need to be tested, because they are trustworthy (2 Samuel 7:28); indeed, they are true — they form the basis for all truth (Psalm 119:160; John 17:17).  The God who desires “truth in the inward being” (Psalm 51:6, RSV) is Himself never less than wholehearted.  With no layers of dissimulation nor lapses in awareness, He speaks as He is.  He cannot be false to Himself, or even to those with whom He has identified Himself, setting His name on them.

But I think the clause in Exodus 34 pledges something more.  We tend to misconceive the faithfulness, the emet, of God.  The Lord is reliable, to be sure, but we must not mistake this to mean that He is predictable.  He is not like the geyser dubbed Old Faithful; He does not conform to any formula or submit to any timetable.  He watches over His word to perform it (Jeremiah 1:12), but the fulfillment astonishes us, always supplying more than the words conveyed; and He gives much that was never even spoken, so that every believer confesses with Jacob, “I am unworthy of all the kindness [hesed] and faithfulness [emet] You have shown Your servant” (Genesis 32:10, NIV).  He is faithful, that is, to His purposes.

When Abraham’s servant sets out on a journey to find Isaac a wife, he doesn’t know quite where he is headed.  Later, he praises the Lord for leading him in the “right” or “true” [emet] way, because the road has brought him straight to marriageable kin (Genesis 24:48).  The road itself promised nothing, nor was it specifically mentioned in any word from the Lord; it is an emet road because of the destination.

In the same way, the Lord’s emet doesn’t look primarily to the past, not even to the promises He has spoken.  Rather, His faithfulness guides us forward (Psalm 43:3) into the future He has planned for us.  Together, like angels, His steadfast love [hesed] and His faithfulness [emet] protect and save us in our journey with Him.  They “continually preserve” us (Psalm 40:11, KJV; compare 57:3; 61:7).  This becomes a blessing in Israel: “Now may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you!” (2 Samuel 2:6; 15:20, RSV).

The love of God comes with a way to walk in.  We miss this, sometimes, with our talk of unconditional love.  The father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son is not endlessly supportive, no matter what, in a vacuous way.  When he clothes his boy in the garments of a son, and places on his finger a ring of authority, he is restoring him to a long-planned calling.  The Lord is faithful to His purposes as well as His people.

The Lord reveals Himself as One “abounding” [rab] in hesed and emet.  In Numbers 20:11 this word is used of the water gushing from the stricken Rock, and in Genesis 16:10 of Hagar’s descendants, too numerous to count.  Though we have an abundance or “multitude” of transgressions (Lamentations 1:5) and iniquity or guilt (Jeremiah 30:14, 15), our merciful God “will abundantly [NIV “freely”] pardon” (Isaiah 55:7, RSV), for this is in accordance with His “abundant mercy [rahamim]” (Psalm 51:1, RSV).  Our sufferings abound (Psalm 34:19; 123:3-4), but He delivers us “many times [rab]” (Nehemiah 9:28; Psalm 106:43).  More than all, it is His hesed that abounds: “You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to You” (Psalm 86:5, NIV).  Though we fail to remember His “many kindnesses” (Psalm 106:7, NIV), He chooses to remember His covenant, and repents or turns from anger to comfort “according to the abundance of His steadfast love” (Psalm 106:45, RSV).  Because of His abounding hesed He hears our cry (Psalm 69:13), blesses us with “great goodness” (Isaiah 63:7, RSV), and brings us into His presence (Psalm 5:7).  Even in the worst of circumstances, we have this assurance:

. . . though He cause grief, He will have compassion [raham]

according to the abundance of His steadfast love.  (Lamentations 3:32, RSV)

There is nothing stinting about our God.

Keeping Steadfast Love for Thousands

The Lord who passes before Moses does not have empty hands.  He reiterates that He is a God of hesed: He delights to enter into covenants of love, even with creatures that have nothing to offer Him.

Nasar means to “guard with fidelity,” to “keep with faithfulness,” to watch, to preserve. (23)  It is the furthest state imaginable from making a pledge, only to neglect it.  Throughout years in the wilderness, the Lord guarded Jacob (and Jacob’s descendants) “as the apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10, NIV).  He preserves our life (Proverbs 24:12).  His vigilance often leads Him to intervene; nasar also means that He rescues or delivers — from bondage (Exodus 3:8; Judges 6:9; Nehemiah 9:28), from transgressions (Psalm 39:8), and from every trouble (Psalm 34:17, 19; 54:7); so sure is His grip that no power exists that can “rescue” out of His hand (Deuteronomy 32:39; Job 10:7; Hosea 2:10).

In theory, the Lord “keeps” those who keep His covenant (Psalm 25:10; compare Isaiah 26:3).  In fact, He finds ways to guard at least a remnant even when we are unfaithful, preserving the king (Psalm 61:7; Proverbs 20:28) or His righteous Servant (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6, 8).

Inevitably, the “keeping” that stands guard [nasar] shades over into the “keeping” that tends [samar], that watches over our every step, slumberless (Psalm 121). (24)  These two aspects of His care stand together and reinforce one another:

. . . for He guards [samar] the lives of His faithful ones [hasid]

and delivers [nasar] them from the hand of the wicked.  (Psalm 97:10, NIV)

His care is deeply personal; it is a daily expression of His hesed:

Do not withhold Your mercy [rahamim] from me, O Lord;

may Your love [hesed] and Your truth [emet] always protect [nasar] me.  (Psalm 40:11, NIV)

 

. . . because Thy steadfast love [hesed] is good [tob], deliver [nasar] me! (Psalm 109:21, RSV)

He has taken it upon Himself to become our Defender, and our Shepherd.  Yet the Lord who passes before Moses is not harried or encumbered.  There is no murmur of complaint in His declaration.  It is natural for Him to show Himself strong, and faithful — even to “thousands” [Hebrew eleph].

This word, “indefinite for a great number,” (25) is frequently used to sketch the extent of the Lord’s covenant love: to thousands (Exodus 20:6; Jeremiah 32:18; compare Isaiah 60:22) or even to “a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:9; 1 Chronicles 16:15; Psalm 105:8; compare Luke 1:50).  It is worth pausing to consider it.

The Lord is magnificent in vision, vast in wisdom, great in mercy; His love and faithfulness reach to the skies.  He is, in every sense, a big God.  And yet, such is His humility that He loves to step down from the grand scale, to walk in His garden.  He never rests content with numbers; even when He blesses a crowd, He is not like a pope high on a balcony, but somehow manages to take each one, individually, in His arms (Mark 10:16).

He delights in being personal; He knows each of His chosen ones by name.  But so mighty is His hesed love that, each time He bestows it on one, it extends to a multitude.  He blesses Abraham, and one man’s descendants become more numerous than stars in all the galaxies or sands in all the seashores; He chooses David, and the one becomes a dynasty.

And so when He says that He preserves hesed for thousands, I don’t think He refers only to how many people He loves, but also and especially to how faithful His hesed becomes in each recipient.  He still watches over it long after a lifespan runs its course.  He is never done; His hesed continues forever to grow and to spread.

In the next clause, He will state just how far down hesed stoops, and will suggest how much it costs Him.

Forgiving Iniquity and Transgression and Sin

The Lord is not only slow to anger, but also forgiving of offenses.  The term used here, nasa, is not the main Old Testament word for “forgive”; that would be salah — which first appears in this very scene, when Moses responds to the Lord (Exodus 34:9).  The root meaning of salah may be related to pouring out or sprinkling, (26) and there is a connection: When the people sin unintentionally, through ignorance, the high priest sacrifices a bull, sprinkling some of its blood before the Lord and pouring out the rest (Leviticus 4:13-18).  “In this way the priest will make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven [salah]” (Leviticus 4:20, NIV).  The word may also suggest a releasing or a covering that puts the offense out of sight, as when the Lord promises, “. . . I will forgive [salah] their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34, RSV).

Moses has been introduced to the concept of blood atonement (e.g., in Exodus 30:10).  On the day after the disaster of the golden calf, he says to the people, “You have committed a great sin.  But now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin” (Exodus 32:30, NIV).  He then asks the Lord to “forgive their sin” (verse 32) — but he doesn’t yet speak of salah, of the outpouring that covers.  He uses the verb nasa, to lift up and carry. (27)

Nasa can mean to carry sin away.  Year after year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest is to confess all the sins of Israel over a live scapegoat, laying his hands on its head; the animal is then led away and released: “The goat will carry [nasa] on itself all their sins to a solitary place; . . .” (Leviticus 16:22, NIV).  In a less hopeful context, it is the sins themselves that do the carrying:

. . . in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?

. . . our iniquities, like the wind, take us away [nasa].  (Isaiah 64:5-6, RSV) (28)

Usually, though, nasa means to take up and carry — for a protracted period, perhaps forever.  When Cain cries out, “My punishment is greater than I can bear [nasa]” (Genesis 4:13), it is the Lord who bears it with him, though from a distance (verse 16).  Moses complains to the Lord that he cannot carry [nasa] the “burden” of “all this people” — a dead weight, like that of a heavy, squirming infant too young to walk (Numbers 11:11-15); “the weight and burden of you and your strife” (Deuteronomy 1:12, RSV).  At the very least, Moses needs elders to help him (Numbers 11:17).  But the Lord bears precisely this load:

. . . you have seen how the Lord your God bore [nasa] you, as a man bears [nasa] his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.  (Deuteronomy 1:31, RSV)

 

. . . how I carried [nasa] you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself.  (Exodus 19:4, NIV; compare Deuteronomy 32:11)

Sometimes nasa seems to refer to a forgiveness that is a setting aside:

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord” —

and You forgave [nasa] the guilt of my sin.  (Psalm 32:5, NIV; Amplified “[instantly] forgave”; compare Psalm 85:2; 99:8)

 

Who is a God like Thee, pardoning [nasa] iniquity

and passing over [abar] transgression

for the remnant of His inheritance?

He does not retain His anger [ap] for ever

because He delights in steadfast love [hesed].  (Micah 7:18, RSV)

In many contexts, though, it is clear that such “forgiveness” is costly, difficult, and ongoing.  When the Lord agrees to Abraham’s plea to “spare” [nasa] Sodom and Gomorrah if a critical mass of righteous inhabitants can be found (Genesis 18:24, 26), it’s evident that the flagrant sins of the majority will not cease.  Similarly, when the prophet Ezekiel lies first on one side, then the other, bearing [nasa] the iniquity of Israel and Judah, a day for each year (Ezekiel 4:4-6) — or when the high priest bears [nasa] before the Lord the iniquity of the holy things on his forehead, and the names of the tribes on his shoulders and over his heart (Exodus 28:38, 12, 29) — these symbolic actions only hint at the commitment that the Lord willingly takes upon Himself every day.  He has made us and carried us from the womb, and will carry us even to old age (Isaiah 46:3-4); other nations must shoulder and carry their dead gods, but the living God carries His people (verse 7).  He carried them all the days of old, to the point of sharing their afflictions (Isaiah 63:9); and in days to come, like a strong and gentle Shepherd, He will gather His lambs and carry them close to His heart (40:11).

Is there a limit to what the Lord will bear?  Job doesn’t seem to think so, exclaiming with pained incredulity, “. . . why do You not pardon [nasa] my transgression and take away [abar: pass over, as in Micah 7:18] my iniquity?” (Job 7:21, Amplified).  But the Lord warns Israel that the angel of His presence “will not pardon [nasa] your transgression; for My name is in him” (Exodus 23:21, Amplified, RSV).  Joshua warns:

You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God, He will not forgive [nasa] your transgressions or your sins.  (Joshua 24:19, Amplified, RSV)

Much later, the stunned remnant of Judah is told:

The Lord could no longer bear [nasa] your evil doings and the abominations which you committed; therefore your land has become a desolation and a waste and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day.  (Jeremiah 44:22, RSV)

Yet our God continues to carry, even when He appears to have cast off a burden once and for all.  He has provided a Servant who “took up [nasa] our infirmities” (Isaiah 53:4, NIV; “all our griefs,” RSV) and “bore [nasa] the sin of many” (verse 12).  And this time, He bore it away.

There is uncertainty in Moses as he goes to the Lord following the golden calf, “perhaps” to make atonement (Exodus 32:30).  He knows that he is asking God to “bear with,” and he bravely presents an ultimatum:

But now, please forgive [nasa] their sin — but if not, then blot me out of the book You have written.  (Exodus 32:32, NIV)

The Lord pointedly rejects both alternatives, refusing to blot out Moses while at the same time promising further punishment for Israel and immediately sending a plague (32:33-35).  He does not appear to forgive.  Then, passing before Moses, He declares that He is a God who forgives [nasa] “iniquity and transgression and sin” (34:7).

Moses responds with a brand new verb:

. . . let the Lord, I pray You, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon [salah] our iniquity and our sin, and take us for Your inheritance.  (Exodus 34:9, Amplified)

He is asking that the offense somehow be covered and atoned for, while acknowledging that the people still must be borne with.

Again, there is no direct reply.  But see what happens after a later instance of rebellion.  Moses reminds God of His character (of His “power” or strength, verse 17), and then goes on:

“Pardon [salah], I pray You, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your mercy and loving-kindness [hesed], just as you have forgiven [nasa] [them] from Egypt until now.”

And the Lord said, “I have pardoned [salah] according to your word.”  (Numbers 14:19-20, Amplified)

In this passage, the Lord is represented as consistently forgiving [nasa] His covenant people — bearing and bearing with them, bearing and bearing away their sins — because of His steadfast love; consequently, He forgives [salah] ­— provides atonement for, covers, puts out of sight — each particular infraction.  And then He goes on to say that this generation, though “forgiven,” will die in the desert without entering Canaan (14:21-23), after bearing [nasa] their iniquities for 40 years (verse 34).

There is thus a “but” that follows closely upon the Lord’s forgiveness.  We shall look at it more closely as we turn to the next clause.  Now, it remains to be said that the Lord holds nothing back when He declares that He forgives or bears “iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:7).  Iniquity [awon] is the fundamental perversity or “bentness” in our nature that results from the Fall, as well as every sort of evil craving; transgression [pesa] is willful deviation from and rebellion against known standards; and sin [hattat] is a broad term for any missing of the mark. (29)  He refers, then, to “evils and sins of all sorts.” (30)  He does not commit Himself only to first offenses or minor and unintentional lapses.  He shoulders it all.

Not Clearing (the Guilty), Visiting Iniquity

The Lord may forgive, but He does not “acquit” or “hold innocent” or “leave unpunished” [naqah]. (31)  In His justice, He has a high regard for the innocent [naqi], and is their Champion (Exodus 23:7; Proverbs 6:16-17).  King Manasseh cannot be pardoned [salah] because he’s filled Jerusalem with innocent blood (2 Kings 34:4; compare 21:16; Jeremiah 19:4).

What the Lord does not “acquit,” He eventually “visits upon” the offender.  This verb, paqad, is a trumpet call of divine intervention; (32) the Lord announces to Moses and to all that He’s no watchmaker god, sitting back to observe, but a God who actively involves Himself in human lives.  Sometimes He “visits” in great mercy, as when He remembers His promises to Sarah and to Hannah, and acts to fulfill them (Genesis 21:1; 1 Samuel 2:21).  But often His remembering is a reckoning, a nightmare punishment that continues through successive generations.

This is wonderful news for the innocent and the oppressed.  When Moses makes known to the despondent Israelites that the Lord has “visited” them in their bondage, they bow in worship (Exodus 3:16; 4:31).

And yet . . . how often are we innocent?  As soon as the Lord begins to visit our sins upon us, we cry out with Job:

Thou has granted me life and steadfast love [hesed];

and Thy care [visitation, pequddah] has preserved my spirit.

Yet these things Thou didst hide in Thy heart;

I know that this was Thy purpose.

If I sin, Thou dost mock me,

and dost not acquit [naqah] me of my iniquity.  (Job 10:12-14, RSV)

The golden calf, though a “great sin” (Exodus 32:30, 31), was still a discrete offense or series of offenses; but when Moses asks the Lord to “forgive” by bearing it [nasa], He replies instead that, in due time, He will surely visit the sin [paqad] upon the offenders (32:32).  How much more, when the issue is our iniquity — our “bentness,” the crook in our fallen natures that causes us to crave darkness and death — do we summon a visitation of judgment.

Still, this is not the last word.  Naqah means “to acquit,” but also “to cleanse.”  We who have ruined our innocence may yet be taught to seek cleansing, even from confused and impaired moral judgment (Psalm 19:12).  Though the Lord wonders aloud, “How long will it be before they attain purity [niqqayon]?” (Hosea 8:5, Amplified), still He remains determined to “cleanse and hold as innocent [naqah]” even the bloodguilt of His people (Joel 3:21, Amplified).

Forgiveness is no magic wand to bear away, wash away, or cover.  Yet such is the steadfast love of the Lord that even iniquity cannot contain it.  What He may not forgive, He will cleanse, visiting us again and again until this is accomplished; as He says to Israel:

You only have I known (chosen sympathized with, and loved) of all the families of the earth; therefore I will visit upon you all your wickedness and punish you for all your iniquities.  (Amos 3:2, Amplified)

Individually, this cleansing process extends beyond my lifetime; corporately, the Church will not be pure in my generation.  But the hesed love of the Lord, which is His glory, hides us in safety and passes before us, marching toward His fulfillment.

Like Moses, we acknowledge that we have glimpsed the goodness of the Lord (Exodus 33:19); we bow and worship, entreat the grace of His presence, and seek a deep-cleansing atonement.

How Much Has Changed?

Someone may object that this picture of God is too “Mosaic,” too “Old Testament.”  Haven’t we now come to a different and more gracious mountain — to heavenly Zion rather than nebulous Sinai (Hebrews 12:18-24; Galatians 4:24-31)?  Indeed, we stand in a better place, but the Lord has not changed:

• We have been “saved” (2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5) and we shall be saved (Romans 5:9-10; 1 Corinthians 15:2) — even saved “to the uttermost (completely, perfectly, finally, and for all time and eternity)” (Hebrews 2:25, Amplified) — but saved with difficulty, with much toil, at great cost (1 Peter 4:18), by a narrow escape (Jude 23; 1 Corinthians 3:15); through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit (2 Thessalonians 2:13), we continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12), and sometimes this requires deep sorrow and repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10).
• Through Jesus, God has made atonement or propitiation for sin (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17), and has brought about reconciliation (Romans 5:10-11; 2 Corinthians 5:18; Colossians 1:20-22), but the effect is that the redeemed are deeply and radically identified with their Redeemer.  As He died, so we are dead (Romans 6:8; 2 Corinthians 5:14; Colossians 2:20); we live as dead beings restored to life (John 5:24; 1 John 3:14), but our life is “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3, NIV); His life in us requires that we die daily (Luke 9:23-24; 1 Corinthians 15:31).  Jesus was “sacrificed” once for all, bearing and bearing away sin (Hebrews 9:28), but in Him we become living sacrifices (Romans 12:1; Ephesians 5:2); we are commanded to persevere (Hebrews 10:26) in the only “new and living way” to dwell in the presence of God, the way that is literally the body of Jesus (10:20).  It is “in Christ” that we are made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 2:6-7; 2 Timothy 1:1); paradoxically, this life entails showing or manifesting His death (1 Corinthians 11:26) and bearing it about (2 Corinthians 4:10-11).  We share His sufferings (Philippians 3:10; 1 Peter 4:13) and His shame (Hebrews 13:13).
• We have been washed clean (1 Corinthians 6:11; Revelation 1:5), but not like a mindless pig eager to run back to the muck (2 Peter 2:22).  We are cleansed like a temple (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), and if we are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit we shall be inhabited by unclean spirits (Matthew 12:43-45).  Without His holiness we shall not see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).
• We are forgiven of all sins (Colossians 2:13), but must walk in forgiveness (Colossians 3:13; Ephesians 4:32; Matthew 6:12-15); we have received mercy (1 Peter 2:10; Romans 11:30; 2 Corinthians 4:1), but must either learn to show mercy (Matthew 5:7; Luke 10:37; James 3:17) or one day experience judgment without mercy (James 2:12-13).
• We have been showered with abundant grace (John 1:16; Romans 5:2), but it is incumbent on us not to set it aside, frustrate it (Galatians 2:21), or fall from it (5:4).
• There is no condemnation for those in Christ (Romans 8:1), but — to save us from condemnation (1 Corinthians 11:32) — there still are discipline (Hebrews 12:5-11) and pruning (John 15:2), and even bruising struggles to subdue our bodies (1 Corinthians 9:27; compare 11:31).  We shall be saved from wrath (Romans 5:9; 1 Thessalonians 1:10), the wrath that abides on all who reject the Son (John 3:36), but we must put to death all those aspects of our “bent” selves that invite wrath (Colossians 3:5-8).
• He has visited His people with salvation (Luke 1:68, 78; 7:16), but there are still visitations to come (1 Peter 2:12), especially for those who fail to welcome Him (Luke 19:44).  He dwells in us (Ephesians 3:17; James 4:5), but, if we grieve Him away (Ephesians 4:30) — if we outrage the Spirit of grace (Hebrews 10:29) — He will come back to visit us.  If we do not reckon ourselves dead to sin (Romans 6:11), there will come a reckoning (Matthew 18:24; 25:19).  The Lord will judge His people (Hebrews 10:30; 1 Peter 4:17).
• All Israel will be saved (Romans 11:26), but we are members of a remnant chosen by grace (11:5), standing in fear (11:20) lest our unbelief and arrogance invite a hardening (11:20, 25), and lest our “bent” hearts turn away (Hebrews 12:25).  For God is both kind and severe (Romans 11:22) — cutting, sharp, ready to prune — though His mercy triumphs (11:32) and His grace suffices (2 Corinthians 12:9), superabounds (Romans 5:20; 1 Timothy 1:14), and overflows (Romans 5:15; 2 Corinthians 9:8).

From Hesed to Agape

In the New Testament, the Hebrew word for the emotional divine compassion, rahamim, is matched by the Greek splanchna.  “It is the strongest word in Greek for the feeling of compassion,” (33) and it is used especially of Jesus — even though, in Greek thought, a divine being must be beyond feeling, impervious to pain. (34)  Jesus is “moved with compassion” when He sees blind men (Matthew 20:34), a leper (Mark 1:41), a grieving mother (Luke 7:13), and again and again when He sees ordinary, spiritually helpless “crowds” of humanity (Matthew 9:36; 14:14; 15:32).

Hesed is reflected in two New Testament words.  Eleos is mercy: a commentary describes it in emotional terms, as God’s “attitude toward those who are in distress,” (35) but we see especially acts of mercy, often prompted by splanchna (as when the blind men appeal to Jesus for eleos and He feels splanchna, Matthew 20:30-34).  Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, rejoices at the “tender mercy [splanchna eleos]” of the divine visitation in Jesus, a glorious act of mercy that is filled with compassion (Luke 1:78).

Hesed also appears as agape.  This “love” is “the characteristic word of Christianity,” (36) “the very key word of NT ethics”; (37) it is also easily misunderstood.  Like hesed, it does not spring from emotion, but is the love of choice and selection, (38) a deliberate and settled choice to seek another’s highest good. (39)  A definition such as “unconquerable benevolence, invincible good will” (40) can even strike us as formal and cold.  But affection, though distinct, accompanies agape; in fact, closed affections [splanchna] are a sure sign that the agape of God is absent (1 John 3:17).  When He looks upon our need, even our iniquitous “bent,” Jesus is “moved with compassion [splanchna],” but it is agape that prompted Him to come close in the first place.  The prodigal’s father is “filled with compassion [splanchnizomai]” at the sight of his boy (Luke 15:20, NIV), but he has been steadfastly watching for him, and the memory of the father’s consistent, loving goodness invites the repentant return.  The good Samaritan by his actions shows mercy [eleos] to the helpless after his feelings of compassion [splanchna] are aroused, but the entire episode serves to illustrate agape love (Luke 10:37, 33, 27).  Many of Jesus’ parables are parables of agape: the hidden treasure (Matthew 13:44), the pearl of great price (Matthew 13:45-46), the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7; Matthew 18:12-14), and the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10) all show the high, even absurd value God places on some one particle of creation, and the great, even obsessive and sacrificial lengths He goes to in order to bring it near and keep it safe.

The great difference between hesed and agape concerns the covenant foundation.  We have said that hesed is a covenant commitment, expecting a return.  Throughout most of the Old Testament, the Mosaic covenant is in view, and so the Lord’s hesed is for Israel (Ezra 3:11; Psalm 136:10-21), even if we are occasionally reminded that He has compassion [rahamim] on all He has made (Psalm 145:9, NIV).  The surprising good news of the New Testament — a scandal to Pharisees — is that His agape love embraces even His enemies: tax collectors, sinners, Gentiles (Matthew 5:43-45; Luke 6:27-36; Romans 5:8; Ephesians 2:4).  Part of “the mystery which was kept secret for long ages” (Romans 16:25, RSV), now revealed in Paul’s gospel, is the inclusion of the Gentiles in God’s plan of salvation (Ephesians 3:6; Romans 11:25); a related aspect is that our glorious life is “in Christ” (Colossians 1:27; 2:2-3; Ephesians 1:9-10).  The Lord has stepped back to an older covenant, with Abraham or with Noah or even with Adam; “in Christ” we are dead to the requirements of the Sinai covenant (Romans 7:4-6; Galatians 2:19), even as, “in Christ,” His agape works in us to satisfy the law’s requirements (Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:14).

We may picture this in terms of dimensions.  The Lord’s hesed is primarily vertical: as high as heaven, as deep as sin; it also persists through time.  Horizontally, it is more circumscribed; to Job’s friend Zophar, it is the wisdom of God that is long and wide as well as high and deep (Job 11:7-9).  In contrast, agape extends in all directions; as Barclay suggests, “Christianity needed a much more inclusive word” than philia. (41)  Paul prays that believers, themselves “rooted and established” in agape, may “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love [agape] of Christ” (Ephesians 3:17-18, NIV).  The Lord has thrown open His arms, and the “immeasurably more” of His powerful work in us (Ephesians 3:20, NIV) renovates and transforms us accordingly.  We acquire width [platos] as we open our hearts to others (2 Corinthians 6:11, 13), length [mekos] as the seed of faith and obedience grows (Mark 4:27), height [hupsos] as we are humbled and crucified and exalted with Christ (John 12:32; James 1:9; 4:20; Ephesians 4:8), and depth [bathos] as our sins are rooted out and our lives become founded on the words of God (Luke 6:48).

So Is God’s Love “Unconditional”?

Our English-language discussions of the “love” of God are often frustrated by our tendency to confound Hebrew ahabah, hesed, rahamim, and Greek agape, splanchna, and eleos.  We say that God loves all people “unconditionally,” no matter what.  This is clearly not the case with His affectionate ahabah love.  Occasionally His affection for Israel is said to be “everlasting” or “forever” [olam] (Jeremiah 31:3; 1 Kings 10:9); it is “as strong as death” and cannot be quenched by many waters (Song of Songs 8:6-7); but, even with Israel, we find Him saying in Hosea 9:15 that because of their sins, at least for a time, He will withdraw His affection, and they will experience His hatred.

It is much more accurate to say that the Lord’s hesed endures, that He maintains a steadfast commitment to loving-kindness, even when His affection is taken away.  Dozens of times, His hesed is declared to be “everlasting” or “forever” [olam]. (42)  But even this love is not the unlimited benevolence we have in mind when we speak of “unconditional” love.  He says of David:

I will not take My steadfast love [hesed] from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.  (1 Samuel 7:15, RSV; 1 Chronicles 17:13)

And He warns Jeremiah not to lament,

For I have taken away My peace [shalom] from this people, says the Lord, My steadfast love [hesed] and mercy [rahamim].  (Jeremiah 16:5, RSV)

These instances are rare, but they serve to remind us that the love of God is not literally without limit, without end, without condition.  “A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed — without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1, NIV; see also 6:12-15; and especially 2 Chronicles 36:15-16).  There is a mystery here, and it is not for us to attempt to define the boundaries of mercy, or to cause anyone to despair; but, equally, it is wicked to presume on endless tolerance of hearts and lives that grieve the soul of God.

Very tentatively, I suggest that both of these withdrawals of hesed are temporary and disciplinary.  The word to Jeremiah is part of an announcement of the Babylonian Exile, and the Lord quickly adds that Restoration will follow (Jeremiah 16:14-15).  The overall message of this prophet, in keeping with the rest of the Old Testament, is that the Lord’s faithful hesed endures (3:12; 9:24; 31:3); His restored people will celebrate precisely this aspect of His character (33:10-11).

As for King Saul, his story does not end with his death in battle, but continues for at least two more generations.  Saul is one who values occasional, extravagant sacrifice over steady, faithful, loving obedience (1 Samuel 15:22-23).  When the Lord rejects him as king and withdraws His hesed love, the prophet Samuel’s grief over Saul (16:1) surely reflects some measure of the Lord’s own sadness (15:10-11, 35).  The Lord’s Spirit departs from Saul; he is tormented by an evil spirit (16:14) and ultimately deserted in battle (28:5-6, 16-19).  Yet the Lord has not completely abandoned his family — not when he has a valiant son like Jonathan, who is convinced that nothing can stop the Lord from saving (14:6), and who knows how to strengthen or encourage a man in God (23:16).  Jonathan is drawn to David by natural affection [ahabah] (18:1, 3; 20:17; 2 Samuel 1:26) — like Saul himself for a time (1 Samuel 16:21) — but he also learns from David to value loving-kindness [hesed] (20:8, 14-15), unlike his cousin Abner, whose loyalty [hesed] is to the house of Saul (2 Samuel 3:8).  Saul brings a curse on Jonathan (1 Samuel 14:24-28), and the son dies with his father (31:2-6), and the same calamity results in the crippling of Jonathan’s young son Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 4:4).  Later, though, the question on the heart of David, the man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), becomes, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness [hesed] for Jonathan’s sake?” (2 Samuel 9:1).  He restores property to this broken man, this “dead dog,” and elevates him to dine at the king’s table (9:8-9).  Later, Mephibosheth’s own loyalty to David is called into question (16:3-4); his name is never cleared, but, as if in echo of his selfless father (1 Samuel 18:3; 23:17), he consents to be stripped of all, rejoicing in the king’s triumph (2 Samuel 19:24-30).  When we last see Mephibosheth, David spares him from judgment for a sin committed by his grandfather Saul (21:7).

We all wish to be strong like Jonathan, and instead we all err and rebel like Saul.  But it seems to me that the withdrawal of hesed is intended to make Mephibosheths of us, to bring us into a kind of death.  Not mighty warriors but weak and dependent, we are willing to live by and for the hesed of God.  We come out of the wilderness leaning upon our Beloved (Song of Songs 8:5).

The case is similar with agape.  Human agape is weak and unstable, growing cold (Matthew 24:12), diminishing from what it was at first (Revelation 2:4); Paul pronounces a blessing on all who love the Lord Jesus with “an imperishable and incorruptible” (43) love (Ephesians 6:24).  In contrast, the agape of God “never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]” (1 Corinthians 13:8, Amplified); no power exists that can divide or separate us from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:35-39).  Still, it can be withheld: this much is implied in Paul’s injunction to the Corinthian Christians to “reaffirm” their agape love for one who has been consigned to discipline (2 Corinthians 2:8, RSV, NIV).

It has become fashionable to say, “God will never love you any more than He does right now.  And God will never love you any less than He does right now.”  Undoubtedly, there is comfort in this.  And there are times, when we have sinned, and condemnation comes against us, when we truly need to be assured that God will not forever take away His love.  But this statement, using the broad English word “love,” is confusing and misleading.  Ultimately, despite its good intentions, it robs us of an incentive to press in to know Him more.

It is true that the Lord’s hesed and His agape tend to be steady, neither growing nor changing — though “God will never love you less” misleadingly suggests that He will never withdraw them, no matter what we do.  But unvarying sameness is just not the nature of emotional ahabah and splanchna love.  Ahabah affection is mother- or father-love: right from the beginning, it wells up.  “When Israel was a child, I loved him” (Hosea 11:1, NIV, RSV).  The Lord loves the newborn Solomon, so much so that he is renamed Jedidiah, “Loved by the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:24-25).  This is unconditional love, strictly defined: baby Solomon has not fulfilled any conditions to earn or deserve this love; in fact, he comes out of a union that began in adultery and murder.  The divine ahabah catches up the undeserving.

This is mirrored by some uses of agapao in the New Testament.  Jesus looks upon the rich young man and “loves” him (Mark 10:21).  This doesn’t mean that He didn’t love him a moment before; but there’s an emotional upsurge, as well as an intention and an engagement.  At the same time, the young man is not instantly promoted to the depth of affection, the intimate bonds, the shared memories and burdens, that Jesus cultivated with dear friends, even though the same verb is used: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5, RSV).

There are degrees of affection, and of the settled seeking of the other’s good that completes agape, as we all know when we stand in simplicity.  Paul challenges one prickly congregation, to whom he has given much, “If I love [agapao] you more, will you love [agapao] me less?” (2 Corinthians 12:15, NIV).  The runaway slave Onesimus, in coming to know the Lord, becomes a “beloved [agapetos] brother” (Philemon 16), “very dear” to Paul and “even dearer” to his owner (NIV).  Paul, at least, presumably “loved” Onesimus from the first, but something has changed.  In a similar way, do we not become dearer to God as His love increases and abounds in us (1 Thessalonians 3:12; 2 Thessalonians 1:3), is perfected or made complete in us (1 John 2:5; 4:12, 17)?  If God’s heart toward us does not change, let us at any rate acknowledge that our hearts and capacities do change.  Abraham becomes the “friend” [ahab] of God (2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; James 2:23) by walking for many years in His affection [ahabah].

What if, instead of proclaiming God’s unconditional love, a relief from failure and an excuse for never having to mature, we learned to meditate on His steadfast love, faithful and gracious, compassionate and everlasting?  What if, instead of seeking consolation in the thought that His affections are unchanging, we dared to believe that we can spend eternity exploring the depth and height, the length and breadth of His passion for us?  The character of God is not a blanket to wrap ourselves up in, sins and insecurities and all; it is a multicolored flame that calls forth everything we are, heart and soul and mind and strength.

The Myth of Sacrifice

We keep embracing the lie that says that God particularly prizes sacrifice.  Look at the elder brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  He’s working in the fields, hoping that his performance will be noticed.  When the father expresses his hesed for the good-for-nothing younger brother, the elder explodes, “angry [with deep-seated wrath]” (Luke 15:28, Amplified):

Look!  All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.  Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!  (15:29-30, NIV)

He is aggrieved.  He has shown his loyalty by giving up some of his time, and by adhering to the letter of the father’s expressed will (if not his heart).  His service should be rewarded, though he doesn’t ask for time together — truth be told, he’d rather have a party with his friends.

He is upset particularly because an animal has been killed, sacrificed.  In his scheme of justice, it was rightfully his, in recognition of all his sacrifices.  Isn’t that what love is?

But the father answers:

My son, . . . you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.  (15:31-32, NIV)

The slaughtered calf is indeed an indicator of the father’s love, but not in the way that the elder son supposes.  It is not a reward, but a redemption.  In his spirit, the younger brother was lost, dead (Luke 15:24, 32); he had “joined himself” to a harsh master (verse 15).  In the Old Testament, the Lord shows His love (His deep affection, ahabah) for Israel by redeeming the people from bondage in Egypt (Deuteronomy 7:8).  During the Passover darkness, in the very shadow of the Angel of Death, He makes it clear that redemption requires a sacrifice, a death, a covering of blood (Exodus 12:23; Romans 3:24-25; Ephesians 1:7).  And as Abraham discovered long before, God Himself provides the sacrifice for us (Genesis 22:8, 13, 14).

After the first Passover, the people of Israel could be called “the redeemed of the Lord” (Psalm 107:2; Isaiah 62:12).  But the covenant includes a special provision for the redemption of firstborn sons (Exodus 13:11-16).  In the parable, the elder brother has long since been redeemed.  The father gladly paid a price, not because a reward was due, but because he planned an ongoing relationship: “In Your unfailing love [hesed] You will lead the people You have redeemed” (Exodus 15:13, NIV).  In this communion there is life, hope, security, identity, and intimacy:

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name;

you are Mine.  (Isaiah 43:1, NIV)

But the elder brother prefers to think of himself as “special,” not as redeemed.  He wants recognition and reward — just for himself; he refuses to see a gift that is shared with anyone else, especially a “sinner.”  The father gives the best gift of all, himself: “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (Luke 15:31, NIV).  But the son would rather have a dead goat plus bragging rights than a living father and unfailing, unmerited love.

Pride erects barriers, creates distance.  The younger son squandered his father’s money, and hired or joined himself to a master; but the elder son, no less, has squandered the father’s hesed and joined himself to a lie.  By the very fact that he no longer sees himself as redeemed, he shows that he too needs redemption.  As God says of Israel, “I long to redeem them, but they speak lies against Me” (Hosea 7:13, NIV).  The calf and the party are for both boys, but when the parable ends we are in suspense, waiting to see whether the elder son will choose steadfast love or lies.  Jesus and the Father wait to see which you and I will choose.

The same lie is at work in the Parable of the Talents or Minas.  One servant misses the opportunity to show himself trustworthy by exercising his faith, investing the hesed that he has received.  He is overcome by fear because he is convinced that his master is hard or merciless [skleros] (Matthew 25:24), severe or strict [austeros] (Luke 19:21). (44)  Incredibly, even though the master has entrusted him with seed money, the servant persists in believing that the master demands a harvest where he hasn’t sown.  In fact, the Master of hesed is always sowing; every good gift comes from Him (James 1:17), and He desires to sow in and through the least of His servants.  But this man misses the hesed and mistrusts the Giver.  Paralyzed by fear of failure, he buries the gift.  He has allied himself with the strangers surrounding the estate, who hate the master and reject him as king (Luke 19:14). (45)

It is easy to become the elder brother, toiling in a barren field.  It is easy to think, as the servant does, that our God leaves the sowing and tending to us, and only shows up for the harvest.  (Is He not preoccupied, staring down the road after the lost?)  Paul, delivered from Pharisaism, sees more clearly: God always works with us, and He alone can create growth (1 Corinthians 3:6-9).

What’s Wrong with Sacrifice?

On two occasions, Jesus challenges the Pharisees to learn what Hosea 6:6 means — that God desires steadfast love rather than sacrifice.  One episode involves His fellowship with sinners, the other His alleged low regard for the sanctity of the sabbath.

Jesus associates with sinners, befriends them, heals them, shares their food (Matthew 9:9-13).  This all expresses hesed, with the added surprise of agape — for, yes, God’s steadfast love extends even to these, who have been told that they are enemies of God, outside His love, because they have broken His covenant.

The Pharisees are bewildered by this.  Though they would not have recognized the problem before they encountered Jesus, for them the “steadfast love” of the Lord clashes with His holiness — and loses.  Holiness is understood especially as separation from all that is unclean, and so as a form of sacrifice, “giving up” anything less than wholesome.  If the Lord is too pure to look on evil (Habakkuk 1:13), surely His people must abstain from contact with the ungodly.  We can’t afford to love anything that might defile us.

Jesus turns this outlook on its head.  Hesed, the heart of God, is primary.  Sinners, viewed through the eyes of love, are “afflicted” (Matthew 9:12), and the holiness of God is not a sore spot to be guarded, or a gift to be buried, but a positive power that can work through love to heal and transform.  Sacrifice stands at a distance, disapproving and waiting for applause, but love embraces and unites.  As a teacher of the law acknowledges in Mark 12:33, loving God and neighbor “is much more than” (Amplified, RSV) sacrifices; it is abundantly and excessively greater.

In the other incident, the Pharisees condemn Jesus’ disciples for plucking and eating grain as they pass through a field on the sabbath.  According to their statutes, two separate sins — two different forms of “work” forbidden on the sabbath — have been committed: “reaping” the grain and then “threshing” or “sifting” it by rubbing. (46)  Jesus replies that no guilt attaches to the disciples (Matthew 12:7), and He again quotes Hosea 6:6 to the Pharisees.  The sabbath of rest was not enjoined by God so that it might become a sacrifice, a yardstick to measure our spirituality and others’; paradoxically, that would be work, like the elder brother’s toil in the fields, away from the father.  The sabbath is another gift, an expression of the divine hesed.  The Lord invites us to enjoy His bounty, and He encourages us to gather strength so that we may serve others and do them good.

Summarizing the gulf dividing the Pharisees and Jesus, Alfred Edersheim says well:

They knew no mercy that was not sacrifice — with merit attaching; He no sacrifice, real and acceptable to God, that was not mercy.  (47)

Sacrifice stops short of service; it becomes an end in itself.  Or it saves its energy for the one great noble and heroic act, and then takes a long vacation, and proves itself to be surly and ill-tempered all the rest of the time, especially when divine and human applause are not forthcoming.  These considerations help me toward an understanding of Proverbs 12:10, at least as it applies to my own heart: “. . . even the tender mercies [rahamim; NIV “the kindest acts”] of the wicked are cruel” (Amplified); that is, their root is not kindness at all, but pride and a desire to manipulate.

But Jesus, even when He becomes a sacrifice, practices steadfast love.  At the supper, though He knows what lies ahead for Him, He washes the disciples’ feet: “Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love” (John 13:1, NIV).  After the agony of Gethsemane, He is not a man on a mission, too busy for His friends; He makes time to consider their safety (John 18:8-9).  Even on the cross, He shows love and mercy to others (Luke 23:34, 42-43; John 19:26-27).

When I focus on sacrifice, it becomes a duty; my mind isn’t on it and my heart isn’t in it.  No wonder, then, that the Lord frequently says that He isn’t pleased with sacrifices (Psalm 50:8-13; Isaiah 1:11; 66:3; Jeremiah 6:20), particularly those of the wicked (Proverbs 15:8; 21:27; Hosea 8:11-13).  He prefers obedience (1 Samuel 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-24) and the offering of heartfelt thanks (Jonah 2:9; Psalm 50: 14, 23; 107:22; 116:17), especially when these are signs of inward change: “My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; . . .” (Psalm 51:17, Amplified).

In the New Testament, Jesus is our great and final sacrifice (Hebrews 10; 1 Corinthians 5:7).  Paul is poured out like a drink offering (Philippians 2:17; 2 Timothy 4:6), and every believer is called to be a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1), offering sacrifices of praise, doing good, and sharing (Hebrews 13:15-16).

But there is a lightness in the laying out.  We offer ourselves with our eyes on the mercies or compassion [oiktirmos] shown to us by God (Romans 12:1); Paul is glad and rejoicing as he is poured out (Philippians 2:17-18; 1 Corinthians 12:15), and Jesus “gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” because He loved [agapao] us, because we are “dearly loved [agapetos] children” (Ephesians 5:1-2, NIV).

If we attend to sacrifice, we falter and fall away, but if we set our hearts and minds on steadfast love, receiving it and remaining in it and giving it rule in us, we can be faithful even in sacrifice, following in the steps of our Lord, whose love “stands firm forever” (Psalm 89:2, NIV).

At one point, Paul prays, “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness [NIV “perseverance”] of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5, RSV).  Just for a moment, for the sake of training us in godliness, a distinction is made in the Godhead: in the Son we see all the strength of faithful endurance, and in the Father all the seeming weakness of unfailing love.  The Son became a sacrifice for us; the Father offered Him up.  He is giving still, even to us, the broken and rebellious:

He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all — how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?  (Romans 8:32, NIV)

Islam famously declares that God has no son, and Christians reply that this is wrong, that the Lord Jesus is indeed very God, become incarnate, Son of God and Son of man.  Sometimes, though, we forget the magnitude of the error and of the grace; for Father and Son have sacrificed in order to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10, NIV, RSV).  God has an abundance of sons; His house is thronged.  Daily, still, we receive “His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves” (Ephesians 1:6, NIV).

God is the longest-suffering of unrequited lovers.  If He gave way to bitterness, He could outlast any country song in listing all that He has sacrificed for the unworthy.  Yet when He reveals Himself to Moses, when He comes near in the person of the Lord Jesus, He makes no complaint.  He pours out love, and the love is a gentle, persistent current, washing away defenses and lies, drawing us out into the great ocean-heart of our God.

O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;

for His steadfast love endures for ever.

 

(1) Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 338; emphasis in original.

(2) J.W.L. Hoad, “Mercy, Merciful,” in J.D. Douglas, ed., The New Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962, 1975), 809.

(3) John H. Stek, note on Psalm 6:4, in Kenneth Barker, ed., The NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), 791.

(4) Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984, 1996), Old Testament section, 142.

(5) See 1 Chronicles 16:34, 41; 2 Chronicles 5:13; 7:3, 6; 20:21; Ezra 3:11; Psalm 100:5; 106:1; 107:1; 118:1-4, 29; 136:1-26; 138:8; Jeremiah 33:11.  This list of references is probably not complete.  Note that Ezra 3:11 is unique in explicitly restricting the scope of the Lord’s hesed: it is forever “toward Israel.”

(6) See also 2 Chronicles 30:9; Psalm 111:4; Nahum 1:3.

(7) Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 933; emphasis in original.

(8) John Bright, Jeremiah, 2nd ed., The Anchor Bible (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965), 282.

(9) Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 12.

(10) Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 335-36.

(11) Vine’s, Old Testament section, 100.

(12) Jim B. McClure, Grace Revisited (Geelong, Australia: Trailblazer Ministries, 2010; online preview at https://books.google.com/books/about/Grace_Revisited.html?id=UfwcPwF8PVgC), 39-40; see 48 on Warfield.

(13) On “grace” in Proverbs 3:34, see Brother Lee, “Grace, NOT Unmerited Favor,” Thoughts from God Ministries, http://thoughtsfromgod.com/index.php?p=1_98_GRACE-Not-Unmerited-Favor.  James Ryle’s definition is set forth in an undated audio series, Amazing Grace: Experiencing the Fullness of God’s Empowering Presence, available also on DVD (http://store.truthworks.com/amazing-grace).  See also Ryle’s blog, http://jamesryle.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html  McClure (49) refers to a book by Ryle, The Empowering Presence of God, but I have not been able to locate this.

(14) McClure, 49.

(15) McClure, 46-47.  But he goes on to emphasize the divine power associated with grace (56-65), and to make other helpful points.

(16) William Barclay, In the Hands of God (New York and Evanston: Harper Chapel, 1966), 157.

(17) Vine’s, Old Testament section, 161-62.

(18) R.V.G. Tasker, “Wrath,” New Bible Dictionary, 1341.

(19) Elihu notices this flaw in Job’s reasoning (Job 35:15); Jonah echoes it (Jonah 4:1-3).

(20) Vine’s, Old Testament section, 142.

(21) In addition to the passages cited in this section, see Genesis 24:27; 1 Kings 3:6; Nehemiah 9:32-33; Psalm 25:10; 26:3; 40:10; 57:10; 69:13; 85:10; 89: 14; 108:4; 115:1; 117:2; 138:2; Proverbs 14:22; 16:6; 20:28; Isaiah 16:5; Hosea 4:1; Micah 7:20; Zechariah 7:9.

(22) Douglas K. Stuart, Exodus, The New American Commentary Vol. 2, gen. ed. E. Ray Clendenen (Nashville: B & H, 2006), 716; emphasis in original.

(23) Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 665; Vine’s, Old Testament section, 126-27.

(24) Vine’s, Old Testament section, 127.

(25) Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 49.

(26) Vine’s, Old Testament section, 86.

(27) Vine’s, Old Testament section, 200-01, 189; Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 671.

(28) Nasa has been read in different ways in Hosea 1:6.  KJV translates, “. . . I will no more have mercy [raham] upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away [nasa]” — that is, into exile.  But modern versions take nasa here as “forgive”: “. . . I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them” (NIV; compare RSV, Amplified).  In Hosea 14:2, the prophet expresses the hope that the Lord will “take away” [nasa] not the people but all their iniquity.

(29) Vine’s, Old Testament section, 231, 232, 266.

(30) Stuart, 716.

(31) Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 667; Vine’s, Old Testament section, 103.

(32) Vine’s, Old Testament section, 164.

(33) William Barclay, New Testament Words (1964; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1974), 276.

(34) Barclay, New Testament Words, 277-80.

(35) C.F. Hogg and W.E. Vine, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, with Notes Exegetical and Expository (1922), 340-41; qtd. in Vine’s, New Testament section, 404.

(36) C.F. Hogg and W.E. Vine, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians, with Notes Exegetical and Expository (1914), 105; qtd. in Vine’s, New Testament section, 381.

(37) Barclay, New Testament Words, 19.

(38) Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 2nd ed., 1888 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, n.d.), 2:225, 135.

(39) Barclay, New Testament Words, 21.

(40) Barclay, New Testament Words, 22.

(41) Barclay, New Testament Words, 20.

(42) See, e.g., Psalm 18:50; 25:6; 52:8; 89:2, 28; 1-3:17; Isaiah 54:8; 55:3; as well as all the references in note 5 above.

(43) Vincent, 3:412.

(44) William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1952, 1957), 763, 121.

(45) In Romans 11:22, Paul finds both “kindness and severity [apotomia]” in God.  He is severe in that His word is sharp [tomos] (Hebrews 4:12) and cuts deeply.  But He is not hard.  He waits long and tries everything before He cuts us off.

(46) Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1883, 18860, new updated edition (1993; n.p.: Hendrickson, 2012), 512.

(47) Edersheim, 360.

Toward a Biblical Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis

At first glance, the Bible might seem like a great guidebook for bigots and isolationists of all stripes. One nation chosen, all the others spurned. Idolaters destroyed; intermarriage with them expressly condemned.

Read a little further, though, and all chauvinisms are shaken. Repetitively, inescapably, God “loves the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:18, Amplified; compare Psalm 146:9). He wants Israel to see themselves as a nation of pilgrims passing through (Genesis 23:4; 1 Chronicles 29:15; Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2:11); thus, the foreigner in their midst holds up a mirror, serves as a reminder, and they are instructed to “love him as yourself” (Leviticus 19:33-34; compare Exodus 22:21; 23:9; Deuteronomy 10:19; Ezekiel 47:22-23).

To be sure, the resident alien must abide by Israel’s laws (Exodus 12:49; Leviticus 24:22). But — and this is remarkable — he or she is equal to the Israelite before the law (Deuteronomy 1:16; 27:19; Zechariah 7:10; Malachi 3:5). In dispensing equal justice, Israel rehearses for its deepest calling: “. . . I will also give you for a light to the nations, that My salvation may extend to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6, Amplified).

In every generation of Biblical history, God uses the stranger to teach His people a fundamental lesson: that we are not possessors, established on a homeland, standing and defending our ground. Rather, we dwell in tents and booths: “. . . the land is Mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with Me” (Leviticus 25:23, RSV). The Lord is the God of the uprooted. In one passage, Jeremiah even suggests that God Himself is “like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays only a night” (14:8, NIV).

The picture hardly changes in the New Testament. Jesus, God Incarnate, is the ultimate Stranger on earth. He comes to pitch His tent among us (John 1:14); He has nowhere to lay His head (Luke 9:58; compare 1 Corinthians 4:11). To a radical, deeply troubling degree, He identifies Himself with every outsider. His is the face of every refugee. “Lord, when did we fail to invite You in — ?” “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, . . .” (Matthew 25:41-46).

Yes, But . . .: Precedents

In recent months, we have seen a weary world greet its first sight of Syrian refugees largely with a collective shrug. A photograph of a dead child on a beach softened hearts and opened doors, but they slammed shut again after an act of terrorism.

Truth be told, we should never have expected governments and politicians to welcome the stranger with bold love. This is the calling of the company of believers, themselves sojourners and exiles on earth; it can never be delegated to the world. Nor can we protest that we are asked only to embrace the worthy. Jesus Himself closed that door in our faces: “But I tell you, Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44, Amplified).

It has always been thus. When a notorious persecutor of Christians professed conversion and claimed the status of a brother, he was shunned — until a believer named Barnabas, who loved not his life unto death, took a big risk (Acts 9:26-27). It may have been his example that first showed Paul a love that believes and hopes all things (1 Corinthians 13:7).

Around A.D. 250, an epidemic spread through much of the Roman Empire. Pagans mostly deserted the sick, but Christians in several cities organized care for the living and burial of the dead — and this in spite of the fact that the persecution of the Emperor Decius was under way, and Christians were even being blamed for the plague. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, urged Christians to care for all the afflicted without distinction, and also specifically to extend aid to their persecutors.(1) This episode was one of many steps leading up to the establishment of the first hospitals, “a distinctively Christian institution.”(2)

Almost from the beginning of European exploration of the New World, Native Americans were portrayed predominantly as “wild savages,” “dumb brutes,” and worshipers of the devil. They were also described as treacherous and untrustworthy.(3) One who disagreed was “Apostle” John Eliot (1604-1690). Aided by Thomas Mayhew and others, his evangelistic labors resulted in the establishment of 14 towns of converted “praying Indians” in Massachusetts. Particularly during King Philip’s War in 1675-76, Eliot was called a traitor and received death threats, and many of his translated Bibles were confiscated and destroyed. But he continued undeterred: “Our Indian work yet liveth, praise be to God,” he wrote in 1686.(4)

In 1956, five young American missionaries were killed by Waodani people (also called Auca, “savage” or “naked,” and Huaorani) of Ecuador. Incredibly, some of their family members continued the work, eventually leading many Waodani to Christ. In 1965, Steve Saint, the 14-year-old son of one of the martyrs, was baptized by two of his father’s killers.(5)

These are stories that show the power of God. The apostle Paul concluded that his own dramatic conversion occurred so that others might see the “unlimited patience” of Christ (1 Timothy 1:16, NIV), and draw hope. So with other converts, age after age; but always the patience of Christ is extended through the boldness of His ambassadors.

Stranger and Neighbor

Today we may be witnessing the start of a great move of God. For years, Muslim countries have banned or severely constrained Christian missionaries. No churches may be built, no sermons preached, no Bibles handed out; and any citizen who converts “blasphemes Islam” and is subject to extreme penalties, even death.

We have prayed for walls to crumble and gates to open. But what if God has chosen rather to bring people out — to turn them into the uprooted as a first step in making them His own? (6)

What if it falls to Christians, more than countries, to welcome and serve these strangers — taking them in if this is permitted, or, if need be, sojourning with them in temporary camps, showing them the love that Christ has shown us? If we cannot go, what if it is our calling to adopt a displaced family, sending them personal words of encouragement as well as practical assistance, even if this offends some who accuse us of giving aid and comfort to our enemies?

It is not hard to find grounds to decline this invitation; some days, every news cycle supplies a new reason. But we’ve been told to peer intently into strangers’ faces, expecting, as we serve them, to meet our Lord.

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus puts it another way: We can choose to love the stranger, any stranger, because of a deep conviction that he is in fact our neighbor. He may be unconscious of this connection, and of much else; and we, like the Samaritan, have no assurance that he will ever wake up. But we know the transformative power of the love of God. For when He found us, we were not merely hurting, unresponsive; we were active enemies (Romans 5:10; Colossians 1:21). We “came to ourselves” not only through the shock of pain and degradation, but also through the piercing hope of a Father’s love (Luke 15:17). And we will learn, someday, that in the Father’s house the only celebration is over the homecoming of the hopeless; the only reason to toil in the fields is to share the joy of the One who has stood for ages, staring down the empty stretch of Repentance Road. Though He sags with grief and yearning, still He stands, tensed, ready to run to them before they speak a word. Must we always find another field to tend? Or are we willing to be His flying feet, His reaching arms, His kiss that covers, and His voice that uplifts?

 

(1) Gary B. Ferngren, Medicine & Health Care in Early Christianity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2009), 118-19.

(2) Ferngren, 124.

(3) Richard Tetek, “Relations between English Settlers and Indians in 17th Century New England,” Diploma Thesis, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, 2010, 22-27; available at http://is.muni.cz/th/179860/pedf_m/Relations_between_English_Settlers_and_Indians_in_17th_Century_New_England.pdf.

(4) Linford D. Fisher, The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America (Oxford and New York: Oxford, 2012), 24-29.

(5) Steve Saint, End of the Spear (Carol Stream, IL.: Tyndale, 2005); Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (1957; revised ed., Carol Stream, IL.: Tyndale, 1996). See also Rebecca Barnes, “The Rest of the Story,” Christianity Today, Jan. 1, 2006 (available at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/january/30.38.html).

(6) A dear friend comments that I seem, in this sentence, to make God the author of a great evil.  Such is not my intent, but it is helpful and humbling to be reminded just how difficult it is to talk faithfully about world events.  A Syrian Christian, identified only as Brother John, expresses a similar point of view much more eloquently in the June 2016 Voice of the Martyrs newsletter (“Interview with a Syrian Field Worker,” 11):

Before the war, our church prayed for revival in our nation.  We prayed that every individual or heart would receive a copy of the New Testament.  We had no idea how to accomplish the goal of giving every Syrian a New Testament, but the war is how God answered the prayers of the church.

God allowed this evil that took place in Syria to spread the Syrian people all over the world so the church around the world can step into action and reach out to Syrians and spread the gospel to them.  That is how we need to look at refugees; we don’t need to look at them as a threat.

 

Two Tables

Thomas a Kempis points out that Noah labored 100 years to build the ark in which God would save him (perhaps taking Genesis 5:32 with 7:6). Solomon spent seven years building a temple to honor the Lord (1 Kings 6:37-38), and devoted seven or eight days just to its dedication (8:65). How then, a Kempis asks, can I in half an hour or less prepare myself for communion, prepare my heart “to receive with reverence the Maker of the world?”(1)

I can’t, of course. But at least I can pause to remind myself where I am, and what I am engaged in.

God has two tables. Actually, He has a great many more — including some in heaven that serve as models or patterns (Exodus 25:9, 40; Hebrews 8:5) — but on earth He has two that He especially talks about. When we prepare for communion, it helps to be clear which table we are approaching.

The Table of Holiness and Hunger

The first table stood in the tabernacle and, later, the temple — not in the Most Holy Place or Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant was placed, but outside the curtain, in the Holy Place, with the altar of incense and the lampstand. The table was made of acacia wood,(2) overlaid with gold (Exodus 25:23-30). (In Solomon’s temple, the table seems to have been made of solid gold, 1 Kings 7:48. According to 2 Chronicles 4:7-8, Solomon also multiplied the furnishings, setting up 10 tables and 10 lampstands.)

The entire purpose of this table was to hold 12 loaves of bread, one for each tribe in Israel. This was called the “consecrated bread” (KJV “showbread”) or, more precisely, the “bread of the Presence,” ordained by the Lord “to be before Me at all times” (Exodus 25:30, NIV). In the days of the tabernacle, even when the table was taken down and moved, the bread wasn’t taken away; rather, the Kohathites spread special coverings over the bread, dishes, bowls, and jars, and carried the table — very carefully! — with its offering still in place (Numbers 4:7-8). Each sabbath, the loaves were replaced with fresh bread, and the priests ate the old ones (Leviticus 24:8-9). Abimelech the high priest famously shared this bread with David, the anointed fugitive (1 Samuel 21:6; Matthew 12:3-4).

As bread made from grain (“fine flour,” Leviticus 14:5), the loaves have been interpreted as agricultural, Israel offering to the Lord “the fruits of her labors.”(3) (Contrariwise, it is also said to signify “the fact that God sustained his people.”)(4) I am not so sure. I am tempted to argue, instead, that, as unleavened bread, these loaves or crackers share with the bread of Passover the designation “bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3). On this view, the bread recalls all of the sufferings of Israel’s slavery in Egypt and of the redemption (compare Exodus 12:39). If you’ve ever felt that your pain is the only thing you have to offer to God, this constant memorial is for you.

In fact, though, such an interpretation seems unwarranted. We do not even know for certain whether the bread of the Presence was made with or without yeast. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus says that it was unleavened,(5) but it is striking that the Biblical texts themselves — which take great pains to specify that yeast must be removed during Passover (Exodus 12:19; 13:7; Deuteronomy 16:4) and kept out of burnt offerings to the Lord (Leviticus 2:11) — never bother to address this point.

What is emphasized is that this is bread of the Presence — literally, the face — of God. Adam and Eve, once they had fallen, hid from God’s Presence or face (Genesis 3:8), and Cain feared that he was permanently driven from it (4:14, 16). The great promise to Israel is “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exodus 33:14, NIV); the great blessing is that He will turn His face toward them, beaming with grace (Numbers 6:25-26). The great threat is that He will hide His face, and withdraw His favor and protection, because of covenant-breaking wickedness (Deuteronomy 31:17-18; 32:20). Though gracious and compassionate, mindful of His covenant, and unwilling to cast His people from His Presence (2 Kings 13:23), in the end He does precisely that (24:20; Jeremiah 52:3). So Isaiah complains, “You have hidden Your face from us and have delivered us into the [consuming] power of our iniquities” (64:7, Amplified), and the Lord acknowledges, “In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment” (54:8, NIV).

At this table, there is always the danger of losing His Presence. This covenant is all about faithfulness, His and ours. His face is toward the bread that must continually be refreshed — just as the fire on the altar must never be allowed to go out (Leviticus 6:12-13). He sees our obedience. On this basis, during the divided monarchy, King Abijah of Judah defies King Jeroboam of Israel:

As for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken Him. The priests who serve the Lord are sons of Aaron, and the Levites assist them. Every morning and evening they present burnt offerings and fragrant incense to the Lord. They set out the bread on the ceremonially clean table and light the lamps on the gold lampstand every evening. We are observing the requirements of the Lord our God. But you have forsaken Him. (2 Chronicles 13:10-11, NIV)

Just about 200 years later, King Hezekiah acknowledges before the Levites that Judah has done no better than the northern kingdom:

Our fathers were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook Him. They turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place and turned their backs on Him. They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; . . . (2 Chronicles 29:6-8, NIV)

The lamps are lit daily, the bread replaced weekly, the sacrifices offered according to a precise schedule. If the 12 precious stones on the high priest’s breastplate (Exodus 28:15-21) represent the permanence and perpetuity of the Lord’s covenant with the tribes of Israel, the 12 loaves are a vivid reminder of their frailty and mortality, and of the covenant’s vulnerability. Sabbath by sabbath, generation after generation, the relationship must be renewed. So the loaves are set out with incense (Leviticus 24:7), a symbol of fervent prayer and faithful devotion (“Let my prayer be set forth as incense before You,” Psalm 141:2, Amplified; “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints,” Revelation 5:8, NIV and RSV).(6)

A few times, the bread and the sacrifices are referred to as the Lord’s food (Leviticus 21:6, 8, 17, 21, 22; 22:25; 3:11, 16; Numbers 28:2). This is a bit shocking when one considers how painstakingly the Bible distinguishes the Lord from the needy, dependent gods of the nations. But it underscores the reciprocal nature of the covenant. Because the Lord is Israel’s God, He feeds them. In return, so to speak, we “feed” Him by hearing and obeying. Jesus makes this clear in John 4:34: “My food (nourishment) is to do the will (pleasure) of Him Who sent Me and to accomplish and completely finish His work” (Amplified). Unlike the crowds seeking blessings and full bellies (John 6:26-27), Jesus draws His deepest sustenance from devotion, from living to “feed” His Father.

This first table, then, is a place of serving and not eating, of labor and not rest, of standing rather than sitting or reclining. Though the face of God is toward us, all but a handful of Levites are kept at a distance; we are represented, not intimate. There is no real communion, only, at best, an invitation to walk in God’s Presence. And without our constant vigilance, this table fails; its symbols cease to point to anything beyond themselves; the relationship disappears; and being always in the Presence of the holy God becomes, not a sheltering wing of protection, but a dreadful eye of judgment.

The Table of Brokenness and Grace

Almost from the first, we read of a second table, of God feeding His people. The covenant with Adam and Eve includes the provision of plants and fruits as food, even for the animals (Genesis 1:29-30), and the covenant with Noah provides plants and animals as food for people (9:3).

“I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread,” testifies the psalmist (Psalm 37:25, RSV). These realities are linked: if the righteous were reduced to begging bread, it would indicate that the Lord had forsaken him, and violated a key provision of the covenant.(7)

This aspect of the covenant displays the power of God. There is an instructive exchange during the wilderness wanderings, when the people complain, and the Lord announces that He will give them meat for an entire month:

But Moses said, The people among whom I am are 600,000 footmen [besides all the women and children], and You have said, I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month! Shall flocks and herds be killed to suffice them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be collected to satisfy them?

The Lord said to Moses, Has the Lord’s hand (His ability and power) become short (thwarted and inadequate)? You shall see now whether My word shall come to pass for you or not. (Numbers 11:21-23, Amplified)

Asaph the psalmist sums up the people’s (and Moses’) unbelief in this way: “They spoke against God, saying, ‘Can God spread a table in the wilderness?’” (Psalm 78:19, RSV). This is the second table: not enclosed, restricted, limited to priests, furnished by human hands, and doled out in specified quantities, but supernatural, miraculous, bounteous, displayed for all to see and lavished upon everyone in or with the community. It is a mark of the surpassing greatness of Israel’s God that His provision is universal: “The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food at the proper time” (Psalm 145:15, NIV). Yet people and creatures outside the covenant have no assurance that this kindness will continue:

Taste and see that the Lord is good;

blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.

Fear the Lord, you His saints,

for those who fear Him lack nothing.

The lions may [this tentative “may” is not in RSV and Amplified] grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. (Psalm 34:8-10, NIV)(8)

The promise is especially for the covenant community. Out in the world, He spreads a table, at times even granting us “the grain of heaven,” “the bread of angels” (Psalm 78:24, 25, NIV), “spiritual food” (1 Corinthians 10:3). During other periods, He makes us eat “bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3), “bread of adversity” (Isaiah 30:20), “bread of tears” (Psalm 80:5; 42:3), “bread of mourners” (Hosea 9:4). We stumble at this, perhaps even complaining that His provision is not bread and not good (Numbers 21:5),(9) until we learn to raise our eyes, to wait and hunger for the food that truly nourishes. So Moses says:

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. . . . Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you. (Deuteronomy 8:2-3. 5, NIV)

Seasons of spiritual hunger concentrate our desire and promote singleness of heart, so that we become eager to hear God’s word (Amos 4:6; 8:11-12). We have tasted the goodness of the Lord and His words (Psalm 34:8; 119:103), and no longer wish to settle for the “bread of wickedness” (Proverbs 4:17) or “bread of idleness” (Proverbs 31:27).(10) As we continue in this confidence, even our enemies become “bread for us” (Numbers 14:9, KJV, Amplified, RSV). And leaders like Gideon, raised from obscurity, steeped in weakness, appear as “bread” to their foes, but are given divine power to defeat armies (Judges 7:13).

Over time, we see a shift in Scripture: The people hungering for God, and being fed by Him, are no longer the ones in charge of “feeding” the Lord in His Holy Place. There are two separate paths: God lives “in a high and holy place” (the temple on Mount Zion) AND in the one who is crushed and lowly (Isaiah 57:15, NIV). Indeed, the broken and crushed heart is His acceptable sacrifice (Psalm 51:17, RSV). Though David eats the holy showbread (1 Samuel 21:6), Elijah is fed in a wilderness area far from Jerusalem, and ultimately outside the land of promise, among the Gentiles (1 Kings 17:2-9; Luke 4:25-26). The Lord’s covenant is now with the one who is righteous but rejected, who undergoes privation, hunger, trials, separation from the community, and persecution.

Increasingly, the prophets announce that God is not pleased with the first table:

I hate, I despise your feasts, . . . Even though you offer Me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, . . . (Amos 5:21-22, RSV)

What to Me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; . . . I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats. . . . Bring no more vain offerings; . . . I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. (Isaiah 1:11, 13, RSV)

The first table easily becomes an empty ritual; the baked goods set continually before the Lord no longer signify lives lived in His Presence and in fellowship with Him. New Testament worship is not exempt from this danger: “. . . your meetings do more harm than good. . . . When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat” (1 Corinthians 11:17, 20, NIV). Now as then, “The Lord detests the sacrifice of the wicked” (Proverbs 15:8, NIV; compare 21:27). We bring our sins along with our offerings (Amos 4:4; Hosea 8:11); unclean ourselves (Hosea 9:4), we defile His table and profane His Name (Malachi 1:7, 11-12). Yet we congratulate ourselves for being observant! This is “the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong” (Ecclesiastes 5:1, NIV).

Legalistic observance misses the mark in three ways:

1. The sacrifices, instead of being the sign of an all-encompassing devotion, become the sole area of obedience. The Lord says pointedly through Jeremiah:

Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey Me, and I will be your God and you will be My people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. (Jeremiah 7:21-24, NIV)

This rebuke echoes Samuel’s word to Saul, who redefines “obedience” so as to follow his own best judgment:

Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord?

To obey is better than sacrifice,

and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is like the sin of divination,

and arrogance [“stubbornness” in RSV and Amplified] like the evil of idolatry. (1 Samuel 15:22-23, NIV)

Both passages anticipate Jesus’ charge that the Pharisees and teachers of the law use human traditions (including rules about offerings) to “nullify” God’s word (Mark 7:5-13).

Obedience is more than scrupulosity; it requires a “prepared” ear to hear what God is saying (Psalm 40:6; Hebrews 10:5-9). Jesus pronounces a blessing on those who hear and obey the word of God, and calls them His family (Luke 11:28; 8:21). He insists that most fail to obey because they cannot even hear with comprehension:

Why is My language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. . . . . He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God. (John 8:43, 47, NIV)

His appeal is to those who have “ears to hear” (Matthew 11:15; 13:9-16, 43) — those who have been given a gift of faith, those who are too devoted (perhaps too desperate) to rebel by redefining God’s words and by trusting their own judgment.

2. Whenever we focus on our sacrifices, on what we have done for God, we adopt a skewed perspective. It is not only that He continually does far more for us. Like a good marriage, the covenant is meant to be a relationship of intimacy, not one in which either partner tracks how much each has done. A “sacrifice” mentality emphasizes what can be measured — such as God’s 10 percent:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. (Matthew 23:23, NIV)

“To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (Proverbs 21:3, NIV).

In Hosea 6:6, the Lord packs all of this into a frustrated cry:

For I desire and delight in dutiful steadfast love and goodness, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of and acquaintance with God more than burnt offerings. (Amplified)

The single Hebrew word expanded here as “dutiful steadfast love and goodness” is hesed, a rich and important word variously translated as loving-kindness, steadfast or unfailing love, mercy, kindness, goodness, and favor. It expresses all that the Lord pours out in abundance at His second table. And as we see in Hosea, His plan is that we should learn to return His love. But we stop at sacrifice, and turn our hearts elsewhere. Our hesed is not steadfast at all: “. . . your [wavering] love and kindness are as the night mist or as the dew that goes early away” (Hosea 6:4, Amplified).(11)

The Lord craves nothing so much as intimate table fellowship:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears and listens to and heeds My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will eat with him, and he [will eat] with Me. (Revelation 3:20, Amplified)

Mary of Bethany grasps this, choosing “the good portion,” sitting rapt at Jesus’ feet, but Martha almost misses it, precisely because she is distracted with serving and wants to call attention to her sacrifice (Luke 10:38-42). Her attitude gives the food a bitter taste, and the table nearly becomes a snare and a trap to her (Psalm 69:21-22; Romans 11:9).

3. Our hearts are bent (Hosea 11:7; 7:16) and apt to twist the grace of God. When we sacrifice, we easily come to think that we have seized the initiative, and that our little gifts bind God to us. We are quick to obscure the fundamental fact of our utter dependence on Him. We are helpless, and yet so blessed that we become stewards and have enough to give back. Asaph sees clearly that our every sacrifice is a response to grace that has gone before, and that the acceptable sacrifice acknowledges this with thanks:

Hear, O My people, and I will speak,

O Israel, I will testify against you.

I am God, your God.

I do not reprove you for your sacrifices;

your burnt offerings are continually before Me.

I will accept no bull from your house,

nor he-goat from your folds.

For every beast of the forest is Mine,

the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know all the birds of the air,

and all that moves in the field is Mine.

If I were hungry, I would not tell you;

for the world and all that is in it is Mine.

Do I eat the flesh of bulls,

or drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,

and pay your vows to the Most High;

and call upon Me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me. . . .

He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors Me;

to him who orders his way aright I will show the salvation of God! (Psalm 50:7- 15, 23, RSV)

We sacrifice thank offerings, tell of His unfailing love, and continue to call on His Name (Psalm 107:21-22; 116:17; Hebrews 13:15).

This is why the second table, the one that God prepares, is not only out in the open; it is set up in the presence of the believer’s enemies (Psalm 23:5). The first table holds the bread of the Presence, placing me, in my frailty and my striving, under the eye of God; the second table, later in redemptive time, crowns me with blessings of salvation and casts me into the faces of my enemies.

Reading the Shepherd Psalm, we experience a natural reaction: we don’t want our enemies present when our table is spread. They will steal our peace and spoil our festivity. We should think again. They must be there; the Lord requires it and will ensure it, for this is our vindication. The Lord declares us righteous in the very presence of our accusers (Psalm 35:26-27), as Haman is compelled to proclaim that the king delights to honor Mordecai (Esther 6:6-13).

Then, indeed, our cup overflows (Psalm 23:5).

Jesus the Living Bread

The second table isn’t sheltered by the sanctity of a temple. God spreads it in the desert (Psalm 78:19; Hosea 2:14-15), amid desolation. It is set for those who are desperately hungry, even for scraps, like the beggar Lazarus in the parable (Luke16:20-21); and for those, like the Canaanite woman, who are willing to take the lowest place, even the hidden and degrading position of a dog begging under the table, because they are convinced that the food at the Lord’s table has power to save, and is given in cascading abundance (Matthew 15:26-27).

Jesus Himself is the bread set out on this table:

. . . it is My Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. . . . I am the bread of life. . . . I am the living bread that came down from heaven. . . . [T]he one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. (John 6:32-33, 48, 51, 57, NIV)

To receive this Bread, we turn our backs on the first table, leaving the temple behind, acknowledging that we are sinners and that our sacrifices cannot save us: “Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace He bore” (Hebrews 13:13, NIV). My life isn’t spread out for God to approve; rather, I say again that I am only a famished beggar, aching for the one Bread that can feed my spirit and my soul.

In coming to this table, we bring nothing — only our God-given faith, which Luther well describes as a “passive righteousness”: “For in this we work nothing, we render nothing unto God, but only we receive and suffer another to work in us, that is to say, God.”(12) We are like the woman at the well: Jesus asks her for a drink only in order to draw her attention to the living water that He is offering (John 4:7-15).

When we come in the simplicity of faith, we become the flock that He tends and feeds (Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:11-14; Zephaniah 2:7; 3:13). Under His care, we become one body, one loaf (1 Corinthians 10:17). We become bread for a dying world, seed sown into others’ lives (Ecclesiastes 11:1-2; 2 Corinthians 9:10-11). We are set forth in the Lord’s Presence as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1). We are not only poured out like a drink offering (Philippians 2:17; 2 Timothy 4:6), but crushed and crumbled like a grain offering (Leviticus 2:6, 14; 6:21); in the words of Oswald Chambers, “God makes us broken bread and poured-out wine.”(13)

And so in heaven there will still be two tables. The results of our sacrifice will be on display, though this will take us by surprise: “Lord, when did we ever feed You?” (Matthew 25:37). We will wear these righteous acts of service as wedding clothes (Revelation 19:8; Matthew 22:11-12), but I suspect we will hardly be aware of them. Our eyes will be on the Lamb’s wedding feast (Revelation 19:9), a table spread by a gracious God whose love never fails:

Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to Me, and eat what is good,

and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. (Isaiah 55:1-2, NIV)

My people will be filled with My bounty. (Jeremiah 31:14, NIV)

 

(1) Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471), The Imitation of Christ, IV.1.3-5, ed. Paul M. Bechtel (1980), Moody Classics, gen. ed. Rosalie De Rosset (Chicago: Moody, 1980, 2007), 326-27. The figure of 100 years is probably too long for the ark, since the text says only that 100 years pass between the birth of Noah’s sons and the completion of the ark (Genesis 5:32; 7:6). But 1 Peter 3:20 does say that “God waited patiently . . . while the ark was being built” (NIV).

(2) “These thorny trees, found in desert wadis, are probably the only ones in Sinai likely to produce pieces of wood of sufficient size.” F.N. Hepper, “Trees,” in J.D. Douglas, ed., The New Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962, 1975), 1294.

(3) Ronald Youngblood and Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., note on Exodus 25:30, in Kenneth Barker, ed., The NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), 125.

(4) R. Laird Harris and Ronald Youngblood, note on Leviticus 24:8, NIV Study Bible, 178.

(5) Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, III.6.6. Cited at Hope of Israel Ministries, “Mystery of Mysteries — What Is the Showbread?,” http://www.hope-of-israel.org/showbred.htm.

(6) Revelation 8:3-4, where incense is added to the prayers of the saints, seems to point to something further — perhaps the prayers of Jesus. However, Robert Mounce observes, “The Greek for this phrase also allows a translation that takes the incense ‘to be’ the prayers (‘incense . . . consisting of the prayers’)” (note on Revelation 8:3, NIV Study Bible, 1935).

(7) Ironically, Psalm 37 is a psalm of David, and David is a leading example of a man chosen by God who on several occasions must beg for bread. Instead of preventing such humiliation, the Lord uses these incidents to exalt His servant — by providing exceptional bread (1 Samuel 21:6) or by confounding his enemies (1 Samuel 25).

(8) Similarly, Psalm 36 celebrates the Lord’s “unfailing love” that preserves “both man and beast” through the “abundance” of His house and His “river of delights” (verses 5-9), but shifts to rejoicing in His justice that eventually overthrows rather than preserves evildoers (verses 10-12); and Psalm 104 shows Him first feeding, sustaining, and satisfying all creatures (verses 27-28) and then withdrawing, terrifying them and causing them to die (verse 29).

(9) In sharp contrast, a passage in an apocryphal book imagines that God’s manna was always and only a delight, and never a trial: “. . . Thou didst give Thy people the food of angels, . . . providing every pleasure and suited to every taste. For Thy sustenance manifested Thy sweetness toward Thy children; and the bread, ministering to the desire of the one who took it, was changed to suit every one’s liking” (Wisdom of Solomon 16:20-21, RSV).

(10) Compare a Kempis, Imitation of Christ, IV.16.2, 377: “Turn Thou for me all earthly things into bitterness, . . . Be Thou only sweet unto me from henceforth for evermore; for Thou alone art my meat and drink, my love and my joy, my sweetness and all my good.” The spirit here is the exact opposite of that in the Wisdom of Solomon passage (note 9 above): God is not accommodating our corrupt tastes, but changing them.

(11) Confusingly, the NIV uses “love” in Hosea 6:4 and “mercy” in 6:6.

(12) Martin Luther, A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (1535), tr. rev. Philip S. Watson (London: James Clarke, 1953); excerpts in John Dillenberger, ed., Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor-Doubleday, 1961), 101.

(13) Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (1935; Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, n.d.), 33 and often.

Crushed

The Bible never minimizes pain. Even though, from an eternal perspective, our afflictions are “light and momentary” (2 Corinthians 4:17, NIV), and even though we’re advised to embrace them with joy because of the fruit that grows out of them (James 1:2; Romans 5:3), still, when the Bible speaks of pain, it uses strong words — like the Hebrew daka, “crushed.” It simply isn’t like God to say that we have an “owee” or a “boo-boo,” or that we are having a bad day. He remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:14); He sympathizes with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15). When we are hurting, God, and the people of God, say “crushed.”

If anything, it’s our translations that try to soften things. Some of our English versions render daka as contrite and contrition. It may be a good word, but for the life of me I don’t know quite what contrition is. And one thing I like about the Bible is that Hebrew seems to be a very visual language. At the root of almost every word, there’s a picture. “Crushed” means pulverized, ground up, reduced to powder or to dust. It’s what an old-fashioned pharmacist used to do with a mortar and pestle. It’s used to describe an extreme form of suffering that continues over time. It never speaks only of the body, but always includes as well the spirit, the emotions, and the mind.

In Scripture God’s people often use this word. Here’s David in Psalm 143:3: “For the enemy has pursued me; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead” (RSV). “Long dead” because his bones aren’t even bones any more; it feels as if they’ve crumbled away to dust. Psalm 38:8: “I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart” (NIV). Do you hear the pain of someone coping with a chronic or life-threatening illness, or with injury, or with loss? Similarly, in the New Testament, Paul writes that during one period of trial he was “so utterly, unbearably crushed” that he “despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8, RSV). More often than not, the One doing the crushing is God, as in Psalm 90:3: “You turn men back to dust” (NIV).

The word daka is used of Jesus twice, in Isaiah 53, in describing the Suffering Servant. Verse 5 says, “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities” (NIV). Most English translations say “bruised,” probably because what the Romans did to Jesus’ body seems more like bruising than crushing. (Not one of His bones was broken, John 19:36.) But bruising is far too slight a word; bruising is what happened when my older brother used to slap my arm with his bedroom slipper. Jesus’ spirit was crushed. “Gethsemane” means oil press; the name comes from big stone rollers, that took two people to operate, that crushed olives until every drop of oil was squeezed out.(1) Jesus was under intense pressure; we see this in His agony or anguish, His sweat like drops of blood (Luke 22:44), and His “loud cries and tears” (Hebrews 5:7, NIV and RSV). And in the Gospels the paraphrases do use this word. In the Living Bible, Jesus says to the three disciples, “My soul is crushed by sorrow” (Mark 14:34; “crushed with horror and sadness,” Matthew 26:38). In The Message He says, “This sorrow is crushing My life out” (Matthew 26:38).

But it’s the second occurrence in Isaiah 53 that takes my breath away: “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer,” making Him a guilt offering (v. 10, NIV). We know that God is anything but cruel. The Book of Lamentations, written right in the midst of the worst divine judgment in the Old Testament, still affirms, “He does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men” (Lamentations 3:33, RSV). Isaiah goes further; speaking of God’s faithfulness to Israel, he says, “In all their affliction He was afflicted” (63:9, RSV). The pain we feel is as nothing to the pain that fills His heart. How then could He bear to crush His own Son, and how can He crush the Body of Christ even now?

When God gives Moses instructions for the tabernacle, He tells him to make a special incense by taking certain pure spices and — God specifies — grinding or crushing them into a very fine powder. Only then is the incense “most holy” (Exodus 30:36), ready to be part of the atonement offering in the presence of God in the Most Holy Place (Leviticus 16:12-13). The crushing releases something, a fragrance, that can’t be brought out in any other way.

Jesus is that pure offering. Proverbs 27:22 tells us that even grinding a fool in a mortar won’t separate his folly from him. Crush me into a powder, and every atom will still be stained with sin. But we see from Isaiah 53 that crushing the pure One, as a guilt offering, removes folly and guilt and redeems the fool.

As for us, we are like harvested stalks. When the people of Israel made bread, the grain had to be threshed; it was crushed under the feet of an animal or the wheels of a cart or the weight of a heavy sled.(2) This was the only way to break the hard outer shell or husk, and separate impurities. Even manna, which is called “the bread of angels” (Psalm 78:25), had to be crushed in a mortar (Numbers 11:8). Throughout the Bible, threshing is an important process, and some significant events take place at threshing floors. The temple itself is built on the site of a threshing floor (2 Samuel 24; 1 Chronicles 21).

Threshing doesn’t continue forever (Isaiah 28:23-29). David is bold enough to pray, “[L]et the bones You have crushed rejoice” (Psalm 51:8, NIV). How can a bone that has been reduced to powder rejoice? Only in God — only in the One who raises the dead and commands the dust to arise. So too, the crushing is not the end of the Servant: “After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied” (Isaiah 53:11, NIV).

In the meantime, there are remarkable promises addressed specifically to those who are crushed:

• Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit” (RSV).
• Psalm 51:17: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is . . . a broken and [crushed] heart” (RSV).
• Isaiah 66:2, where God is speaking: “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and [crushed] in spirit, and trembles at My word” (NIV). Imagine being esteemed or valued or highly regarded by God.
• My favorite is Isaiah 57:15: “For this is what the high and lofty One says — He who lives forever, whose name is holy: I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is [crushed] and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the [crushed]” (NIV).       Think of all the preparations that it took for the holy God to dwell among us in a tabernacle or a temple: blood and sacrifices, special clothes, separations, curtains, washings.       And here He says, For Me to come in and to stay, it takes all that — or it takes being crushed. The person who is crushed is walking through the valley of humility. God opposes the proud, but He gives to the humble the continuous grace of His presence, and He comes to revive and sustain the heart of the crushed.

Jesus went to the lowest place of all. Even though He had no hardness to break, and no sin to separate, He allowed Himself to be crushed by the weight of our sins. He dwells in the high and holy place, and also and especially in the place of shame outside the camp (Hebrews 13:11-13). He meets us there.

I ended up studying the word “crushed” because I wanted to study breakthroughs in the Bible. What I found is that, for every occasion when God “breaks forth” against His enemies, there seem to be three or four times when He “breaks out” against His own people or “breaks down” their walls. Because of our sin, because He is holy, because He disciplines those He loves, we get broken. Before He can build up, He must tear down (Jeremiah 1:10).

When it comes to intercession, the Bible talks about three groups, and they’re all connected with walls. There are the watchmen God posts on the walls to call upon Him and give Him no rest (Isaiah 62:6-7; Ezekiel 3:17; 33:7). There are those who repair and rebuild broken walls (Isaiah 58:12; 61:4; Ezekiel 13:5), like Nehemiah. And then there are those who stand before God in the gap, in the broken place; only of this third group does God say that He looked and found no one to take on the task (Ezekiel 22:30). Before anyone can rebuild the wall, before anyone can stand watch atop it, we need believers who are willing to stand in their pain, still trusting. The rest of us need to say to our brothers and sisters, “You are the breakthrough.” For the gap is not “out there” somewhere in our culture; rather, wherever brokenness is found, there God is working. Where strength and pride are already broken down, that is where breakthrough occurs.

(1) R.K. Harrison, “Oil,” in J.D. Douglas, ed., The New Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962, 1975), 906.

(2) J.L. Kelso, “Agriculture,” New Bible Dictionary, 19; Marvin R. Wilson and John H. Stek, note on Ruth 1:22, in Kenneth Barker, ed., The NIV Study Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985), 366.

God of Breakthroughs

When we pray for a breakthrough, what exactly are we asking for? We might start with an episode from the life of David:

When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over all Israel, they went up in full force to search for him, . . . So David and his men went up to Baal Perazim, and there he defeated them. He said, “As waters break out, God has broken out against my enemies by my hand.” So that place was called Baal Perazim [“the Lord who breaks out”]. The Philistines had abandoned their gods there, and David gave orders to burn them in the fire. (1 Chronicles 14:8, 11-12, NIV; compare the parallel account in 2 Samuel 5)

The Lord “breaks out” or “breaks forth,” revealing His power, routing the enemy, vanquishing false and demonic gods. The comparison with surging waters is striking. The power associated with water is not often called divine in Scripture; more frequently, it rises in opposition to God (for example, “bursting forth” from the womb of its creation in Job 38:8). Water is “unstable” (Genesis 49:4), the home of a thrashing, chaotic monster (Ezekiel 32:2; Psalm 74:13; 89:9-10). The Lord is often praised for delivering from the raging, overwhelming, engulfing floodwaters (e.g., Psalm 124:2-5); but He also constrains and releases the flood, memorably at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:26-28; 15:8-10). His wrath is “like a flood of water” (Hosea 5:10, NIV), “like water rushing down a slope” (Micah 1:4, NIV). Ultimately, it is our sin that releases this explosive force; we foolishly make a breach or crack in a dam established by God (Proverbs 17:14).

Only on rare occasions is water both forceful and life-giving. Water “gushes” from the stricken rock at Meribah (Numbers 20:11; Psalm 78:20; 105:41; Isaiah 48:21). “Spring up, O well!” sing the desert wanderers (Numbers 21:17); and, centuries later, the Lord promises that, once again, waters will break forth in the wilderness (Isaiah 35:6; compare John 4:14).

Throughout the Old Testament, though, the Lord’s ability to “break out” is rarely connected with His redemptive acts. It is presented rather as the coiled force of His holiness, and thus a danger to all who are tainted by sin. So at Sinai, as the Lord reveals the Law of His covenant, the people and even the priests are warned to stay back, lest He “break out” against them (Exodus 19:22, 24). Plague “breaks out” when they provoke Him to anger (Psalm 106:29). During long centuries of relapse and rebellion, He repeatedly “breaks through” and “breaks down” Israel’s walls, leaving His people defenseless before their enemies (Psalm 80:12; 89:40; Isaiah 5:5). “You have rejected us, O God, and burst forth upon us,” the psalmist laments (Psalm 60:1, NIV). For Job, it is personal: “He breaks me with breach upon breach” (16:14, RSV).

In the very next chapter after David’s victory over the Philistines (according to 2 Samuel — or, in 1 Chronicles, the chapter before), we find another of these seemingly misdirected breakthroughs. The ark of God has been housed for many years at Kiriath-Jearim, at the house of Abinadab (1 Samuel 6:21-7:1), when David decides to bring it to Jerusalem on a new cart. This may have been a journey of as little as nine miles.(1) It begins as a festive procession. Abinadab’s son Uzzah is perhaps standing on the platform of the cart, using a stick or a cart-rope to drive the oxen:(2)

And when they came to the threshing floor of Chidon, Uzzah put out his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and He smote him because he put forth his hand to the ark; and he died there before God. And David was angry because the Lord had broken forth upon Uzzah; and that place is called Perez Uzzah [“the breaking forth upon Uzzah”] to this day. And David was afraid of God that day; and he said, “How can I bring the ark of God home to me?” (1 Chronicles 13:9-12, RSV)

If Baal Perazim is a glorious “breaking out” of the holy God, Perez Uzzah is a terrifying outbreak.(3)

Zerah: The Outstretched Hand

Long before Uzzah, before the rout of the Philistines, there is another Biblical “breakout.” Judah, one of the 12 sons of Jacob/Israel, unwittingly sleeps with his own daughter-in-law, Tamar, and she becomes pregnant:

When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez [“breaking out”]. Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out and he was given the name Zerah. (Genesis 38:27-30, NIV)

Here we have another Perez, but this one comes with a twin brother — and a contrast. Unlike the earlier twins Esau and Jacob (Genesis 25:21-26), this birth doesn’t signal a lifelong struggle for the rights of the firstborn; generations later, when the people return from exile, the clans of Perez and Zerah each furnish a prominent leader (Nehemiah 11:4, 24). Still later, the brothers are both named in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:3).

Instead, the emphasis here falls on the midwife’s observations. Initially, it appears that the son who stretches out his hand will “come out first.” Then, contrary to expectations, the other twin bursts out, and even makes a way for his brother.

The imagery here is indelicate to us — I doubt that the Sunday school supply companies ever made a flannelgraph rendition of this scene — but the sequence has prophetic significance. We see, I believe, two very different approaches to life and salvation.

Baby number one puts out his hand. The hand symbolizes power, so that it is a terrible thing to be “delivered into the hands” of one’s enemies (Deuteronomy 1:27; Judges 2:14; and often). Encouragement “strengthens the hands” (1 Samuel 23:16; 2 Samuel 2:7; 16:21; Ezra 1:6; 6:22; Nehemiah 2:18; Job 4:3; Isaiah 35:3; Zechariah 8:9, 13), and discouragement weakens them (2 Samuel 4:1; 2 Chronicles 15:7; Ezra 4:4; Nehemiah 6:9; Jeremiah 38:4); this link is made explicit in Ezekiel 27:14: “Will your courage endure or your hands be strong in the day I deal with you?” (NIV). Indeed, when the Lord judges, “all hands will go limp” (Isaiah 13:7; Jeremiah 6:24; 47:3; 50:43; Ezekiel 7:17; 21:7).

Human beings do evil “because it is in the power of their hand” (Micah 2:1, RSV). The defiant man “has stretched out his hand against God” (Job 15:15, Amplified) — as Jeroboam is stricken for stretching out a hand against the Lord’s prophet (1 Kings 13:4), and as fallen Adam must be ejected from Eden, “lest he put forth his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (Genesis 3:22, Amplified). At one time or another, “He seals up the hand of every man, that all men may know His work” (Job 37:7, RSV).

In the Old Testament, the people of God struggle to learn when not to use and trust their own power. Obedient Abraham is restrained when he “stretches forth his hand” against Isaac, his only son (Genesis 22:10). Joseph’s brothers, though their jealous hatred is in full flood, are persuaded by Reuben and then by Judah not to “lay hands” on him (Genesis 37:22, 27). Most strikingly, David — though the Lord has “trained his hands” for war (Psalm 18:34; 144:1) — David steadfastly resists the temptation to “put forth his hand” against Saul, reminding himself that even this murderous and unjust king is the Lord’s anointed (1 Samuel 24:6; 26:9, 11; 2 Samuel 1:14). As Paul summarizes it, much of the Law boils down to setting limits on our hands: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” (Colossians 2:21; emphasis added).

But Tamar’s first baby instinctively puts out his hand. The midwife marks him with a scarlet thread: a sign of redemption and covenant inclusion. The kissable lips of the beloved are a scarlet thread (Song 4:13). A scarlet thread, tied in the window of Rahab the prostitute, saves her household when Jericho is destroyed (Joshua 2:18, 21); it echoes the Passover blood on the Israelites’ doorposts (Exodus 12:7, 13). Scarlet is also a sign of all that needs redemption, of sins bright as blood (Isaiah 1:18).

The boy is named Zerah, which means “to rise” or “to come forth,” like the sun.(4) It is a hopeful name; it speaks of the light that rises, even in the midst of darkness, for the upright (Psalm 112:4; Isaiah 58:10); of the glory of the Lord, risen upon His own (Isaiah 60:1-3); of the Sun of Righteousness, risen for and on us, with healing in its wings (Malachi 4:3).

But this child is not the one rising; he is the one who waits in darkness to be risen upon. He is the literal ancestor of Achan (Joshua 7:1, 17-18, 24), whose sin of reaching out his hand and taking (7:21) brings wrath upon the whole community (27:20). And he is the spiritual ancestor of all who draw back, turn back, and falter (Hebrews 10:38-39; Proverbs 26:11; Numbers 14:3-4).

Perez: The Breaking Forth

Then there is baby number two. He “comes forth” from the womb,(5) but this emergence is so sudden or (after his brother’s false start) so surprising that the midwife pronounces it a “breaking out” (Genesis 38:29), and this becomes his name.

Perez appears as the crowning rebuke to his “overreaching” father. “[Y]our hand will be on the neck of your enemies,” Jacob prophesies of his son Judah (Genesis 49:8, NIV), but there is some question as to how the hand will reach this triumph. Moses says of Judah, “With his hands he contended for himself; but may You be a help against his enemies” (Deuteronomy 33:7, Amplified).

No less than Zerah, Judah demonstrates ambivalence. He approves the attack on and betrayal of his brother Joseph, so long as the conspirators stop short of “laying hands” on him by taking his life (Genesis 37:27). He withholds his son Shelah from Tamar (38:11, 14) — his son Onan having withheld himself from her in another way (38:9). Judah has failed in his responsibilities as a brother, a son, and a father-in-law; next he fails even to honor his pledge to the woman he thinks is a prostitute. Tamar “disarms” him of the seal of his authority and the staff in his hand (38:18). Only after he acknowledges that Tamar — a Gentile and an apparent prostitute — “is more righteous than I” (38:26) does he receive a breakthrough: the births of Perez and Zerah.

While Judah contends or manipulates, Joseph is “in the hands” of others. He resists temptation, and is more righteous than the woman who takes his garment as a sort of pledge (39:12). Even though he endures unjust suffering, everything prospers in his hand (39:3, 23), and eventually he receives a ring of authority (41:42). As his father declares of Joseph, the hands of God make his hands strong (49:24). His elevation from prison is a Perez-like breakthrough: he is “brought hastily out” (41:14).

As Perez makes a way for Zerah, so Joseph helps to redeem Judah. When his family needs food, Judah takes Benjamin into his hand from Jacob. He himself becomes the pledge for his brother’s life (43:9; 44:32), and it’s when he honors this pledge — confessing before the man he believes is a Gentile, “God has uncovered your servants’ guilt” (44:16), and offering to take Benjamin’s place in bondage — that Joseph reveals himself as brother.

Perez bursts forth, and then Zerah comes out. Joseph is elevated, and Judah is saved. Joseph again — Ephraim, the northern kingdom — is preeminent for many years, but the kingdom of Judah prevails, and returns from exile.(6) The Jews are, humanly speaking, the conduits and custodians of salvation, but the Gentiles are included and redeemed.

Ruth and David

Generations after the birth of Perez, Naomi concludes, “. . . the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me” (Ruth 1:13, RSV). Like Judah, she has lost a spouse and two sons; and in her case there is no Shelah — she truly has no more sons to step in and marry her daughters-in-law. She advises them to “return home,” “turn back” — the same Hebrew word, shub, used of Zerah’s drawing back his hand — and Orpah does so, but Ruth refuses (1:11-12, 15-16). She is “determined” (1:18), with a strength of mind and fixity of purpose that recall Tamar, also a Gentile bent on redemption.

Boaz (perhaps “strength”) directs his workers to fill Ruth’s hands when she gleans, and buys both land and Ruth “from the hand of” Naomi (2:16; 3:17; 4:5, 9). The elders’ blessing on the marriage of Boaz and Ruth includes these rather surprising words: “. . . may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the children that the Lord will give you by this young woman” (4:12, RSV).

Why Perez? It may be that the villagers are thinking of a secondary, less explosive meaning of his name — not so much “breaking forth” as “increasing” and “spreading,” as when the Lord supernaturally multiplies Jacob’s descendants (Genesis 28:14; Exodus 1:12) or the flocks and lands of Jacob and of Job (Genesis 30:30, 43; Job 1:10).

Still, the reference is to Perez, and through Boaz and Ruth’s great-grandson, David, we see the beginning of breakthroughs. At last Judah’s hand appears to grip the necks of all his enemies. At Baal Perazim, David exults, “God has broken out against my enemies by my hand” (1 Chronicles 14:11, NIV; emphasis added).

Then the Lord “breaks forth” upon Uzzah. At first David is angry (1 Chronicles 13:11), and afraid (13:12). Later, he finds a solution he can live with: the Levites must carry the ark.

It was because you, the Levites, did not bring it up the first time that the Lord our God broke out in anger against us. We did not inquire of Him about how to do it in the prescribed way. (15:13, NIV)

Surely David is right to acknowledge the holiness of the Lord, but his anguished question — “How can the ark of the Lord ever come to me?” (2 Samuel 6:9, NIV) — signals a shift. He is more like the Philistines, enemies of a holy God, than he had realized. He is not the one who can redeem and make a way. He will experience great victories, but no further breakthroughs. Soon enough, he will reach for Bathsheba, and then command the army to draw back so that Uriah will be killed. The Lord will build him a house (7:11), but the creation of a house in which the holy God can remain forever in fellowship with sinful people must await the coming of a Son of David who will be “a man of peace and rest” (1 Chronicles 22:9, NIV).

Until the birth of this Son, the best that can be hoped for is an ongoing series of defensive actions. Stone by stone, obedient deed by deed, our communal life builds up a wall of righteousness that separates and protects the people of God. The Israelites cannot break through their enemies, but, by repenting and returning to covenant faithfulness, they can at least maintain the wall and the community. Surveying Israel’s princes, priests, prophets, and people, the Lord says, “I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none” (Ezekiel 22:30, RSV). Observe the dual role: the restoration will never be complete, and the godly leader will still need to appeal to God to cover gaping brokenness.

The Lord is especially disappointed with the prophets: “You have not gone up into the breaches, or built up a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord” (Ezekiel 13:5, RSV). The example was set by Israel’s first prophet, following the incident of the golden calf: “Moses, His chosen one, stepped into the breach before Him to turn away His threatening wrath” (Psalm 106:23, Amplified).

David looks forward to a day when “[t]here will be no breaching of walls, no going into captivity” (Psalm 144:14, NIV), but in the Old Testament the walls are always down, signaling “trouble and disgrace” (Nehemiah 1:3, NIV). Solomon repairs breaches (1 Kings 11:27); so does Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:5). Nehemiah stirs the remnant of his generation to close every gap (Nehemiah 6:11), infuriating their enemies (4:7). But every lapse into sin creates new vulnerability: “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls” (Proverbs 25:28, RSV).

Moreover, we are apt to trust anything we build. “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as a high protecting wall in his own imagination and conceit” (Proverbs 18:11, Amplified). The Lord must bring down the high and fortified walls in which we trust (Deuteronomy 28:52; Isaiah 25:12). He dwells with the one who is contrite, bruised, crushed in spirit (Isaiah 57:15) — the one whose walls have been breached, and who now stands in that gap, crying out to God. If we want spiritual breakthrough, we must stand in the gap, in the place where the Lord has already broken through in holy wrath and judgment.

Ultimately, God Himself must mend the broken places: “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old” (Amos 9:11, RSV). Yet He holds out the hope of a holy people who will work with Him as ministers of reconciliation: “. . . you shall be called Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Streets to Dwell In” (Isaiah 58:12, Amplified).

At the same time, there is a very different promise:

One who breaks open the way [Amplified has “The Breaker”] will go up before them;

they will break through the gate and go out.

Their king will pass through before them,

the Lord at their head. (Micah 2:13, NIV)

This at last will be Perez.

Jesus the Champion

“[F]rom the days of John the Baptist until the present time,” Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven has endured violent assault, and violent men seize it by force” (Matthew 11:12, Amplified). What does this mean? Most commentators agree that He is referring to a new and forceful faith. Thus, Marvin Vincent: He is not describing “a class of habitually and characteristically violent men”; rather, “the violence in this case is the result of a special and exceptional impulse.”(7) Sometimes this is misguided, as when the crowd, their stomachs miraculously filled, wish to use force to make Jesus king (John 6:15). But at other times we witness an impressive, dogged persistence, as when four men break through (or scoop out)(8) a roof in order to lower their paralyzed friend to Jesus — so convinced are they that He can heal any affliction (Mark 2:4; compare the single-minded determination of the woman with the issue of blood, who “kept saying” to herself that she would be healed if she touched Jesus, 5:28).(9)

In the parallel account in Luke, Jesus comments that, though people are forcing their way into the kingdom, “It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law” (Luke 16:17, NIV). This sounds as if He is qualifying or even invalidating the radical changes at work. Just here, we must look more closely at His statement that He has come, not to abolish or loosen or destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill (Greek pleroo) them.

In Matthew 9:16-17, Jesus presents two metaphors to elucidate the contrast between life in Him and life under the Law:

1. He is a piece of new cloth, that has never needed to be cleansed by human hands. He has not come to repair the rips in the Law — that was a garment given to cover man’s sin with God’s holiness (Genesis 3:21; Psalm 32:1; Ezekiel 16:8-14), but we have ruined it through continued acts of rebellion (Isaiah 64:6; Zechariah 3:3-4). If Jesus is simply tacked on to the Law, His very fullness (pleroma) will “lift away,” making the tear worse. So, when He dies under the Law, the temple curtain that separates sinful people from the holy God is torn in two (Matthew 27:51). Luke adds that the new and old garments won’t match or agree (5:36), and we see Jesus fulfilling God’s redemptive purpose by becoming, in the Law’s terms, accursed (Galatians 3:12-14) and even unclean or vile (Hebrews 13:11-13).(10)

2. He is new wine, alive with a force that intoxicates as it transforms. This is “wine made from the first drippings of the juice before the winepress was trodden. As such it would be particularly potent.”(11) It must be stored in fresh skins, elastic enough to expand or “breathe” with it; inflexible old skins can’t contain it, and will burst under its power (though men may try to mend them, Joshua 9:4). These skins don’t represent forms and traditions (the Law itself), I believe, but people. This is part of the point of Jesus’ first miracle at Cana, filling people with fresh, heady wine from an inexhaustible supply (John 2:1-11) — and this is the good wine (verse 10).(12) We are the skins that need to be filled and then changed from within, and we can’t give ourselves wholly to this process if we are also striving to conform to a rigid system of rules. The psalmist, focusing on God’s decrees, fears that he is becoming shriveled and dried, unfit for use, “a wineskin in the smoke” (Psalm 119:83). But in the New Testament the skin that bursts is Judas. Although he receives Jesus’ Gospel, something about him remains stiff and unyielding. He is offended at Mary of Bethany’s extravagant display of love for Jesus, when she pours out her heart and her expensive perfume (John 12:3-6; Mark 14:3 tells us that she “broke” the jar).(13) Judas goes to Jesus’ enemies, the chief priests, and conspires to betray Him or hand Him over. Later, he changes his mind or is tormented by remorse (Matthew 27:3)(14) — as the chief priests never are (Matthew 21:32). His suicide is presented by Luke as a “bursting” that spills his entrails or internal organs (Acts 1:18), figurative in the New Testament for the heart or emotions.(15) When some Pharisees charge Jesus with allowing His followers to break or transgress (parabaino) Jewish tradition, He replies that they, in honoring tradition, break or transgress the command of God (Matthew 15:2-3); but Judas breaks or turns aside from his apostolic office (Acts 1:25). A wineskin that resists the love of God, he suffers unbearable pressure and explodes.

Jesus does not come to break even a bruised reed (Matthew 12:20). He doesn’t destroy the Law: the temple isn’t torn in two when He dies, but only one symbolic barrier within it. It’s true that the Law can’t contain Him or define Him, even as the nets tear asunder before the immense catch of fish (Luke 5:6), and even as chains fall (Acts 12:7) and “loose” (Acts 16:26) from His apostles. But, though He and we have died to the Law (Romans 7:4; Galatians 2:19), He leaves it in place to convict, warn, instruct, and testify.

His “breakthrough” power is directed rather at the separations made by sin. The heavens are torn open when Jesus is baptized (Mark 1:10), and the Holy Spirit descends — both signs of a restoration of intimacy and communication. When Jesus dies, the earth shakes, rocks are split, and graves open (Matthew 27:51). He rises “because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him” (Acts 2:24, NIV). In the Exsultet, an ancient part of the Easter liturgy, believers rejoice because Christ has “burst the bonds of death.” And He is the “Breaker” who opens a way (Micah 2:13) by smashing the proud illusion of a life of perfect righteousness. We follow Him by going where there are no walls, bearing the shame of admitting that we are unrighteous (Hebrews 13:12-13) and our guilt is uncovered (Genesis 44:16).

Breaking through, the last Perez redeems and makes a way for Zerah. Steeped in the Old Testament, we can appreciate the breathtaking grace of Jesus’ invitation: “Stretch out your hand” (Mark 3:5). Where there is weakness, hesitancy, and paralysis, He restores reach and grip. When we, like Zerah, grow weak and falter, He strengthens us so that we do not “draw back,” draw in, contract (Hebrews 10:38-39).(16) And when, like Uzzah, we overreach, He gently corrects, guiding us toward faith (Martha in Luke 10:38-42 and John 11:20-27). He places a ring of authority on our finger (Luke 15:22); He equips our hands to bless, pray, ordain, heal, lift others’ burdens, and work. He only cautions that we should not be hasty in reinstating and ordaining (1 Timothy 5:22, Amplified).

He is the living ark of God’s testimony, covenant, and might. In Him are found the bread of life, priestly authority, and all that God requires of us (Hebrews 9:4). He is the atoning cover, the seat of mercy, where the cherubim-attended God is enthroned in all His fullness to dwell with us. And He has broken through: having taken away our sins, He brings the Presence outside the temple walls, to mingle with all who have faith.

Under the Law, sin is stronger than holiness. The Lord even sends His prophet to confirm this with the priests: a holy thing consecrates only what it touches directly, but an unclean thing defiles anything it touches and also whatever that touches (Haggai 2:11-14). And so, by all the expectations of the Old Testament, contact between Jesus and a leper should render Him unclean till evening. Instead, so great is the power of holiness in Him, over and over He cleanses skin and heart, releasing praise. The Law warns us back with “Do not handle! . . . Do not touch!” (Colossians 2:21), but Jesus invites our touch (Luke 24:39).

How do we receive breakthrough? We stop striving in our own strength, acknowledge our unrighteousness, and then stretch out the empty, ribboned hand of faith to persist in knocking (Matthew 7:7-8). We stand, with our Lord, in the gap, for that is where breakthroughs occur. And breakthrough has come already, decisively, in Jesus; as John exults, “our hands have touched . . . the Word of life” (1 John 1:1, NIV). Graciously, He continues to draw near, and to dwell with us, as we lift up His name.

(1) J.D. Douglas, “Kiriath-Jearim,” in J.D. Douglas, ed., The New Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962, 1975), 701.

(2) D.J. Wiseman, “Cart, Wagon,” New Bible Dictionary, 201, with illustrations. The 13th-century Crusader Bible has illustrations juxtaposing these two “breaking out” events on the same page, Folio 39r; see http://www.themorgan.org/collection/crusader-bible/77.

(3) Just as there are two breakthroughs in 2 Samuel 5-6, one exhilarating and one terrifying, so it is with fire coming out “from the presence of the Lord” in Leviticus 9-10: in the first case consuming a burnt offering and provoking joy and awe; in the second case consuming Nadab and Abihu. This juxtaposition is noted by Jerome M. Segal, Joseph’s Bones: Understanding the Struggle Between God and Mankind in the Bible (New York: Riverhead-Penguin, 2007), 175.

(4) Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 280; K.A. Kitchen, “Zerah,” New Bible Dictionary, 1359.

(5) See Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984, 1996), Old Testament section, 95: yasa’ is a common Old Testament word, but can signify deliverance out of Egypt (Exodus 13:3) or into a spacious place (2 Samuel 22:20).

(6) We also see Joseph and Judah standing together in the account of Moses’ 12 spies. Only Joshua (a descendant of Joseph) and Caleb (from Judah) believe that the way is open into the land of promise, because the Lord has removed the Canaanites’ protection (Numbers 13:6, 8; 14:6-9).

(7) Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 2nd ed., 1888 [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, n.d.], 1:64; emphasis in original.

(8) Vincent, 1:170.

(9) Vincent, 1:190.

(10) In Luke, it is the new garment that is torn — which of course is what happened to Jesus, His body torn to uphold or patch the Law.

(11) F.S. Fitzsimmonds, “Wine and Strong Drink,” New Bible Dictionary, 1331.

(12) Some of our translations (e.g., KJV, NIV) have Jesus saying in Luke 5:39 that no one who has tasted the old wine wants the new because they pronounce the old “better.” But the best texts have “good” (Vincent, 1:305). Jesus is not talking about a careful judgment but a biased preference for what is familiar. A knowledgeable and impartial connoisseur, like the master of the wedding feast at Cana, will always acknowledge the superiority of the wine only Jesus can provide.

(13) There is a matter of degree here; we read in Matthew 26:8 that all the disciples are indignant at an action they perceive as wasteful or destructive. Jesus stretches all of us.

(14) Vincent, 1:116-17.

(15) William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 4th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1952, 1957), 770.

(16) On hupesteilamen, see Vincent, 1:560.

The Idol of Serenity

I sometimes attend Al-Anon meetings. I’m grateful for them; the regulars are much better people than I am, and they work hard at cultivating spirituality and serving others, sometimes in the midst of very difficult situations. But they sure talk a lot about serenity.

The word “serenity” describes an emotional state, or a state so calm and composed that it has been drained of emotion. (The Greek root means “dry.”)(1) This is considerably narrower than “peace,” particularly Biblical peace (Hebrew shalom, Greek eirene), which signifies inner and outer wholeness, harmony, health, rest, reconciliation, and even salvation and prosperity.(2) The opposite of serenity is stormy weather or emotions, but the opposite of peace is nothing less than death.

When I first showed up at Al-Anon, I lacked both peace and serenity. In key relationships I tended to be frantic, agitated, controlling, and — ugliest of all — manipulative. I am a Christian, and I knew very well that the fruit of the Spirit in every believer’s life should include not only peace but patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). It must be some root of unbelief that causes me, when the going gets rough, to fail to walk by the Spirit and to fall back on legalistic thinking and strivings out of the flesh.

Al-Anon encourages new habits of mind and spirit. Acknowledge that I am powerless to change others; detach myself from chaos, and set boundaries; focus my attention and effort on my own defects of character. There is wisdom, strategic wisdom, in these disciplines. They are better by far than my old habits, especially the impulse to fix, and the fear that shouts that there isn’t time to wait on God. I once had a history of healing others’ wounds “lightly and neglectfully” (Jeremiah 6:14, Amplified). Now I mostly content myself with pointing others to the Physician, or to the hospital.

Yet when I join in praying for serenity, or listen as others speak of preserving it, I am often at a loss. Is this really something I should aim for? Or does the Bible in fact present “a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31, KJV)?

Let me emphasize at the outset that my purpose is not to tear down Al-Anon, but to try to think and pray and live Biblically. I shall close this essay with responses from some in the program.

A Grieving Spirit

It was, I like to imagine, a beautiful afternoon in Jerusalem, and everyone else was having a good day. The Passover crowds might be annoying, the Roman presence galling, and the prices of sacrificial animals exorbitant, but people were glad to be in the house of God. Like the disciples, they marveled at the stately and impressive buildings (Mark 13:1). Indeed, only one man was deeply upset. Jesus turned over tables, drove out buyers and sellers, and disrupted even the transportation of merchandise (Mark 11:15-17). On that day, He had less serenity than almost anyone else in the city. His disciples later described His spiritual state as a consuming “zeal,” or jealousy for the honor of God (John 2:17).(3)

Similarly, when Paul had some downtime in Athens, he didn’t carefully cobble together a sightseeing itinerary that would keep him in unruffled calm. Rather, “his spirit was grieved and roused to anger as he saw that the city was full of idols” (Acts 17:16, Amplified). The Greek verb paroxuno, the root of our English word “paroxysm,” suggests a sharp, convulsive, visceral reaction.

Now set these responses alongside the options presented in the Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference. (4)

Jesus did not, in fact, put an immediate end to the temple trade in currency and animals, nor did Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill make much of a dent in Greek idolatry. On the prayer’s terms, it would appear that they lacked wisdom, since they gave up their personal serenity without bringing about any change. The better course would have been to admit that they were powerless over great spiritual and social evils. “There’s wisdom — and serenity — in accepting what can’t be otherwise. We can only be responsible for ourselves.”(5)

There is a logical fallacy here. To permit myself to be disturbed and affronted by evil need not entail that I take responsibility for it, nor that I commit myself to changing it — not if I believe in a sovereign God. It requires only that I cry out to Him.

One man who recognized this was Bob Pierce (1914-1978). Shaken by the poverty of mothers and children in Asia after World War II, he wrote on the flyleaf of his Bible what might be called an anti-serenity prayer: “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”

Pierce wasn’t a Bill Gates, wondering what to do with his extra billions, or a Jimmy Carter, accustomed to power and familiar with world leaders. He was just an evangelist, an ordinary guy, powerless over geopolitical forces, natural disasters, entrenched poverty, mass starvation. Yet he went on to found the aid organizations World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse. At great cost to his family and himself, he did without serenity, acknowledging that he had “become a part of the suffering.” A journalist described him as “one of the few naturally, uncontrollably honest men I have ever met.”(6)

Which is the better prayer, to ask for courage to change only what one can, and power serenely to detach from the rest? Or to lay serenity on the altar, and make oneself available to the consuming zeal, compassion, and love of a God who is never powerless, but who may work slowly, and begin with groanings?

It isn’t our ability to change things that counts with God. Ezekiel, himself powerless and in exile, is shown that those people in Jerusalem who “grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done” in the city will be spared in the coming judgment (Ezekiel 9:4, NIV). Lot was ineffectual against all the wickedness of Sodom, and a poor father to boot (Genesis 19), yet he is remembered as “a righteous man . . . tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard” (2 Peter 2:8, NIV). There is neither serenity nor detachment for those who serve the God who pours out “a spirit of grace and supplication” (Zechariah 12:10), whose priests are called to weep between porch and altar, rending their hearts and crying out that He might spare His people (Joel 2:13-17). Jesus commends those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6), who cry out to God day and night for justice (Luke 18:7).

Redemptive Metaphors

Prayers rise out of situations, and perceptions of situations. Today one metaphor has gained wide acceptance as depicting what we need above all:

 In Al-Anon we learn to put “First Things First.” Just as airline passengers are instructed to put on their own oxygen masks before helping their children or fellow passengers with theirs, we must learn to attend to our own well-being first. We owe it to ourselves to give ourselves the love, care, and attention we need and deserve, even if the needs of others sometimes have to wait. (7)

This metaphor serves to crystallize and even to justify a whole ethic of self-care. But is it, in fact, self-evident? A person who lives with an alcoholic or an addict may feel as if he or she is hurtling through space, trapped in a cabin from which the air has been sucked out. Most of us, though, most of the time, face circumstances that are not this dire. We at least have room to breathe.

Before the age of air travel, a popular metaphor for a disastrous and out-of-control situation was the shipwreck, and it bred a very different ethic. The limit lay not in one’s strength and stamina, but in external factors: time and lifeboats. Adult males were enjoined to place gallantry ahead of self-care, and to say, “Women and children first.”(8)

A still older metaphor is more Biblical: it suggests that we are bound together indissolubly. Moses didn’t want to find his name in the Lord’s book of life unless it was accompanied by the names of all the Israelites (Exodus 32:32). Paul said the same (Romans 9:3), and explained why, writing to one of his most difficult congregations, “you are (nested) in our hearts, . . . whether we die or live, it will be together” (2 Corinthians 7:3, Amplified).

Here there is identification with no thought of detachment, and sacrifice rather than serenity or self-care. We are not seated side by side on a damaged airplane; we are members of one body, with Christ as our head.

This is not to deny that separations occur or that boundaries and a measure of detachment are often necessary.(9) But these are not our resting-place, nor do we particularly pray for them. We seek the place where we may “spend and be spent” (2 Corinthians 12:15), “poured out like a drink offering” (2 Timothy 4:6, NIV).

I have no wish to return to frantic overinvolvement, yet I feel called to something more than self-care. Perhaps many of us, like Moses, begin by being too engaged, too identified, too sure of our power to save. Situations blow up in our faces, and we end up in the wilderness, watching sheep mostly fend for themselves. It is reasonably comfortable there, and we are afraid even to contemplate the resumption of efforts to change a church and a community. But God has other plans.

How Shall We Pray?

Should we pray for serenity? We can and must commit our emotional pain to God, but it seems to me that He does not so much dispel it as make it bearable. Serenity is more characteristic of other religions, as John Stott observed:

 In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. (10)

At the cross, as we contemplate Jesus, we exchange all hope of serenity for submission to the redemptive will of God. We pray, as Jesus did, “Thy will be done.”

Do we even pray for peace? In the Latin Mass, the petition Dona nobis pacem (“Grant us peace”) is part of the Agnus Dei; it has been set to music by some of the great composers. But in the prayers of the Bible, it is surprising to find how rarely peace is mentioned. A rare exception is 2 Thessalonians 3:16:

 Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you. (NIV)

Even this statement (like Numbers 6:26) is as much a blessing or benediction as a prayer, and it indicates why we need not plead for peace: When Jesus is present, His peace naturally fills the room and our hearts (John 20:19, 21, 26; 14:27). So Paul can say, more simply, “The God of peace be with you all” (Romans 15:33).

It cannot be wrong to pray for the growth in us of peace as one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).(11) But we must remember that this is shalom peace, not some “personal” emotional state. God’s peace comes to transform and sanctify (1 Thessalonians 5:23), to rule in the hearts of an entire congregation and unite us in obedience (Colossians 3:15). The prayer attributed to Francis of Assisi, “Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace,” is better aligned with these realities than the simpler “Grant us peace.”

Lastly, from an earlier post on Biblical peace, I reiterate that it comes when we focus not on peace but on God Himself: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3, NKJV; compare Romans 15:13).

Al-Anon Responds

When I shared a synopsis of these concerns at an Al-Anon meeting, I heard a number of thoughtful responses. One was that we don’t simply detach from the difficult people in our lives; rather, we aim at “detachment with love.” The love means that we remain connected, working toward compassion.

A couple of people said that they don’t view serenity as a goal. One commented that we pray for “serenity to accept,” and suggested that the emphasis falls on acceptance. This is supported by one version of the Serenity Prayer, asking for “grace to accept with serenity the things I cannot change”; here, the object of our prayer is neither serenity nor acceptance, but grace.(12)

Perhaps, then, this is a tempest in a teapot; we are all seeking the same mercies, and I just lack the wisdom to discern the similarities. Privately, I normally pray the Lord’s Prayer; its petitions for daily bread, a practice of forgiveness, and deliverance from every temptation seem to me to sum up the basic relational needs of dependence on God as provider, committed love, and boundaries. But when I elaborate on relationships, my prayer is this:

 Lord, pour out the love of Jesus through me toward each creature I meet today. Give me His eyes of hope, to see them as one day complete in Christ. Release in me the groanings, cries, and words of His faith, committing both myself and them to Your care, submitting us to Your will, desiring above all else for us the grace of Your presence, now and always. Amen.

(1) Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA.: G. & C. Merriam, 1971).

(2) See, e.g., Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984, 1996), Old Testament section, 173-74, New Testament section, 464.

(3) Because John places the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, while the synoptic gospels set it within Passion week, some scholars conclude that there were two cleansings. It seems more likely to me that John has altered the sequence of events in order to juxtapose this incident with Jesus’ first miracle, changing water to wine at the Cana wedding feast. For the sake of all who wonder why God would multiply wine, John suggests that every one of Jesus’ miracles both reveals divine glory (2:11) and upholds divine honor. So we encounter the God of life-sustaining abundance side by side with the God of life-stilling holiness. But this is, of course, conjectural.

(4) See, e.g., How Al-Anon Works for Families & Friends of Alcoholics (Virginia Beach, VA.: Al-Anon Family Groups, 1995, 2008), 79.

(5) Discovering Choices: Recovery in Relationships (Virginia Beach, VA.: Al-Anon Family Groups, 2008), 150.

(6) Tim Stafford, “Imperfect Instrument: World Vision’s Founder Led a Tragic and Inspiring Life,” Christianity Today, Feb. 24, 2005, available at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/march/19.56.html; Steven Gertz, “Tsunami Catastrophe: ‘Let My Heart Be Broken . . .,’” Christian History, 2005, available at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2005/jan27.html. Quotations are from the Stafford article, only part of which may be viewed online by nonsubscribers.

(7) How Al-Anon Works, 87. A quick search turns up two books entitled Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First.

(8) Among others, the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody embraced this metaphor, stating in 1877, “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a lifeboat and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can.’” See William G. McLoughlin, Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham (1959; Eugene, OR.: Wipf and Stock, 2004), 257.

(9) In Matthew 7:3-5, Jesus does urge us to step back temporarily from “helping” others, not to put on oxygen masks, but to attend to our blind spots; not to give ourselves the love we deserve, but to recognize that we ourselves are hypocrites who cannot see and judge clearly.

(10) John R.W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (1986; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 326-27.

(11) In fact, the serenity I need is often not peace but another fruit of the Spirit, patience, as Thomas a Kempis recognizes: “Those things that a man can not amend in himself or in others, he ought to suffer patiently, until God orders things otherwise” (The Imitation of Christ I.16.1 [ca. 1471], ed, Paul M. Bechtel, Moody Classics [Chicago: Moody, 1980, 2007], 62).

(12) See Fred R. Shapiro, “Who Wrote the Serenity Prayer?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Apr. 28, 2014, available at http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Wrote-the-Serenity-Prayer-/146159/. This essay makes a convincing case that the prayer was composed by Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, though the “grace” wording seems to have been one of his late revisions. Shapiro prefers a version in which Niebuhr asks for courage before serenity, but here my sympathies lie with Al-Anon: when one lives with chaos, one is all too apt to be bold and hasty, reaching out to steady the ark. A good argument can also be made that the Serenity Prayer is closer to Stoicism than Christianity in its essential division of phenomena into two classes, things in our power and things not in our power; see, e.g., W.R. Dynes, “Origins of the Serenity Prayer,” Nov. 10, 2005, Dyneslines, http://dyneslines.blogspot.com/2005/11/origins-of-serenity-prayer.html.

When Pain Prays

In Romans 8, Paul talks about our struggles in prayer. The Amplified Version says: “the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness, for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance” (8:26).

Just before this, Paul has said that the whole creation groans, in hope and frustration, because of the Fall (verse 22), and that we “groan inwardly” because we’re weighed down by the heaviness and bondage of life in these bodies (verse 23; 2 Corinthians 5:2, 4).

So there’s a kind of prayer that’s inarticulate, wordless. It puts us in a position of weakness, but it also connects us with all of creation. And the Spirit Himself meets us and moves in us with groanings.

The best-known example in Scripture occurs when the Israelites are slaves in Egypt. We read, “The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and He remembered His covenant . . .” (Exodus 2:23-24, NIV). The Lord says to Moses, “I have heard the groaning of the Israelites” (6:5, NIV; Acts 7:34). They may not have the strength or even the faith to pray, but it doesn’t matter. God hears their groaning, and counts it as a prayer. It’s as if, sometimes, faith begins as pain.

Later, throughout the period of the judges in Israel, “the Lord had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them” (Judges 2:18, NIV). In the Psalms, we read, “‘Because of the oppression of the weak and the groanings of the needy, I will now arise,’ says the Lord” (12:5, NIV) and “The Lord looked down from His sanctuary on high . . . to hear the groans of the prisoners” (102:19-20, NIV). And Jesus Himself, on one occasion when He heals a deaf man, looks up to heaven and sighs or groans before saying, “Be opened” (Mark 7:34; compare 8:12).

In addition to groaning, there is crying — both tears and calling out, not words but a loud cry of pain. God hears Abel’s blood crying from the ground (Genesis 4:10), and the outcry against the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (18:20-21; 19:13). When Hagar and Ishmael wander in the desert and run out of water, and Hagar gives up, the angel of the Lord says, “God has heard the boy crying” (21:17, NIV) — not an eloquent prayer, but wailing. The psalmist says, “He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help” (72:12, NIV; compare Exodus 22:23, 27). The Lord raises up a king because, He says to Samuel, “I have looked upon My people, for their cry has reached Me” (1 Samuel 9:16, NIV). David testifies, “. . . the Lord has heard my weeping” (Psalm 6:8, NIV), and believes that the Lord prizes his tears, storing them up in a bottle (56:8). Even Jesus, we are told, while He was on earth, offered prayers “with strong crying and tears” (Hebrews 5:7, Amplified).

There is a balance here. When the disciples come to Jesus and say, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1, NIV), He doesn’t tell them to lie down and groan, or to start crying. He gives them the Lord’s Prayer; He teaches them words and attitudes. Paul says, “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind” (1 Corinthians 14:15, NIV); Jesus instructs our minds. And yet, even with the Lord’s Prayer, as Paul says, we don’t know how to pray as we ought.

I suggest that there are times when something is being birthed in us, and we have no words, but we are interceding. When Nehemiah, far away in exile in Susa, heard about the miserable and ruined condition of Jerusalem, he says, “I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven” (1:4, NIV). From the dates that he gives, we know that this period of “some days” was four months long, roughly from November to March. At the end of it, he prays an eloquent prayer, in which he says, “Today, give me favor with the king” (verse 11). So he’s praying for four months, but, so far as we know, it’s only on the last day that he has any words. What does he pray with until then? Tears. Groans. Cries. Pain.

It’s often pointed out that the Book of Esther never refers to God, but the Jews — like Nehemiah — mourn and weep and fast (Esther 4:3). Only the fourth verb is different: where Nehemiah prays, Esther’s earlier contemporaries wail. Perhaps they lack the faith to pray, and perhaps their deliverance is one source of Nehemiah’s faith.

To be sure, not all pain is counted as prayer. The Lord warns some that they will cry out to Him and not be heard: His enemies (Psalm 18:41), those who rebel against His word (Deuteronomy 1:45) and break His covenant (Jeremiah 11:11; 1 Samuel 8:18), and wicked oppressors (Micah 3:4). He especially hears the righteous (Psalm 34:15, 17). In the Book of Job, it is axiomatic that He will not listen to the cry of the godless or the wicked (27:8-9; 35:12-13). Yet there is a sincere repentance that creates an exception (Hosea 8:2-3; 7:14): the Lord hears the entreaty of wicked King Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33:33) as well as the weeping of good King Josiah (34:27). Always, we are brought back to Daniel 9:18: “We do not make requests of You because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy” (NIV).

Throughout the Old Testament, there is an uncertainty — a sense, sometimes aggrieved and sometimes despairing, that one’s groanings and cries and tears have so far fallen on deaf ears (Job 23:2; 24:12; Psalm 6:6; 102:5; Jeremiah 45:3; Lamentations 1:21; 3:8). In the New Testament, this is transformed, because Jesus hangs on the cross and is not delivered. His pain is redemptive, and believers’ pain is so much His that we can be said to “fill up” or “complete” His afflictions (Colossians 1:24). Some, at least, are granted “the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings” (Philippians 3:10, NIV). Surely this number includes not only eloquent martyrs but many hidden “little ones” who groan with the pain of all creation.

I am brought to these reflections, in part, by observing my wife’s experiences following a stroke and severe aphasia. During her weeks in hospital, I often felt that my prayers were ineffective as I stumbled through the day. Not so with hers. Though she lacked all words at first, her complaints seemed to be a cry in the ear of God. For some time she was consumed by her own pain, but gradually she took in those around her. On good days we might visit another wordless patient, and they would embrace and weep together and hold hands. Then my wife would beckon to me to pray, and I would add words, declaring again the great and precious promises of God. But all the while I suspected that the words I prayed, like those we preach, are more obedient “foolishness” than persuasion (1 Corinthians 1:21), and that the real work of prayer lay in the loving, hopeful pain-sharing.

We love to quote the words of the Lord in Isaiah 57:15: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite [Hebrew dakka: contrite, crushed, pulverized, shattered, broken](1) and lowly in spirit” (NIV). But how does He dwell in such a vessel? Frequently, as pain.

We are not heard for our perfect words, or our many tears, or our deep groans. We are heard because God listens, and because He Himself stirs even our yearnings and cries. So we don’t give up; we say with David, “All my longings lie open before You, O Lord; my sighing [or “groaning”] is not hidden from You” (Psalm 38:9, NIV). And Isaiah assures us: “the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. . . . How gracious He will be when you cry for help! As soon as He hears, He will answer you” (30:18-19, NIV).

(1) Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 193-94.

Jonathan Haidt and the Possibility of Moral Instruction

In The Righteous Mind (2012) and The Happiness Hypothesis (2006),(1) social psychologist Jonathan Haidt goes to the heart of today’s polarized, profoundly unsatisfying disputes over right and wrong, justice, and fairness. He argues that we become so obstinate and so heated because none of us possesses a reasoned morality. Rather, we take up intuitive positions, and only then does our reason come in, to justify and defend our gut commitments.

Haidt proposes six foundational moral intuitions: care, liberty, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. In The Righteous Mind, he suggests that each of these evolved in response to a particular adaptive challenge facing human social groups. In this review, I focus almost entirely on his discussion of the sixth foundation, sanctity.

A Reductive View of Religion

First, it should be said that Haidt extends a rather large olive branch to religious people. Although he describes himself as “a Jewish atheist” (HH 183), he contends (against such New Atheists as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins) that religions have been adaptive — for groups, not individuals, increasing trustworthiness and cooperation (RM 255-73). Religions may be primitive “moral exoskeletons” (RM 269), but it’s not yet clear that societies can thrive without them.

This qualified acceptance of religion slips a bit when Haidt considers origins. He acknowledges that such an undertaking is more speculation than science:

I didn’t want to make the classic mistake of amateur evolutionary theorists, which is to pick a trait and then ask: “Can I think of a story about how this trait might once have been adaptive?” The answer to that question is almost always yes because reasoning can take you wherever you want to go. (RM 122)

Yet to understand sanctity and religion, Haidt starts with the emotion of disgust; then, groping in the opposite direction, he discovers a vague “uplift” or “elevation” (HH 185-199; RM 13, 146-53), which he equates with agape love and the Holy Spirit (HH 199). Add in vastness and beauty, and one can even speak of “awe” and “transcendence” (HH 200-06; RM 227-28), emotions illustrated in both books by quotations from Emerson and Darwin responding to nature.

This is a good try, and a well-intentioned one, but I suspect that any religious person must feel let down by so thin an account of religious experience. Scientists are inclined to believe that the most economical explanation of any phenomenon must be the best one. If you come home and find your windows broken, it makes sense to think first of vandalism. But if you don’t find any brickbats, you might at least consider the possibility of an earthquake — especially if there are old records of a fault line running through the neighborhood.

Is any other account of religion possible for the scientist or social scientist? It is if we look back to an old but influential book. In The Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto finds at the core of religious experience a Presence that he calls “the numinous.” It is felt as awful and overpoweringly majestic, raising in us the consciousness that we are but creatures; at the same time, it is attractive and fascinating, desired and sought for its own sake. (2). Primitive religion does make much of disgust, loathing, uncleanness, and impurity (122-24), but, says Otto, these of themselves could never give rise to religion and the sacred; rather, they can only be explained on the basis of the numinous (124, 132-35). The daunting aspect of the numinous becomes moralized as justice (Haidt’s “liberty” and “fairness”), and the alluring aspect as love (Haidt’s “care”) (140).

We can see this, at times, when the Bible speaks of what is loathsome and impure. It is after the Lord speaks out of the whirlwind that Job says, “I am of small account and vile” (Job 40:4, Amplified; Hebrew qalal: light, trifling, contemptible, cursed) (3) and, later, “I despise [Hebrew maas] myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:6, NIV). Isaiah wishes that the Lord would come down to earth as long ago, blazing like fire, doing awesome deeds, making mountains and nations tremble (Isaiah 64:1-3). But His present anger is worse; He hides His face.

How then can we be saved?
All of us have become like one who is unclean [Hebrew tame],
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away. (Isaiah 64:5-6, NIV)

There is an echo here of Isaiah 6:5, when the prophet has seen the holy Lord:

Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone and ruined [Hebrew damah: also destroyed, cut off], (4) because I am a man of unclean [Hebrew tame] lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean [Hebrew tame] lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! (Amplified)

Sanctity does not begin with feelings of disgust and repugnance, which by reaction find their way to uplift and elevation. Rather, sanctity appears whenever the Holy makes itself known, and the disgust that (among many other emotions) results is first of all a revulsion at aspects of oneself.

I am not sure whether there is anything “adaptive” about so shattering an encounter. But it lies at the root of all religion and all specifically religious morality. Haidt is convinced that psychology can improve on ancient wisdom (HH xi, xiii, 109), but, without the Holy, all of us — social scientists or not — are like the prisoners in Plato’s Cave, (5) gazing at shadows. Job and Isaiah have seen the Sun.

On Learning and Teaching Morality

Still, Haidt has much to teach religious people, particularly in his insistence that morality has a non-rational basis in our intuitions. We know too well the frustration of being drawn into arguments over choices and behaviors, self-evidently wrong to us, but just as self-evidently right or neutral to others. Reason and persuasion can accomplish little, and these exchanges usually end with the religious people calling their neighbors immoral (or worse), and the neighbors calling the religious people close-minded and intolerant (or worse).

Haidt argues that these divisions persist because of different orientations toward the foundational moral intuitions. Conservatives value all six more or less equally, but liberals emphasize care and liberty, while libertarians build almost exclusively on liberty (RM 295-309).

Can’t we change? Can’t we listen to and learn from one another? In The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt takes the position that one must change one’s “repertoire of available thoughts” — and that willpower won’t accomplish this. He discusses three effective methods: meditation, which can “change automatic thought processes”; cognitive therapy, Aaron Beck’s deliberate challenging of negative thoughts; and Prozac, which works rather mysteriously to transform personalities (35-44). In The Righteous Mind, he takes a different approach, acknowledging that other people influence us and cause us to change our intuitions and judgments, both through reasoning (which may trigger new intuitions for us) and simply by expressing their preferences. Private reflection, my ability to change my own judgments, he believes to have a much lower success rate (46-49).

This is a big shift in books written six years apart, and Haidt doesn’t account for it. But even his later view offers little support for traditional moral instruction. Our moral intuitions and judgments, he says, are not shaped or changed by lectures on moral principles, nor by stories of virtue rewarded and vice punished, nor even — more surprisingly — by role models and good examples. There must be interaction, a dialogue; it is another’s response to my intuitions that has the power to challenge and change me.

I submit that there is some truth in this, truth that churches and Christians should not ignore. By and large, we do not succeed in persuading others through our moral reasoning. The lives we intend as exemplary strike others as priggish and self-righteous, lived inside a sanctimonious bubble. We are much better at lecturing than at listening and responding. We are not regarded as wise, but as inflexible.

If we devoted ourselves to the pursuit of Biblical wisdom, it might change us, both in some ways that Haidt discusses and in some that are not on his radar at all. Here, I will touch on five aspects of Biblical wisdom.

1. The Fear of God

Again and again, the Bible emphasizes a theme stated most memorably in Proverbs 9:10: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (RSV).(6)

When we read this verse, we tend to interpret “fear” as “reverence,” but we run the risk of diluting the Biblical meaning. Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1971) defines “reverence” as “profound adoring awed respect,” but the fact remains that I can revere Shakespeare. The fear of God comes closer to Otto’s sense of creature-consciousness in the face of overwhelming majesty. In the Presence of the Holy One, I am not merely hushed and respectful; I am shaken and very nearly annihilated.

This fear does not lead directly or logically to a set of moral principles and behaviors. In Scripture, it is only because God Almighty chooses to make His ways known that we have commandments and statutes; apart from this, we are left dependent on the moment-by-moment revelation of His will, and might like Abraham be called to sacrifice a child (Genesis 22). Initially, the Presence of the Holy One has a wholly negative force, morally speaking: it stops us in our tracks.

We see this in the account of a pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It begins when he has a dream that terrifies him (Daniel 4:5): a “holy one” warns that he will be stripped, scattered, his mind changed “so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone He wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men” (4:17, NIV). The prophet Daniel, who is also terrified by the dream (4:19), urges the king to respond with a thorough reformation in moral behavior: “break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your tranquility” (4:27, RSV).

We are not told whether Nebuchadnezzar pays any heed to these words. But 12 months later, the warning is fulfilled when he privately claims for himself the glory that belongs to God. He endures a period of helpless madness. When his sanity is abruptly restored,

I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified Him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; . . . All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases . . . Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of Heaven, because everything He does is right and all His ways are just. And those who walk in pride He is able to humble. (4:34-35, 37, NIV)

The story ends here. It is complete with the acknowledgment, the heartfelt surrender before the Most High. It doesn’t require (what we so often insist upon) a consequent, Ebenezer-Scrooge-like life of good works. So too, in Psalm 49, the “words of wisdom” that “give understanding” (verse 3) are largely a recognition that all men must die: something to halt us, not to direct our steps.

2. The Problem of Holiness

Fear stops us cold; then it wants to move in, set up shop in our lives. The problem at the center of Israel’s calling is first presented to Moses as a living riddle. How can a bush — dry and wooden, considered little more than fuel — burn and not be consumed? (Exodus 3:2). Even so, how can the incandescently holy God dwell in the midst of people — frail and fallen, bent on sinning, mortal as dust — and not destroy them? In times of judgment, this is the cry of every heart: “He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire that consumes everything around it” (Lamentations 2:3, NIV). “Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire?” (Isaiah 33:14, NIV).

After the incident of the golden calf, the Lord offers Moses and the Israelites a strange proposition: He will send an angel to guide them into the promised land, and He will drive out every rival; “but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you” (Exodus 33:3, RSV). It is the one safe course, and yet the people mourn, and Moses pleads, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here,” from the wilderness (33:15, NIV). This is the attractive quality of the Holy One. Even when Moses and all his generation except for two men do in fact die, “consumed by Your anger” (Psalm 90:7, NIV), he doesn’t regret the decision; looking back over their walk with the Lord, he exclaims, “Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?” (Deuteronomy 4:32, NIV).

This is the paradox of knowing, grounded in the One who is real, and of being so known as to be almost obliterated. His servants “delight in the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:3, NIV; compare Nehemiah 1:11; Psalm 112:1). Even rebellious kings are enjoined, “Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling” (Psalm 2:11, NIV), for His Presence is “fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).

Our fear of the Lord extends to His words (Psalm 119:120) — not rules taught by men (Isaiah 29:13), but whatever declares His ways, helping us to hate and shun evil (Proverbs 8:13; 3:7; Job 1:1, 8), the wildness that seeks to live apart from Him. So our fear deepens because He is Just (Job 37:23-24), because He is forgiving (Psalm 130:4), because He keeps promises (Psalm 119:38), because He is not arbitrary and implacable. Fear leads to trust (Exodus 14:31; Psalm 115:11).

Of course the burning bush points to Jesus, in whom “all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9, NIV). The blazing fire in Him illumines and heals instead of destroying, and cannot be quenched even by death. The news of His rising awakens “fear and great joy” (Matthew 28:8). The New Testament, no less than the Old, is permeated with the fear of God (e.g., Acts 9:31; 2 Corinthians 5:11; 7:1; 1 Peter 1:17). It is not a fear of punishment (1 John 4:18) — any more than, as Satan charged, it is a self-seeking servility (Job 1:9) — but it continues to tremble at His word (Philippians 2:12; Ephesians 6:5).

Truly to fear Him requires a changed heart: “. . . give me an undivided heart that I may fear Your name” (Psalm 86:11, NIV; compare Jeremiah 32:29). This leads to a thoroughgoing transformation, summed up in the calling, “You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2, RSV; compare 20:7; 1 Peter 1:15-16). We may even become fearsome to animals (Genesis 9:2) and to others (Genesis 35:5; Psalm 105:38; Deuteronomy 2:25; Esther 8:17).

3. The Wisdom from Above

Nebuchadnezzar goes out of his mind, while Moses, because of a hissy fit, is denied entry to the promised land; yet both affirm, not merely that the Most High God has the right to do what He pleases, but that what He does is right:

He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He. (Deuteronomy 32:4, NIV)

Over time, those who know God come to see that, though His ways frequently astonish, ultimately they are good. He binds Himself to His creation, keeps promises, shows steadfast love. So, in the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom personified speaks as His first creation, the foundation of all that He has made and done:

The Lord created me at the beginning of His work, the first of His acts of old. . . . I was beside Him, like a master workman; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always, rejoicing in His inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men. (8:22, 30-31, RSV)

The words of God come with power, “making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7; compare 119:98-99). In its opening invitation, the Book of Proverbs expands upon these benefits: wisdom brings prudence, discretion, discernment, a disciplined life, and power to do “what is right and just and fair” (1:2-6, NIV). But the first step is one of correction; Wisdom says, “If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you . . .” (1:23, NIV).

Who wouldn’t want to be the confidant of God? Always, though, this comes at a steep price. No less than Nebuchadnezzar, we must turn from madness and surrender our lives. Throughout Scripture, God the Holy One confounds all human wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:19-20, quoting Isaiah 29:14; compare 1 Corinthians 3:18-20). No one is more to be pitied than the man “wise in his own eyes” (Proverbs 26:12). When Jesus rejoices that the Father has hidden the truths of salvation “from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children” (Luke 10:21; Matthew 11:25, NIV), He is fleshing out Proverbs 11:2: “with humility comes wisdom” (NIV).

If humility invites wisdom, wisdom produces further humility (James 3:13). James offers a stark contrast between a so-called wisdom that is earthly and even demonic, characterized by jealous desire and ambitious self-promotion, and the heavenly wisdom that “is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, fully of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (James 3:14-17, NIV). It is not intellectual mastery so much as a standing in the Presence, and then, like the Fire that desires to come near without consuming, a bearing with. As Paul says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1, NIV).

4. Written on the Heart

Do we, then, not know what is right? Paul’s answer is that we know and don’t know. Rebellion darkens our minds (Romans 1:21) and sears or corrupts our consciences (1 Timothy 4:2; Titus 1:15). Only as we come to know God can we learn His ways and walk in them.

Precisely here, Haidt misunderstands the Bible. He believes that the Biblical writers hold what he calls the “nativist” position on the origins of morality: “that moral knowledge is native in our minds. It comes preloaded . . . in our God-inscribed hearts” (RM 5). In support he quotes Jeremiah 31:33: “I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (RM 324n.). But, of course, Jeremiah is not talking about a preloading; he is describing a new work that God will do to change existing minds and hearts. Compare Ezekiel’s promise: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws” (Ezekiel 36:26-27, NIV).

In fact, the Bible doesn’t fit any of Haidt’s schools of thought on the origins of morality: nativist (innate), empiricist (from experience), rationalist (self-constructed), or his own view, combining innateness with social learning (RM 5, 26). Biblical wisdom is learned through a process of renewal. The Holy Spirit becomes our teacher (John 16:12-15; 1 John 2:27), using the Scriptures to make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15, NIV). The interaction that challenges my moral intuitions is first of all a dialogue with God.

Perhaps for some people these exchanges are like the moral discourses of Proverbs: a Father earnestly laboring to inoculate the next generation against both waywardness and snares. For some, they may add up to a comprehensive set of moral rules and principles, a Torah or way, as Moses describes:

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, . . . Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” (Deuteronomy 4:5-6, NIV)

Even in the Old Testament, though, the way is much more than a code of laws. As Haidt says, ancient wisdom relies less on rationalistic logic than on evocative maxims and role models that address our emotional, intuitive side (HH 159-60). The Bible is filled with narratives, parables, riddles. But a listing of genres still doesn’t do justice to the richness of the Biblical conversation between God and humanity.

In the Book of Hosea, the prophet’s marital woes usher us into a revelation of the heart of God. Like a jealous husband, He takes us on an emotional journey, marked by sharp turns and sudden outbursts. He no longer loves Israel; He has always loved her and cannot now give her up. The Israelites are no longer His people; they will always be His people, and He will redeem them. He will scatter them to the winds; He will plant them and create a fruitful vine. And when this emotional roller coaster shudders to a stop, the last words of the book are these:

Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them. (Hosea 14:9, NIV)

This book resists summary and systematization. We just have to read it, again and again. It’s as if God has set aside Proverbs 1:23, and, although we have not heeded His rebuke, has poured out His heart to us anyway. Wisdom and discernment grow in us as we share this journey with Him. We feel, ever so dimly, His pain, His hope, His love; and all the while, His ways are being written on our hearts.

5. Walking with the Wise

Yet there is also, in the Bible, a form of social learning. God in His kindness gives us wise and godly people, at least a few of them, though we may have to seek them out and attach ourselves to them. “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20, NIV). I take it that this “walk” is less a matter of formal instruction, and even of words, than most of us would prefer. It is especially an opportunity to observe another’s journey through life: how he or she handles people, responds to disappointment and injustice, spends time, makes choices, fears and loves God. Remembering such mentors, we “[c]onsider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith,” knowing that Jesus — their Lord and ours — doesn’t change with times and circumstances (Hebrews 13:7-8, NIV). They are not perfect but, as members of Christ’s Body, they make some of His ways visible to us: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1, NIV, and often).

Sometimes these relationships involve conflict and confrontation, and some of our most effective teachers are difficult people. “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17, NIV). This is a slow, painful, rasping and grinding process. I may need to receive correction (Proverbs 15:31, and often), or the other may just grate on my nerves, my pride, my willful self-sufficiency.

Ultimately, we must learn from one another because we are being fitted together into one Body, working cooperatively to reveal God’s “manifold wisdom” (Ephesians 3:10). Our wisdom is corporate, springing up as we meet to worship and serve. The “secret and hidden wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 2:7, RSV) is made known in this, that together “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16, emphasis added).

Where Then Is Wisdom?

More than 50 years ago, Watchman Nee wrote:

Nothing has done greater damage to our Christian testimony than our trying to be right and demanding right of others. We become preoccupied with what is and what is not right. We ask ourselves, Have we been justly or unjustly treated? and we think thus to vindicate our actions. But that is not our standard. The whole question for us is one of cross-bearing. You ask me, “Is it right for someone to strike my cheek?” I reply, “Of course not! But the question is, do you only want to be right?” As Christians our standard of living can never be “right or wrong,” but the Cross.(7)

Haidt reminds us how much we focus on moral behavior (our own and others’), and how much we rely on formal, verbal moral instruction to shape it. A better and more Biblical course would be to pursue wisdom.

Wisdom is a paradox. Like all gifts of the Spirit, it often seems to benefit everyone except the recipient. If one tries to grasp and hold it, it evaporates. It must be received afresh every day, in each new situation. When the manna from heaven was stored, “it bred worms, became foul, and stank” (Exodus 16:20, Amplified); the same thing generally happens when, apart from the Spirit’s prompting, we take the word or example that “worked” in one context and mechanically try to apply it in another. It must be worn lightly, for God is ever choosing the least likely person in the room to administer correction or deliverance.

Wisdom is standing in the Presence of the Holy One in fear and trembling. It is the humility that comes from acknowledging that one has lived long in a darkened madness, with the mind of an animal. It is the Cross, and dying, and being raised to serve within a corporate Body.

In the end, we acknowledge that Jesus Christ is our only wisdom — “that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30, NIV). He declares us just and washes away our uncleanness; He leads us through the valley of sanctification; He will deliver us from every trace of bondage and decay. He is all we have, and all we need.

(1) Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (New York: Basic-Perseus, 2006); Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Pantheon-Random House, 2012). In the citations that follow, I will abbreviate these works as HH and RM.
(2) Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational (1917), transl. John W. Harvey (1923), 2nd ed. (1950; Oxford: Oxford UP, 1958), 8-32.
(3) Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1907), rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1975), 886; Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984, 1996), Old Testament section, 53.
(4) Brown, Driver, Briggs, 198.
(5) Republic, Book 7.
(6) Compare Proverbs 1:7; 3:7; 14:16; 15:33; Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10; Micah 6:9. In Proverbs 30:3, Agur confesses that he is deficient wisdom because he lacks (adequate) knowledge of the Holy One.
(7) Watchman Nee, Sit, Walk, Stand (1957, 4th ed. 1962; Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1977), 20; emphasis in original.

“Radical”: Two and a Half Caveats

David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (1) is admirable in its intentions. And the book is bold in challenging American Christians’ complacency and love of comforts. Perhaps the fact that I found myself arguing, on almost every page, testifies to the effectiveness of Platt’s presentation. Still, I object to his articulation of Biblical priorities and a Biblical program at three main points.

Issue 1: What Does Radical Abandonment to Jesus Look Like?

This is the “half” caveat. I commend Radical for insisting that we cannot have Christ and self-fulfillment. Yet somehow, as I read it, the emphasis seemed to fall on all the wrong notes. To be blunt, there is a great deal in the book about what one must abandon in order to follow Christ, and much less about the Christ who calls.

I can demonstrate this best by contrasting Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s approach in the opening chapters of his classic work The Cost of Discipleship.(2) Bonhoeffer takes up, in turn, four Gospel texts, each of which issues a challenge, and each of which reveals Christ.(3)

1. Jesus’ call to Levi in Mark 2:14 is simply, “Follow me” (COD 57); in Mark 1:17 and John 21:22, He issues the same call to Peter (45). This word “gives us no intelligible program for a way of life, no goal or ideal to strive after” (58). There is only Jesus: “When we are called to follow Christ, we are summoned to an exclusive attachment to his person” (59). His call is always this stark and this uncompromising.
2. In Luke 9:57-62, after Jesus has resolutely set out for Jerusalem and the Cross, He converses briefly with three would-be disciples, none of whom ends up following Him. Because Jesus is God incarnate, He is able to speak a word that is a call, a word that makes faith possible. But faith must obey (60-63).
3. Similarly, when the rich young man approaches Him with an academic question (Matthew 19:16-26; Mark 10:17-31), Jesus challenges him to make an irrevocable break with his present life, and to embrace “adherence to the person of Jesus Christ and fellowship with him.” He calls him to “spontaneous obedience” (70-76, 84-85).
4. These passages prepare us for Mark 8:31-38, the invitation to take up our cross and follow Jesus. He “is Christ only in virtue of his suffering and rejection,” and we must join Him there: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” The specifics are different for each of us; indeed, the call makes us individuals: “Every man is called separately, and must follow alone” (86-94).

Platt, who cites Bonhoeffer (Radical 14), quotes the same four passages (7-11). But he takes them in a different order, and passes quickly from one to another. Because he is concerned about American materialism, he spends the most time on the rich young man, even though eventually he must admit that Jesus’ words on this occasion are not a literal command for everyone (119-20). In an impatient and distracted age, it is tempting to be more concise than Bonhoeffer, but the difference is striking. In The Cost of Discipleship, we meet a suffering and majestic Christ, who makes His way to each of us to speak an empowering word, a call that is personal and different for every hearer. We hear Him call others, and consider; at last, inescapably, He calls to me. In Radical, we go quickly to the bottom line: we read about abandoning everything and “risking it all.”

Another way of stating this is to recall a point made well by Watchman Nee: that Christians must sit, rest, before they can walk. “For Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE. Thus Ephesians opens with the statement that God has ‘blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ’ (1:3) and we are invited at the very outset to sit down and enjoy what God has done for us; not to set out to try and attain it for ourselves.”(4)

Bonhoeffer sees this: “Discipleship is bound to Christ as the Mediator, and where it is properly understood, it necessarily implies faith in the Son of God as the Mediator. Only the Mediator, the God-Man, can call men to follow him” (COD 59). Though it may seem paradoxical, though it may occur in a moment of time, the resting of faith precedes the step of following. And the resting of faith may entail a certain amount of letting go.

But Platt does not dwell on the Christ who calls. His discipleship has no sitting and resting, only walking and striving.

There is a tension in Bonhoeffer: although Christ’s call makes one an individual, “It is impossible to become a new man as a solitary individual” (COD 242). One must become a member of Christ’s Body, the Church. (And so Bonhoeffer would go on to write Life Together.) With his less individuated call, Platt might have more to say about corporate discipleship, right from the start. Yet, as we shall see, he presents, not so much a Body in which diverse members work together, but a likeminded fellowship in which individuals march in lockstep. Even his closing challenge, the Radical Experiment, asks one to decide how to give and where to serve before committing to a church (Radical 218-19).

Issue 2: Does God Exalt Our Inability?

Again, I am in sympathy with the main thrust of Radical’s third chapter: that believers must depend on the power of God instead of trusting in our own wisdom, strength, and resources. Jonathan Edwards placed a great emphasis on the Christian’s (and the creature’s) “absolute dependence” on God; this doctrine was a cornerstone of his theology, his preaching, and his devotional life.(5)

Unfortunately, Platt shapes his discussion as a response to a definition of the American dream by James Truslow Adams, which, paraphrased, assumes that “our greatest asset is our ability” (46). So the chapter’s thesis becomes: “In direct contradiction to the American dream, God actually delights in exalting our inability” (47).

In fact, God delights in exalting human weakness; as He says to Paul, His power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Some weaknesses are inabilities, but many are not — the youth of Samuel and Jeremiah and Timothy, Paul’s thorn in the flesh, the lowly status of the shepherds who were witnesses to the Incarnation and of the women who were witnesses to the Resurrection, and Christ’s offensive death (“crucified in weakness,” 2 Corinthians 13:4) are all examples of Biblical weakness. Weakness can coexist with great ability; the same Paul who rejoices that God chooses the foolish and weak and lowly (1 Corinthians 1:27-28) is himself a brilliant thinker, preacher, writer, teacher, and leader; and similar claims could be made for Moses, David, Solomon, and others.

This may seem like a quibble over words, but words matter. If every natural ability is a spiritual hindrance or an idol, no one should go to seminary, or even to school. There is no reason for “training” to become “equipped” (2 Timothy 3:16-17); we are better off helpless. Such ideas have surfaced from time to time in church history, never with good results.

In the Bible, we find that God is graciously pleased to give His people abilities, from “the ability to produce wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18) to the New Testament gifts of the Spirit, which are entrusted to us like abilities for us to steward or administer, though of course “with the strength God provides” (1 Peter 4:10-11). So far from leaving us helpless, He makes some among us “competent as ministers” (2 Corinthians 3:6, NIV) and “qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2, NIV).(6)

Platt quotes the words of Jesus in John 15:5: “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (46). By themselves, though, these words invite passivity, quietism, even testing God by demanding that He act for us. Therefore, Christians typically balance this text with another one, Philippians 4:13: “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” (NIV; RSV has “in Him”; Amplified “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency]”).

As pastors know, there is a creative tension between these two texts. When I am proud and overconfident, I need to hear John 15:5, and recognize afresh my absolute dependence on the Savior. But when I am crushed and in despair (or, like Paul in prison, tempted to discontentment and fretfulness), Philippians 4:13 reminds me to persevere — and perhaps even to take godly initiative.

We desperately need the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, more than all the talents and gifts imaginable. But because God is good, He doesn’t glory in our inability. He is the loving Father who teaches us to walk (Hosea 11:3). He makes us able, qualified, and competent, even as He exalts and fills our weaknesses.

Issue 3: Is Every Christian Commanded to Go to the Nations?

The bulk of Radical is concerned with the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (RSV).

It is an important focus, ever timely. But after a horrific story about a church that dismisses the unsaved (or at least any who are overseas), Platt makes this statement: “Jesus commands us to go. He has created each of us to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, and I propose that anything less than radical devotion to this purpose is unbiblical Christianity” (64).

If Matthew 28 were the whole of the New Testament, this conclusion would be inescapable. As it is, we have the Book of Acts and the epistles, which help us understand what “radical devotion” to Jesus’ words looked like soon after they were spoken, and what it might look like today. What do we find? Paul doesn’t urge his converts to go on to the next city, but to lead quiet lives and work with their hands (1 Thessalonians 4:11). Writing to his fellow missionaries Timothy and Titus, he focuses on elders in each congregation to provide stability.

According to Platt, “Jesus himself has not merely called us to go to all nations; he has . . . commanded us to go to all nations. We have taken this command, though, and reduced it to a calling — something that only a few people receive” (72-73).

Yet in Acts 13:2, while the church at Antioch is worshiping and fasting, the Holy Spirit says, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Already, perhaps 20 years after the Great Commission, it is a calling. Moreover, the calling comes to two individuals through the whole congregation. The Holy Spirit doesn’t rebuke everyone else for not following suit; their job is to hear, commission, send off, support, and pray. Not everyone goes, just as not everyone baptizes. The Great Commission is corporate, addressed to the entire Body of Christ; within each congregation, some are called to go, and some to send. Not for nothing does Scripture record David’s edict that the soldiers left behind, taking charge of supplies, would share equally in the reward with those who bore the heat of battle (1 Samuel 30:21-25).

Anyone who has lived on a mission field has observed the consequences of “All must go” teaching: uncalled, ill-equipped missionaries who crash and burn, harming themselves and the work.

Chapter 7 of Radical adds another element: the terrible urgency of missions work, because people are dying and going to hell. Platt writes, “We are the plan of God, and there is no plan B” (156).

I hesitate to take issue with this point, because this sense of urgency has helped to motivate some of the greatest Christian missionaries. Amy Carmichael was haunted by an image of people streaming over a precipice, while Christians sat by making daisy chains.(7) But we must ask whether it is Biblical to make this our overriding concern.

Even though Paul was called preach “where Christ was not known” (Romans 15:20), and lived “so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22), he sometimes allowed other priorities to intrude. Instead of going on to unsaved Spain, he set sail for Jerusalem in the interests of church unity (Romans 15: 24-28). He was not deterred by the thought that thousands in Spain would die and go into eternity before he could return. Similarly, we read of the Holy Spirit preventing him from entering certain regions (Acts 16:6-7). If all that mattered were the presence of unsaved souls, such decisions would be positively immoral.

The “perishing souls” argument raises awful questions. Whey didn’t Jesus come earlier? Why didn’t He visit the large population of China? Why were Native Americans cut off from the Gospel for more than 1,000 years?

Against all such speculations, the Bible declares that God sent His Son “when the time had fully come” (Galatians 4:4, NIV), and that Christ died “at just the right time” (Romans 5:6, NIV). Jesus begins the Great Commission with these words: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18, NIV; compare John 17:2). He is the general, opening and shutting doors; there are times and seasons that only He understands.

So when Platt says that I don’t need to inquire concerning God’s will for my life, because the answer is the same for all (159-60), I respectfully disagree. It is more Biblical to pray that we may be filled with the knowledge of God’s will, so that we may live a life worthy of Him and know Him (Colossians 1:9-12).

I saw the consequences of overriding missionary zeal at one church, where every sermon emphasized Christians’ duty to bring their unsaved friends to church. One Sunday I brought an unsaved friend, and he listened without interest to a sermon on Christians’ duty to bring their unsaved friends to church. Meanwhile, church members struggled with addictions, failing marriages, and every temptation and trial, but no help was extended, because all that mattered were the perishing souls. In a way, that pastor cared a great deal for people — up until the moment when they joined his flock.

The Great Commission also colors Platt’s view of discipleship. Against James 3:1 (“Let not many of you become teachers,” RSV), Platt says that “Jesus’ command for us to make disciples envisions a teaching role for all of us” (100). Worse, he advises that, when I listen to a sermon, I should ask not What can I get out of this? but How can I listen to his Word so that I am equipped to teach this Word to others? (102).

This is poor counsel. The words of Jesus are spirit and life, but only as they are believed (John 6:63-64). If I do not sit under the Word and allow it to prune and change me, I am in danger of becoming one who preaches Christ insincerely or impurely, for effect (Philippians 1:17). Jesus doesn’t tell a parable of the sower and his little son, who is also learning to sow; rather, the sower interacts with soil — which, in the wisdom of God, has its own way of producing and dispersing seeds, without itself becoming a sower.

Conclusion

To present a “radical” Christian call to the modern world, it is not enough to attack wealth or comfort or even complacency. One must strike at the root of individualism, calling people into a community that is diverse and differentiated, yet intimate and deeply united. Platt ends by sketching this (204-07), but it cannot be tacked on at the end. Barnabas and Saul receive their calling to the Great Commission, or at least receive the confirmation that equips them to walk it out, as members of a worshiping community (Acts 13:2).

I repeat, Radical is written with good intentions. I hope that David Platt will write a better book one day. In the meantime, though, I urge believers to spend their time reading the radical calls of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jonathan Edwards.

(1) Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2010.
(2) 1937; transl. R.H. Fuller, rev. Irmgard Booth, 1959; New York: Touchstone-Simon & Schuster, 1995.
(3) Bonhoeffer also discusses the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 (76-78), but this is largely to clarify and reinforce a point made about Jesus’ exchange with the rich young man.
(4) Sit, Walk, Stand (1957, 4th ed. 1962; Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1977), 2.
(5) See Edwards’ first published sermon, God Glorified in Man’s Dependence (1731; full text online at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.dependence.2.html. A search for “absolute dependence” at Yale’s Jonathan Edwards Center website, http://edwards.yale.edu/, yields 36 occurrences. Within 50 years of Edwards’ sermon, American declared independence. In the 1830s, Ralph Waldo Emerson exalted “Self-Reliance,” and in 1931, just 200 years after the sermon, J.T. Adams made the statement about the American dream that Platt quotes.
(6) The Greek word in both verses, hikanos, speaks to ability: it can be translated adequate, qualified (Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 2nd ed., 1888 [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, n.d.], 3:175), competent, worthy (Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984, 1996], New Testament section, 3).
(7) Any Wilson Carmichael, Things As They Are: Mission Work in Southern India (1903; London: Morgan and Smith, 1905), 41-44; Amy Carmichael, Gold Cord: The Story of a Fellowship (1932; London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1952), 339, 348.

Holy Hands

In Exodus 17:8-15, we seem to have a picture of intercessory prayer. The Israelites have just left Egypt and miraculously crossed the Red Sea when they are attacked by the Amalekites. Joshua musters and leads an Israelite army, but Moses, Aaron, and Hur go up a hill. Israel wins the battle as long as Moses holds up his hands, but they start to lose whenever he lowers his hands. He gets tired, so he ends up sitting on a stone, with Aaron and Hur holding up his hands, until the enemy is overcome.

This is a curious story.(1) In the first place, it stands alone. Though the Israelites take the field as a ragtag band of former slaves, this victory appears to have no lasting impact on their military strategy. Even when they are defeated in later battles (e.g., Number 14:45; Joshua 7), we don’t read of anyone saying, “It’s because we forgot to station someone on a hill with hands upraised.”

Moreover, on the face of it, the story doesn’t quite make sense. There are three men; why can’t they take turns lifting their hands? With 20-minute shifts, Moses would have a 40-minute rest break every hour. Aaron, after all, has been the human agent in some of the signs and plagues (Exodus 7:9-10, 12, 19-20; 8:5-6, 16-17), and he will be high priest. Why does it have to be Moses’ hands?

A Staff of Authority

So I went back to the text, and noticed a couple of points I had forgotten. Before the battle, Moses announces that he’ll stand atop the hill with the staff of God in his hands (Exodus 17:9). The staff isn’t mentioned again, but its presence would help to explain why his hands grow heavy.

This staff is the one Moses used as a shepherd. When God called Moses, He asked, “What is that in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2). It represents the natural authority Moses had developed. For in the Old Testament, that is what happens: God takes a man as he is and empowers him for service. The Law can’t change what’s in him. So when the Lord tells Moses to throw his staff on the ground, it becomes a snake, and he flees from it (4:3); there is sin inside. God shows him how to master it, for a time: take it by the tail and it becomes a staff. But there is an uneasy relationship between the calling and the vessel — just as, in a central symbol, Moses wonders how a woody bush can burn and not be consumed. This is the great question for Israel under the Law: Can the divine Presence, aflame with holiness, rest upon and dwell among stiff and dried out men? Won’t fallen humanity inevitably be consumed (33:3, 5)?

The staff is used in five of the ten plagues (Exodus 7:19-20; 8:5, 16-17; 9:23; 10:13); it becomes a sign of the authority of Moses and of God. At the Red Sea, Moses is told to lift his staff and stretch out his hand to divide the waters (14:16, 21). Presumably, he must hold the staff for some time, and not just wave it once, but we don’t read that he grows tired as in the battle. When we assert the Lord’s authority over nature, it yields, but men resist.

Later, the staff gets Moses into trouble. Told to take the staff but merely speak to a rock in order to obtain water, he instead strikes the rock with the staff, twice. He is rebuked for not trusting, and told that he will not enter Canaan (Numbers 20:7-12; contrast Exodus 17:5-6). Natural authority not only becomes burdensome and weary; it also oversteps.

Echoes of Empty Hands

Yet the battle with Amalek is won. Moses’ actions do establish some small precedents:

• He sits on a stone, a rich symbol of Christ. The stone of stumbling (Isaiah 8:14; Daniel 2:34-35, 45; Zechariah 12:3; Romans 9:32-33; 1 Peter 2:8), the stone rejected by the builders, becomes the cornerstone (Psalm 118:22; Isaiah 28:16; Luke 20:17-18; Acts 4:11; Ephesians 2:20; 1 Peter 2:4-7). Moses rests on the intercessory work of Jesus.
• Like Jesus, Moses is on a hill, lifted up. But Jesus is also Joshua, down on the plain in the heat of the battle. When Moses raises his hands, he is flanked by two men who support him. When Jesus’ arms are stretched out, He dies between two sinners (Matthew 27:38) who can’t support themselves or Him; He is “numbered with the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12).
• After the battle, Moses sets up an altar and declares a new name for God, Jehovah Nissi, The Lord Is My Rallying Standard — because, he says obscurely, hands were lifted to His throne (Exodus 17:15-16). This may be echoed in Isaiah 11:10-12, where the Root of Jesse stands as a banner and nations rally to Him, while the Lord stretches out His hand to gather His remnant. Moses acknowledges that the Lord Himself acts to rally His people. “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself,” says Jesus (John 12:32, NIV). Like Moses, He summons our weakness, invites our weariness, solicits an offering of empty hands; “crucified in weakness” (2 Corinthians 13:4), He lays in the dust our strength and boasting (1 Corinthians 1:25-31).
• This is almost the first time in the Bible when we read of prayer with upraised or outstretched hands. Abraham lifted up his hand to the Lord to make an oath (Genesis 14:22). Moses and Aaron have stretched out their hands (with or without the staff) over areas to be judged: Egypt’s waters (Exodus 7:19; 8:5-6) and land (8:16-17; 10:12-13), and the sky over the land (9:22-23; 10:21-22). Here, though, Moses lifts up his hands to God, toward His throne. He has done this before only once, asking the Lord to end a plague (9:29, 33).(2) The posture is an expression of utter dependence upon God, and at the same time it extends His authority — not man’s — over the situation.
• Finally, in this passage we see the very first Biblical occurrence of an important Hebrew word, emunah: faithfulness, steadfastness, truth.(3) Aaron and Hur hold up or stay Moses’ hands so that they are emunah, steady. They help him become faithful.

Lifting Up Holy Hands

In the New Testament, we don’t have many staffs — the disciples are even told not to carry them (Matthew 10:10 and Luke 9:3; contrast Mark 6:8). But in 1 Timothy 2:8, Paul says, “I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing” (NIV). Holy hands: the Greek word for holy isn’t the usual hagios, set apart, but hosios: righteous, undefiled, gracious. Our hands become holy, in part, as we empty them, laying down the staff of authority, ability, strength, pride. Paul asks us to pray without the strong passion of anger, and also without disputing or “reasoning,” relying too much on the intellect. Such men(4) sound more than a little detached, rather like the Old Testament image of watchmen on the wall (Isaiah 62:6-7; Habakkuk 2:1).

How can we lift up holy hands in prayer? I suggest that, like Moses, we need to be still and rest on Jesus. Empty our hands: let go of anger and authority; don’t rely on our own understanding. Our words are not the most important thing; sometimes what counts is that we persevere in an attitude of complete dependence on God.

And, finally, we can help each other to become faithful. The most vivid impression that I took away from this study is that I need to pray specifically for the prayer lives of others, especially the intercessors and the busy. I may never become a watchman on the walls, but I can help to steady someone’s hands.

(1) If we fail to be struck by this incident, it may be because it is part of an incredible sequence. Readers sometimes complain that the Biblical narrative is dull and repetitive, but the stories are bursting with signs and symbols that have shaped our culture and our expectations. We overlook them only because they are so familiar. In Exodus alone, we have the slaughter of the innocents, the virtuous lie of the midwives, the baby in a basket, the burning bush, the Name I AM, bricks without straw, the plagues, the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, palpable darkness, Passover, the blood of the lamb, the destroyer, the spoiling of the Egyptians, the ransoming of firstborn sons, the pillars of cloud and fire, the parting of the Red Sea and the overwhelming of Egypt’s chariots, Jehovah Rapha (The Lord Who Heals You), manna, water from the rock, the Ten Commandments, the Tabernacle and the Ark, the golden calf, the cleft in the rock, the veil over the radiant face, and the great cloud of glory, among much more. Shakespeare and Dickens are not so fertile in powerful images within so small a space.
(2) The verb used in Exodus 9:29, 33 is paras, to spread out. According to Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984, 1996), Old Testament section, 242, the word first occurs in this passage. “Such stretching of the hands probably reflected the characteristic posture of prayer in the Bible.” It is used, for instance, to describe the prayer stances of Solomon (1 Kings 8:22, 54; 2 Chronicles 6:12-13) and Ezra (Ezra 9:5); compare Job 11:13; Psalm 143:6; Isaiah 1:15. The verb does not appear in Exodus 17.
(3) See Vine’s, Old Testament section, 75-76.
(4) In 1 Timothy 2:8, Paul seems to be thinking primarily of males, since the next verse states his intention for women. Other passages (e.g., 1 Corinthians 7:5; 11:5; Luke 2:36-37) clearly show women engaging in intercessory prayer. Paul’s point here may be that men often have more difficulty emptying their hands.

Advent

Year by year, I try to prepare my heart for the coming of the Christ. As I grow older, I notice two changes. The obstacles and distractions seem to grow more formidable; at the same time, my practice becomes simpler. There are readings, music, prayers, church gatherings. But the one essential lies outside all these. I need to sit awhile where I can see a baby.

No doubt of it: I am a romantic. Babies are hard work, bottomless wells of need. I can never quite overlook the frazzled, exhausted mother or father, the frantic grandparent, the neglected sibling. If babies perpetuate us, they also bring us pretty quickly to the end of ourselves.

But babies are also beautiful, glorious. Even if I am on a crowded airplane, craving sleep, dismayed to hear a baby’s cries, I smile if I can glimpse its face, or hand, or foot. Here is life straight from the Father’s hand, life that is all potential, all promise. Something softens in me, and relaxes into wonder.

If truth be told, I am afraid of babies. All my inadequacies surface: I will drop them, wake them, scare them, fail them. I joke that I can never hold a baby without spilling some, out one end or another. Fortunately, proud parents ignore my protests and thrust their child into my arms — and I am transfixed. As I hold this little being and watch the act of breathing, I feel my own heart rise and fall. As C.S. Lewis says, most of us have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the kingdom of heaven.

Afterwards, I always think of Immanuel, God with us. Not like corrupt and pagan gods, assuming a human disguise for the sake of an afternoon’s dalliance. No; in earnest He became flesh, turned into one of us. So much so that He was tiny, needy, helpless. Weaker than a toddler. Dependent on His parents. So much so that for many months He had no words.

Most years, December finds me discouraged. I will have been struggling with problems that to me seem both big and important. I will have prayed and read and waited to hear the voice of God, only to stumble on, in the dark, in a resounding silence. My flickering faith will be the proverbial smoldering wick, lightless, on the point of going out. I will feel forsaken.

But Immanuel is the God who comes too close for words. Beneath the prickly radar of intelligence, He arrives with the insistence of present, utter helplessness. Not bothering to address ears grown too dull to hear, He shares our darkness, our hunger, our exposure, our heartbeat, our flesh.

He comes. And we have only to open our arms.

For to you is born this day in the town of David a Savior, Who is Christ, the Messiah, the Lord! And this will be a sign for you [by which you will recognize Him]: you will find after searching, a Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. (Luke 2:11-12, Amplified)

. . . open wide your hearts also. (2 Corinthians 6:13, NIV)

Merry Christmas.

Stand

Every so often, I meet with an exhortation to “advance the Kingdom” or “take back the land.” There is a Biblical foundation for this idea in the conquests of Joshua and David. And the example of Caleb — at the age of 85, driving the Canaanites out of Hebron (Joshua 14:6-14; Judges 1:20) — shows that it’s not just a young person’s dream.

But for every reference to mounting an attack, there seem to be two or three that speak of standing — or, better, standing firm. (We also see cases in which it is right to run away,(1) but that is another matter.)

Standing Firm

This struck me recently as I read the famous passage about putting on the whole armor of God. As Paul explains it, we are not suiting up in order to attack the forces of spiritual darkness and take over cities for Christ. Rather,

Put on God’s whole armor [the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies], that you may be able successfully to stand up against [all] the strategies and the deceits of the devil. For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere. Therefore put on God’s complete armor, that you may be able to resist and stand your ground on the evil day [of danger], and, having done all [the crisis demands], to stand [firmly in your place]. Stand therefore [hold your ground], . . . (Ephesians 6:11-14, Amplified; emphasis added)

The habits, the Christian disciplines, involved in putting on God’s armor make us “strong in the Lord” (verse 10) so that, when (not if) the day of evil comes, the time when we are attacked and severely tried, we may stand our ground. The image is one of purely defensive warfare. At the same time, one of the reasons we are called “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37) is surely that what we have gained in Christ can never be lost to a counterattack, requiring reconquest. We can rejoice that we stand in grace through Christ, by faith (Romans 5:2).(2)

We have “taken our stand” on the Gospel and its truths (1 Corinthians 15:1). So to the Galatians, who dream of adding Law to grace, Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1, RSV; emphasis added).

Standing is linked with ideas and images of steadiness, steadfastness, stability, and being established. After assuring us at length that our Christian hope is sure — that Christ has been raised, and our bodies too shall be taken up into life — Paul concludes, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58, RSV; emphasis added; see also Colossians 1:23). Because we stand in hope, we can resist discouragement.

The Steadfast God

We are able to stand only because we have been created in the image of a God who stands fast and stands over. At the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud “stood behind” the Israelites, screening them from Egypt’s army through a long night (Exodus 14:19-20; compare Numbers 14:14). The Lord has established His faithfulness (Psalm 89:2), His throne (Psalm 93:2), and the earth (Psalm 119:90); and He alone can establish us. The Hebrew word aman can mean to stand fast, to be established, and to believe, and these are all related. Abraham believes God (Genesis 15:16), and later it can be said that the Lord found his heart faithful (Nehemiah 9:8). Through young Samuel comes the promise, “I will raise up for Myself a faithful (aman) priest, . . . I will firmly establish (aman) his house” (1 Samuel 2:35, NIV). Isaiah warns, “If you will not believe (aman), surely you shall not be established (aman)” (Isaiah 7:9, KJV; compare 2 Chronicles 20:20).

In a way, it sounds good when Eliphaz solemnly declares that the Lord places no trust (aman) in anyone, even the angels (Job 4:18; 15:15). What a high view of His holiness! But this is an instance of Eliphaz failing to speak what is right about Him (Job 42:8). For the truth is far more glorious: He makes us trustworthy. “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4). When we are weak, He stands by us, strengthening us so that we can stand (Acts 23:11; 2 Timothy 4:17).

It is in Christ — in faith and sufferings like His — that we stand firm (Philippians 4:1). Therefore, we stand together: we “stand firm in one spirit, with one mind . . .” (Philippians 1:27, RSV). We stand by faith (2 Corinthians 1:24; Romans 11:20), and this can be precarious: “Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12, RSV). By grace we can be steadfast and resist the devil (1 Peter 5:9); we can even “strengthen and establish” one another (Luke 22:32, Amplified).

Among these texts, one is a personal favorite. During a difficult period, fearful of missing God’s direction, I was dismayed by the apostle’s summary stating that he had written “encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it” (1 Peter 5:12, NIV; emphasis added). Which “this” did he mean? This what? Then it struck me: THIS. All this, the totality of the circumstances in which I’ve been placed. Stand fast, and trust. “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace . . . [will] establish and ground you securely, and strengthen (and settle) you” (1 Peter 5:10, Amplified).

Eleazar and Shammah

What does it look like to take a stand? Two of David’s Mighty Men provide helpful portraits:

Next to him was Eleazar son of Dodai the Ahohite. As one of the three mighty men, he was with David when they taunted the Philistines gathered at Pas Dammim for battle. Then the men of Israel retreated, but he stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword. The Lord brought about a great victory that day. The troops returned to Eleazar, but only to strip the dead.

Next to him was Shammah son of Agee the Hararite. When the Philistines banded together at a place where there was a field full of lentils, Israel’s troops fled from them. But Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. He defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the Lord brought about a great victory. (2 Samuel 23:9-12, NIV; emphasis added)

To begin with Shammah, allow me to make a scientific observation: Lentils! Really? My wife sometimes makes lentil soup, and I turn up my nose at it, or gently inquire whether anyone has yet discovered the antidote. Were I in Shammah’s place, I would hand over the field, purely as a matter of strategy, hoping that those nasty beans would make the Philistines as sick and disgusted as they have made me. I’ll be down the street, defending the barbecue joint.

The point is, Shammah’s decision isn’t rational. The lentil field isn’t a military vantage point. It’s not even his land. One might risk death to defend one’s own farm; failing that, one might take one’s stand in the gates of Jerusalem, the city chosen by the Lord as a place for His Name to dwell; better yet, one might cede the city gates, and draw one’s line at the Temple. But Shammah chooses an arbitrary plot of ground. Something rises up in him, a sense that enough is enough.

This isn’t simply anger. People who have been given a gift of faith, and have made a stand, sometimes say afterwards that they got mad at the devil. I have never found this to be productive; rather, as James 1:20 warns, “the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God” (RSV). Neither is it stubbornness, for Shammah is not trying to prove a point, and it’s not himself that he is asserting. The Spirit of God stirs up in him a settled determination. He will not quit, give up, or run away.

Turning to Eleazar, we see what such a decision can cost, even if one lives: “his hand . . . froze to the sword.” The Hebrew is dabaq, “cleaved,” the same word used of a husband and wife cleaving and becoming one (Genesis 2:24).(3) Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the verb is used of people holding tight to God (Deuteronomy 10:20; 11:22; 13:4; 30:20; Joshua 22:5; 23:8; 2 Kings 18:6) or to others — Shechem to Dinah (Genesis 34:31), Ruth to Naomi (Ruth 1:14), the men of Judah to David (2 Samuel 20:2), Solomon to foreign women (1 Kings 11:2), one good friend to another (Proverbs 18:24); it also describes an unnatural attachment of sin to our hands (Deuteronomy 13:17; Job 31:7) or of disease to our bodies (Deuteronomy 28:60; 2 Kings 5:27; Deuteronomy 28:21). Affliction causes one’s soul to cleave to the dust (Psalm 119:25).

Eleazar’s hand fuses or freezes. Perhaps oil or warm water will soften it, restoring suppleness; perhaps he makes a full recovery. Or he may be permanently disabled and disfigured. At the very least, making a stand has probably ruined him for certain other pursuits. You won’t find him playing the piano or working the loom.

The stands we take may ruin us for other things. When Jacob wrestled with the angel, his hip was put out of joint, but he held on, declaring, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26, NIV). I think it was Jim Goll who said that Jacob failed to recognize that he had already been blessed, because up to that point in his life he had always run away when things got difficult. From this night forward, he limped (Genesis 32:31), but he also stood.

First and foremost, we are called to stand in prayer. The Lord looks for people to “build up the wall and stand before Me in the gap on behalf of the land” (Ezekiel 22:30, NIV; emphasis added). The watchers on the wall are to call on the Lord day and night, giving themselves and Him no rest, “till He establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth” (Isaiah 62:6-7, NIV; emphasis added). Abraham, Moses, and Aaron stood in the breach to intercede (Genesis 18:22; Psalm 106:23; Numbers 16:48; compare Exodus 17:9), and Habakkuk took his stand on a tower, watching till the Lord should answer (Habakkuk 2:1).

What would it mean if we took this calling seriously? What if we were ruined for anything else, if our hands froze to the sword, if we became the prayer?

It begins with a settled determination, the declaration of God Himself that the Philistines have wrought enough destruction, and that the tide must be turned. We stand in the foolishness of a field of trampled lentils, steadfast and immovable, in faith and hope and a fierce joy.

(1) See, for example, Matthew 2:13-15; 10:23; 2 Corinthians 11:33; 1 Timothy 6:11; 2 Timothy 2:22.
(2) In his classic discussion of Ephesians, Sit, Walk, Stand (1957, 4th ed. 1962; Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1977), Watchman Nee says well, “We do not try to gain ground; we merely stand on the ground which the Lord Jesus has gained for us, and resolutely refuse to be moved from it” (67). But I think Nee earlier (42-45) goes too far in insisting that we never attack, never fight for victory. Even though it is the Lord who fights for us, sometimes we are called to “stand” by marching forward (2 Chronicles 20:13-21; Exodus 14:13-15). Nee is commenting on Ephesians, yet right in 6:19-20 Paul speaks of his work as an ambassador: marching out, invading enemy territory, not as a warrior but as one proclaiming the peace that has been made.
(3) Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984, 1996), Old Testament section, 37, notes that the modern Hebrew word for “glue” derives from dabaq.

Can We Forget God?

Before her death, I watched my mother grope through the fog of Alzheimer’s. She lost names and concepts, aspects of present awareness, and whole stretches of past experience. She was still herself, although more subdued, more querulous, and more childlike; she retained the ability to recognize family members. Had she lived longer, much more might have slipped away.

Many of us have loved ones who struggle with dementia, brain injury, or other intellectual disabilities. It is often difficult to gauge what they remember or understand. Among other things, if we are believers, we can’t help wondering about their grasp of the gospel.

It is probably good for us to wonder, since our faith is both less and more intellectual than we often think. Alone among the world’s major religions, Christianity is not essentially a book to read or a rule to follow, but a Person to know, and He seeks us out, whatever our capacities. And yet He usually comes speaking, and His words are life (John 6:63). In Jesus’ Parable of the Sower, the seed is the word of God (Luke 11:11), and the good ground receives and retains it. His teachings, promises, and commandments are our guide and our protection: “I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You” (Psalm 119:11). What happens, then, when we cannot remember and reflect on these words?

The Storehouse of Memory

In the Bible, human memory is described as a treasury or a storehouse. God’s Wisdom promises to fill the treasuries of those who love her, particularly with riches of insight and understanding (Proverbs 8:21; 2:1-4). But this is not an inert deposit: the servant who buries his talent in the ground is condemned (Matthew 25:25-27). Nor are these truths simply for show: King Hezekiah is wrong to give the Babylonians a tour of his storehouses (2 Kings 20:12-18). These are supplies to be distributed (Nehemiah 13:12-13), like a daily food allowance (Luke 12:42). God’s words are to be kept in our hearts and ready on our lips (Proverbs 22:17-18). For when we don’t remember, we rebel (Psalm 106:7, 13).

There is an intellectual component to our participation in filling the storehouse. Ecclesiastes 12:9-10 says that the human teacher of wisdom “set in order many proverbs,” stated in “just the right words.” Similarly, modern cognitive psychology suggests that we remember best information that we have “chunked” or organized.

Yet, Biblically, remembering is never merely an intellectual process. Faith (“the fear of the Lord”) is the key to the treasury (Isaiah 33:6). Our memory may be jogged by a blue tassel worn for this purpose (Numbers 15:39), by the crowing of a rooster (Matthew 26:74-75), or by bread and wine. Habits may help, as, for Israel, the annual round of sabbaths and festivals reenacted the mighty acts of God.

Forgetting God and His words is not just loss of information or thinking about something else; it is allowing other experiences to crowd out the memory and the awareness of His steadfast love. The prophets say that Israel “forgets” the Lord when she chases idols, acting like an unfaithful spouse (Hosea 2:13; Jeremiah 23:27). There is a visual dimension, an “out of sight, out of mind” quality: “You have forgotten Me and thrust Me behind your back” (Ezekiel 23:35). Senses are dulled (2 Peter 1:9) and minds are confused, disoriented: “My people have been lost sheep; . . . They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place” in God (Jeremiah 50:6). This forgetting is not a matter of intellectual decay or disability but of moral corruption.

And this raises the hope that remembering, too, may have a moral or spiritual dimension.

A Thousand Tongues

I have had occasion to reflect on this. In 2010, my wife underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor. The operation went well, but that night there was bleeding in the brain; she suffered a stroke, and went into a coma. Four days later, she awoke with severe aphasia. Initially she wasn’t speaking any intelligible words at all, and she didn’t understand what others said. She didn’t recognize her sisters or me; mostly, she looked agitated and afraid.

My faith seemed weak and inadequate, my prayers ineffective. Mostly out of desperation, I booted up her laptop and played Christian songs. I hoped that familiar music might at least be reassuring to her.

All at once, she began singing a different tune. I rushed to mute the computer, and listened. What she could produce for lyrics sounded like “Waa waa,” but the melody was unmistakable. I had been playing contemporary worship songs, but she was singing an old hymn, not on the laptop:

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise!
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace. . . .

Charles Wesley’s words were remarkably appropriate for someone who had lost her language. Lacking even one tongue to voice her pain and fear, my wife longed for a thousand in order to praise her God. And we did, right there in neurological intensive care. She smiled, and conducted with the arm she could move. And I saw that she was still a worshiper of God.

How much did she remember in that hour? I don’t know, because she doesn’t remember the event at all. Her stroke was severe enough to be classified as a traumatic brain injury, and she still has trouble finding the right words. Her recollections of the initial recovery period are pretty fuzzy.

But I can’t help thinking that the hours she spent in worship through the years deposited treasures in her storehouse. Even damage to the brain couldn’t take these away, for she had “sown to the spirit” (Galatians 6:8), not merely to the intellect. She had no words to call on His name, and yet He quickened a memory.

Perhaps this is not the precise experience of every believer, but one way, or another, we each can say, “When I awake, I am still with You” (Psalm 139:18).

How We Remember God

As a young Christian, I kept searching for some new teaching that would settle me, organize me, turn me at last into a good disciple. Then I was struck by the wisdom of Samuel Johnson’s observation (Rambler 21): “Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.” I didn’t need to scale new mountains, but to return to the manger, the Cross, and the empty tomb.

The Bible devotes considerable space to reminding. Paul says he’s written “as if to remind” his readers of some basic truths (Romans 15:15). Peter calls both of his letters “reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking,” and promises to continue issuing reminders as long as he lives (2 Peter 3:1-2; 1:12-15). John writes, “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24). Part of the Holy Spirit’s work in us is to bring Jesus’ words to our remembrance (John 14:26).

We need constant reminders because the great truths of the faith are too big for our minds (the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Person of Christ), too terrible for our flesh (sin, God’s wrath, hell, the Cross), and too good to be true (grace, forgiveness, the Father’s love, our hope). These truths are elusive; they slip away from us. “We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” (Hebrews 2:1). “Stop listening to instruction . . . and you will stray” (Proverbs 19:27). In Jesus’ words, “Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him” (Matthew 25:29).

But to remember is much more than an intellectual review of topics.

The Remembering God

Although God promises never to forget His people (Isaiah 49:15), the Bible indicates that there are specific occasions when He remembers them. This remembering is never simply a matter of well-wishing or thinking fond thoughts. Rather, when God remembers someone, He acts on their behalf. “God remembered Noah” (Genesis 8:1) — and sent a wind so that the waters would recede and the ark would come to rest. “God remembered Rachel” (Genesis 30:22) — and opened her womb, taking away her disgrace and bringing Joseph into the world. The God who remembers His people and His promises softens judgment with mercy and delivers from bondage (Psalm 106:45-46; 105:42-43), so that one of the great prayers is simply, “Remember me, O Lord” (Psalm 106:4-5).

When Jesus was on the Cross, one of the thieves crucified with Him said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). He wasn’t asking for a pious thought or a moment of silence. Somehow he had faith to believe that the wretched man dying beside him was the Son of God, the divinely appointed King, and he begged, “Show mercy to me, cover me with Your royal favor, pardon my offenses.” Jesus understood, and in His agony replied, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with Me in paradise.” It was as if He said, “I am a King already; I do remember you now; and you are safe in Me.” Jesus remembered, and He acted.

Created in God’s image, we also are made to act when we remember. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians and to Timothy that he “continually” and “constantly” remembered them, and, every time he thought of them, he prayed for them. He literally remembered them in prayer (1 Thessalonians 1:2-3; 2 Timothy 1:3).

In a ruined city, surrounded by the corpses of his countrymen, Jeremiah or one of his contemporaries writes, “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.” But he stops; he turns; by faith he summons a different, distant memory: “Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:19-23). Remembering the character of God, he hopes in Him, and resolves to wait on Him.

In Remembrance of Him

When we come to the Lord’s table, Jesus tells us, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25). We can think devout thoughts, eat and drink, and go away unchanged. But this is not Biblical remembrance. We can grieve, yet again, over our sins, but Hebrews 10:3 says that one of the flaws of the Old Testament sacrifices, which had to be repeated over and over, was that they served only as a “reminder of sins.” Jesus’ greater sacrifice, and His resurrection, should remind us of grace and power and hope.

To remember is to act: we sit again in the upper room, we stand once more at the Cross; we submit to our place in Jesus’ body, and we receive His cup of suffering. Paul urged Timothy to “remember Jesus Christ” and, in doing so, draw strength to endure (2 Timothy 2:8, 1, 10-12). We act by confessing our sins (1 John 1:9) and then receiving “power through His Spirit in [our] inner being” (Ephesians 3:16) so that we break with those sins and, “in Christ,” overcome them. We act by bending low, in His image, to take up our cross once more (Luke 9:23).

Yet we do not merely act in Jesus’ name. He has warned us that many who call Him “Lord” and do great deeds in His name will not enter the kingdom; He will say to them, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:21-23). It’s not that He has forgotten them; they were never in His memory. He remembers those who obey Him by believing and by acting in His love (John 6:29; Matthew 25:31-46).

“Remember me with favor, O my God” (Nehemiah 13:31).

The Sin I’d Never Commit

My wife is recovering from a stroke. It is a good and hopeful process, but the path is pocked with frustrations. One of the smaller ones is that I get accused of things.

A medication causes my wife’s skin to bruise easily, and a visual problem results in frequent collisions with furniture. A social worker, well-meaning if overzealous, saw marks on her arms and jumped to the conclusion that I must be hitting her. Neither her denials nor mine were accepted. Instead, I was told that, if the bruises continued, I would go to jail.

Despite better things to do and much to be thankful for, I wasted some energy in sputtering indignation and resentment. And then I very nearly lived up to the labels placed on me.

A stroke can strip away layers of self-restraint. Doctors speak of “disinhibition,” but sometimes it is more like a child’s tantrum. On one particularly bad day, when a scene went on and on, something snapped in me. I grabbed my wife’s wrists and yelled “Stop it!” several times. She was terrified.

How does one come back from such an ugly, sinful outburst? I tried to justify myself, but the rationalizations sounded lame even to my ears. So I confessed my sin to God and to my pastor. I apologized to my wife. I tried to retreat more quickly when tempers flared. And, eventually, I read a statement by a godly man.

Capable of Violence

Jean Vanier is a Canadian Catholic who has devoted his life to serving, and learning from, people with severe intellectual disabilities. He founded the first L’Arche (“The Ark”) community in France in 1964; today there are 145 in 40 countries (see http://www.larche.org/discover/larche-since-its-creation/).

In Befriending the Stranger (2010), Vanier describes Lucien, a man unable to speak. Disoriented and afraid when he was brought to L’Arche, he resorted to constant screaming. A calming touch or gentle words served only to increase his anguish. Listening, Vanier writes, “I could sense anger, violence, and even hatred rising up within me. I would have been capable of hurting him to keep him quiet.”

At this time, Vanier had been living in the communities for 15 years. He might have concluded that he wasn’t cut out for it. Instead, with profound insight, he suggests that our brothers and sisters who have severe disabilities become our teachers by revealing to us “our inner limits and brokenness,” so that we may live together in a more honest dependence on the God who is our loving Father.

Understandably, we want to set any fence we can between ourselves and sin. But our best resolve and the full force of our disapproval are flimsy barricades. As Paul says, “Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands” — who says, “Oh, I would never behave like that” (Living Bible) — “take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). The Message adds, “Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.”

Consider Peter’s vows to stand by Jesus even if it meant death (Matthew 26:33, 35). Before morning, he denied his Lord three times.

Certainly we can make progress. Peter lived to write about the possibility of never falling (2 Peter 1:10). Paul changed from a merciless and violent man (Galatians 1:13; Acts 9:1) to behaving as gently as a mother with young children (1 Thessalonians 2:7). But we can’t dare to be smug, or to entertain the thought that we’ve arrived (Philippians 3:12-16).

The Power of Defenselessness

In Luke 18:9-14, the self-righteous man is sincere in thanking God that he hasn’t stolen money or committed adultery. He is saying, in effect, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Yet he is not justified in God’s sight; he is really exalting himself, not magnifying grace. In contrast, God hears the flagrant sinner who has the humility to plead only the divine mercy.

The first man in this parable excuses himself by focusing on “especially bad” sins. Some sins may be worse than others, but God’s rating scale isn’t necessarily the same as ours. David is punished less severely for adultery and murder than for the arrogance of numbering his troops (2 Samuel 12:10-14; 24:13-15).

In this life, we never get beyond the position of the second man, confessing our sins (1 John 1:8-10), clutching a holy dread of sinning (Jude 23; 1 Corinthians 9:27; Romans 11:20; 1 Peter 1:17).

When I was accused, I was quick to defend myself. I thought that I was maintaining my integrity and my Christian witness. What if, at least in private, I had seen an opportunity for self-examination, a fresh revelation of my heart, and a deeper confession? “Come to terms quickly with your accuser,” says Jesus (Matthew 5:25). We “come to terms” not through bluster and bravado, but by confessing honestly and pleading the cleansing blood of Jesus.

I am trying to meditate more on Jesus, standing silent. Accused of many things before Pilate and Herod, He “made no reply, not even to a single charge” (Matthew 27:14).

Jesus could have said, accurately, that He had never claimed any authority that wasn’t rightfully His. He never lied; He never stole. But you and I couldn’t say this. And because Jesus was already bearing our sins, or because He refused to distance Himself from us, He kept silent. He stood there, completely defenseless.

In some movies, the actor playing Jesus looks proud during this scene — as if He won’t deign to answer. But it had to be painful for One so innocent and so sensitive to be associated with evil. He bore the stinging shame for us, allowing our sins to be like a gag on His mouth.

If I had been the only sinner, and He had taken my place, He still would have had to stand silent. I am capable of any sin; I am not better than others; apart from Jesus, I can make no claim of heart innocence. Only as I embrace these truths can I live and walk “in Christ.”

Beyond the Tithe

I am a layperson sitting in a pew. Yes, I groan whenever there’s a sermon on giving, but not for the reason my pastors suspect. My problem is that they ask too little of me.

Last month they showed a videotaped teaching by Robert Morris, a minister who has written a popular book on finances. In this talk, he said that the “spirit of Mammon” (or riches) rests on money; but if we tithe, God’s blessing rests on the 90 percent that remains to us, and we have great liberty in choosing how to spend it.

My first thought was, This can’t be right. Jesus testifies of the Pharisees that they tithed even their spices (Matthew 23:23), yet Luke 16:14 calls them “lovers of money.” The practice of tithing had not served to purify their hearts. This should not surprise us. When Paul states that the Law of God merely stirs up sin, he uses the example of covetousness or desire (Romans 7:7-8), the insatiable craving that becomes a driving force (Ecclesiastes 5:10; Proverbs 27:20). No formula, no rule followed in our own strength, can deliver from this.

Stewards with Christ

“Do preachers always have to talk about money?” Yes, indeed. We are called to become like God, and one of His chief characteristics is lavish generosity. He is “the giving God Who gives to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding” (James 1:5, Amplified). “You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing” (Psalm 145:16, NIV).

This has nothing to do with percentages. Most of us don’t observe a literal Sabbath, setting aside one day in seven, because we believe that all our time belongs to God and can be spent in fellowship with Him. With goods, similarly, all that we have is His, and we disperse and use and enjoy it as He guides. It is significant that at least 12 of Jesus’ parables involve stewardship, or the wise use of resources (Matthew 13:44, 45-46, 52; 18:23-34; 20:1-16; 24:45-51; 25:1-13, 14-30; Luke 7:41-43; 12:16-21; 16:1-8, 19-31). Yet we are not acting as stewards, but as clerks or debtors, when we simply write a check for 10 percent and place it in the offering basket. Tithing is prescribed, compelled, dutiful; Biblical giving is prompted but free, and joyful (2 Corinthians 9:5, 7).

Where should we give? Sermons often quote Malachi 3:10, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse” (NIV), but what precisely does this mean? Many pastors say that the storehouse is one’s local congregation. Benny Hinn argues that it’s the source from which one is fed, so that it can refer to his parachurch ministry. Isn’t the storehouse of God bigger than both? Even the Old Testament tithe seems to have been split between the central sanctuary and local needs (Deuteronomy 12:11; 14:22-29). And when Paul gives directions about regular, proportionate giving, the context is the special collection for Jerusalem, not the local church (1 Corinthians 16:2).

What does Godlike giving look like? We see tremendous variety in the early church. The Jerusalem Christians share everything (Acts 4:32); the Macedonians don’t, but they give “beyond their ability” (2 Corinthians 8:3). Some in Ephesus are rich (1 Timothy 6:17-19), whereas in Thessalonica some must be exhorted to earn a living (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12).

After the apostles died, around 156, Justin Martyr wrote that, each Sunday, “they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit,” funds which were then distributed to those in need (First Apology 67). Around 180, Irenaeus taught that, instead of tithing, Jesus said “to share all our possessions with the poor” (Against Heresies IV.13, 18).

So it has continued throughout history; Francis of Assisi and George Müller managed money very differently, yet neither got past the point of praying to the Father each day for daily bread (Matthew 6:11), and each aimed at “bearing fruit in every good work” (Colossians 1:10).

Does this seem unrealistic in the modern world? In Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven, James Bryan Smith describes how the Christian songwriter and singer embraced simplicity, gave things away, and asked others to manage his money. When he died in 1997, everything he owned fit into an eight-by-ten storage space.

The Challenge

The tithe is useful when we need a benchmark for our giving (to ensure at least a minimal compliance), but the New Testament calls us higher. Most of us try to dodge Jesus’ statement, “Give to the one who asks you” (Matthew 5:42), as a Sermon-on-the-Mount command for a perfect world — though some, like Oswald and Gertrude “Biddy” Chambers (authors of My Utmost for His Highest), have made valiant efforts to obey it literally.

It is more difficult to evade the force of Paul’s words, when he urges believers to give with the clear expectation that someday they in turn will be the needy ones; he even calls this cycle of giving and receiving “equality” (2 Corinthians 8:13-15). Christians can live this way because we are grounded in a dependent, childlike faith, knowing that “God Himself has said, ‘I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let you down (relax My hold on you)! Assuredly not!’” (Hebrews 13:5, Amplified). Such extravagant promises free us to go beyond dutiful calculations to abundant liberality.

Paul is an intellectual, and might be expected to qualify and hedge every claim; yet on this subject he overflows with superlatives: “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. . . . You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, . . .” (2 Corinthians 9:8, 11, NIV).

Here there is no stopping to ask, How much do I have to give? We don’t even ask, How much can I give? because we aren’t keeping track (Matthew 6:3-4). It’s not numbers but needs, not counting but a way of life. Money is a “store of seed” (2 Corinthians 9:10). Giving is a way to stand with those who are suffering (Philippians 4:14; Hebrews 13:3) and to confess the gospel of Christ (2 Corinthians 9:13).

“I know what it is to be in need,” said Paul. His generosity in preaching without pay meant that he often went hungry (2 Corinthians 11:27). Yet he rested content, confident that provision was on the way: “And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:12, 19). For in the world of the New Testament, we “lack nothing” not when we have money in the bank, but when we have endured trials and developed perseverance (James 1:2-4).

How do we walk in this divine generosity, this “grace of giving” (2 Corinthians 8:7)? When, if ever, does discernment close the pursestrings, and when do we allow ourselves to risk being cheated (1 Corinthians 6:7)? When do we feed the hungry, no questions asked, and when do we insist on Paul’s rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10)? When do we expect to be “made rich in every way” (2 Corinthians 9:11), and when do we go hungry (2 Corinthians 11:27), and glory in seeing our savings melt away (James 1:9-11)? I don’t know, and the answer probably looks different for each of us. The point is, it’s no formula, but an opportunity and a responsibility that should drive us to walk closely with the God of giving and to depend on His Holy Spirit. His extravagant promises free us to go beyond bookkeeping to abundant liberality.

The Value of Futility

“You will be unsuccessful in everything you do” (Deuteronomy 28:29, NIV). This is an apt description of some of us. We have a history of failed relationships, unfulfilling work, abandoned dreams, moral and spiritual defeat. With Job, we can say, “I have been allotted months of futility” (Job7:3); “when I hoped for good, evil came” (30:26).

Yet the Bible says of the righteous man, “Whatever he does prospers” (Psalm 1:3). The verdict “unsuccessful in everything” is part of a long passage describing the curses that come upon those who disobey God. Similarly, a sketch of people who “earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it” (Haggai 1:6) applies to those who fail to put God first and give to His work.

Why is it, then, that some of us who love Jesus lead lives characterized by frustration and futility? Does a failure to prosper always indicate that we are walking in disobedience?

Futility’s Many Levels

Taken as a whole, the Bible may be black and white about moral standards but it is faithful to the complexity of human experience. And so statements that the wicked “will sow wheat but reap thorns; they will wear themselves out but gain nothing” (Jeremiah 12:13) do not exhaust its teachings on futility. The poor, simply because they are poor and in a fallen world, also see their plans frustrated (Psalm 14:6).

In fact, God has subjected the entire creation to frustration and futility (Romans 8:20-22). The Lord Almighty has determined that our labor goes for nothing (Habakkuk 2:13). This is a universal experience, above all because we all must die (Ecclesiastes 2:15-16). “For what futility You have created all men! What man can . . . save himself from the power of the grave?” (Psalm 89:47-48).

In this setting, believers, no less than the most disobedient, are tempted to conclude, “It is futile to serve God” (Malachi 3:14); “Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure” (Psalm 73:13); “I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing” (Isaiah 49:4). We are tested precisely in this regard. The patriarchs spent their lives wandering (Hebrews 11:8-9). Job lost everything and felt, “. . . my days have no meaning” (Job7:16). David was a fugitive, wondering if his integrity was “useless” (1 Samuel 25:21). Several of the prophets were commissioned specifically to speak to people who wouldn’t listen (Isaiah 6:9-10; Ezekiel 2:3-5). Jeremiah recorded one set of prophecies only to have them burned, and another set only to be told to sink it in a river (Jeremiah 36; 45; 51:60-64).

God Himself — whose every word accomplishes its purpose (Isaiah 55:10) — at times expresses frustration. “In vain I punished your people; they did not respond to correction” (Jeremiah 2:30; 6:29). He looks in vain for the righteous (Isaiah 59:15-16; Ezekiel 22:30). Jesus weeps over Jerusalem: “how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34; Isaiah 65:2)

Futility and Hope

God grieves (Genesis 6:6; Isaiah 53:3), yet He does not succumb to despair. Rather, in a wonderful paradox, it is “in hope” that He has subjected creation to futility — hope in the glory that will be revealed when we have despaired of our flesh and put it to death (Romans 8:18-21). He frustrates human wisdom and striving in order that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord” (Habakkuk 2:14; 1 Corinthians 1:19).

There is a suspense about our lives. We groan with creation, and grieve with God and neighbors. Like farmers, we sow our seeds of effort and obedience, but may wait a long time for any indication of fruit. Yet because “we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7; 4:18; Romans 8:24), we continue to hope for a harvest and to trust that our work is not in vain. Sometimes, like Habakkuk (3:17-18), we must resolve to rejoice even in the absence of any prosperity.

We see this tension in Paul. At times he worries that he has wasted his efforts and labored for nothing with some converts (Galatians 4:11; Philippians 2:16) — that he, or they, might thwart or nullify the grace of God, receiving it in vain (Galatians 2:21; 2 Corinthians 6:1). At other times, he is confident that godliness is profitable (1 Timothy 4:8) and labor fruitful (Philippians 1:22), that our work “in the Lord” is never in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58; Galatians 6:9-10; 2 Peter 1:5-8).

If Paul’s confidence occasionally wavers, it’s because he is “hard pressed on every side, . . . perplexed, . . . persecuted, . . . struck down, . . . We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:8-10). He compares himself to a broken jar (verse 7). Our English word futile comes from a Latin term meaning leaky or easily poured out. Paul lives with precisely this frustrating inability to retain and accumulate. Yet he refuses to “lose heart” (verses 1, 16) because, by the grace of God, what leaks out of him is “the glory of God in the face of Christ” (verse 6).

Paul also reminds us that, no matter who we are, our real work is other people. His converts are his joy and crown (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20; Philippians 4:1), his boast (2 Corinthians 1:14), the result of his work (1 Corinthians 9:1). If they frustrate him and cause him anxiety, still they are in his heart for life or death (2 Corinthians 7:3): that is, he is so identified with them that his own salvation is bound up with theirs. For their sake, he is willing, not only to leak, but to be “poured out like a drink offering” (Philippians 2:17; 2 Timothy 4:6).

We are not apostles, but on this point we are not so very different. Wittingly or unwittingly, we all sow into the lives of those around us. People watch us. Some may even be “won over without words” by our behavior (1 Peter 3:1). When we die, they may present evidence of our good works (Acts 9:39).

I sometimes wish that we could retire the phrase “full-time Christian service.” Of course we should honor our leaders, but every believer is a full-time servant of Jesus and of our neighbors. Paul makes this clear when he tells even slaves — who had little freedom to choose how they spent their time — that they are “serving the Lord, not men” (Ephesians 6:7; Colossians 3:23). In truth, we are all slaves marching in a procession that honors Christ (1 Corinthians 4:9).

So failure shouldn’t surprise or overwhelm us. I am not called to realize my artistic vision, but to be a vessel shaped by the finger of God. I may never inherit the promises in this life, but I can die still living by faith (Hebrews 11:13). I may never prosper, but I can sow abundantly. I may never proclaim, but I can leak.