Biblical Law’s Assumptions

Once again: Biblical Law is its own reward.

Nothing can take the place of shalom. It’s not a matter of the stuff that God promised; it’s the sense of peace with Him and His purpose. It’s knowing that you have shown the light of His glory.

What’s going to be left when Christ Returns? Nothing. The entire physical universe will be allowed to dissolve into subatomic particles, releasing all of the stored energy in one sudden burst. But God Himself will remember all the things we did for His glory. What He wants is not simply doing the commands, but a heart that passionately pursues Him.

So shalom is a moving target. You bow to Him as Lord and take up a life of penitence. It’s a path, not a place. You don’t gain some standing with Him, you stay in pursuit; you keep chasing Him down wherever He goes in Your life. Nothing matters to you except staying close to Him.

And whatever that brings with it, you rejoice and embrace it. Does it mean all the wonderful things we imagine Biblical Law should provide? That’s the wrong question. It is not a matter of instrumentality. Biblical Law is the gift in itself; it’s the power to conform to the Father’s divine intent and design. It’s overcoming the flesh, which resists to the last day of life.

I’ve been reading about all the wise things we might do to reconstruct the marriage market for Christians. The discussion about it is typical of mixed Christian backgrounds. But all of it together was focused on the instrumentality of men seeking good, life-long solid marriages with godly women.

Where would that have left Hosea? Remember his wife, Gomer? She was a prostitute before she married Hosea, and at times he would try to drag her back home, staying married to this worthless creature. Do you imagine Hosea reaped the consequences of failing to observe all the wise counsel of choosing a godly wife and building a blessed marriage? I promise you, he had a lot more going for him than we do today, living in a covenant community. Yet he suffered such a horrendous outcome.

That was where God wanted him. What? Did God really stick him with a worthless slut? Was that His will? It’s part of the poverty of English language to lack different expressions for the term “God’s will.” In one sense, it was God’s will for Hosea to endure that woman and stay faithful. God commanded him to marry a prostitute, so that was clearly “God’s will.” Yet we know that Biblical Law counsels us to avoid such situations; that is also “God’s will.” Can you discern the difference?

The folks commenting on Jack’s blog agree that it’s still a crap-shoot when you go into it with the best intentions, and here is Hosea intentionally picking a loser from the start. Do you suppose the Lord is going to let you choose someone who isn’t so obviously a slut, but might turn out to be that way later? Sure He will. Few men have such a clear word from God as Hosea did, and that’s already a problem in itself, but it’s another subject. My point is that a very strongly Spirit-led man of God can still stumble into some really bad situations, including something so important as the choice of a spouse.

My successful marriage is and was a miracle. I didn’t follow all the consensus of rules those folks on Jack’s blog came up with, but God blessed me. Why? Because that was what God wanted in my life to bring Him glory. And God wanted a hooker in Hosea’s life to bring Him glory. Right now, I’ll tell you that I would be willing to go wherever God leads me, despite what it does to me. That kind of attitude meant that I never became the pastor of any church. I obeyed Him and stood for the things He placed in my convictions, and it cost me a lot. My only regret is that I wasn’t even more faithful.

In my own way, I’m just as big a loser as Hosea was. But I have shalom. I wouldn’t trade any of that for all the wonderful things other men have gained in this life without my kind of faith. They have their rewards, and when Christ returns, it will all be forgotten. My reward is the stuff that God remembers.

It’s one thing to confer in prayer with others to discern a pattern of what God requires of those who serve Him. It’s another to try and hold God down and make Him pay off like a slot-machine with specific rewards for that obedience. That’s one of the primary errors of the Chosen People, so sure in their being chosen that they thought they had God over a barrel. They kept believing that until they were led away into exile. After they came back, it didn’t take long before they started believing it again.

The value of the Covenant was in granting the wisdom and power to obey regardless of what it produced in their lives. There is no magic formula in any of the Covenants.

God makes a lot of choices for us. He seldom tells us in advance what they are. The issue is that we either pursue Him as Lord, or we become alienated and live a life of rational rewards without His peace. If you follow reason, it will work well enough, but then it all goes up in smoke at Christ’s Return. If you follow conviction, sometimes you’ll do stuff that you know is going to hurt in this life; it will hurt simply because you are a fleshly creature. It makes no rational sense, but you do it anyway. You do it because Your Father wants you to do it. That’s all the reason you need.

It’s not a waste of time to contemplate choices you’ve made, and compare them with what you know about God’s Word. But don’t get hung up on how things turned out. A bunch of that is always in the hands of God, no matter what you do. And He doesn’t owe you an explanation. You couldn’t understand if He did explain, though He may give you enough grasp to find peace. That’s what really matters.

Do bad things happen to good people? It’s a trick question; there are no good people. There are some who have some good in their lives by God’s grace, but there are no good people. It’s better to understand that faithful servants see sorrow, sometimes because of their faith. We live in a fallen realm of existence, and it’s crappy. It’s one huge lie, and our job is to shine the light of truth. The best we can hope for is not the rewards of this life. The best we can hope for is the enlightenment of the Spirit and the power to obey some of that clarity of vision.

That’s the assumption behind Biblical Law.