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Learning More About Covenant Grace

19 December, 202018 December, 2020Marissa

There’s a fascinating relationship between God’s grace and the covenants He makes with people. Until the 5th century (when theologians brought Neo-Platonic philosophy into their interpretation of scriptures), Greek and Roman literature and early Judeo-Christian writings saw charis (grace) as something both relational and reciprocal (Schmidt, p. 201-202). The idea of “grace” as a free gift that God is obligated to give without having any expectations of the recipients was not originally part of the Greek language or of Christianity. Rather, there was a fuller, richer meaning to charis that Jesus, Paul, and other Bible writers used.

I’ve been reading a book on this topic by Brent J. Schmidt, who holds a PhD in classics, called Relational Grace: The Reciprocal and Binding Covenant of Charis (2015). His scholarship on the original meaning of charis is fascinating, but even without that background we can still see that grace comes with expectations. For example, Jesus said the one who “endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22, WEB) and that “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20, WEB). We’re saved by God’s grace, and then He expects us to act in a certain way (with His power supporting us, of course).

The Bible talks about Christian conversion as a process and tells us that relationships with God require continued faithfulness. Yet the popular definition of grace in many modern churches still says grace is unmerited favor that God gives without expectation of anything in return. Trying to make these two ideas fit together is confusing, and it’s a problem first-century Christians didn’t have to deal with because they had a different definition for grace.

Ancient Understandings of Charis

Several centuries before Christ’s first coming and until at least the 4th century after, charis was understood as something that involved obligation and reciprocity (Schmidt, ch. 2 and 3). This meaning infused Greek, Roman, Jewish, and later Christian society to the point that everyone knew “receiving charis implied entering into reciprocal covenantal relationships” (p. 63).

Jews knew about covenantal relationships from the Bible. Every commandment was a covenant with God. Several stories, including Joseph, Moses, and David, associate the concepts of grace and mercy with covenants. Greek-speaking Jews lived in a culture that depended heavily on reciprocal relationships and understood what charis meant. When Paul taught them using the words charis, they would have understood that by accepting God’s grace they were making covenantal obligations.
Brent Schmidt, Relational Grace, p. 64

When Jesus Christ came to earth, one of the things that He did was establish a New Covenant on better promises and with a different sort of sacrifice. The Old Covenant was “completely unable … to perfect those who come to worship” (Heb 10:1, NET). In contrast, Jesus took away sin completely, giving us an incredible gift for us that we could never deserve nor repay. When we accept this “charis,” we enter a covenant with Him and His Father.

For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are made holy. And the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws on their hearts and I will inscribe them on their minds,” then he says, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no longer.” Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
Hebrews 10:14-16, NET (OT quotes bolded in this translation)

Grace is so closely connected with covenants that treating “the blood of the covenant ” as “an unholy thing” means someone has “insulted the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29). Covenants and laws don’t vanish after Christ’s sacrifice–they move to a heart and spirit level. We can see this in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, where He talks about the deeper, spiritual, enduring applications of God’s law. Paul also talks about this shift from flesh-level to spirit-level in detail when he’s talking about law and covenants.

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Grace in Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Shifting our definition of grace to align with the one Paul and his audience would have used gives us a better idea of how to properly interpret Paul’s letters. One of the best places to see that is in Romans 6. Here, Paul talks about how we are “not under law but under grace” (v. 14, NET). This verse and others like it are often read out of context, but if you read the surrounding text the reciprocal and obligatory aspects of charis are easy to see. This is a very long quote, but I think it’s important to look at the whole thing to get enough context to understand Paul’s words.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! Do you not know that if you present yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to, and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.
So what benefit did you then reap from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. But now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:12-23, NET

Many translations use the word “servant” instead of “slave,” but doulos is best translated either as “bondservant” or “slave.” Being bound to serve the Lord in this way was seen as an “honor and a privilege” in the Jewish mindset (NET footnote on Rom. 1:1). It’s a very different sort of thing than slavery in the modern sense. In fact, at the time Paul was writing, the “asymmetrical social relationships between patron and client and between master and salve were founded on the reciprocal notion of charis” (Schmidt, p. 95). When Paul talks of slavery, he’s talking about us being obligated to God for His gifts and bound in a covenant with Him that has expectations.

Living by God’s Spirit

When Jesus healed a man in Bethesda who’d been sick for 38 years, He told the man, “Behold you are made well. Sin no more, so that nothing worse happens to you” (John 5:1-14, WEB). It’s similar to what He told the woman caught in adultery (a story that’s not in the earliest manuscripts but is traditionally included with John’s gospel): “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more” (John 8:11, WEB). In one case, Jesus provided physical healing and in the other He freed her from being condemned to death. After giving these gifts, He told both people that they should respond by doing something specific: stop living a life of sin.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:1-4, NET

The Father and Son have given us incredible gifts. They’ve saved us from sin, adopted us into their family “with full rights of inheritance” (NET footnote on 8:15), and offer continued forgiveness so long as we do our best to follow Them and repent when we miss the mark. In response, “we are under obligation” to live a life lead by God’s spirit (Rom 8:12-14, NET). Being in a reciprocal covenant of grace is not about earning salvation or trying to pay back an impossible debt. It’s about having the right response of thankfulness to the incredible things God has done for us by welcoming us into His family. The more we can learn about that, the deeper relationship we can have with Him.

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Drawn To God

12 December, 202020 August, 2021Marissa

My new favorite Bible Study tool is the New English Translation with its 60,000+ translator’s notes. As I was perusing the pages (you can get a print version or access the whole thing for free online), I noticed the translation notes on Song of Songs take up more space than the actual text. Apparently, not only is this text’s interpretation widely debated, but it is also notoriously difficult to translate. As you might know if you’ve read some of my other posts or my short book God’s Love Story, I favor the interpretation that the Song is both a celebration of human love and an allegory of Christ’s love for the church. With that in mind, here’s one of the verses with a footnote that I found intriguing:

Draw me[a] after you; let us hurry!
May the king bring me into his bedroom chambers!
[note a] The verb מָשַׁךְ (mashakh, “draw”) is a figurative expression (hypocatastasis) which draws an implied comparison between the physical acting of leading a person with the romantic action of leading a person in love. Elsewhere it is used figuratively of a master gently leading an animal with leather cords (Hos 11:4) and of a military victor leading his captives (Jer 31:3). The point of comparison might be that the woman wants to be the willing captive of the love of her beloved, that is, a willing prisoner of his love.
Song of Songs 1:4, NET

Another translation for mawshak in this verse is “Take me away with you” (NIV, WEB). There are nuances of meaning for this Hebrew word (as the NET footnote points out), but the basic one is “to draw, drag, seize” (Brown–Driver–Briggs; Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament). Here in Song, and in a few other places as well, it can be understood as “entice, allure, woo” (TWOT). In those verses, it is connected with one of the many pictures God gives us for relating to Him–as a lover alluring, wooing, and drawing His bride to Himself.

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Alluring us with Love, Kindness and Grace

Hosea is one of the books that makes the analogy of God as bridegroom and husband most clearly. God instructs the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute because ancient Israel “continually commits spiritual prostitution by turning away form the Lord” (Hos 1:2, NET). God used Hosea’s marriage and his writings to teach that, even though Israel was unfaithful, God still promised “in the future I will allure her,” and then “you will call, ‘My husband’; you will never again call me, ‘My master'” (Hos. 2:14, 16, NET).

Later in Hosea, God talks about how He “drew” (mawshak) Israel out of Egypt “with leather cords” (NET), “with cords of a man” (KJV), or “cords of human kindness” (NIV). Though the NET presents a compelling case for the “leather” translation, I favor “human kindness” because it connects more strongly to the overall theme of God wooing His people that is found so often in Hosea. It would also echo the language God uses in Jeremiah 31:3.

Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.”
Jeremiah 31:3, WEB

Alternate translations for this passage include “That is why I have continued to be faithful to you” (NET), “That is why I have drawn you to myself through my unfailing kindness” (NET footnote), and “This is why in my grace I draw you to me” (CJB). God’s drawing of us to Himself is prompted by His everlasting love, and it is done with faithfulness and kindness.

Longing for God to Satisfy Us

The time Jeremiah speaks of when God draws His people to Him is followed by a time “when watchmen will call out … ‘Come! Let us go to Zion to worship the Lord our God!’” (31:6, NET). Those who claim the Lord as their God are eager to be drawn, rescued, and gathered by Him (Jer. 31:7-9). Their response here is much like the Beloved in Song of Songs–take me away! draw me after you!–and like that of David in this psalm.

How precious is your loving kindness, God!
The children of men take refuge under the shadow of your wings.
They shall be abundantly satisfied with the abundance of your house.
You will make them drink of the river of your pleasures.
For with you is the spring of life.
In your light we will see light.
Oh continue (mawshak) your loving kindness to those who know you,
your righteousness to the upright in heart.
Psalm 36:7-10, WEB

We can find all we need to satisfy us in the great One who loves us, the Lord our God. We can call on Him to draw us closer, and He will faithfully respond to our longing for Him.

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Speaking In Agreement With God

5 December, 20204 December, 2020Marissa

A few days ago, a specific phrase in the book of Hebrews caught my eye. When I think of this verse, I usually picture the King James translation (or one of the many which follow it closely), which says, “let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Heb. 13:15). This time though, I read it in the World English Bible, which says, “the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name.”

“Proclaim allegiance” seems like quite a different thing than “give thanks,” so I looked up the Greek word this phrase is translated from. It’s homologeo (G3670), which comes from two root words: homou (G3670), “together with,” and lego (G3004), “to say.” Put together, this word means “to assent, consent, admit,” confess, and/or “be in accord with someone” (Zodhiates’s dictionary). It can also mean “to say the same thing as another” or “declare openly,” often specifically in the sense that you’re proclaiming yourself a worshiper of someone (Thayer’s dictionary). It’s about more than saying “thank you” or even “confessing” (LEB for Heb. 13:15) or “acknowledging” (NET) God’s name. There’s also an element of aligning yourself with God and agreeing with Him.

A Deep, Relational Commitment

How we speak about God–particularly whether or not we align ourselves with Him in our words–matters deeply to Him and affects our relationship with both the Father and Son. Jesus made this very clear early in His ministry.

Whoever, then, acknowledges me before people, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever denies me before people, I will deny him also before my Father in heaven.
Matthew 10:32-33, NET

There ought to be a “togetherness” in how we speak about God and with God. If we are acknowledging, confessing, and proclaiming allegiance to Christ, then He does the same for us, claiming us before His Father and “before God’s angels” (Luke 12:8-9). It can’t just be words, though. Our acknowledgement has to hit a deeper level than mere lip-service.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned that those who just say, “Lord, Lord” without doing God’s will won’t be in the kingdom of heaven. To them, Christ says, “I will declare (homologeo) to them, ‘I never knew you'” (Matt. 7:21-23, NET). Speaking together with God is not about good-sounding words that aren’t backed-up with actions. It’s about a confession that changes your life. It’s a commitment so deep that it can even be dangerous (which is what held some people back from aligning themselves with Christ when He walked on his earth, see John 9:22; 12:42).

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Aligning with God for Salvation

Confession of this deep, aligning together sort is something that’s connected to salvation. Homologeo is the word used, for example, in this famous scripture:

if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation.
Romans 10:9-10, NET

John makes a similar observation in his first epistle. First, he points out that “If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, WEB). John goes on to talk about the fact that “Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also,” and that we can “know the Spirit of God” by this criteria: “every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 2:23; 4:2, WEB).

If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God.
1 John 4;15, NET

In a footnote on 1 John 4:15, the NET translators say, “Here μένει (menei, from μένω [menō]) has been translated as ‘resides’ because the confession is constitutive of the relationship, and the resulting state (‘God resides in him’) is in view.” For these translators, homologeo is a key component of relationship with God.

Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk

The idea that this sort of confession is a life-long process of speaking and living together with God does not just come from a dictionary or a translator’s footnote. Paul connects Timothy’s “good confession” with fighting “the good fight of faith” and taking hold of eternal life (1 Tim. 6:12, WEB). Hebrews links homologeo to the people of faith who “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth” and lived accordingly (Heb. 11:13, WEB). When done right, our confession is a life-long, transformative thing that involves the fruit of our lips matching our deeds, unlike the people Paul speaks of in this passage:

They profess to know God but with their deeds they deny him, since they are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good deed.
Titus 1:16, NET

We want to live very differently than this–as people who profess God and also by our deeds “proclaim allegiance to his name.” Throughout his letters, Paul uses homologeo to talk about salvation and the importance of our verbal confession turning into an allegiance manifested in how we live. It’s about relationship, and choosing to use our words and our lives to align with God and let other people know that we walk with Him.

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Will You be A David or A Saul?

28 November, 202027 November, 2020Marissa

After God brought Ancient Israel out of Egypt and gave them the promised land, Moses and Joshua–the guides he’d worked with to lead the people–passed away. In the years following, God worked through the priesthood and judges to lead His people as they struggled to follow Him faithfully. After the priesthood and their current prophet’s sons grew corrupt, the people decided the best solution to the problem of who should lead them was to have a king like all the other nations did.

The Lord said to Samuel, “Do everything the people request of you. For it is not you that they have rejected, but it is me that they have rejected as their king.
1 Samuel 8:7, NET

The people decided they didn’t want God ruling over them directly, so God honored their request and picked a man to lead them. The first man God picked for this task was Saul. His rule didn’t last, though, and he was replaced by David. Anyone familiar with scripture knows about King David; he was the man after God’s own heart who is the most prominent human ancestor of the Messiah, Jesus. But what about Saul? Was he just a stepping stone to David; a disposable king? Or did he get the same opportunity as David and responded differently?

This is an important question for us to answer because it gets to the heart of how God works with people. He chose Saul, and David, and if we’re called to be in His family today He chose us as well. And because the Lord does not change (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8) the way He worked with people thousands of years ago can still teach us about how He works with us today.

To Lead, Rule, and Deliver

Both David and Saul were identified and chosen by God, and anointed as king by Samuel the prophet. Saul was of the tribe of Benjamin, “the smallest of Israel’s tribes,” and he initially had an ego to match (1 Sam. 9:21, NET). He was “little in his own sight” when God made him “head of the tribes of Israel” (1 Sam. 15: 17, WEB), and he even hid from his coronation (1 Sam. 10:22).

Then Samuel took a small container of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head. Samuel kissed him and said, “The Lord has chosen you to lead his people Israel! You will rule over the Lord’s people and you will deliver them from the power of the enemies who surround them.
1 Samuel 10:1, NET (click for explanation of why this verse is longer in the NET translation than most English versions)

God entrusted Saul with the task of leading, ruling, and delivering his people. Saul did this for years, but after he lost his humility and chose a path of disobedience David was chosen to replace him. This time, the text specifies that God “sought out for himself a man who is loyal to him” (1 Sam. 13:14, NET), who was selected based on the condition of his heart (1 Sam. 16:1-13). Though the “lead, rule, deliver” language isn’t used, David quickly took on that role and showed the commitment of his heart through the actions he took to honor God.

The first example we have of this is the story of David verses Goliath. We think of this as a wonderful underdog story and a demonstration of David’s faith, but it was also a demonstration of Saul’s failure. When Saul was chosen as king, scripture tells us he “stood head and shoulders above all the other Israelites (1 Sam. 10:23). The NET footnote on 1 Sam. 17:4 says that the average height of an Israelite man at this time was about 5′ 3″ (1.6 m), making Saul about 6′ (1.8 m) tall. When Goliath, who was likely between 6′ 7″ and 9′ 5″ (2 to 2.9 m) tall, showed up it should have been the tall warrior-king of Israel who stood up against him in the Lord’s name to deliver the people of God. Instead, it was the ruddy and handsome shepherd boy who stepped into that role (1 Sam. 16:12; 17:33-36).

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Heart and Spirit

The main difference between David and Saul was not that one was given a head start by God or that God wanted one to succeed and the other to fail. After Saul was anointed and chosen, “the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul” (1 Sam. 10:10; 11:6). Also, “God changed his inmost person” (1 Sam. 10:9). Other translations of this line include, “gave him another heart” (NAB; NRSV) and “gave Saul a new nature” (TEV). We don’t know how much of God’s Spirit Saul had or how long the Holy Spirit was with him (only that “the spirit of the Lord had turned away from Saul” by the time of David’s anointing), but we do know that God gave His spirit to this man and worked with him on a heart-level. Though Saul lost God’s spirit, he started out with God’s full backing. Saul was not set up to fail. It was his own choices that led to his removal as king.

Then Samuel said to Saul, “You have made a foolish choice! You have not obeyed the commandment that the Lord your God gave you. Had you done that, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom will not continue. The Lord has sought out for himself a man who is loyal to him, and the Lord has appointed him to be leader over his people, for you have not obeyed what the Lord commanded you.”
1 Samuel 13:13-14, NET

Later, God told Samuel, “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from me and has not done what I told him to do” (1 Sam. 15:10, NET). He was saddened when Saul disqualified himself, but it was Saul’s decision to make. Saul refused to obey God and he wasn’t humble enough to take responsibility for his actions–even when he acknowledged he’d sinned his concern was with saving face in front of the people–so the Lord tore the kingdom away from him (1 Sam. 15:16-31).

Of course, David also sinned against the Lord, sometimes in spectacularly horrible ways. But instead of defending himself and insisting, “but I have obeyed the Lord!” David admitted, “I have sinned against the Lord” and sincerely repents (2 Sam. 12:13-14; Psalm 51). David wasn’t perfect any more than Saul was, but he had a heart that prompted him to continually turn back and seek the Lord. He stayed humble, teachable, and obedient (2 Sam. 7:18-27).

Living to Honor God

What about us? Have we begun to take the blessings and honors God gives us for granted? Do we go our own way and ignore the Lord’s commandments, thinking we know best and He’ll appreciate whatever we want to give Him? Or do we take the lessons of Saul’s story to heart and instead follow David’s example of humble gratitude for God’s divine favor, commitment to obedience, and sincere repentance when we miss the mark?

God “desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth,” as well as to “come to repentance” (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9, WEB). That desire manifests itself in Jesus dying for our sins, the offer of salvation, and God’s longsuffering patience toward all of us. He has set us up for success and wants to give us eternal life. Part of whether or not that comes to pass is up to us, though.

So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, continue working out your salvation with awe and reverence, for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort—for the sake of his good pleasure—is God.
Philippians 2:12-13, NET

Salvation is something God accomplishes in us through His grace. It is also something we work on with Him for our whole lives. Like David, we need to show our commitment to honor God through the actions we take. We need to stay humble, in awe of the fact that God would choose to work with us, and never devalue His love or His favor.

Preparing Our Hearts for the Word of God

21 November, 202020 November, 2020Marissa

Last week, the church group I usually meet with canceled services, so I tuned into the livestream of the Messianic group I attended before moving for grad school. And I’m glad I did. The rabbi’s message was about preparing our hearts for an uncertain future, and I found it very encouraging. I hope you find today’s blog post, inspired by that message, encouraging as well 🙂

As you may remember from some of my previous posts, I love the book of Hosea. I don’t think I’ve ever studied this particular verse in depth, though:

Sow righteousness for yourselves,
reap unfailing love.
Break up the unplowed ground for yourselves,
for it is time to seek the Lord,
until he comes and showers deliverance on you.
Hosea 10:12, NET

There is so much agricultural imagery used in the Bible, and I find this particular one especially beautiful. Sowing seeds of righteousness leads to harvests of unfailing love. There’s preparation needed, though. We reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7-8) and the harvest is also affected by where we sow. You know this if you’ve ever planted anything. Even a lawn won’t grow well if you sow weedy seed or don’t prepare the soil properly. The same is true in our hearts.

Parable of the Sower

One of Jesus’s best known parables is that Parable of the Sower, which appears in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. In this parable, the seed is the word of God and the type of ground it falls on is connected to the state of the person’s heart and how they respond to the word.

First, you have the hard-packed soil of a “well-worn path” (NET footnote on Matt. 13:3). Seed that lands on earth like that has no chance to grow, and for this analogy the word is immediately snatched away from their hearts by the wicked one, Satan the devil (Matt. 13:9; Mark 4:15; Luke 8:12). Second, you have the rocky ground; a thin layer of soil over “a limestone base” where there was no soil deep enough for roots to grow (NET footnote on Matt. 13:5). This relates to someone who’s happy to hear the word, but their faith isn’t deep and they abandon it when trials come (Matt. 13:20-21; Mark 4:16-17; Luke 8:13).

Third is the seeds that fell among thorns, which in Palestine can refer to weeds “up to 6 feet in height” with “a major root system” (NET footnote on Matt. 13:7). These are the ones who get crowded out by what’s competing for soil space; the people whose hearts are filled with “worldly cares” and “the desire for other things” that “choke the word, and it produces nothing” (Mark 4:19, NET). Finally, there is the seed that lands in good soil–tilled deep and prepared as Hosea talks about–where the word finds a place to grow. These people, “after hearing the word, cling to it with an honest and good heart and bear fruit with steadfast endurance” (Luke 8:15, NET).

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Determining the Focus of Your Heart

I think for a long while, it has been easy for many of us (at least in the U.S.) to coast along with shallow faith or faith that’s barely competing with the other things in our lives. We dare not keep that up now. Whether or not you believe we’re living in the last days, things are changing in the world and we will face challenges to our faith. We need to prepare our hearts so we’ll be ready to follow God no matter what, unlike this ancient king:

King Rehoboam … did evil because he was not determined to follow the Lord.
2 Chronicles 12:13-14, NET

In Hebrew, the last part of this verse literally means, “because he did not set his heart to seek the Lord” (NET footnote). The focus and direction of our hearts is of vital importance! We can’t just coast along thinking “eh, I’m an okay person so I don’t really need to bother with changing anything or preparing myself.” But we are responsible for preparing, establishing, and determining the direction our lives will go and how we respond to God’s word. If we’re not taking action to be “good ground,” it is very easy to slip into living lives that do not glorify God. In contrast to Rehoboam’s example, we have someone like Ezra:

For Ezra had set his heart to seek Yahweh’s law, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel.
Ezra 7:10, WEB

We need to be careful and diligent to “break up the unplowed ground” in our lives and hearts; to be sure we never forget God’s word or let it “depart from our hearts” (Hos. 10:12; Deut. 4:9). Determine in your heart to follow God. Seek His ways and do what He tells you in His word. That’s how you grow a “root system” of faith that will keep you steady no matter what comes.

Asking God to Prepare Us

We get a say in what kind of ground we are. We can “break up the unplowed ground” and “seek the Lord,” cultivating a heart where God’s word can sink in, take root, and grow. We can weed distractions out of our lives to make room for God’s character to flourish in us. We can dig ourselves into His truths and cultivate a relationship with Him that will sustain us through trails. And we can ask God to help us with this.

Yahweh, you have heard the desire of the humble.
You will prepare their heart.
You will cause your ear to hear
Psalm 10:17, WEB

Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, our fathers, keep this desire forever in the thoughts of the heart of your people, and prepare their heart for you
1 Chronicles 29:18, WEB

David, as “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22), knew the importance of preparing your heart to seek God. He also recognized that preparing our hearts requires a commitment to God and a recognition of our spiritual helplessness without Him. When we ask Him, He will help us prepare our hearts to take in His word, understand Him, and know Him. So long as we do our part to seek Him and cultivate lives where His word can flourish in us, He will make sure that our hearts are safe in Him.

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What Happens When God Takes Justice to the Next Level?

14 November, 202013 November, 2020Marissa

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus talks about commands given to ancient Israel and then gives new guidelines for how to obey God from a heart level. He wants us to shine as lights in the world so that all “can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:14-16, NET).

As preface to taking the commands to a spiritual level, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17, NET). In other words, He has come “to cause God’s will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God’s promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfillment” (Thayer’s dictionary entry on G4137, pleroo). And lest anyone think that the new covenant Jesus brings will make obedience any less of a priority, he adds, “unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!” (Matt. 5:20, NET).

We must have a righteousness that “goes beyond” the letter of the law. It’s no longer enough to not murder; Jesus expects us not to despise or condemn others as well (Matt. 5:21-22). Not cheating on our spouses isn’t enough; we’re not even to lust after someone who doesn’t belong to us (Matt. 5:27-28). God has always cared more about the state of the human heart than what we do, and now that desire for heart and spirit-level obedience is made even more explicit. We might even say that what Jesus reveals demands a higher degree of commitment to God than what He expected under the Old Covenant.

A Life for a Life

One of the commands Jesus talks about is, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” (Matt 5:38, WEB). This alludes to three passages in the Torah (according to the reference list in MySword Bible app): Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, and Deuteronomy 19:21.

The rest of the people will hear and become afraid to keep doing such evil among you. You must not show pity; the principle will be a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, and a foot for a foot.
Deuteronomy 19:2-21, NET

The NET footnote on this verse says, “This kind of justice is commonly called lex talionis or ‘measure for measure’… It is likely that it is the principle that is important and not always a strict application. That is, the punishment should fit the crime and it may do so by the payment of fines or other suitable and equitable compensation.” This interpretation may well be true, and perhaps Jesus had this in mind when He mentioned this law in His sermon. Maybe people had begun applying it too strictly and missed the heart of God for fairness and justice.

Jesus does not, however, tell people they need to keep applying this law but in a slightly different way. For the other “you have heard … but I say to you” passages, Jesus reinforces keeping the law and makes it more broadly applicable while taking it to a heart level. For example, “Do not break an oath” becomes “do not take oaths at all” (Matt. 5:33-37). This time, though, the exact connection to a broader spiritual application isn’t so direct.

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Mercy over Judgement

You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer. But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your coat also. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to the one who asks you, and do not reject the one who wants to borrow from you.
Matthew 5:38-42, NET, quoting Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20.

In the past, God’s law let you exact equal retribution for a crime. Someone knocks your tooth out, they lose their tooth. God is a God of justice and judgement, and every time there is sin someone has to pay for it. One thing implied by that rule of justice is that when you transgress the law you will also be punished. That’s where we start to realize how much we need God to also be a God of mercy, and indeed He is.

For the one who obeys the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a violator of the law. Speak and act as those who will be judged by a law that gives freedom. For judgment is merciless for the one who has shown no mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 2:10-13, NET , quoting Exodus 20:13-14

God wants to show us mercy. He delights in seeing it triumph over judgement. But if we want God to show us mercy, we must also show mercy when we have that opportunity. When someone hits you you don’t hit them back; you turn the other cheek, turn vengeance over to God, and live at peace with everyone you can (Rom. 12:17-21).

Mimicking Jesus’s Mercy

It is worth noting that when Jesus says, “resist not an evil doer,” the Greek word is anthistemi (G436). The only positive case of it being used between people is when Paul stood up to Peter’s hypocrisy in shunning Gentile believers (Gal. 2:11-17). It is also used when we’re told to “resist the devil” (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8-9) and to “withstand in the evil day” wearing God’s armor (Eph. 6:13). The command in the Sermon on the Mount does not mean we can’t correct someone in the spirit of love when they’ve made an error or that we do not resist the power behind all evil. We are, however, to commit ourselves to showing mercy and letting go of the option to revenge ourselves on someone else.

When God takes justice and fairness to the next level, it turns into mercy, long-suffering, peace, and love. The principle of “a life for a life” finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ dying to free us from all the things we’ve done that deserve death. He gave His life to redirect the “compensation due sin,” which “is death” (Rom. 6:23, LEB), to Himself even though He did not deserve to suffer and die.

Our human nature might rise up against this “turn the other cheek” passage and say that it isn’t fair to let others get away with these sorts of things. But it also was not “fair” that Jesus died instead of us to pay the penalty for our sin. His mercy triumphed over judgement, and if we follow Him in spirit and in truth our mercy should also triumph over judgement.

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