Law of the Land

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Psalm 19:9 (Hebrew World translation)

Judgments – It is simply impossible for us to understand all of the decisions God makes.  At some level, continued exploration and pleading demands for God to justify Himself border on human arrogance.  John Calvin expressed it succinctly:  “The best rule of sobriety is, not only in learning to follow wherever God leads, but also when he makes an end of teaching, to cease also from wishing to be wise.”[1] While most believers are content to submit to the decisions of the Lord, there is a sense in which His legal pronouncements surpass our ability to comprehend them.  We have no problem with those claims that fit our own ethical bias, but we often chafe when, for example, God extinguishes an entire people.  We squirm under the criticism of the pagans, feeling as though God needs to explain Himself.  Such discomfort is a mark of misunderstanding mishpatim.  No man knows the mind of God.  What we know is what He chooses to reveal to us – and that is all we know.

Let’s consider this dilemma from another angle.  How are we to explain God’s decision to rescue the disobedient and undeserving?  What justification is there that marries holiness and forgiveness?  If God’s ethical imperatives exterminate the guilty in Sodom, why don’t those same imperatives eradicate us from the face of the earth?  Are we any more deserving of mercy than the men and women of Sodom?  Are we any more righteous?  Even if we could claim that we did not participate in their sins, does that lift us above the line of absolute holiness?  Is there anyone among us who could stand before the Lord of hosts and justify acceptability on the basis of merit?  If this is true of us, then why does God relent from the demand for strict justice?  If His judgments are true, should they not to be equally applied to all?  Where would that leave us?

Perhaps the greatest mystery is not why God chose to eliminate the wicked in the flood, or the perverse in Sodom or the treacherous Amalekites.  Perhaps the greatest mystery is why He allows us to live.  “You shall be holy,” does not allow half-measures or good intentions.  Yet here we are – forgiven and accepted.  Why?  Yes, we all know the answer, “For God so loved the cosmos,” but that is more a rationalization than it is a justification.   Why should God love us?  Don’t His judgments preclude loving that which is bent on disobedience?  This is the great mystery of our corrupt creation.  Why didn’t God simply start over after the fall of Adam and Havvah?  Wouldn’t it have been so much easier – and so much less complicated – to erase the mistake and recreate the perfect world?  For some reason, incomprehensible to us, God chose otherwise.  The law of the land is found in His judgments, and they begin with an inexplicable commitment.  Rejoice in His mishpatim.  Each one affirms that mercy outweighs wrath.

Topical Index:  mishpatim, judgments, Psalm 19:9, mystery