The Consequences of Election
“You only have I chosen among all the families of the earth; Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” Amos 3:2 NASB
Will punish – OK, so tell me honestly. If I offered you membership in a great club but the condition of membership was punishment every time you violated the agreement even in the slightest way, would you sign up? If someone came to you and told you that you had been chosen for greatness but the choice meant that you would be subject to meticulous discipline, penalties, sanctions and thrashings, would you ask to opt out? What if this person told you that everyone not chosen got to live by a completely different code, one that delayed judgment until the very end, but you would have to pay as you go. Would you still want to be conscripted for duty?
Amos tells us that the consequence of being chosen by God is the real possibility of terrifying punishment. Just think about the blessings and curses at the end of Deuteronomy. Aren’t we lucky? God decides to punish us because we are chosen. Otherwise He might just ignore our disobedience for a good long time.
Most of the world operates on two mistaken assumptions. The first is that, in general, God doesn’t really care what people do. Sure He might get upset over real injustice like beheading innocent children, but for the most part He leaves us alone. Our “little” indiscretions are equally of little consequence. All that is necessary to confirm this assumption is to observe the wealthy and powerful. Even the Bible recognizes that their lives are more or less immune from disaster. Even if they are morally corrupt. God seems to just let them go about their business. Sure, in the end He will (maybe) punish them, but they don’t seem to suffer too much in this world. God must not care.
The second mistaken assumption is entirely religious. It is the assumption that God automatically blesses those who profess to follow Him. In other words, as a counterpoint to the first assumption as evidenced by the general corruption of the world but its apparent lack of judgment, this assumption suggests that God really wants His chosen to replace the good life of those who are now enjoying the world’s delights. After all, a good God wouldn’t want His children to suffer, would He? Therefore, the presumption is that God will give me (because I am good, of course) all those things that the wicked now seem to enjoy. He will bring justice. They will be punished and I will be rewarded.
But Amos throws all of this out the window. God punishes those who love Him because He loves them! What kind of nonsense is this? Ah, it is fatherly nonsense. A good parent punishes a child in order to develop in the child a sense of character, responsibility and identity. The parent who does not punish inherits a child who does not grow up. And God wants His children to grow up into full stature and full measure—to become like Him. He loves us so much that He punishes us.
When we see those whose lives appear to be silver-spoon blessings, we often envy what they have. But it just might be that God knows they are not capable of chastising growth. They have to be coddled so that they won’t fall apart. Maybe a “blessing” is really God’s way of withholding growth opportunity for those too weak to make it. But not you, right? You want to grow so you welcome punishment. Right?
Oh, just one more thing. The Hebrew word here is paqad. The translation “punish” is by no means as clear as you might imagine. Take a look at this.
Topical Index: punishment, growth, blessings, paqad
TRAVEL NOTE: Today I am in transit to South Africa for three weeks of teaching. Internet is very problematic there, so please do not be upset if it takes awhile for me to respond to you. I am also traveling with an injury (an accident) that makes things quite painful, so if you think of me, say a prayer. Thanks.
HELP NEEDED!! Rosanne just called and told me our roof is leaking in 3 different places. Does anyone know a reliable roofer in the Orlando area? If so, please email Rosanne at : rosannemoen@mac.com Thanks
My understanding is this word paqad means, “to visit.” It is about God visiting and examining us, as the sheep passes under the rod of the shepherd. So, I don’t see it necessarily in a negative framework, as in punishment; more like pruning and correcting.
I talk about this at length in my lectures “Being Human.” The usual implication about punishment can’t be correct in the context of Exodus 34.
Dear Skip,
I am praising YHVH for your heart for His least of these. Halleluah! Thank you for doing this Body job when I can’t go! I love those girls! Thank you for loving them for me!
I am praying that while you are being visited with pain, that you also be visited with an abundance of the very special God stuff that tends to show up at the same time. Stuff like, oh, I don’t know, I have found that pain tends to focus you, and cause you to economize and cut out any extraneous effort; it also tends to make it harder to get distracted for the same reason. Also, when you can’t do as much, then He tends to be able to do more, and mo’ better, as we say here. And, perhaps, being challenged makes us more available to others who perhaps would not be able to see a way to love us so easily if we looked like we had it all together? I am praying that the Body in your neck of the woods redound to His glory and that you get swept up in that glory, too. Halleluah!
Love, Laurita
AMEN!
A very timely word:) Thanks, Skip!
oh yes…….hurts so good!
This is a great topic for the Fall Festival time of year – a time of focus on repentance and then the rabbinical suggested reading of the Book of Ecclesiastes during Sukkot. Surely, Ecclesiastes offers part of the answer to Skip’s intriguing question on THE CONSEQUENCES OF ELECTION?
I do not see that God particularly focuses on “spanking” the elect. Sometimes we may not be as righteous as we think we are, as we ponder why we are having so many problems while those “in the world” seemed to be getting a free no consequences ride. Things are NOT always what they seem to be on the surface.
So, let’s look at Amos 3:2.
I dare say that no matter the exact meaning (if there is one?) of the Hebrew word “Paqad”, Israel were deserving of any corrective punishment YHVH sent there way. Readers who have gone through the experience of parenting children should easily identify with what I am going to say.
Here in Amos 3 God reminds Israel (again!) that they were His Elect. He heard their prayers when they were in the hopeless hell of slavery in Egypt, He brought them out of there using “shock and awe” – a series of great miracles and gave them His Laws so they would know their Father’s expectations of them. He even gave them a LAND of their own. He told them He would be their King so they would have nothing to fear from the scary nations around about them. Some Father this God is! He told them if they were a “holy people unto the Lord” – keeping His Laws, and being a light to the nations around them, He would bless them beyond their wildest dreams BUT if they did not, there would be serious consequences. (Deut.28 and Lev..26)
We all know this story. Israel rebelled against their Father, rejecting HIM as being their King, (How stupid can you get?) and God did what some of us parents have had to do – kick the rebellious kids out of the house. After many mini expulsions and returns, the Father eventually had had enough and He banished them “permanently” from the LAND. As a parent, I do not see what God did to Israel as being undeserving punishment at all, do you?
But our God is a BIG God – the Loving Father of all loving fathers. He has objectives for His children that He will ensure they come to pass. So He has not forgotten them or His covenant with father Abraham. Though they have not merited it. He will bring them back into His house again – back to the LAND. That is what Paul records for us in Romans 9,10 and 11 where He tells us that “all Israel will be saved”. The story of how the Father is going to do this is found in Ezekiel 36 and elsewhere too. It is enough to bring a tear to any parent’s eye! Here it is and keep in mind that it is all the Father’s doing. Israel did nothing to deserve it!
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations will know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 For I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. 28 You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29 And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses; and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. 30 I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good; and YOU WILL LOATHE YOURSELVES FOR YOUR INIQUITIES and your abominable deeds. 32 It is not for your sake that I will act, says the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.” (Ezek. 36:22-32)RSV The Father will give Israel a “heart transplant”and He will give them His Holy Spirit. will do all this because He has pride in His Name!
The amazing thing here though is that Israel’s story is your story and my story too! One way or another,we are all prodigal children of a Great Father – well deserving of a corrective spanking when we stray from His agenda for us and our relationship with Him! His WORD tells us that He will NOT test / try us beyond what we can take. James tells us:”Count it all joy , my brethren, when you fall into various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” (James 1:2-4) When the going is tough, that is a hard Scripture to accept, I admit!
But nowhere has the WORD said that being in “soldier of Christ” training camp would be all sitting by the pool with a nice cold beer. That will be phase two – the Millennium! Meanwhile back at the ranch, as General Patton might have said: “The Consequences of Election – bring them on! – its the Pearl of Great Price that we want, come hell or high water! :-))
Shalom
Good word, Skip — so much of Christendom rails against adversity as an attack from the devil, rather than embracing it as another opportunity to “count it all joy” and “let endurance have a perfect work”. When adversity is defined as an attack, it becomes a Catch 22. How can you endure and embrace the trial that is meant for your growth, when you think you should be resisting it, because it’s from the devil?
When I read the first chapter of James in light of this TW, it changes everything.
In the past, I read James Chapter One as “God never brings adversity our way” and I quoted vs. 13-27 as my proof text. Now I think I’m beginning to understand; James said the trials we experience from God are NEVER evil. That’s not to say that the trials won’t be downright miserable to endure, just that what occurs is not, by definition, evil. When we attribute the trial, test or adversity to the devil, rather than recognizing it as from God for our growth, we are DEFINING the adversity as being evil.
The shift in paradigm changes everything. If I blame my troubles on an attack from the devil, both my stress level and my discontent increase as I try to “fight off the enemy”. But when I recognize that God is expecting my undivided attention, there is a Godly purpose to this pain, AND I change my focus so that I see His Hand — rather than fiery darts from the enemy — then, my desire to endure is strengthened and perseverance has a chance to do its complete work.
It’s all about interpretation and paradigms, isn’t it? I suspect it is God who is acting in my life with far more frequency, than it is the devil.
How else are we going to be able to “prove that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God” if there is not a “refiner’s fire” to go through? And Whose fire might that be? Doesn’t that word, ‘prove’, used in this context, have more to do with a refining, purifying process, than it does being able to, say, out-argue an opponent? How else are we going to gain steadiness under fire? Yep, live ammunition fire, too.
That is not to say that we don’t have any say in it. I think we do. My mama used to say that we didn’t get the next lesson until we learned the last one, but we got to choose how fast or how slow we learned it. Which, if you think about it, throws this whole thing back off the Lord and the devil, and onto ME!
I know as soon as I decided to line up to the plate and get right, the whole deal changed. Now who exactly was holding that card?
Now I am not saying that the Lord doesn’t get out of the way and let the devil have at us if we choose to move out from under His protection; I mean the very definition of free choice is that there is something to choose between. The way I see it, the devil is a legalist; he does love to execute the claims of the Law on us when we are not covered and forgiven, but how else are we to learn what that Law might be if we didn’t happen to show up for class the day the Teacher was going over that portion of the Law? I mean there is the Easy way, and there is the Other way, and there is the Highway (well, maybe not that one), but when I went looking for something called My way, I couldn’t find that one. Looking back in hindsight, it all looks like either the devil got to trash me, or I was obedient to the Lord. I saw that I got to choose whose way I did, but there was no such thing as My way. One of the bigger shockers of my life!
It is true, Laurita! “My way” is truly inadequate for living.