The Holy Combination
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne;
Lovingkindness and truth go before You. Psalm 89:14 NASB
Lovingkindness and Truth – Imagine God riding on the clouds, the Ancient of Days approaching. Are you transfixed? Awestruck? Afraid? Ready? What precedes Him? According to David’s hymn of praise, we see hesed ve’emet. The NASB translates this important combination as “lovingkindness and truth.” Perhaps that’s as good as we can do in English but it is a far cry from the enormity of the words’ true meaning. We could spend time reviewing all the material about hesed, but for now we only need to recognize that ‘emet (truth) is not an addition to the thought of hesed. It is a hendiadys [Add this to your vocabulary. A hendiadys is “an expression of a single idea by two words connected with ‘and.’”]. David’s use of these two Hebrew words really conveys one single thought. Hesed and ‘emet are expression of the same thing. Hesed is truth. Truth is hesed.
If hesed is the unique Hebrew word describing the ultimate nature of God as relational, reciprocal, transitive and active, then ‘emet (truth) has the same characteristics. Truth is also relational. It is not about propositions, correct statements aligned with accepted fact. It is about persons in connections. Truth does not exist in isolation from community. The language game of truth requires the interaction of sentient beings (and perhaps more).
Truth is reciprocal. It obligates us. We are indebted to truth. Truth is not the list of undeniable facts of the universe, separated from all falsehood by an infinite chasm of independence. Truth does not exist without truth bearers, truth hearers, reacting to its demands and making its presence real in the world. Truth exists because God is my Maker and I am obligated to Him in the same way the number ½ depends on division. Descartes was wrong. It’s not cogito ego sum. It is debeo ego sum (I owe, therefore I am).
Truth is transitive. It has to be passed to someone else. It is not my truth. It is our truth. You might think that all that really matters is that you know what is true, but you would be mistaken. The truth is God’s and He has determined that it is a shared community of understanding. Truth doesn’t exist all by itself and neither do you. As long as there is conversation between the Creator and the creation, truth will require a “pay-it-forward” plan.
Finally, propositional “truth” is not alive. The statements of doctrine, the facts of the matter, the notable quotes are all dead words until you make them live in you. Someone else’s answer is never your answer until you find it in your own life. Hesed is not static, unchanging, timeless. It is incarnated holiness, pressing into every corner of your life until you are converted.
How does God arrive? With hesed ve’emet. One and the same in all its multiplicity.
Topical Index: hesed, ‘emet, truth, Psalm 89:14
Skip, I think hearing your compassion yesterday made more of an impression with me than your most eloquent exegesis. My truth is that I have been treated in the worst ways by people “of faith.” I participated in a limited manner with one Messianic discussion group and was kicked out. They didn’t even ask me about the “charges.” When I hear someone say they are “a believer,” my first thought is not that I am going to find a seeker of lovingkindness and truth. I’ve been saying the kinds of things that you are saying for many years. I have certainly not said them so eloquently, or backed them so convincingly, but I have argued many of the things you share because I saw them in Scripture. Men, especially, were not open to hearing something different coming from a woman. If that were true, wouldn’t someone on Moody radio be teaching it? Why don’t you go and submit to your husband or something? It’s really good to hear you sharing the things you share! I could never understand why I was so confronted and challenged by Scripture, and others seemed so soothed and comforted. It helps to know there is someone else on planet earth that has had many of the same reactions to the Creator and His Word as I have had.
I dare say Theresa that you have found in this blog an entire community of hundreds who share your experience. Don’t worry anymore about the ones who couldn’t and still can’t hear you.
This is such profound truth, Skip, all the more so because it is written so eloquently and yet succinctly.
We Report – You Decide
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against Him.”
Perhaps Pilate did not know this.. (then), but he was face-to-face with Truth Incarnate. Perhaps we too have forgotten His words: ~ “I AM the Way- the Truth and the Life” ~ oh yes.. and lest we forget “the rest of the His-story..” – NO MAN (no, not one – Jew or Gentile) comes unto the Father, but by Me!
~ Holiness is not the way to Christ – Christ is the Way to holiness ~ (He is the Way, – and we are the “followers/disciples/students of The Way.”
His mother gave us her experienced and excellent counsel: ~ “whatever He says, – DO IT!”
~ Then said they unto Him, “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” – (A reasonable request.)
And He (our Redeemer, the One who is The Truth and always speaks the Truth) said to them, – “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” (John 6.29) An honest answer.
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” – And what was the answer given to him on that day..?
This is heartstopping for me. I am copying this one out and putting it up on my wall. Big. Thank you so much!
Truth is ultimately about accountability.
I am not a cul-de-sac spelled Self. I am not even a one-way street called My Way. I am certainly not a destination of desirability for anyone or anything. I am more like a waterfall. In fact, I think I am more like the curve of that waterfall then I am the bed of the river or even the water. If you go asking yourself what exactly, in a material sense, a CURVE is, you would have the wrong question. Try asking instead what a curve DOES. It shapes the water. Even though it is not a thing in itself, it serves to alter the direction of what passes through it. If you go looking for a curve without the water, you are never going to find it, though. Further, it can only exist if the water not only exists too, but is actually going through that Curve Place.
I am also a Place Holder for an equation. Although I have no value of my own, the PLACE I am in has everything to do with what value everything else around me has.
I am not an emitter of light; nor am I a container for light. Instead, I am a conduit for light that originates before me to pass through so that things beyond me can see and be seen.
I am not a speaker of truth. I am a chooser of Places where truth should be spoken into. And then I am the chooser of enough empty space in me where a non-entity called Self can choose to become Truly Real by the act of scooting over enough so that the Real Truth can speak through me to that other place that needs It.
I am not defined by what I believe, or even what I say; powerful as faith and words are – and both are powerful enough to warp reality. Instead, I am defined by what I am NOT. In other words, I exist to choose to surrender my existence at every breath to the river of God’s love to graciously bend Itself down to pass through me, on It’s Way to a place in someone else that needs It. I exist to bring value to others. I exist to shine God’s light into the world around me. I exist to empty myself, like my Pattern did, so that Truth can manifest Itself into the world around me.
I therefore am accountable to both the Origin that is before me as well as the destination that is beyond me. I am like the electric cable that conducts a current. Come to think of it, you cannot stop electricity without stopping what it is. You cannot separate what it is from what it does, else both vanish. God’s love is not the thing that stops in me; that considers me Its destination. It is the Thing that shows up with Its own agenda; and, like the electricity, Love’s ultimate agenda is connection with everything and everyone everywhere all the time forever and ever. I am just invited to be a telegraph pole for that hesed and emet. Amen.
Amen
Wow. Great way of expressing that! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you again Skip for another encouraging Today’s Word.
And challenging
Hesed is truth. Truth is hesed. They kiss each other, they are ever present/precede/confronting in the Face of YHWH. Chesed and emet confront us to learn to walk in the right ways of YHWH. We can’t claim to have one without the other!
“The statements of doctrine, the facts of the matter, the notable quotes are all dead words until you make them live in you”, to being possessed by “incarnated holiness” of having both chesed and emet character traits. It is a process of learning through circumstantial experiences to be inculcated in our natures.
This verse corresponds to Micah 6:8, reminding us what YHWH requires of us daily in our walk on this journey.
Thank you, Skip! More life changing insights exploding my brain after reading this…wow…paradigm shift just opened a bit wider for me.
What I take away from this, so deeply, is that without chesed I cannot find emet and without emet I cannot fully know chesed. Truth has always been so important to me, no matter the cost. I’m learning that without lovingkindness, the truth is too easily dismissed. Thank you for this confirmation, Skip.
I would like to say to the community here that I thoroughly enjoy reading through the comments. I love the way you’ve all learned to communicate with one another even when disagreeing–sometimes passionately disagreeing–and how you’ve all maintained appropriate levels of respect. This community is a fine example of chesed v’emet.