David’s Duet
That You examine him every morning and try him every moment? Job 7:18 NASB
Try – Job starts his declaration in very much the same way David does. “What is man that You magnify him and are concerned about him?” (Job 7:17) But maybe Job has a slightly different reason for his statement. David’s psalm (Psalm 8) is about the seeming insignificance of the human frame compared to the vastness of the cosmos. The poem really is a praise for YHVH’s compassion and guidance. But Job has just received nothing but grief because of God’s introduction before ha-satan. Job’s view isn’t quite David’s declaration of praise. Job sees God as the one who brings scrutiny and trial. And under these conditions, Job would just as soon remain invisible.
What about Job’s complaint? Does God examine us every morning and try us at every opportunity? Do we never get a break? Are we never able to rest in this lifelong journey? Job uses the Hebrew verb bahan. It describes the process of being tested for inner integrity. God is almost always the subject (the agent) in these tests and they are to be considered a privilege of being one of His own. Ah, that’s makes everything wonderful, doesn’t it? Try telling that to Job.
Would you rather be under the radar? Are you overjoyed that God pays so much attention to you that you are examined every morning and constantly tested? That sounds like the Giant Policeman in the Sky to me. Do I really want to worship a God who delights in making my life difficult? David might have lauded God for paying any heed to the insignificant beings that we are, but Job would have been much happier for God to worry about the universe and not blink an eye toward him. Maybe you have felt that way too.
So if God is so good, if He is the loving and compassionate Father, if He has only our best in mind, then why does He constantly test us? The answer is a matter of life and death. In the mythology of the ancient Near East, the gods weighed the worthiness of men and women after they died. If they passed the test, it was on to the next life for them. If not, well, too late now. But God tests us in this life in order that we may be found worthy before it is too late. What a change! Tested now so that we will not fail later. In ancient thought, nothing could be more compassionate. God’s way gives us a chance. Repentance is possible. Purgatory does not exist.
One other connection is needed in order to understand the kind of trials God has in mind. That connection is to Isaiah 28:16 which uses the words ‘eban bohan, a “tested stone.” What is the tested stone? It is the Messiah, the foundation cornerstone of faith. Testing does have significant consequences, doesn’t it? If the Messiah was tested and found true, what makes you think we won’t also be tested?
Topical Index: try, test, bahan, tested stone, Job 7:18, Isaiah 28:16
Messiah was tested and proven righteous. Is his righteousness not imputed to us? Why then are we tested? I am arguing from the perspective of Christian friends. I need an answer for them as well as myself.
Lisa, a most excellent question!
What does the Scripture say? Well, many things. I have found it a great exercise to go back through it with a specific question, and see what the Scripture says to the question. Try it.
I find that all the ‘greats’ were tested. That puts you and me and your friends in great company. Paul was tested, and complained about it. Stephen was tested. All the apostles, in fact, were tested. Hmm.
Try asking yourself HOW Messiah imputes that righteousness to us. And when? Is it at baptism, at death? How do we get good? Or do we just slide in on His?
One thing for sure, modern Christianity is not really doing well on the above quiz. No wonder we are confused!
I have found something else interesting in Scripture, and that is that one of the best tests we have to see whether or not YHVH loves us is that He tests us. He does not bother so much with some people; others, they get totally grilled! Modern Christianity might lead some to believe that He loves the ones He leaves alone, but thinks the grilled ones are just trash. Hmmm.
Scripture also tells me that I can expect a baptism by fire, and not just by water. What does water do? Clean the outside. What does fire do? Clean the inside. It takes both. Righteousness cannot live in impurity. We have to trade. This trade is known by the name Repentance. Well, I repented at conversion. Modern Christianity might lead some to believe that that one time is enough to get the job done. Well, I want to ask, at your ‘born again’ moment did you fully see how bad off you were? Did you? Did any of us? Did any of us even have the capacity to see how bad it really was in our camp? How can we repent for what we do not see or are sorry for? And what about what I was sorry for then, but went back to wallowing in my mire once the pressure was off? If I get forgiven only once (well, that IS the other side of confessing only once!) then does that mean I am doomed if I slip?
I am imputed righteousness when I .let go of sin. Bit by bit, the enemy is driven out of the Promised Land. I get His goodness as a replacement for sin WHEN I LET GO OF IT. That happens daily. Even for the greats. Paul said “I die daily”. This is what he was describing. If I were delivered of ALL my sin, I would not recognize myself. I would lose my identity, for sin is woven into my fabric in every way. I think I would go insane, looking for anything I could recognize. But when I repent for what I see is not of God, it gets replaced little by little. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” is a promise to me that I will not be expected to deal with any more than I can handle at any given time. After all, I am still just a little kid in this!
What exactly convinces me to let go of something? When I see that it is no longer working for me, or when I get to hurting so much I can no longer stand it. I am talking about sin, y’all. And what gets me to that place where I actually WANT something better? Ummm, well, uh, trials?
I am afraid that the answer to your question is that testing is HOW the righteousness gets in. Why? Because we have to be convinced that sin doesn’t pay. Trials are where we get that convincing. When I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, then I become willing to go to the Doctor and start writing Him those repentance checks. What does He do to fix my problem? He gives me His righteousness THAT HE HAS ALREADY COME TO THE TRADING POST WITH in that place, and then He tells me to go and sin no more. At that point, I have usually been burned enough to finally agree with Him. He did offer His righteousness to me long ago, but the lag time is where I have to actually get to where I want it. Repentance is where I want it enough to come and bring my half of the trade. I have to let go of sin before He can throw it away, or else I get thrown with it. Trials are where I am getting burned because I have not let go of the sin He is burning out of me. Repentance is where I can see what I am doing wrong, and let go of it so that He can destroy the works of the devil in my life. This is another place where I think modern Christianity is really letting people down. The rough places are the places where we should be looking around for stuff that is not of God that has become too heavy to carry. We should be getting taught HOW to do this. Let Go And Let God is easier when I see my helplessness. Trials are a great place to turn loose! I am even motivated! Halleluah!
Thank you for this superb clarification, Laurita.
Luther’s idea of imputed righteousness is forensic and based on Luther’s concept of law which is in turn based on Roman ideas. Declared “not guilty” is a legal state, not a moral one. It simply means that the evidence against the person was either not sufficient to render a guilty verdict or that the case was dismissed. It says nothing about the ACTUAL choices of the person or the ACTUAL status of the person. That’s why it is IMPUTED.
But is this the way righteousness is assessed in the Tanakh? Does the Torah treat legal status the same way that Rome does? What does righteousness mean in the Tanakh? How is it possible for both David and Paul to claim that they are blameless before the Lord?
“What does righteousness mean in the Tanakh?” Torah obedience — which is why both David and Paul could both make the claim to righteousness. David’s claim was not based on the cross, so I’m thinking that Paul’s claim was not based on the cross either, was it?
Doesn’t the concept of “imputed righteousness” come out of the Christian doctrine of justification? And isn’t that drawn from the idea that the cross was about atonement?
We are justified by faith, pre- and post-cross. EVERYONE is. That is clear. The Faith Chapter in Hebrews 11 works hard to show us that; BUT, sanctification is not justification, nor does it happen automatically or necessarily concurrently. Conversion is where we meet to sign the contract. Justification is about what God does FOR me. Sanctification is about what God does TO me. All parts require faith, and I need all parts to enter into the Kingdom. I still have to travel on His goodness (that would be that sanctification), as there is none in me(!) to get there, but hidden in the details is HOW that goodness gets in me. Modern Christianity is looking HARD for ways around the Law, and I think this is just another corner of the pond of Living Water that they have been churning in a feverish attempt to avoid obedience to it.
I like the trick question. David and Paul both kept the Law. Justification is a statement about Yeshua’s perfection to that Law. Sanctification is a statement about my perfection to that same Law. Faith is necessary to have obedience; in fact, you cannot separate those two, no matter how hard anyone tries (and they just keep on trying!). That is because obedience IS an act of faith, in that it turns loose our belief in the lies that sin is based upon to grasp a new foundation based upon the truth. For example, lets look at the sin of unforgiveness, or bitterness, whether it be toward God, myself or others. I am commanded to forgive. The Law, in its insistence upon justice, commands it. Yeshua commanded it; He even built it right into His model prayer to show us how direct that connection is between my obedience to that command and whether or not I am going to get forgiven myself, so this is one I have to sit up and pay attention to!
I think bitterness is unjust, and therefore breaks the Law, because it does not take into account the nature of injustice. I am not being just to assume that I have been wronged by another because bitterness assumes that another’s sin is a sin against ME, even though Scripture teaches me that sin is what is done against GOD, not me. (Hey, if I am a dead person, injustice toward me does not even exist!) “Vengeance is Mine: I will repay” is a statement I find in the Old Testament and in the New. It is a statement about dead people, owned people, family people. We do not defend ourselves because we do not belong to ourselves if we are His. Defense then becomes His business. Bitterness is self-defense. It is a belief that I am on my own, which is a stance of being out of covenant. What covenant? Obedience to the Law. That is the contract I signed: in fact is the same contract the Children of Israel signed at Mount Sinai. What is the difference? They signed in the expectation that they would be traveling on their own righteousness. I sign in the expectation that I am going to be traveling on His, but the obedience does not change. Bitterness breaks covenant because I revive the yetzer ha-ra, my own direction and inclination, and step out of His righteousness, which is the yetzer ha-tov, the instant I do. Oops! Better get back inside!
It is righteous to forgive because even if another believes they are wronging me, they are not really doing that: they are wronging the God Who made me. ( Look at what Yeshua was saying on the cross: what were they not knowing they were doing?) When I believe that our contract is true; that He is saving me from my sins, and from the annihilation that those sins represent, then I will not listen to the lie that my justice, my defense, is up to me. I will continue to have faith in the truth that, because I am now family; now owned by Him; now DEAD in Him, He will defend me, and my faith in that is going to translate into a choice not to take offense at injustice. Now that I am in a contract, anyone who touches me, touches Him. (Hey, what is my bitterness compared to His vengeance?) And that is the truth that I am basing my faith on: that I believe, folks! Halleluah! I can obey because I have faith in the truth. Obedience is where I act on that faith in the truth. The power to obey that command is His, and so it is going to be His obedience, His righteousness, that I use, but I am still the one who is having to choose that to be so. Faith is where I trust Him to keep me steady and strong in the face of that injustice. (I know that I have no strength of my own to do that! Thank God I don’t have to!) It takes a good deal of faith, as you can see, to stay out of bitterness. And THAT is the faith that empowers my obedience. Forgiveness takes a power beyond me. Faith is where I give that Power the permission, if you will, to act through me to accomplish His forgiveness through me. That is also precisely where the world should see Him in me, in fact; and, if my obedience is perfect, like David’s, and Paul’s, they are going to see ONLY Him. Halleluah!
Thanks Laurita, that helps my understanding. So what you are staying, correct me if I misunderstood, is that righteousness is offered to us all the time, but it is only imputed to us as we repent and let go of sin. To me that means that the righteousness of Christ is not part of my life unless I repent and let go of the sin in my life. Sin, being defined by the Law of God. It is a process, not a set condition, and not a one time event! Somehow, I know this, when I add all the scriptures together. Yet many will refuse this way of seeing it, preferring to believe that they have to do nothing once they “accept Jesus as their saviour”.
Most people have the idea of repentance and Teshuva mixed up though I think. And they treat repentance or Teshuva as just confession. Best way to describe this is let’s say eating brownies is a sin. So to leave something behind, you need to leave it behind: now for now, now for the future and now for the past.
Let’s say that we do this, I leave the sin of eating brownies behind me. Are we done with the Teshuva? No according to the Ramban we haven’t even touched the mitzvot yet. All that took place was just self-improvement, it’s just you. This goes on the premise that every wrong doing affects someone, it either affects your relationship with God, it affects your relationship with someone else, or it affects both. Confession is meant to heal that.
Ramban uses the analogy comparing confession to a mikveh. In order for the mikveh to work (to make you pure or clean) you have to let go of what is making you impure. Makes sense, if you touch the carcass of a dead animal that act makes you impure. The first step in becoming ‘clean’ or ‘pure’ is that you have to let go of the carcass. Just like this with Teshuva, you have to let go of the sin or of the wrong doing first, once you have done that you are now ready to go into the Mikveh.
The Mikveh is what is transforming. The letting go is not what is transformative. You are still halachaly (Jewish Law) impure if you have touched something impure and all you did was let go. You need something transformative to change you from impure to pure, the mikeveh is transformative. This is where yahda (Yaw-daw) comes into play. yahda is ‘thank you’ or ‘im sorry’ the common denominator of this word is restoring balance back into the relationship – that’s what is transforming but it implies an action.
What it boils down to is this, relationships crave balance. Relationships sometimes get out of balance. Whenever they get out of balance either because I do something nice for you or you do something mean to you, there is an imbalance now in the relationship. Therefore reconciliation takes place because it seems like the easiest action get the relationship back into balance.
Teshuva is getting it in balance. Hypergrace or now a sweeping movement in modern christian thought goes off the notion that there is no need for the restoration of balance.
I can’t believe I didn’t see it before! I couldn’t get my head around His righteousness having been imputed to me and yet sinning. The ‘let go and let God’ concept was easier said than it made sense. I knew that the distance between sin and repentance should be getting shorter with spiritual maturity so that we would be able to repent as sin raises it’s ugly head and this is why we go through similar trials to purge this or that sin in us bit by bit.
“…when I repent for what I see is not of God, it gets replaced.” Seeing trials as “places where we should be looking around for stuff that is not of God that has become too heavy to carry” is so freeing. I knew it but differently. I think the difference was in the focus.
Lisa, I think what is not being taught very well is sanctification (and someone can step in here at any point and clarify any of this (including myself), as this is only how I understand it today, and I reserve the right to be wrong, and also the right to change). Sanctification is the one word we have for all the above. Yes, you are right. Sanctification is a process; not necessarily because that is the way God wants it, perhaps, but certainly because that is the way we want it. We don’t want to be delivered of all our sins all at once. Oh, we want to be saved all at once, but I ask you, saved from what? Most people actually have in mind that they want fire insurance; they want to be saved from DEATH, when actually they are signing on to a contract that promises them that they are going to have to DIE. When I get told I am to “die to sin” I am actually having to give up another piece of my flesh. The goal is to get rid of the entire body of the yetzer ha-ra, which are my natural inclinations.
Sin is funny business. I can’t see most of it at any given time. In fact, a lot of sins are there because I think that I am actually being righteous in that place! We have to become convinced that we are messing up before we can want better. Being born again is where we enter into a contract. We are justified at the place we accept Yeshua’s death for us. That is where we show up. He, of course, showed up before the foundation of the world, and finished it at the cross, but you and I have to show up, too. Yes, He died for me, but I have to live for Him. Sanctification is that Life, that Righteousness, that I am trading in my sin to get. The trade happens piecemeal for most of us over a lifetime. I continue to be justified the whole time I am still honoring that contract, still following His lead, still trusting Him for my salvation, but I am told that I can grieve that Holy Spirit and drive it away. He will never back out of His end of the contract. He has said so. But, He has also said that we can back out of it. HE will never leave us but we can, and do, leave Him. Hopefully we come running straight back!
I am told to pick up my cross and follow Him. What is on my cross? Self without Him. That has to die. Did all that die at my conversion? Oh, no! I think of conversion as being born into a new way to go about life. I think of sanctification as dying to my old one. It’s funny, but you have to be born before you can die. That is the cosmic order of operations. But I find that I didn’t die at that birth. I was not stillborn. Dying is an acquired skill, apparently. Oh, well. Thank God Who gave us a Pattern Man to show us how! Time to get back to dying for me! That is my part. The new Life is His part, but we have to do it together. That is not a bad deal!