Biblical Conformity
In Your righteousness rescue me and save me; extend Your ear to me and help me. Psalm 71:2 NASB
Righteousness – Conformity is almost a dirty word in the modern world. As we discovered yesterday, self-identity and self-concern were pregnant in the idea of the individual, born into a new sense of Man in the sixteenth century. Today we long for the world of the “noble savage,” that creation of Rousseau that lies behind our desires for fame and fortune. We want to be free, especially from the demands of society. Unfortunately (really?), civilization only survives with the limitation of these personal freedoms. A man who can do whatever he wishes whenever he wishes is, in biblical terms, no longer human. Connection and responsible obligation are inherent in what it means to be in God’s image. There is no such thing as a fully free man.
If we knew anything about the Hebrew word ṣĕdāqâ, none of this would be surprising. In biblical terms, righteousness is “conformity to an ethical or moral standard.”[1] Righteousness is essentially rule-keeping, exactly the opposite of the idea of individual self-assertion. A righteous man is a man whose life is governed by God’s standards. His freedom comes only in choosing to be in conformity. He does not get to determine what the rules are; he only gets to follow them or not follow them.
Obviously, we fail. We all fail. Paul can say with absolute certainty, “All have sinned,” and he doesn’t mean everyone is a moral leper. He means that no one is immune to decisions that violate in spirit or action the standard God put in place. Christianity uses this idea to promote the doctrine that all men are essentially sinners (born with a sinful nature that causes them to sin). That’s not the view of ancient Israel or of the rabbis. Choice is not coerced by some mysterious anti-God gene. It’s a free decision (regardless of the influences that bear upon it). In rabbinic terms, human beings are the nexus of a desire to have the world their way and a prodding to redeem the world God’s way. They sin, not because they are caused to, but because they choose to. All of this was abundantly clear to the poet. That’s why he does not ask for rescue on the basis of his own moral standing. “In Your righteousness, rescue me” is an admission, right from the beginning, that only God is good, and on that basis alone, He may decide to help. “ṣedeq, then, refers to an ethical, moral standard and of course in the ot that standard is the nature and will of God. ‘The Lord is righteous (ṣaddîq) in all his ways and holy in all his works’ (Ps 145:17).”[2]
I am sure you agree. If you’ve embraced the biblical worldview, this seems obvious. But what if you haven’t? What if you think that you have to make up your own rules, design what’s best for you and others without divine revelation? What then? We don’t have to look far to find the answer. There are basically two alternatives. First, there just aren’t any rules. This is the position of the man who believes the world is the random accident of chaotic happenstance. For him, “rules” are whatever works. They are essentially arbitrary and judged only on the basis of their usefulness. If they promote health, wealth, and whatever other goals a man had, then they’re acceptable. If they promote destruction, inequity, and violence, then (maybe) they’re not so useful. But no matter, they are still legal fictions, propping up societies that have no other choice in order to survive. The law of the fittest is the final consideration. Ask Darwin.
The other choice is to remove revelation and replace it with an ordered universe. This is the path of Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, and many others. They didn’t deny God, they just denied that He was interested in men. The “natural” order became a substitute for divine law, and with it, the expulsion of all those “particular” regulations suitable only for some particular people at some particular time. Israel’s laws were jettisoned as too provincial. What really matters is aligning our lives with the cosmic order, understood by reason alone. The “higher” ethics of universal Man is the basis for righteousness. So entered Christian philosophy, bringing in tow all the moral systems of the Church and the Synagogue. As Jacques Ellul noted: “To be like God is to be able to declare that this is good and that is bad. This is what Adam and Eve acquired, and this was the cause of the break, for there is absolutely nothing to guarantee that our declaration will correspond to God’s. Thus to establish morality is necessarily to do wrong.”[3]
What are the real choices here? 1) Do whatever you want and justify it by how it works (for you) since there is really no other higher basis for behavior, or 2) do what the cosmic order demands as understood by reason explained by moral system of the Church or the philosopher or the rabbi, or 3) appeal to God and ask Him for help. The last might seem the best until you have to explain why you don’t eat shrimp.
Topical Index: righteousness, ṣĕdāqâ, ethics, morality, cosmic law, Psalm 71:2
[1] Stigers, H. G. (1999). 1879 צָדֵק. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 752). Chicago: Moody Press.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity, p. 15.
