Deuteronomic Sin

Saying, “God has abandoned him; pursue and seize him, for there is no one to save him.”  Psalm 71:11  NASB

Abandoned – What are the consequences of living in a religiously public world?  What do people assume to be true if their paradigm claims that public circumstances are the direct result of the will of God?  These questions have been a part of the ancient world since the time of Job.  You will recall that Job’s compatriots pressed him to admit his sin because in their minds his terrible condition must be the direct result of disobedience.  That idea didn’t change much over the centuries.  It is the same thought that motivates Yeshua’s disciples to ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” (John 9:2).  In this verse, the poet expresses the same conclusion.  If your circumstances are not peaceful and plentiful, then God must have left you.  Somehow, somewhere you sinned, and God’s punishment is that He won’t come to your rescue.

If you thought that modern theology has finally moved away from this mistaken idea, you’d be wrong.  The “prosperity gospel” movement has exactly the same theology.  It just applies it in reverse.  If you’re good and obedient, then God will make sure you have plenty of money, a secure future, and good health.  If you don’t have these things, then there’s something wrong between you and God.  In fact, this movement suggests that any illness you have is ultimately the result of unconfessed sin.  I wonder what they think about COVID.  I would suppose that in their view the COVID “plandemic” is really God’s punishment for the entire world.  Cancer comes because you or one of your ancestors didn’t confess some unknown or forgotten sin.  Dig deep and find it.  Confess and you will be healed.  Isn’t that what James says?

This persistent religious doctrine is called the Deuteronomic idea of sin, that is, if you’re good you will be blessed.  If you’re not good, you will be cursed.  Obviously, the connection is to the final warning of Moses in Deuteronomy 28.  It’s straight up reward and punishment thinking, and since Moses said it, it must be true.  At least that’s how it’s interpreted, by everyone from Job’s “friends” to the person who says that God can heal you if you just follow the Torah.

Apparently Yeshua missed that passage.  In reply to his disciples, he basically says that whole idea is mistaken.  You can read more about this particular conversation and other discussions of John 9:2 HERE.  The point is that the idea is very old, and it’s the reason the protagonists in our psalm can claim that God won’t save the writer.  Just look at his distress.  That means God has left him.  Now’s our chance to get him.

What do we learn?  Well, maybe all of this suggests that our circumstances sometimes have nothing to do with God’s favor or disfavor.  Maybe our whole idea of reward and punishment is wrong.  Paul came to that conclusion about his “thorn in the flesh.”  Maybe our complaints about how we feel when things don’t go our way are really endorsement of this ancient—and mistaken—idea.  Maybe bad things happen to good people on purpose.

Topical Index: sin, reward and punishment, Job, Deuteronomy 28, John 9:2, Psalm 71:11