The First Law
“Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the LORD GOD, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’” Ezekiel 33:11
As I Live – When sin crushes me to the bone, when I feel the weight of the rot on my shoulders and the Second Law exacts its toll from my life, what basis do I have for hope? Ecclesiastes makes it very clear that there is no real hope in work, in progeny, in legacy or society. The Second Law applies. It all goes downhill. How can I have hope? God answers:
Chaiani! As I live! I have reason to hope because GOD LIVES! He is not the God of the dead. He is the God of the living. When He comes to rescue, He brings life with Him. Because He is alive, I can trust that He will make me alive. I don’t worship some past relic or some ancient memory. I worship the here-and-now, living God!
This Hebrew word (from hayah) is an in-your-face, basic, reality word. It’s not the word for some eternal, ethereal existence – a transcendent God high above the clouds. It’s not the word for spiritual realms and the mystery of Being. It’s the basic word for living things. It’s the same word that is used for the life of animals and beasts. God shouts, “I am as much alive as that pet at your feet. I am as much alive as the animals in the forest. I am right here and now alive.” Of course, we know that God is far more than all this, but in the midst of our decomposing lives, we need to hear the First Law, not the Second. And the First Law is this: God is alive!
Just as we cannot voice the depth of our inner reality – the despair that goes with the slide into darkness – so we are not able to shout the solution. God voices our true condition – rotting away – and He proclaims our only solution. He lives! Do you realize that because God lives, everything else is possible? Do you not see that all that we are, and all we are meant to be, is based in the living God? Put your hope there, and nowhere else. Listen to Him, and nothing else. God announces in the strongest possible terms that He is not interested in death – yours or mine. He does not want to see the wicked perish. (By the way, the wicked are not those terrible pagans. In this verse, God is speaking to His own chosen ones.) He wants restoration. He wants us to live!
What beauty, harmony and glory is there in the disintegration of God’s creation? None! He wants what He has created to shine with the splendor of His handiwork. He has set a beacon ablaze in the universe and He desires it to light up the night. So, God exhorts His sin-sick children to turn back. That’s one of the most important themes in the whole Bible – and tomorrow we will look carefully at it. But today – today is a day of hope. Today, God is alive! The First Law reigns supreme.
Topical Index: Live
