Correct views or warm righteousness? (2)
Because
it’s true that God desires mercy (covenant love that expresses itself
in kindness and justice toward the neighbour) rather than the keeping of
ordinances, people are tempted to dismiss ordinances as close to
irrelevant in the lives of believers (OT or NT).
You can’t read
the OT without seeing that the prophets rebuked the people for
substituting religious ordinances for lives of faith-filled obedience.
Micah 6:6-8, Isaiah 58:1-7 and Amos 5:21-24 illustrate this well and see
Psalm 40:6-8 and 51:6-17.
So why didn’t Israel simply dismiss
ordinances altogether? Why didn’t they say, “God really wants heartfelt
allegiance to him and lives of righteousness and kindness so let’s
forget all the things like circumcision, Sabbath observance, Passover
and such”?
Wise men and women who are at home in the Scriptures
and biblical theology would be able to give us a long list of good
reasons why they didn’t but the rank and file of us have a couple of
obvious ones we can rest on.
For one, God instituted these
ordinances and whether the Jews understood all his wise reasons for
doing so it wasn’t for them to debate with their King. God is a great
King and as such he must be honoured even in the matter of ordinances
(compare Malachi 1:6-14).
Secondly, ordinances that embodied
truths about God’s self-disclosure proclaimed things about God! It’s
true that the fundamental truths about God were lived out in how they
lived in honour and justice with each other but ordinances like
circumcision, Passover, Ingathering, Tabernacles and Sabbath gave
meaning to their community living. Circumcision reminded them that they
were children of Abraham and covenanted with God through him by grace.
Passover reminded them that they were a people redeemed by grace from
national oppression and so forth.
There were non-elect Gentiles
that treated one another with neighbourly kindness and justice (compare
Romans 2:14-16) but they had no mark of circumcision saying they were
the elect of God, they had no Passover saying they have been the object
of a gracious redemption and they had no Sabbath to signify election and
God’s total provision. If the lives of non-elect people like Ruth the
Moabite were compared with other fine Jewish women they would all be
admired for their gentleness and generosity of spirit.
The
ordinances spoke their truthful message about God even if Israel abused
them! The ordinances spoke a condemnation on Israel when Israel refused
to live up to the meaning of those ordinances. The ordinances proclaimed
truths about God and his character and purpose as surely as the lovely
lives of obedient and faith-filled Israelites did.
We don’t
learn to despise or think little of the ordinances of God from the Bible
because they shape the believer’s understanding of his/her life of
obedience. The ordinances proclaim the soil out of which their virtue
takes it rise. The believing Jew would tell the world of Passover and
Sabbath and the Christian world tell the world of Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper because the ordinances were a witness to God and his work
(see 1 Corinthians 11:26). While a life pursuit of holiness,
righteousness and kindness is an indispensable marker of the believer it
is not to be severed from the God-appointed ordinances which shape the
identity of God’s people and the nature of their pursuit of holiness.
“But who cares why
we are virtuous and righteous or what kind of religious soil they
spring from? Is it not enough that we all treat one another decently and
with justice?”
I’ve heard that question expressed hundreds of
times in my life. I’ve often asked it! For those who have little time
for religion (but who nevertheless live on the bread brought to the
world via the Hebrew—Christian scriptures)—for those who have little
time for religious ordinances, their theological meaning and witness are
wholly irrelevant. “Look at me! I live as well as any of you religious
people so it’s clear I can get along very well without your ‘truth’ and
ordinances.” I’ve often heard that too from decent and upright people
who weren’t speaking in arrogance but in honest debate.
With many others I would answer that God is at work in their lives whether they acknowledge him or not and
that our faith and ordinances included proclaim truth about God that
their lives without faith or ordinances do not. [To be continued, God
enabling.]
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.