I will praise you with an upright heart When I learn your righteous judgments.
What does learning about God’s righteous (right) judgments have to do with praise?
If we think of this Psalm as expressing joy over a list of rules, this might be a good question. If you haven’t yet, please read my earlier post on what “law” means in Psalm 119. To summarize, in Psalm 119 we heard one of God’s people praising God for God’s revelation in Torah. The various words for law direct us to the varied things that are present in this revelation of God.
This is important in terms of praise. Genuine praise results from looking at God’s self-revelation. We look at what God has done and the response is in praise. This is genuine praise.
There is also praise that is manipulative. “Lord, I praise you, and I want …” There is false praise. “Lord, I’m praising you because otherwise you might wipe me out. I hope you don’t notice that I don’t really mean it.”
This doesn’t mean that praise somehow results from knowing everything there is to know about God. We’re never going to do that this side of eternity. What it does mean is that genuine praise from us results from our observation of God’s revelation.
The more we observe, the more we praise. Not because God needs it, but because it flows from that knowledge.
Then I won’t be ashamed, When I keep my eyes on all your commands.
I didn’t get the poetry in my translation. It’s hard to get everything into it at once.
This verse strikes at one of our most serious problems. Our identity. Our ability to live with ourselves.
You’ve surely heard stories of people going on various pilgrimages to find themselves. Others go through their lives with a continuous question of whether they are important, or contribute, or make a difference of some kind. Who are we?
Often this comes as shame. We are ashamed of things we have done. Let me confess that there are things I have done in my life of which I am not proud. Even more, I have rarely (almost never) done my work to what I consider a high level of quality. There are always things in what I do that I want to apologize for, even to myself.
But when we get our eyes on God, in this case the God revealed in the commands he gave, we can begin to find our identity. The God who did these things actually cares about us.
7 “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 7:7-8 (NRSVue)
For a New Testament quote,
1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
In my current series on Psalm 119, I’m doing a daily meditation on each verse. These are, by design, short. At the same time, it’s difficult to cover certain nuances effectively in individual posts. One of these is the question of why I would write this particular series.
I’ve already included my video on the various uses of “law” and related terms in scripture. I’m embedding it here again.
God’s Eternal Law
To summarize this, I believe that God has an eternal law. That eternal law is not something that we can comprehend. It rules an entire universe. It is an absolute expression of who God is. Those of us who are not in that “space,” so to speak, are not going to comprehend or attain to this.
This law expresses not only who God is, but God’s ultimate and glorious purpose for creation, including us. As a starting point for understanding my own view of law and grace, I would point out that we have nothing that is not, in this sense, a gift. We can’t take our next breath without the physical laws, which are God’s creation. We bring nothing into this world that was not given to us.
But scripture (Psalm 8, for example), also quoted and directly applied in Hebrews 2, carries this concept forward into Christian thought. While everything is a gift, we are, in fact, gifted. Every one of us.
Various Laws
Now there are many laws expressed in scripture and in various human documents and institutions. God’s laws as delivered to us are always finite simply because we cannot possibly understand something infinite. When Paul notes (Romans 3:23) that we all fall short of God’s glory, I would take this as also that we cannot really comprehend God’s glory.
Individual laws or bodies of laws are relative. People are afraid of the word relative, because they think it makes something weak. But things and statements are always relative. We are neither able to make things absolute in all ways, nor would it be desirable to do so.
To illustrate from daily life, the rules a parent makes for a toddler do not necessarily apply to that same child as a teenager. That’s because the specific commands were related to that particular time and place.
When we look to biblical laws, we find many of the same things taking place. As Christians, we acknowledge that some laws were for specific times and places.
Note: Dispensationalism is based on this very real separation, though I think it has substantial problems in that it tries to make something relative more absolute than it was intended to be. In doing so, it both makes thing more rigid, and at the same time makes laws less applicable. Few dispensationalists would agree with a man with whom I had a discussion when he informed me that one clause in a verse in 2 Corinthians referred to a different dispensation than the rest.
The Torah and Israel (Very Briefly)
Now Israel’s religion centered more and more over time on the Torah, God’s revelation at Sinai, though many, myself included, would maintain that portions of it developed over a longer period of time. So when an Israelite referred to “the law” as Torah is often translated, he was referring to the core revelation of God to the people of Israel.
So when the Psalmist starts to celebrate the Torah in this poem, he is, in fact, celebrating both the fact that God made a self-revelation to Israel, and that this revelation was available to him personally. It was not just that this was a life-giving and life-affirming way of carrying out one’s life. It was not just a moral code. It was a revelation that gave meaning to all that was, is, or could be.
The Revelation of God in Jesus
We find Jesus portrayed in a similar way in the New Testament. John 1:1-18 is the classic expression. I am a great fan of the book of Hebrews. (I say that Leviticus, Ezekiel, and Hebrews are the three books that have shaped my theology.) Hebrews 1:1-4 is also a classic, though less known passage that expresses this idea explicitly. In the past, we are informed, God’s revelation came at various times and in various ways, but now it has arrived through one who is a Son, a complete portrayal of all that God is.
So Christian theology is, quite properly, centered in the person of Jesus Christ. I’m not here trying to argue about a “better” religion. I would like to point out that this is the source of a great deal of difficulty when Christians and Jews debate the meaning of Hebrew scripture. We are looking at it with different colored glasses. Rather than seeing the Torah as God’s final and ultimate revelation of God, we see Jesus in the same light.
But note that the book of Hebrews does not say that the revelation in Jesus Christ, a Son by nature, somehow meant that the other revelation was invalid or useless. It adjusts the center. It changes our viewpoint, and thus changes what we see, but it doesn’t say that the other viewpoint fails to inform.
I, as a Christian, could actually read Psalm 119 as a celebration of Jesus, though I would not hold that the author saw it or thought of it that way. We read this passage (and most others) very weakly when we consider the point to be one of how hard we should try to accomplish a set of ethical commands and precepts. It is rather a celebration of the God who chose Israel and provided to them the revelation of divinity that is contained in Torah.
The “Law Words” of Psalm 119
Psalm 119 uses a variety of words for the the law, including Torah. They are variously translated in various versions, but let’s consider Torah (instruction/law), testimonies, ways, instructions/procedures, statutes, commands, judgments, and words.
Each of these terms overlaps in their meanings, but all are included in the overall concept of Torah. Each has a different etymology and some differences in usage, but Psalm 119 seems to be simply using them to bring together the broadest concept of God’s law that is possible.
This celebration becomes possible for any of us as we celebrate God’s revelation, no matter where or how it is given. Psalm 19 celebrates the revelation of God in the created world, for example.
Conclusion
So reading and enjoying Psalm 119 is not just a celebration of commands and a demand for a particular behavior. It is a celebration of the God of law, revealed in Torah. As we see God in other ways and sources, it can become a celebration of those elements as well.
Oh that my ways were steady, Keeping your statutes.
Any time we’re looking at a set of standards, it’s well to be realistic, especially with ourselves. As we go through this Psalm, we’ll be celebrating God’s law in many ways and places, but there are a number of instances where the author admits his limitations and calls for help from the lawgiver.
It would all be very good if …
I sure wish I could, says the Psalmist. He knows it’s good. He’s glad to know it. But can he?
I feel this. There are things in my daily life I wish I could do better. Some days are better than others.
There’s a balance here, and we can see that balance in the rhythms of the Psalm.
The praise is a prayer. I’m going for it! Please help me!
I’ve been listening to Robert Alter’s translation of the Hebrew Bible as an audiobook. I’ll doubtless write something about this translation later. But right now I’m listening to Judges, and it’s caused me to think a bit about the broader story of the history of Israel and then of the church.
Charismatic Leadership
One of Alter’s comments is that the judges tended to be selected as charismatic leaders with their origins in moves of the spirit, such as angelic visions. So Israel was ruled by a succession of leaders chosen by God’s call given in various ways, and the book of Judges is not very positive on all of this. It doesn’t speak negatively about God’s selection of leaders, but it does comment regularly on the repeatedly dismal results. After a period of safety, the Israelites fall back into apostasy and are conquered by their enemies.
The author/compiler of Judges tends to think Israel needs a king, presumably with a secured succession, so as to avoid these times of apostasy and failure.
It doesn’t work out that way. We see the end of the period of the Judges and the beginning of the kingdom in the books of Samuel, and it’s a turbulent time. The first king is at best equivocal, and at worst actively working against God and the interests of Israel. David does maintain the loyalty of Israel, but his son Solomon plants the seeds of failure.
The Monarchy Isn’t Better
The northern kingdom pursues an almost continually dismal process of decay, while the southern kingdom has good kings followed by bad kings in a cycle. One could say, “New system of government, same old problems.”
Following the Babylonian exile, the Jewish people no longer govern themselves and pursue a more consistent course religiously, but one has only to look at some of the leaders described in the books of Maccabees to realize that all was not consistently going well. The Maccabees end up fighting both foreign domination and internal apostasy.
Christians Have No Basis to Look Down on Others
As Christians, we sometimes look down on Israel and the Jews after reading all this history, but such a reading is self-righteous and dismally lacking in self awareness. We’ve gone through many ways of “governing” the church, and have only had very short times when one could be totally proud of the church as an organization.
I believe God as always had a Church consisting of true followers of Jesus. But I also believe God had a people in Israel throughout its history who were truly God’s people even when their brethren. For every Jason, there was a family such as the Maccabees who were faithful.
But there never was a system of government that worked.
This led me to think of conversations I’ve had about church governance. Over and over problems noted in a church are blamed on the particular approach to church governance. The church has bishops who supervise pastors? Not responsive enough to the local church. Pastors are responsible only to the local church? No true accountability! The church is led by a team of elders? Unclear leadership! The church is led by a powerful senior pastor? Hierarchical with too much power in one person.
One can certainly debate ways of managing a church, but no form of governance is likely to be 100% effective.
My Suggestion
I don’t have a structural suggestion here myself. My one suggestion is not structural. It is simply this: Look to Jesus. Keep looking to Jesus. Turn your eyes back to Jesus if they drift to other things. It’s the one effective answer to any church problems.
I’ve been meditating on Psalm 119 recently after a conversation with an author regarding a forthcoming book reminded me of it. I’m going to write a few short devotionals. I’m not sure how many I’ll write, but reading this Psalm does make me think.
For any devotional on Psalm 119, please remember that I’m commenting on no more than a few verses at a time, and thus won’t cover all, or even a substantial number of related ideas. Also, please remember that this is poetry, not a theological essay, so even within the text of the Psalm, ideas are not completed in a systematic way.
Psalm 119:1
Blessed are those blameless in their living Who act according to God’s instructions.
Now there’s a challenging verse. We all have ways of avoiding it. But I think it pursues us through all our escape routes.
Our escape routes often start from something very good. That’s what makes them so tempting.
As Christians, we look immediately to the grace of God, given through Jesus. This is a good thing. We realize that being blameless and having all our actions fall within the range of God’s instructions (Torah), is not something we’re going to accomplish, and we are driven to a gracious God who forgives. But we can use this to avoid the issue. “Because God is gracious, I can safely ignore this,” we think. We think the only reason God talks about good actions is to let us know we can’t make it. But the Psalmist, at least, is talking about doing, hoping to do, an mourning the failure to do.
We can decide that a totally blameless life is, in fact what we’re going to do, on our own and in this life. This leads us astray in two ways. It can be horribly discouraging and end up in cynicism, inevitable failure, and self loathing. On the other hand, it can lead us to imagine ourselves successful even when we aren’t and an incredible spiritual pride that falsely assumes one is blameless.
We can engage in trimming the text, so as to make “blameless” less daunting. We can’t reach the goal, so we move the goal closer, or we pretend the goal is closer. This can result in complacency and also to a trust in ourselves for our salvation. The problem with aiming low is that we generally manage to reach no higher than our aim.
That’s my long way of getting to this: God has instructions that are worth our attention. Even in our limited ways of attempting to follow these instructions there is blessing, not just bringing us to Christ, as important as that is, but also simply as good ways to live.
Torah, the word used here for “instruction” (your translation may read “law”), goes beyond giving us a list of rules. I’ll discuss the various rule/law/instruction words in Psalm 119 along with other verses. It also includes stories of heroes of the faith. They were blessed in following Gods law, but they were not generally “blameless.”
One need go no further than the last version in this section. (Psalm 119 is divided into 22 sections of 8 verses each, in which each verse begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet.) “I remember your edicts. Don’t abandon me completely!”
The Torah referenced here is the story of how God never abandons, even those who do forget.
I’m following up on my post from yesterday, Making an Image to the Beast. I think these chapters contain quite a lot of useful information that is not primarily prediction, but is definitely prophetic, in the sense of bringing God’s Word to our situations.
I want to talk a bit more about what kind of image we create through our actions as the Church, but first, I wanted to look at the nature of the dragon and beasts, of whom we finally get an image late in the story.
Here are some of those attributes and the references:
Tears down others – 12:4, drawing 1/3 of the stars. Beasts and dragons rarely fall alone.
Consumes and destroys – 12:4
Is not the greatest power – 12:8. Note that verses 8 & 9 compile a great deal of what is now Christian belief about the Devil. The imagery hear draws on a number of passages in Hebrew scripture.
Persecuter – 12:13
Sweeps people/things away – 12:15. It’s humorous to note here that there is a single Greek word for “carried away by a river.” There’s got to be some history for that word!
Angry with those not on his side – 12:17.
Speaks blasphemy – 13:1,5.
Though not the geatest power (see #3), operates with great authority – 13:2.
Puts anger into action in war with the “other side” – 13:7.
Wants all the attention and worship – 13:13.
Deceives – 13:14.
Applies force to get worship – 13:16-17
Now if you’ve read Revelation, you’re probably acquainted with these items, but I thought it useful to compile a list. I didn’t intend it to have 12 items. That’s coincidental.
If you’re following along, an interesting mental exercise is to ask just what wisdom is involved in counting the number of the beast.
Almost forgot! The featured image was generated from text on Adobe Express this time. Just trying things out!
Comments on some of the texts used to support the idea of the rapture. Ben Witherington is the author of what I consider to be the best commentary on Revelation suitable for use in preparing lessons/sermons (see below).
It is critical to note that the signs Jesus’ gives his disciples are general and vague and always contemporary. War and suffering, famine and earthquakes, persecutions and false Messiahs have not only been prevalent throughout history; they are the also to be witnessed and experienced in the present, and they will be encountered in the future. Thus, the posture that Jesus is encouraging his disciples to take is not one where such signs signal the imminent end of history, but rather that such events remind them of the necessity to be ready for the end because they cannot know from these signs when it will take place.
Allan R. Bevere, Keeping Up WIth Jesus, p. 52 (forthcoming)
This was too good not tomention. I’m doing a final editorial read on this book which will be available shortly. Allan calls it a “narrative devotional commentary” which is a good description of what it accomplishes. I’ll post more here when the book is available.
I’ve been working my way through Ezekiel with my Sunday School class, at their request, since I have frequently said that Leviticus, Ezekiel, and Hebrews are the books most formative of my own theology. When this is done, I will have been through all three books with this group.
One major difficulty in teaching through Ezekiel is that it is a rather dismal book. There are long passages promising and explaining judgment. There are various passages about the hardships Ezekiel endures as a prophet. At the same time, there are brief looks ahead toward a time of redemption, that the judgment is not intended to destroy and put an end to God’s people, but rather to restore and rebuild after a cleanup.
One temptation in interpreting Ezekiel and many other books of Hebrew Scripture (which I refer to as the Old Testament when understood as part of Christian scripture) is to see the failures of Israel as theological and ritual. Theological in the sense that they are believing wrong stuff. Ritual in the sense that worship is going astray. This meets a frequent Christian assumption that the Israelite religion was largely about ritual.
This is a mischaracterization of Israelite religion. Ritual was intended to teach. What is condemned by the prophets is not ritual as such, but rather the performance of ritual while failing to learn from the moral, ethical, and indeed spiritual lessons of such ritual. In modern terms, this is much like the Christian who goes to church and carries out whatever rituals are expected, but then heads out to be something quite different from what those rituals represent.
As an example, we can participate in the ritual of the Eucharist, or communion as many protestants prefer to call it, and then fail completely to put the unity that this illustrates into practice. “The body of Christ broken for you and for many” is shared because we are all in Christ, and Christ is in all of us. To go out and be denominationally competitive after receiving the body of Christ is to miss the point of the “one body.” To go out and abuse those less fortunate than we are, no matter what our reason is for looking down on them, is to miss the lesson of that broken body. Just before his body was broken, Jesus said to “love one another as I have loved you.” Then he went and died for us. Skip all the arguments about the reason for this. He died. For us.
The problem that Ezekiel is busy proclaiming is often expressed as idolatry, but then is brought home in the failure to care for those in need. In fact, when accusing Judah of sharing in the sins of Sodom, the lead point is: “She and her daughters had the pride that goes with food in plenty, comfort, and ease, yet she never helped the poor in their need” (Ezekiel 16:49 REB).
The problem with idolatry is not that you walk the wrong way or go to the wrong place, or that the ritual is performed incorrectly. Rather, it is a matter of lowered standards. I like to use a definition of idolatry cribbed from Paul Tillich: “Making something ultimate that is not ultimate.” As soon as you start worshiping something less than God, you start looking lower. When the potential goal is lowered, less is done.
This is the problem with using grace to deny law. The standard still needs to be there. I am a publisher. I am quite certain I have never produced the perfect book. But as soon as I dismiss the idea of a perfect book from my mind, knowing that I will not attain it, I will start working toward a lesser standard, and will, in turn, fail to meet that. Having failed, I lower the standard again, and fail to meet that.
One of the key points in Ezekiel 24 is blood guilt. If we go back to Deuteronomy 21:1-9, we’ll see the extreme importance the Torah places on life, and on the unlawful and unjustified taking of life. There the people are given a ritual for dealing with someone who is killed, but without witnesses, there is no way to assign guilt. The nearest community takes on the task of atoning. Ezekiel is addressing this blood guilt. The people are not dealing simply with erroneous theology. They are killing one another. They have not just worshiped other gods. They have destroyed other people.
Let me add a side-note here. I really, really don’t like the line “good in theory but bad in practice.” It is not that all theories work, but rather that a theory that cannot be put into practice is not a good theory. Similarly, I dislike having theology and doctrine lined up in opposition to how we treat people. “If you’re putting your doctrine above people, forget doctrine.” Rather, if your doctrine is one that justifies you in mistreating other people, reexamine your doctrine, because it has problems. Jesus says that all the law and the prophets hangs on the two laws, loving God and loving your neighbor. If it won’t hang there, it’s not a good doctrine.
But it is not the idea of “doctrine” that is bad. The idea that loving one’s neighbor is central is itself doctrine, and I believe good doctrine. Replace your bad doctrine with a good doctrine, one that fits with what Jesus made central.
Again, back to Ezekiel 24. I tend to jump around a bit. We don’t always go straight from the passage we’re studying to the way in which we will live for the following week.
Here are some key points:
The reason the passage is dismal is that the situation is dismal. On the bright side, Judah returned from exile. Many cultures effectively disappeared after the sort of events that had happened to Judah. Failing to recognize what it is that one needs to be rescued from likely means failure to rescue at all.
Ezekiel loses his wife and is instructed not to mourn, illustrating in his own actions what was happening to people back in Jerusalem, which was under siege at the time. We like to think of prophetic voices speaking from on high and informing the dismally flawed lesser mortals below of the error of their ways. The true prophetic voice operates differently. It lives in a community. It shares with the community. It is God’s voice inside, not outside.
The prophet, when called by God doesn’t get to have an easy life. So many today think that if God has called them to some activity or another, they must have an easy, obstruction-free journey. We look for leaders whose lives are better than ours. As Christians, we should recognize that we serve a leader who was not recognized as such by the society in which he lived. Ezekiel exemplified this with the people. He suffered among them and with them. Silently.
Finally, we should be tremendously encouraged by these facts. Easy, positive, glowing platitudes don’t provide comfort to the person who is suffering deeply. Such things may actually instead suggest that the sufferer is despised by God and make things even more difficult. That was the message of Job’s friends, whose speeches God refers to as “darkening wisdom by words without knowledge” (Job 38:2). One who can suffer with, who knows what the bad side of life is like, is also one who can rescue. God made “the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10).
I’ll close with a short quote from Bruce Epperly’s book, Walking with Whitehead, in which he builds on a well-known quote from Whitehead:
God is the fellow sufferer who understands and the intimate companion who celebrates.
