Spirituality Column #759

June 1, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentator

Rest for the Wicked

By Bob Walters

“For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” – Exodus 20:11 KJV, the fourth of the Ten Commandments

Whatever it looks like when God is busy, He was busy during creation.

While it is the great, searching mystery of the ages how all that exists came to be, the most important aspects of the Bible’s Genesis Creation story are readily apparent: God created everything, and everything God created is Good.

It was a magnificent show, and thanks to the “heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:3) of love, peace, perfection, eternity, and divine freedom we occasionally glimpse through our faith in Jesus Christ, humanity’s hope of heaven and our relationship with God’s goodness promise that we need never doubt God’s perfect provision for us.

When God rested on that seventh day He was celebrating perfection, not salving weariness.  And this is a good time to notice a couple of things.

First, in His Creation, God did not create evil.  On God’s first day of rest, man had not yet made bad choices nor started causing trouble.  Creation was untainted. 

Maybe that’s why God made Sabbath such a big deal; it is our reminder that God is perfect and created a perfect, free world that was once our world and in Christ will be again … one day.  When we face sin, evil, and wickedness in our daily lives, it’s good to remember that there was a day God celebrated – that first Sabbath – when there was no sin, evil, or wickedness.  Note: there is no sin, evil, or wickedness in Jesus either.

Evil?  We did that to ourselves.  We blame God because that’s what fallen people do; blame others. We would have no cosmic significance had God not bestowed upon that which He created in His own image, us, the freedom He knew could empower divine love.  Humanity uses that freedom, often, to deny God and empower hate.

Second, the “Sabbath” later became a law and commandment while nothing else about Creation did.  Alongside that, is it irony that observing God’s Sabbath is the only Commandment not “enforced” in the New Testament?  How do we explain “Sunday”?

God takes His day of rest at the start of Genesis 2 and we hear nothing more about it until Exodus 16:4-5, when God, communicating through Moses, tests Israel to see if His people will follow His direct orders: pick up twice the manna on the sixth day, then rest on the seventh.  They mostly whine and groan; many obeyed, many didn’t.  

In Exodus 16:23 God gives this seventh day a name, Sabbath.  In Exodus 20:8-11, it is codified in the Ten Commandments: Israel will observe the Sabbath, and throughout the Bible the Sabbath is mentioned a 150 more times.  But the Sabbath’s tenor changes in the New Testament: it goes from the seventh day of remembering God’s perfection to a new language of a Lord of the Sabbath who in His fulfillment of God’s law, becomes a living Sabbath in the perfect image of God: Jesus Christ.

God made the Sabbath a big deal for Israel because eventually the Sabbath rest and observance of God’s perfection and plan for the salvation of the entire world became the biggest deal all humanity has ever known: Jesus Christ the Son of God.

Jesus is our Sabbath: the perfect rest for the wicked.  More next week.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) ponders what God did on His eighth day.

Spirituality Column #758

May 24, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

The ‘Rest’ of the Story

By Bob Walters

“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.  By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing, so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.  Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” Genesis 2:1-3 KJV

My curiosity for the "Why?" of Creation is far more engaged than my need to know "How?"  God can do anything He wants, so there's the "How."  Bit by bit, human science figures it out. Science is God's glorious and teasing dance of hide and seek.

But what science will never answer, and is not equipped to answer, is the profound question of "Why did God want Creation?"  Much modern science starts with the proposition that God doesn't exist, so "Why God did this" or Why God wanted that" become conveniently moot, vacant points that open the way for humans to conceive and assign their own multiple truths and vault their own existence to the primacy of all creation.  Purpose disappears.  Who needs God in order for "me" to be in charge?

It takes the pressure off human truth when God's righteousness is not a factor.  I am free to be and do whatever I want ... cuz ... that's my truth.  See how that works?

Jokes aside, I think the "Why?" question of God's activity is the easiest and most obvious and best explained answer in all theology: God created the Cosmos for His glory and created man in His own image to both recognize and share that glory.

God the Father-Son-Spirit Trinity describes the eternal, infinite, uncreated, divine, and supreme relationship - and proper reckoning - behind the statement, "God is love."  It's this relationship we need first to see in God, not His engineering schematic.

But we have to admit ... wow ... that engineering schematic must really be something.  God's creativity, accomplishment, purpose, and truth are all rolled up and shot out of a cosmic canon for the "six days" of the Bible's account of creation.  Then ... God rests.  God assess His Creation of water, light, sky, land, vegetation, fish, fowl, beast, and finally man in His own image and judges His Creation all "very good."

Then He takes a breather.  But is that what really happened, a breather?  God needed a break?  We humans think in terms of work, weariness, and rest because we, unlike God, get tired.  God on the other hand, is not resting out of weariness.  He rested because His work was complete, perfect, effective, absolute, and as my NIV Study Bible notes, "nothing formless or empty remained."  Mission accomplished.

Oh yeah ... Satan, sin, the fall, faithlessness, the chaos of nations and humanity ... what was perfect and holy about all that?  Not much, but God's "rest' is a reminder.

More next week.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), in studying scripture's Creation story for E91's Mustard Seed Bible study he teaches, noticed that only the seventh day, God's day of rest - the Sabbath - is mentioned in God's covenant and commandments.  Why is that?

Spirituality Column #757

May 18, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Give It a Rest

By Bob Walters

“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.” – Hebrews 4:9-10

We all understand, right, that the Bible says nothing about resting on Sundays.

Not that it’s a bad idea to set aside one day a week resting for ourselves and focused on the glory of God.  But the Old Testament commandment to “keep the Sabbath holy” was one of several ways God demanded the Hebrews to lay aside their own labors for an enforced observance of the God of their Nation.

When God called the Israelites to be His own chosen people, the glory of that designation came - for the Israelites - with the heavy burden of works of the Law and vigorous observance of and obedience to God's covenants, commands, and Law.  Even the "rest" of the Sabbath day - the seventh day, what we know as Saturday - demanded exhausting preparation and meticulous execution.

As we all know from Sunday school, the Lord’s Sabbath commemorates God’s rest on the seventh day after His six days of creation (Genesis 2:2).  Humanity’s early labors were especially hard and physical so a day of rest made great practical sense.  God requiring that the day be dedicated to Him was a constant, clear reminder that He was Israel’s God.  And it was an unusual practice at that time; foreigners and slaves marveled at the Hebrew nation’s day of rest, largely unknown elsewhere in the world.

After Jesus arrives in the New Testament, there are no new sabbath days, holy days, remembrance days, festivals, or resting days with the intent of connecting man to God, and vice versa.  Why?  Because Jesus, in His New Covenant of Faith, perpetually occupies our hearts, not our calendars.  Jesus is our Sabbath.

Jesus is with us all the time, with every breath and heartbeat.  He, now, is our rest, and the fulfillment of all the Old Testament law, prophecy, and commandments saying the world’s salvation would come up out of Israel.  And it did, in Jesus.

My NIV Study Bible has this good note on Hebrews 4:10 (cited above): “Whereas God rested from the work of creation, the believer [in Christ] ceases his efforts to gain salvation by his own works and rests in the finished work of Christ on the cross. … the believer’s final rest is in view here.”  We are at rest from the Law; we rest in Jesus.

Early Christians quickly traded in their Saturday Hebrew Sabbath for Sunday’s “Lord’s Day” observance of worship and praise.  And granted, Christendom’s history is replete with traditional observances, the “ecclesial calendar” that includes everything from Christmas to Easter to saints’ days, seasons, and festivals.  None of it is biblical.

Still, it seems so spiritually healthy and a fine cultural gift to have one day a week dedicated to our Maker, Lord, and Savior; to cultivate our relationship with God and our families, to focus on our church, and to rest in the arms of our loving, saving Jesus.  No strings attached, no laws or commands of observance; just “Love God and love others.”

This is the freedom we have in Christ, and it is a freedom upon which American culture and commerce evermore crassly encroach without apology. Even though the Sabbath is the only one of the 10 Commandments not listed for enforcement in the New Testament, our faith in Jesus makes this rest a constant gift, not a one-day holiday. 

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) loves church and a slow Sunday afternoon.

Spirituality Column #756

May 11, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

All the Sons of Eber

By Bob Walters

“Sons were also born to Shem …  the ancestor of all the sons of Eber.” Genesis 10:21

I’m a Christian so it should make sense that I spend most of my Bible-reading time reading about Jesus Christ in the New Testament.  It’s my happy place.

As it happens, these days I’m spending a lot of time in the Old Testament (OT) preparing a weekly Thursday Bible lesson, “Genesis to Jesus.”  One can find Christ, Christian lessons, and Christian metaphors anywhere in the Bible.  God’s righteousness never wavers, and I’ve been sneaking a lot of what I’ve learned into these columns.

Recently a Christian friend asked a more pointed question about OT lore, “When did Judaism enter history?”  My kneejerk response was that I supposed it would have been with Jacob, renamed “Israel” after he “wrestled” with God (Genesis 32:48), and fathered the twelve tribes of Israel nearly 4,000 years ago.  But that would mean Jacob’s father Isaac, and his father Abraham – the Father of Judaism – were not actually Jews.  Hmmm.  So, I did the modern thing and Googled it: When, and Who?

Turns out a specific answer doesn’t seem to exist, though about a million opinions do.  The Old Testament is certainly a history of Judaism, but I read the Bible predominantly as a history of God’s Creation, God’s righteousness, Mankind’s fallenness, and perhaps most importantly, as a history of faith and exposition of God’s love.  My ultimate take-away, of course, is the salvation Christ offers to the whole world.

That said, going back to the question about Judaism entering history, I wonder if it entered with Jacob’s family, or actually with Abraham’s faith.  God’s covenant with faithful Abraham (Genesis 17:2-8) sure argues as Judaism’s starting point.

But consider too that if Judaism truly originated with faith in the One True God … you know, GOD … then the Bible’s earlier non-Israelite characters of great Godly faith like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Job, and Melchizedek seem legitimate to join the faithful line of “Yahudi.”  These are persons from the later Hebrew “Southern Kingdom” named for the tribe of Jacob’s fourth son, “Yahud,” or “Judah,” hence the words “Judaism” and “Jew.” (A fun fact is that “J” was “Y” in Hebrew and “I” in Greek and Latin; “J” wasn’t its own letter until fairly recent times, 500 years ago or so. “Jew” first popped up in the 1800s.)

“Hebrew” is perhaps the oldest identifier, referring as it does to the faith, race, and language of Judaism.  “Hebrew” likely originates with “Eber,” the great-grandson of Noah’s blessed son Shem (Genesis 9:26-27, 10:25).  “Eber” also means “crosses over,” perhaps referring to Abraham “crossing over” the Euphrates from Ur into Canaan.

Shem, of course, is the origin of “Semitic” people which include the Jews and many other Arab nations and languages. An Islamic teaching is that Shem’s family refused to help Ham’s family build the Tower of Babel so God did not confuse Shem’s family language.  Hence Muslim tradition that Semitic was the original language of man.

When and where did Judaism begin, exactly?  I’m not sure.  What I am sure of is that “all the sons of Eber” led to the chosen nation of Israel…and Jesus.  Quite a legacy.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that faith in God existed before religion. And this: The modern though controversial phrase “Judeo-Christian” created in 1939 by novelist George Orwell became an American political and media bon mot supporting the WWII plight of Jews in Europe. Problematically, it blurs history and distorts doctrines.

Spirituality Column #755

May 4, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Creative Potential

By Bob Walters

“And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” – Genesis 1:2

Some people get the Jesus thing right from the get-go in their lives.  They live it as kids, grow in it, mature in it, don’t know life without it, always understand they are sinners but always – always – have known and been moved by God’s grace. 

As the troubadour sang back in the 1960s, “It ain’t me, babe”; I’m a definite case of “before and after.” It is not a criticism to say these lifers don’t know a time “before,” while I and many others do.  My “time before” truly puts a special gloss, for me, on appreciating God’s intention as His Spirit “moved upon the face of the waters” and surveyed a world not only without form, substance, or light, but also, without purpose.

Potential, but no purpose; that’s the difference in my life “before.”

My Study Bible (Okay, it’s an NIV but that doesn’t invalidate this excellent point) notes a poetic and functional parallelism in God’s days of Creation: things created Days 1-2-3 support and make possible the life of things created in Days 4-5-6.

And this thought popped into my head (thanks, Holy Spirit): all the physical creation of the first three days – light, water, firmament / sky, dry land, vegetation are all things incapable of fulfilling what God desires.  God has made and decorated a big, empty room with no purpose; it has all that’s needed to sustain life, but no re-connection with God – a romping but inert and uninteresting expanse.  Potential, but no purpose.

The Study Bible calls it a picture of our human lives without Jesus.  Agreed.  We are put into this world in God’s image, but without Jesus we have no opportunity to reconnect with God or grow into His paradise – and we are sitting in the middle of it!

In our lives, we are separate from God not just because of our sin but because without Christ, we have no way back to God.  Jesus provides us with the road map of God’s true purpose: to discover the joy He knows being part not of an inert, purposeless creation, but rather a beloved child discovering and growing in faith into God’s loving eternity.  Our challenge?  Replace darkness with the purposeful light of Christ.

We are born into the fallen world physically, yet truly not unlike the first three days of Creation: all potential, but unformed purpose.  Then, the drama: Will we rebelliously deny God’s gracious call to us in Christ?  Or raise our hearts and spirits in love to join God with the purposeful bearing of fruit and life everlasting, together?

This is the spiritual promise of the last three days of creation looming before us.

I avoid arguments about defining “days,” old earth / new earth science, pondering the eternal silliness of whether Adam had a navel, etc.  They badly miss the point, especially when you believe and trust the Bible as the true and inspired word of God.

The point of the Bible is our purpose – which is glorifying God by believing in His Son Jesus, loving God, and loving others – and enriching our understanding of God’s purpose in His Creation, His salvation, our lives in Christ, and for telling us this story.

When God declares His creation is “Good,” He’s declaring the presence of our purpose, which is Christ; and His purpose, which is His love and glory. That’s good.

When the psalmist foresees, “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,” that’s a prayer for our potential to grow lovingly into God’s purpose.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that “the troubadour” is Bob Dylan, 1964.