Plot Twist

Among the many religions in the world, most of them have one thing in common: the idea that humans are beneath God and must somehow work their way up and into His favor by accumulating good deeds and thoughts. Whether the belief is in one god or many gods, it is generally recognized that he/they are far above us as humans and that we cannot approach him/them without a great deal of effort. Sometimes the belief is that he/they are angry with us and must be appeased if we want things to go well in our lives.

In the Ancient Near East, this effort of appeasement or gaining favor took the form of offerings and sacrifices—sometimes human—of worshiping carved images and of bodily mutilation (see Numbers 25:2, Deuteronomy 12:31, 1 Kings 11:8, and 1 Kings 18:28). Today it can look like praying or repeating specific phrases a certain number of times a day, fasting at prescribed times, giving tribute to statues or images, performing acts of charity, or attending religious services. Many believe that if they simply do enough of these things it will counteract all the bad things they have done so hopefully, when they die, they will find favor instead of punishment.

Unlike those who erroneously believe that they are inherently good, those who recognize the sinfulness of their nature are at least correct about their distance from holiness. But is it true that we must work our way into right standing before God? For many deities worshipped all around the world, this is what is required. And so, for many, who might be reading the Bible for the first time, this is likely what is expected from the God who reveals Himself there.

There are many verses in the Bible where people acknowledged their sinfulness. King David said, “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:3, ESV). The prophet Isaiah declared, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5, ESV). The apostle Paul called himself the “foremost” of sinners and groaned, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (1 Timothy 1:15; Romans 7:24, ESV). And in the same way, the prophet Micah wrote, “I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him” (Micah 7:9a, ESV).

If we take our cue from other religions, we would expect these thoughts to end with a full stop. We are sinful, unclean, wretched people who bear God’s indignation, period, end of story. And we would expect that any hope we have of remedying our situation is wholly and completely up to us. But when we keep reading, we are met with an unexpected twist, for there is more to what Micah had to say:

“I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication” (Micah 7:9, ESV, emphasis added).

Take a moment and read that again. Do you realize how earth-shatteringly unexpected the rest of that verse is? We might expect it to say, “I will bear the indignation of the LORD until I do enough good deeds to make up for my sin” or “I will bear the indignation of the LORD until my family’s prayers appease Him on my behalf” or even “I will bear the indignation of the LORD until he pours out His judgment on me and I perish.” But that’s not what it says. It says, “I will bear the indignation of the LORD […] until he pleads my cause.” God, the perfectly holy and righteous One against whom we have sinned, is the One who steps forward for our defense. He is the One who pleads our cause.

But it doesn’t stop there. It says, “until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.” There is judgment executed, absolutely. God would not be a just God if He let wrongs go unpunished. But notice the judgment he executes is not on us, it is for us. So, who, then, is His judgment executed on, if not on us who have broken His laws?

His judgment fell on Jesus Christ, on the 2^nd person of the Trinity, on God Himself. As Paul explained, “[B]ut God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:8-10, ESV). And, “For our sake he made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV). And Peter explained, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24, ESV).

When Jesus died on the Cross, He wasn’t just being punished by human authorities for crimes He didn’t commit; He was bearing the full weight of the judgment of God for all the crimes that we had committed and would commit. And He did this “for us,” “for our sake.” So instead of bearing God’s vindication, we “shall look upon his vindication,” as Micah prophesied. Instead of experiencing it ourselves, we observe it. God “will bring [us] out to the light,” instead of leaving us in our darkness, by reconciling us to Himself as Paul wrote and giving us the freedom to “live to righteousness” as Peter said.

Do you realize what a major plot twist that is? No longer do we have to live our lives striving and hoping that somehow we will be able to accumulate enough good deeds that our bad deeds will be outweighed in the end. No longer do we have to live in fear of divine judgment day in and day out. No longer do we have to face death unsure of what kind of reception we’ll receive on the other side. We don’t have to make our own way out of our darkness—truth be told, we couldn’t regardless of how hard we tried.

All we have to do, having recognized that we are not holy and that we sin, is believe that Jesus took our place and bore the judgment that we were due, accept and agree that He is who He says He is—the Son of God, Savior, and Lord—and place our trust in His earned righteousness that He offers to us instead of in our own feeble attempts to make ourselves right with God. He is the only way. And for those of us who repent and believe, He will not execute judgment on us because He has already executed it for us.

This is why, as he is confessing his sin, David can call God, “O God of my salvation” (Psalm 51:14, ESV). This is why Isaiah could hear the words “your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7b, ESV). This is why immediately after his groaning, Paul could exclaim, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25a, ESV). And this is why Micah could marvel, “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” (Micah 7:18-19, ESV).

Praise be to God that He is unlike other gods. Praise be to God that He does not leave us to our striving. Praise be to God that He does not hate us for our wrongs against Him but instead loves us enough to take our punishment on Himself so that we might enjoy Him forever. Praise be to God for this most life-giving plot twist of all!

Artwork by Melissa M. Angles Art. 

Used with permission.

Days in a Life

Time is a funny thing. Sometimes it feels as if it rushes by, faster than we can keep up with it, and other times it drags along, feeling slower than molasses. “Time flies when you’re having fun,” so the saying goes. And even so, the opposite is just as true. When we’re bored or waiting, time seems to stand still. Despite the fact that time passes more quickly the older we are (which makes sense when we realize that, as we age, a day is an increasingly smaller percentage of our lived experience), the drudgery of waiting is not exclusive to the young. When we are waiting on an expected event, a day can feel like an eternity, no matter our age.

Life is full of waiting. Whether it’s waiting for something to end or something to begin, waiting to hear from someone or to be able to share good news, waiting to be a certain age or meet a certain person, we all know what it’s like to wait. And the Christian life is no exception. Sometimes (a lot of times) we have to wait on the Lord. He operates according to His perfect timeline established in His perfect wisdom, and that timeline doesn’t always match up with our own. And sometimes while we’re waiting, it can seem like He is absent, or at least silent, and we find ourselves not only waiting for Him to move but also waiting for Him to speak.

In these seasons of waiting on the Lord, we can turn to His Word and be reassured that He has spoken as we contemplate what He has revealed to us there about Himself. But there are other parts of Scripture that are encouraging in a different way, if only we have the eyes to see them.

I don’t know about you, but when I read the Bible, especially the narrative portions, I can easily lose sight of how much time is represented in just a few chapters. We can read the entire story of someone’s life in just a couple hours or even a few minutes, and we can forget that these people actually lived through every single day of their lives, one day at a time.

Take Abraham, for instance. In Genesis 12:3-4, we see that God promises, “I will make of you a great nation,” and that Abraham is seventy-five years old when he steps out in faith, believing this promise, and heads to Canaan. Just four chapters later, he becomes a father to Ishmael, but we see in Genesis 16:16 that he was eighty-six years old at the time. That’s eleven years or over four thousand days, and he still had fourteen more years to wait before the arrival of Isaac. He was one hundred years old when Isaac was born, so he had waited twenty-five years, a quarter of a century, from the time of God’s promise to the arrival of his wife’s son (See Genesis 21:5).

Imagine being told that you would be a father to many nations and then waiting day after day and year after year for even the physical possibility of that promise’s fulfillment to become a reality.

Abraham’s great-grandson, Joseph, had a dream as a teenager that he would rule over his brothers, but through a long series of events, he ended up unjustly imprisoned in Egypt. While in prison, he accurately interpreted the dreams of two men who had served in Pharoah’s household, asking the one who would be restored to his position to put in a good word for him to Pharoah. In Genesis 41:1, we read that it was only “after two whole years” that the man remembered Joseph, leading to Joseph’s release from prison and appointment to the second-highest position in the land, the position from which he would in fact rule over his brothers, as his teenage dream had foretold.

Imagine being stuck in prison for something you didn’t do, having a rare chance to do a favor for someone who was about to be released, asking that person to remember you, and then thinking every day, “Maybe today is the day,” for two whole years before finally being released.

Or consider Hannah. Married to a man who had another wife, Hannah was tormented by this more fertile woman because of her own childlessness. The bullying was so severe that “Hannah wept and would not eat,” and on top of that her husband just didn’t understand, asking, “Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:7-8). We read that this “went on year by year” (1 Samuel 1:7), and though we’re not told exactly how many years she waited for a child, we see that “in due time” she conceived after beseeching the Lord (1 Samuel 1:20).

Imagine longing for a child month after month only to be provoked by your husband’s other wife who had the very thing you wanted, and on top of that to be met with guilt-tripping, unsympathetic questions from your husband as your pain and desire grew year after year after year.

And then there’s Elijah. We first meet Elijah in 1 Kings 17 when the Lord uses him to prophecy to King Ahab that there will be a severe drought in the land. In verse 2, “the word of the LORD came to him,” directing him to stay by the brook Cherith, which he did until the brook dried up from lack of rain. Then in verse 8, “the word of the LORD came to him,” sending him to Zarephath where he was provided for by a widow and her son, and we see in verse 16 that they did not run out of food “according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.” Eventually, the son died, and Elijah called out to God, asking him to bring the boy back to life (v. 21). “And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived” (v. 22). Chapter 17 ends with the widow telling Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth” (v. 24).

It seems from chapter 17 that Elijah and God had a pretty open and regular line of communication; even the first verse of chapter 18 says, “the word of the LORD came to Elijah.” But before this phrase, there is another phrase that we could easily glance over without a second thought but that changes the dynamics of the story significantly: “After many days.” We’re not sure exactly how many, but between the end of chapter 17 and the beginning of chapter 18, many days passed in which Elijah presumably did not hear the word of the LORD.

Imagine having God speak to you, sending you to inform a king what was going to happen in the future, telling you where to go to survive, answering your request to bring someone back from the dead, and then having Him go silent for day after day before you hear His word again.

So often we read these accounts as if the people involved knew what we know—how the story would play out. But they didn’t. This was their actual life. Each and every one of those “many days” was a full day lived by Elijah. Every “year by year” was a year that Hannah lived and thought and felt. Every day of “two whole years” was a day Joseph lived and breathed and wondered, not knowing if he would ever get out of prison. Every day of twenty-five years was a day that Abraham lived and waited to see a child conceived with his wife be born. Every day they woke up not knowing what the day would bring, and every day they had to depend on God to sustain them as they waited.

If we keep a sense of time as we read through Scripture, we will see how time and again people like Abraham and Joseph and Hannah and Elijah waited on God either to act or speak or fulfill His promise. And in doing so we can be mindful of many things. We can be encouraged by the perseverance and steadfastness of God’s people as they waited on Him. We can learn the dangers of trying to take matters into our own hands when we grow tired of waiting. And above all, we can see God’s faithfulness as He worked, seemingly behind the scenes, to bring about His perfect plan for His people’s lives. And because we know He never changes, we can trust that He is doing the same for us. While we wait, He is active. While we wait, He is with us. And just as the men and women in the Bible waited through seemingly endless days of the unknown and made it through, so can we, depending all the days in our lives on God’s goodness and grace.

PC: Yandle Multimedia Photography. 

Used with permission.