The Christian God is a God who claims authority over our lives. That’s an unattractive way to start a post, isn’t it? (I will propose that God’s authority brings beauty at the end of this piece!) But really, we see his authority from the opening chapters of the Bible. A worldview is sketched in Genesis 1-3, which I realize many people consider mythical. However, these chapters plausibly set out an explanation for the existence of and the state of our world. It is plausible to believe in an intelligent designer of all that exists, and it is evident that something has gone wrong in our world. The Bible puts forth a God who creates mankind and the world perfectly good; it also asserts that the creation has gone rogue. For more on this worldview, I recommend an article by Graham Cole, Do Christians Have a Worldview?
I have just read a more winsome account of the origin of our world in Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Skywoman falls from the heavens and, with the cooperation of sea creatures, she turns bits of earth into dry land. There is a wonderful harmony between the earth and the woman. The author does not account for causes of a downturn in that relationship, and I have not read far enough into the book to find her suggested solutions. But this story sidesteps any higher authority than the creatures. In fact, it elevates the woman and animals to be co-creators. Kimmerer contrasts this worldview with that of the Bible: “On one side of the world were people whose relationship with the living world was shaped by Skywoman, who created a garden for the well-being of all. On the other side was another woman with a garden and a tree. But for tasting its fruit, she was banished from the garden and the gates clanged shut behind her. . . In order to eat, she was instructed to subdue the wilderness into which she was cast. Same species, same earth, different stories. Like Creation stories everywhere, cosmologies are a source of identity and orientation to the world. They tell us who we are.”
Kimmerer is right in this quote. For Christians, Genesis 1-3 does tell us who we are. We are creatures of the living God, made in his image. We were not co-creators, but nevertheless, we were given a majestic purpose. These chapters form a framework of God’s righteous authority over humans, which is echoed throughout the scriptures, and restated in the final book of the Bible: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4:11) Creatures ought to honor their Creator. The first sin committed in human history was simple disobedience to God’s command. God told Adam and Eve not to eat of a specific tree in the Garden of Eden. Why did there have to be that tree in the garden if he didn’t want them to eat from it? It was so ripe for causing temptation! To me, it underscores God’s desire that the humans he created would choose to love, trust and obey him. And their disobedience, despite all the other trees available, shows the power of Satan’s temptation in the human heart to rebel against God’s authority. They knew the command, but they ate of it because they wanted something they thought God was denying them. He had set himself as Lord of their lives and they wanted to be their own lords. Their disobedience was preceded by distrust. And their disobedience was followed by death. These chapters pose some interpretational questions, on which a lot of commentary has been written, but they also resonate deeply with reality and the human condition. They give a plausible explanation for the existence of the world, for the special place of humanity in our thinking, for our hatred of authority, for our fractured relationships with the rest of creation and amongst ourselves.
This story takes place in the Hebrew Scriptures, which you may say describe the God of the Jewish people. So what does it have to do with us? Perhaps a first way to answer that is to say that Jesus Christ was a Jewish man, who knew and obeyed the Hebrew Scriptures and became the pioneer of our Christian faith. It is notable that the New Testament calls him the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15), placing him within the story line formed by a joining of the Old and New Testaments. What the first Adam failed to do – obey God – the second Adam does will faith and vigor. Jesus says it is his food to do the will of his Father (John 4:34). He carries that all the way out to the end of his life, allowing himself to be executed on the cross because God the Father had ordained for him to pay the penalty of our disobedience in this manner. And the writer to the Hebrews says he did that “for the joy that was set before him.” (Hebrews 12:2)
I was reminded of how fundamental obedience is to the Christian life by a recent study of Psalm 119. Because we live in a time and culture that emphasizes living one’s life in pursuit of our own individual dreams, I found Psalm 119 jarring. First, it emphasizes how thoroughly we must allow the Scriptures to form our minds and guide our endeavors and life direction. Second, it presents the inner thoughts of a Jewish believer as yearning to please God in every way. As one of my counseling professors pointed out to me 20 years ago, you would never get the idea from Psalm 119 that obedience to God’s law was oppressive or burdensome. Yet we so often regard it thus.
Perhaps we think obedience stifles originality, yet the Scriptures testify to the ways submitted believers exhibit artistic creativity as they follow God with joy. Psalm 92 testifies of the joy of writing music and playing instruments to praise Him:
It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
Exodus 36 records how skilled artists worked on the construction of God’s sanctuary, under his direction. But mysteriously their skill and intelligence are utilized, rather than stifled:
“Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whom the Lord has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded.”2 And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work.”
Perhaps we think all obedience is perfunctory, coming from a dutiful but joyless heart. That is certainly a possible reality. The non-prodigal son in Luke 15 seems to have dutifully obeyed his father, feeling unappreciated and resentful, instead of reveling in what a good father he has. So when his brother returns from squandering his inheritance and receives a gracious and joyous welcome, he is embittered at his father that he has served him steadily for what seems to him as little reward. David, after he has sinned against God, prays in Psalm 51 that God will “restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” Certainly it would have been morally better for David to perfunctorily restrain himself from adultery and murder, but he prays for more than grudging obedience going forward.
God is a good God, who has created us in his image. I wrote a few weeks ago about human sinfulness and frailty. But we are also amazing creatures, who uniquely in creation bear God’s image. Christianity has simultaneously the lowest view of humanity among the religions and the highest. Our sinfulness is so dire that even trying to follow a perfect law cannot remedy our fallenness or erase our guilt. We must have a Savior! But our glory as God’s image-bearers is so impressive. David writes about it in Psalm 8:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
We are glorious creatures, called to rule God’s creation in submission to our Creator. As I have noted above, part of the image of God in us is creativity and volition. As I have walked over the years with God, sometimes in willing submission and sometimes in grudging “toeing the line,” I have tasted and seen that not only does obedience yield a better outcome in life, but it also yields joy and beautiful peace. God’s laws are good! They are for our thriving. Psalm 19 says God’s commandments are “more to be desired than gold.” Among other effects, they promote love of others which, though it can sometimes be or feel costly, brings great blessing to our lives. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:36)
I have only scratched the surface of this topic. I think a crucial part of our created glory and witness as believers is not only acknowledging that He is God and we are not, but also our willing, joyful obedience to God. There are times to be honest as Christians about how some of God’s laws don’t seem life-giving to us. That perhaps is a topic for another day. But I have been guilty of praising God too little for the wisdom and beauty of his Word, his commandments, which have guided me with a bright light of timeless truth.
“In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.” (Psalm 119:14-16)