“If He slay me, why would I trust Him?”
I am participating in an international BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) that is going through a lesson called “The People of Promise: Exile & Return”. It explores a number of prophetic books such as Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi that cover God’s faithfulness to His people both through His judgment and exile for their idolatry and sin, and in His rescue and restoration of Israel for His namesake and commitment to His promises.
The timing of this lesson is impeccable. It is giving me exactly what I need for the season I’m in personally and where we find ourselves culturally.
We’re in Daniel 6, the lead up to the infamous “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” account, and I’m wrestling with how Daniel responds throughout the ordeal. From today’s widely held view of “faith” and what a practitioner could expect from God for their “faithfulness”, God would be seen as having failed to come through at a number of critical junctures. Many modern-day “believers” would doubt their faith and be tempted to abandon it if they found themselves in Daniel’s predicament—including yours truly, because I have been tempted by far less. Daniel’s reality clashes with our religious expectations.
Daniel 6:3-4: “Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm. So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom…”
Religious mantra: “God will grant me favor and success…”
Reality: Daniel’s promotion results in a plot to destroy him. (Daniel 6:3-4)
Religious mantra: “No weapon formed against me shall prosper…”
Reality: Daniel’s adversaries succeed in passing an immutable law that will condemn him to death. (Daniel 6:6-9)
Religious mantra: “I have been faithful, so God will prevent bad things from happening to me and will not allow this injustice…”
Reality: Daniel is tried, convicted, and condemned to death because of his faithfulness. (Daniel 6:11-17)
Yes, Daniel is ultimately delivered in Daniel 6:19-22, but that’s not the point.
The point is that Daniel, like the three Hebrew men in the fiery furnace ordeal, did not abandon their faith at the points it seemed that God did not come through for them. They, instead, were prepared to die for their faith.
And there have been many saints who were not delivered and have died for their faith.
This prompts a question for me: if they are not trusting God to live, what are they trusting God for? Because without life, what’s the point?
Scripture answers with a paradox:
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to death.”
— Revelation 12:11
And the Spirit clarifies:
“For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world.”
— 1 John 2:16
For these verses to make sense, we have to answer another question: how can you love your life to death? To love is to nurture, right? So, wouldn’t loving your life result in more life? Loving your life to death doesn’t make any sense… unless there’s another, different life that we’re killing by loving this one.
According to 1 John 2:16, what we call life is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
But there is another, different life.
That life is pointed to in God’s command to Adam,
“but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
— Genesis 2:17
Adam ate of it.
And we did die.
“…through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…”
— Romans 5:12
This prompted me to ask, “Since we still ‘live’, how did we ‘die’? What life did we lose?”
If you’re born dead (which we all are who were born after Adam), and have never known any other life, this is a nonsensical question because there is nothing else (at least that you are aware of).
But since I have believed Jesus, I should have received a new life, right? Have I? If so, understanding what I have now should help me understand what was lost.
I prayed for weeks, seeking God for understanding concerning this. I sought to remember whether there was anything different between before and after I believed Jesus.
Then it hit me: I could remember nothing.
My life before believing Jesus was characterized by nothingness. Sure, there was activity, relationships, and even deep emotional experiences, but these were externalities—outward stimuli attempting to fill an inner void. I remember the emptiness and restlessness, especially in the silence when the activity came to an end.
My prior life was one of an empty automaton reacting to what was happening around me: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. My confidence, identity, meaning, and purpose were built upon things that were here today and then gone tomorrow as though they never were. They were pursuits that kept me groping in the dark.
Then one day, God commanded light to shine out of darkness and shone in my heart the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and I became alive. It was both instant and gradual.
Nothing better describes what happened to me when I believed Christ than God creating order (kosmos) where there was previously none (chaos).
In the same way carbon is the basis of organic life, God’s order is the basis of spiritual life. My new life, while fledgling, was increasingly being characterized by that order.
There is now something inward working outward. Where I was previously powerless to resist the external influences of the world, there is now capacity and power to exert control over my own spirit, then over my environment.
Hallelujah!
“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
— 1 John 4:4
“…he who rules his spirit [is better] than he who takes a city”
— Proverbs 16:32
God’s order goes by another name: dominion.
It is part of God’s first command to mankind:
“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion…”
— Genesis 1:28
We are given a dominion that is dependent upon and that is gladly subject to God’s sovereign rule.
This is the beginning of life.
Sin cut that lifeline—the source of our dominion and His order upon which it depends.
We, and everything that was subject to us, fell from God’s order and are now in rebellion against it, a descent into disorder.
This is the beginning of death.
With that descent into disorder (chaos / nothingness) we lost ourselves. We no longer related to things, including ourselves, on the basis of the absolute and steadfast position of God, our relationship to reality is now relative to fleeting and unreliable things in this world.
Losing ourselves is evidenced by God asking, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9)
With our outlook now corrupted by sin, the response was shame.
“So [Adam] said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’”
— Genesis 3:10
To which God asked, “Who told you that you were naked?” from which we can safely infer that God was not the one who told Adam he was lacking anything. God tells us who we are. But Satan seeks to undermine that by telling us what we are not.
Their conscience is seared and no longer operates based on an intrinsic awareness of God’s order. They have believed a lie, heeded the voice of another, and became its slaves—subjects of the kingdom of darkness, and died being devoid of God’s order.
But, God.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
— John 3:16
The Son gives life, in part, by restoring God’s order and with it, dominion.
“From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”
— Matthew 4:17
Because, life begins with God’s order.
I attest that when I believed Jesus, according to John 3:16, I received a new inner life. I was again given dominion as His order continues to advance on every inch of my heart until it’s all unified and subject to the glorious liberty of His incorruptible rule.
It is reordering everything—how I think about everything, including myself, on the basis of God. As an example, I now think less in terms of self-esteem and more in terms of Christ-esteem (Galatians 2:20).
In the same way that a seed germinates is a biological process, this reordering is a progressive spiritual process that brings forth life.
This consciousness of God that is based on believing and receiving what Christ reveals is called faith and its outworking is fruit.
A notable difference between my prior life and now is fruit. My prior life was desolate and I had no fruit to show for it, but now I see budding growth regularly.
God commanded,
“Be fruitful…”
“Have dominion…”
— Genesis 1:28
The fruit is His Kingdom.
Love is its sap—the lifeblood of the Kingdom, the greatest commandment, the more excellent way—His order established in us through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus wages a good warfare and victoriously redeems all of creation, retaking what was lost to sin, restores our dominion under His rule and is established as King of kings and Lord of lords. (Colossians 1:19-20, Romans 8:19-21, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 19:16)
His dominion begins in my heart. (Luke 17:20-21)
I am being strengthened in the inner man by His order. (2 Corinthians 4:16)
He gives His people a kingdom that will never be destroyed. (Daniel 2:44, Luke 12:32)
Life can get really hard, but with Him, the incorruptible Seed, at the center, I am hard-pressed but not crushed, and in every circumstance I can say, “It is well with my soul.”
This is life.
So often, I have come to God for an outcome—for Him to do my will, when He has given me everything I need to do His.
“as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
— 2 Peter 1:3-4
I repent. I denounce my kingdom and submit to His.
“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
— Matthew 6:10
Not only that, but I often cry out to God to do something for me, when He has already given me resources and leaves it up to me (gives me dominion) to decide how I will make Him a profit. (Exodus 14:15-16, Matthew 25:14-30)
But best of all, I have received the sweet Communion of the Holy Spirit together with the Father, the Son and the constellation of the saints.
I am no longer empty. I am never alone. Thank you, Jesus!
“Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”
— John 14:23
Hearing God’s voice,
Being loved by Him,
Being fathered by Him,
Being with Him,
Knowing Him through Christ.
There is nothing better. (Galatians 4:6, Philippians 3:8)
The Son gives life, in part, by restoring God’s order. The Son gives life fully through the knowledge of God.
This is eternal life.
From this basis I can wage a good warfare and bring His order to the world—love—rather than the world acting upon me in my inner man.
We receive the inner fortitude of an eternal, indestructible kingdom that becomes the base from which we live as more than conquerors and will overcome everything, even death. (2 Corinthians 2:14)
Returning to my original question: “If they are not trusting God to live, what are they trusting God for? Because without life, what’s the point?”
They are trusting God to live. God is life, and that’s the point.
This is what Daniel trusted God for:
not for prosperity,
not for protection,
nor for a pardon from problems,
but for God’s perfect way and His presence.
That is worth dying for.
They, through faith, understood that to be without God is to be dead already. Their earnest desire is to never be without Him—in this current age or the age to come. (Matthew 10:28)
Job in the midst of tremendous suffering communicates our ultimate hope:
“For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth;
And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!”
— Job 19:25-27
Lord, I want this to be what I trust You for: You, alone.
In my darkest hour, may I also be able to say like the titans of faith,
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
— Job 13:15
Amen.
#WhatITrustGodFor #Suffering #Faith #PerfectOurLove