Joshua 23:14–16 (ESV) — 14 “And now I am about to go the way of all the earth,
and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed
of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you. All have
come to pass for you; not one of them has failed. 15 But just as all the good things that the Lord your God promised
concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the Lord will bring upon you all
the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land that the
Lord your God has given you, 16 if you transgress the
covenant of the Lord your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other
gods and bow down to them. Then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against
you, and you shall perish quickly from off the good land that he has given to
you.”
NOTE: The covenant
that God made with Israel was both spiritual and physical. The Mosaic covenant,
also called the Law, and the Old Covenant, is physical and conditional. It
depended upon their actions. The majority of covenants in the bible are
unconditional, which means that they don't depend on the two parties, only on
one party, God. But Joshua's warning here is in reference to the Mosaic Law. It
does not apply to Christians as we are under a different covenant. But there is
still a lot to learn and there are corollaries' to the New Covenant. For one,
when we are adopted into God's family upon belief in Christ (by definition, we
are not children of God by physical birth--that is a false myth), God promises
to act as our heavenly father, which may include discipline. The discipline is
based on a Father's discipline and not necessarily the breaking of some NT law.
As Hebrews says, a Father disciplines as he sees best. So, God disciplines us
for our good, not for our disobedience. There is a huge difference because
whatever we go through (when it is discipline) is a good thing. The problem is
that sometimes we will interpret all bad events as discipline, but that ignores
the fact that the world is not as God created or intended it. We wanted to be in
control, so God allowed us to live in control (back in the garden of Eden), as
a gracious reminder why it is not a good idea to rebel from God. So evil can
happen, for no reason whatsoever except that Man at one time rebelled against
God's rule. The one promise we have in the case of this suffering, is that
while God doesn't say he will stop it, he does promise to bring good out of it.
That is the essence of Romans
8:28 (ESV) — 28 And we know that for
those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called
according to his purpose.
No comments:
Post a Comment