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Part 3 - The Fall and the Restoration
Loving God With All One's Soul
"Thus says the LORD: '. . . (let not) the rich man glory in his riches; But
let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I
am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness . . . in the earth' " (Jer. 9:23-24).
The first exercise of God to glory in while understanding and knowing
Him is His lovingkindness. This parallels the second of the Ten
Commandments, where God says not to make any carved image or likeness of any
creature in the sky, earth, or seas, nor to bow down to and serve them. The
Second Commandment concludes, "For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and
fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to
those who love Me and keep My commandments" (Deut. 5:9-10). The word "mercy"
in this Deuteronomy passage is the same Hebrew word that is translated
"lovingkindness" in the Jeremiah passage. This word is variously translated
"mercy," "kindness," and "lovingkindness" throughout the scriptures.
Glory in man versus glory in God
God says that He is jealous about the making of likenesses of the living
creatures He created. These are types of His living works and show the
necessity of His living presence (See The Model of
Restoration: Commandment Two). God is not to be competed against, for He
alone possesses true riches. A right relationship with God requires a
dependence on His fullness through the indwelling Holy Spirit. "Let not the
rich man glory in his riches," but let him glory in the richness of God.
God's works toward man emanate from His richness and resources. God's living
works though the Holy Spirit are based on His primary characteristic: love.
The works of God done in love are kindnesses. The lovingkindness of God is
the action of God that proceeds from love. It is the rich, vast reservoir of
God's love from which His actions as Creator and caller of mankind have
sprung forth.
God is a God of both love and justice, and so He visits the "iniquity of the
fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who
hate Me." God cannot overlook sin and He must require it to be dealt with.
But God is overwhelmingly a God of love and He shows this by comparison: He
is fully just even to the third and fourth generation, but shows mercy
(lovingkindness) to thousands of generations to those who love Him. His
justice, although full and complete, pales in comparison to His
characteristic of showing lovingkindness. The "iniquity" in this passage is
especially the iniquity of those who would "hate" God by replacing the
living God with dead images - dead works of man's hand. This is in contrast
to those who desire to worship and "love" the true and living God, who
exercises lovingkindness in the earth.
John the Apostle wrote, "And we have known and believed the love that God
has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in
him" (1 John 4:16). The lovingkindness of God is manifested in and through
the believer when one walks in the Spirit and not according to one's own
resources. Paul the Apostle wrote, "Though I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging
cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love,
it profits me nothing" (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Man can imitate the living presence
of the Holy Spirit with works done from his own resources, but he cannot
produce the love that comes from God's fullness and richness. Man's dead
works are nothing, and profit nothing, being without the love of God.
Giving way to the living and loving God
Because a right relationship with God requires agape love, God has
designed a relationship with Him to be one where He indwells the believer
and is the resource for works of lovingkindness. This requires the believer
to reject his own resources and to depend upon and glory in God's resources.
This is what Jesus meant when He defined the meaning of the Second
Commandment with the words, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your
soul." The believer gives way to, and gives himself over to, the fullness
and richness of who the living God is, a richness that is characterized by
lovingkindness.
The place of restoration through Jesus Christ is a place of glorying in
Yahweh, who exercises lovingkindness in the earth. A reading of
Psalm 107
will give understanding to what God's lovingkindness is, for it demonstrates
what it is and then concludes, "Whoever is wise will observe these things,
And they will understand the lovingkindness of the LORD" (Psalm 107:43).
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