Somebody Else’s Mail (16)

In his book The God-Shaped Heart, Timothy Jennings makes what I believe is a helpful distinction between two manifestations of divine rule in the world: design law and imposed law.

Design law includes things as disparate as gravity, love, motion, health, mathematics, friction, thermodynamics, authority structures, liberty, exertion, and so on — principles intrinsic to the proper functioning of our world and human society as designed by God. Do X, and Y will be the natural result, either for good or ill. Design law is just the way the world works.

Imposed law refers to both God’s commands and all other codes, rules, regulations and ordinances enforced with penalties, whether imposed by God or by men under his authority.

When David wrote Psalm 7, the Law of Moses governed the nation of Israel. They lived under both design law and statutory, imposed law. Our modern Western societies have less and less of the latter as our lawmakers drift away from the scriptures, but even if we were to scrap every current legal rule distantly derived from Moses, society would still have to live with design law. That never goes away. The choices we make in this life frequently have natural consequences built into them that require no specific intervention from God or man to play out in the world; the outcomes are baked into the cake. So people who drink too much tend to vomit, people who eat too much get fat, and people who worship the right Object are thereby transformed into his likeness.

Mind you, those who worship the wrong things also experience transformation of a less desirable kind.

Psalm 7:12-16 — Laws and Consequences

“If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.”

In these five verses, David considers what the outcome of his slander may look like for wicked Cush, his enemy. David probably never gave great thought to the distinction between the consequences of violating a natural principle and the consequences of disobeying the Law of Moses, but he’s nicely illustrated both for us here.

Imposed Law in Action

First, David believed God would be willing to get directly involved in answer to his prayers. That’s not the case every time someone sins in this life, but in the Old Testament, the Lord not infrequently directly and personally judged egregious sins on the spot in order that his people might know that he is God. Nadab and Abihu’s incineration. Uzzah touching the Ark of the Covenant and dropping dead. The pestilence on Israel that came about when David numbered its fighting men. All were examples of the consequences of broken laws divinely imposed. David was aware this happens on occasion, and expected it in Cush’s case too. So David writes, “God will whet his sword. He has prepared for [the wicked man, Cush] deadly weapons.”

The historical accounts of David’s life do not tell us anything about Cush, including whether or how this aspect of the psalm was fulfilled, but David often wrote prophetically and was undoubtedly correct in his assumption. After all, Cush had slandered the Lord’s anointed, doubly violating the Law of Moses. David correctly intuited that it was important to the Lord to confirm and validate his choice of David to the nation, and to defend him against his enemies.

Design Law in Action

Second, David believed that what goes around comes around. Whether you want to call it fate or karma or whatever, liars and slanderers often get their own back in very predictable ways. It’s built into the nature of the sin. One consequence of telling falsehoods is that deceivers begin to deceive themselves. They drink their own Kool-Aid. I’ve lived it. Keeping track of reality becomes increasingly difficult, and the result is paranoia. That’s not a pleasant way to live. Alternatively, deceivers may spin such an extensive web of lies that they begin contradicting themselves, losing all credibility. I had an acquaintance in my early twenties who did just that: he told so many stories later proved false that his friends all abandoned him as incorrigible. So David writes that wicked men like Cush fall into the very holes they have dug, and that their own violence descends on their heads.

Again, the historical accounts do not help us in tracking the fulfilment of David’s words, but he was correct in observing that a pattern of wicked behavior often ends in heartbreak and misery. We tend to reap what we sow, and the Lord does not always need to get personally involved to ensure that happens.

The Value of Repentance

Note that David begins with this precondition, “If a man does not repent.” We may take encouragement from the assurance that repentance is always the Lord’s preference. He really would rather not judge people, but hard hearts make it necessary. Ezekiel 18 is one of the best and longest discourses on that subject. The prophet writes:

“If a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?”

This is the character of our gracious God, and we can take comfort in it. David acknowledges it right at the outset. Indeed, he is not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Cush likely did not, but he had ample opportunity.

Psalm 7:17 — Praise and Thanks

“I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.”

David closes, appropriately, with thanks and praise. This is not an abrupt topical swerve. It’s really all connected. A righteous God is worthy of thanks when he displays his righteousness in the world. At the time he wrote Psalm 7, David had yet to see Cush get his just desserts, but he had confidence it would happen because he knew well the character of God. He had watched the Lord help the godly and destroy the wicked from his youth, in single combat with Goliath. In that conflict, the men of Israel saw only a man who defied the nation, but David saw a man who defied the living God. He came against the giant in the name of the Lord of hosts, and won a great victory against impossible odds.

It’s a fitting close to the psalm, and a reminder that when we ask the Lord for anything, we ought to remember to thank and praise him, and not just when we see a pleasing outcome to our prayers. In this case, David anticipates the favorable outcome before it occurs and starts thanking and praising right away.

Not a bad practice.