Psalm 111 - God’s Righteousness rivisited
 3 Glorious and majestic are his deeds,
      and his righteousness endures forever.
Previously, the only ingredient of righteousness that I had found for God was justice… He is just. But, after studying Psalm 106 - Another ingredient of Righteousness, God’s righteousness has more meaning to me than before. According to Psalm 106, we are credited with righteousness if we are zealous for God’s honor. In fact, I learned that Phinehas was as zealous as God for His honor! Now, I still need to think about exactly what a modern person can do out of zealousness for God’s honor, but what this says about God is that part of His own righteousness is due to His own zealousness for His honor.
So, how does a verse like Psalm 111:3 read now? It tells me that God is forever just, and forever zealous for His honor. What does that mean? It means that God is zealous for the purity of His name, as known among the people. It means that God is zealous for the purity of relationship between Him and us. It also means that God would sooner let us die than let us, His followers, dishonor Him.
Wow. That’s rather harsh isn’t it? Why, yes it is. Thanks for asking. But notice something, God isn’t decimating Israel or the church with plagues, even while dishonor Him. I don’t see Him trying to bring Israel’s or the Church’s corporate relationship with Him under control, even out of zealousness for His name. Why do you suppose that is?
Notice the progression of God’s zealousness in scripture:
Adam - Banished mankind from paradise
This was, perhaps the harshest punishment ever meted out to man by God… banishment from His presence in the Garden of Eden, and made to work in the harsh realities of the world. We are still suffering from that today.
Noah - Destroyed mankind, and started over
Most would argue this is harsher than banishing mankind from the Garden. Well, I suppose for someone already separated from God, physical death of all mankind would indeed be the harshest one could experience. However, for someone communing with God, as Adam and Even were, separation from God is the harshest punishment I can imagine. So really, the harshest punishment came with Adam. The second harshest punishment came with Noah.
Abraham - Separating the world from God’s chosen
After destroying mankind, God promised never to do that again. However, mankind still would not live in purity with God. So, instead of destroying all mankind, God found one man, Abram (later Abraham), and started a race to have a relationship with. Eventually, this would lead to Jesus who die for all, but in the meantime, God had taken another act of separation against mankind… but this time there was no banishment (a la Adam) and no death (a la Noah).
Moses - Kept Hebrews from entering the Promised Land
When Abraham’s descendants were taken slave in Egypt, God delivered them. However, after their delivery, they grew impatient and built a Golden Calf. Did God punish all mankind? No, just the Israelites. Did separate a few from them and abandon them? No, He stayed with them; feeding them, protecting them. the worst of them were killed through their disobedience, but this was against the backdrop of God’s larger action, which was to prevent them from reaching the Promised Land. The Promised Land was to be the next best thing to Eden for them, and they were on their way… until they ruined it, and so God kept them in the desert until all who had sinned with the Golden Calf had died. You can see over time how God was growing less harsh with the world.
Judges and Kings - Israel scattered, gathered, then scattered again
After the Israelites were finally allowed into the Promised Land of Israel, they continued in their patterns of idol worship. God would let them lie fallow in their sins for a time, then raise up another king to rule them in truth, and let them back into their sins again. He never killed them off. He stopped killing them in plagues. But what He did do was to allow Israel to be conquered… and in doing so, He assured them survival. Instead of being killed off, they were simply scattered throughout the nations. From them a few were separated and came back, and the cycle repeated itself.Â
As an analogy consider a lump of dough, completely pure. It picks up a little leaven (eating the apple). So, God removes it from His presence. Later, the whole thing becomes impure, but for a small part (Noah). So, he separated that one part, and threw the rest in the trash. As he built up the lump again, it again became impure. But, instead of throwing away the whole thing, He separated part, let the impure part develop as it would, working on a second more pure lump right next to it (Abraham). Over time, as impurities entered, God started hacking small pieces out (Moses, Judges and Kings). He never started over. As it continued on its impurities, he broke it up into every smaller and smaller pieces. Basically, God was getting more and more fine. Do you see the pattern? And that leads us to Jesus.
Jesus - Focus turns from corporate to individual
Through Jesus, everything appears to have been turned on its ear. God stops working with entire nations, but start working with the individual pieces within the larger lump. At this point, God even starts taking the impure parts, and simply removing those impurities by cooking them in the furnace (Jesus dying for their sins), and making delicious bread, so to speak.
And that is where we stand today… with God focused on the individual, moving from extremely harsh (destroy everything) to less harsh (separate the pure from the impure), to focusing on the individual (focus on successively smaller pieces) until eventually the relationship is not between God and world or God and country, but God and you.
God hasn’t changed. He has never been more less peaceful, more or less violent, more or less loving, than He is today. He has simply been drilling down, refining, separating, kneading, until finally reaching the point where instead of looking for the pure, He takes the impure and purifies it in Christ’s blood. A study of God’s behavior over the millenia, and what His constant pattern of conduct has been over History is not a study of two different Gods. It’s not a study of changing values or of changing goals. It’s the story of God’s process for find those would love Him forever in Heaven, and will do so willingly. What looks to many like a story of death and destruction, turns out to be a story of mercy and purification, practiced at a finer and finer level, until finally it culminates in the separation and actions of one man… Jesus, His death and His resurrection. It is actually the story of Easter.