Before there was religion, there was relationship with God.
God recently brought that concept to mind as I have been thinking through life as I process what I have been through in the past few years. I’ve noticed my legalistic background with lots of “thou shalt” and “thou shalt nots” had a deep effect on me, penetrating marriage, motherhood, and who I am as a person. God in His mercy has been rooting out the wrong thinking and restoring my mind. Acts 7 was a passage that the Lord used to give me a perspective shift.
In Acts 7, Stephen recounts Israel’s history in his speech to the Sanhedrin. He defends the position that God spoke to Israel before He mandated the temple and the law. Stephens’s point is that while the Hebrew people and the Pharisees put so much emphasis on being in the right place at the right time and doing the right things to hear from God, God had actually spoken to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob without and before those institutions. He was trying to help them understand they were no longer bound to the law. He wanted them to understand that God had sent Jesus to return things back to a personal relationship with Him as it had been before the Israelites were given the law in the desert after they left Egypt.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all had a relationship with God.
Since Jesus had died, there was no need for the rituals and Levitical laws of the Old Testament. Jesus had made the final sacrifice for all the past, present, and future believers. Stephen needed the Pharisees to understand that. He was in trouble because he was teaching against the Jewish traditions of the temple, sacrifices, and the law, and they were mad! Mad enough that they still stoned him to death despite his eloquent speech. He couldn’t help them, but he gave us tremendous perspective to help us today.
Adam and Eve created the need for a savior. Generations later, God gave the Hebrew people the law to demonstrate that His people needed Him because of Adam and Eve’s sin. God knew exactly how each part of the Hebrew people’s story would play out. Even the horrific parts of their story had a purpose in His plan. Stephen also presents the fact that God, in prophecy, had said they would be exiled and oppressed and then return to Him.
We must consider the third side of the story, God’s part and perspective.
The bad things we experience make us wonder why God allows terrible things to happen, but I don’t think we have the same view of suffering that God has. I have heard that God doesn’t cause the evil, that evil happens but that He brings about good from it. But I am not sure I fully agree with that view because Stephens’s speech clearly and matter-of-factly states that God had the oppression and the plan in mind the entire time. He didn’t see it as horrible suffering, as we tend to view it, but rather as something that would bring about the restoration of his people.
God doesn’t respond to the evil in the world as it happens. He’s outside of time and knows how it all plays out. He knew the ending before the beginning, so while his plan factors in the evil and our prayers, nothing catches Him off guard. In Proverbs 16:4, we read that “the Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.” The good and the bad, its all a part of His sovereign plan. God is the beginning and the end. There is nothing or no one outside of or beyond Him affecting His plan.
Our relationship with God is built from everything we experience. The purpose of pain, the purpose of the law, the purpose of everything is to create a relationship with our Father. We forget that before the law, there was Eden. There was Enoch, who walked with God, and Abraham, who regularly conversed with Him. Jacob even physically wrestled with Him.
It didn’t begin with a law-giver; it began with a friend.
What a thought! There is freedom in that perspective. It offers rest from performing and from over-vigilance in what we do. Just as the Lord enjoyed fellowship with Adam and Eve before the fall, the Lord wants relationship with us. The details of our lives work out as the relationship grows and we walk in step with Him. We will want more of him as the relationship deepens, and we will naturally act in a way that benefits the relationship. But our focus must be on getting to know the Lord, not law-keeping and religion.
Focusing on law-keeping and religion, also known as legalism, robs us of so much joy and freedom. God never meant it to be that way, even though, for a time, the Hebrew people had a lot of rules to follow. The basic moral code of the law is written in our hearts, acting as our conscience, and the Holy Spirit makes us sensitive to that, but we are no longer under the Levitical law laid out in Leviticus.
Because of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice, being born again brings us freedom and the gift of having a relationship with God. Let’s throw off the chains of legalism and keep our eyes on Jesus.
