What the Old Testament Means to Us. . . No. 16

WHAT GOD MOST DESIRES OF US

If we limited ourselves to the Old Testament with the question What does God most desire of us?, what would the answer be? Or if the question had to do with the nature and destiny of man, is there a definitive answer in the OT? Is “God’s man” or “God’s woman” clearly delineated in the OT? Is the OT “Calvinistic” in its view of humankind, depicting him as wholly depraved, or is human nature seen as basically good even if flawed?

We may not be able to weigh all these questions, not even briefly, but we can attempt to see if the OT writers struggled with the question of human nature as have the philosophers through the centuries. Is there, for instance, anything in the OT like Lord Byron’s description of man as “Half dust, half deity,” or Thomas Carlyle’s “Man is of the earth, but his thoughts are with the stars; mean and petty his wants and desires, yet they serve a soul with thoughts which sweep the heavens and wander through eternity.”

Or is there in the OT anything like Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool,” or Thomas Hobbes’ insistence that man is by nature brutish and selfish? Then there is William James’ reminder that man is the only animal that preys systematically on its own species.

Just as the sages through the ages have given mixed reviews in their study of humankind, so it is with the sT. But one thing is sure: there is no intimation in the OT that humankind descended from a monkey. Some intellectuals, oddly enough, have insisted that such is our origin, as when at an Oxford gathering the atheist Thomas Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce discussed the question. When Wilberforce suggested that Huxley may have descended from a monkey, Huxley retorted that that would be more honorable than descending from a dishonest clergyman !

One will hardly find a more exalted view of humankind than in Ps. 8 where the poet, having contemplated the starry heavens above as God’s glorious handiwork, asks “What is man that You are mindful of him?” He answers his own question: “You made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor.” The poet goes on to describe man as being given by God dominion over all created things. And yet the same book of Psalms and perhaps the same poet cries out in despair “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” There is at least one passage that describes the mix of good and bad in man: “Truly, this only have I found: that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes” (Ecc. 7:29).

This mixture of good and evil is sometimes strangely related, as in Gen 9:6 where man is depicted as a likely murderer of his own kind and yet described as being in the image of God: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.” Gen. 1:26 not only has God creating humankind “in Our image” but also “according to our likeness.” That we were created in God’s likeness is too baffling to contemplate. There can be no more exalted view of human beings than to say they are in the image of God. And yet Ps. 14:2- 3 tells how God looks down from heaven to see what man is like and finds him evil: “They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt, there is none who does good, no, not one.”

The OT thus sees man as “a little lower than the angels” and “in the image of God” and yet as “corrupt” and capable of doing nothing good. Amidst this strange mixture of good and evil man appears to have a choice. As to which of these forces dominates, good or evil, depends on the responses he makes. That he has freewill to choose the prophets are quick to point out, such as when Joshua challenged the Israelites to make the choice to serve God. The people responded, “The Lord our God we will serve, and His voice we will obey” (Josh. 24:24).

It is in our freedom to choose that we see what God most desires of us. It is simply that he wants us to choose him. In choosing God we remain a mixture of both good and evil, but we have nonetheless cast our lot with God. This is evident in the case of David who was uniquely described as “a man after God’s own heart.” David came to see in all his sinful weakness that it is “a broken and contrite heart” that God most desires. That is what made him so special with God, and that is what will make us special to him - a heart turned toward him, humble and penitent. We don’t have to turn in a perfect performance, but we do have to hunger for God above all earthly things.

The OT makes it clear what God most desires of his creatures, spelling out the kind of person he will look to, as in Is. 66:2: “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.”

This is a sobering truth for people who live in a culture that behaves as if there were no God, which is what secularism is. God can hardly get our attention. The prophet Isaiah in the above text named what God most wants of humankind as he spoke of the glory and majesty of God, referring to heaven being God’s throne and the earth his footstool. Our society does not stand in awe of God, trembling in the face of his glory and majesty, because it gives God no thought at all.

Sin is not as much at the heart of the human predicament as indifference. The prayer that most impressed Jesus is the attitude that is most esteemed throughout the Bible, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”—the Editor

A man of character will make himself worthy in any position he is given.—Gandhi