I Will Guide You With My Eye

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. 

Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. (Psalms 32:8-9 KJV)

The controversy ever and anon seems to be, “Will I approach God and be accepted by him based upon the works of my flesh, or upon his work for and in me?” The Old Testament teaches us that no one can perfectly obey the Law and thus “earn” his own salvation. Man, in his own power, simply can never be like God, as Israel’s history proved. Knowing this Jesus taught Israel’s leaders, “But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” (Matthew 12:7 KJV) He said this when he justified David for committing a lawless act, that is, an act that was specifically prohibited by the Law which God gave Moses and Israel. David and his mighty men, being hungry, ate the Bread of Faces (showbread) which only Levitical priests could lawfully eat. Jesus reminded the Pharisees of this account because they were just then condemning him and his disciples for plucking and eating grain on the sabbath. This would have been considered “working” on the Sabbath. 

Both David’s and Jesus’ acts were similar in that both were technical violations of God’s Law! Yes, we can say that Jesus violated God’s written Law, at least insofar as men understood it. Remember, Moses taught that one ought not even kindle a fire on the Sabbath; how much less ought one work on the Sabbath by harvesting food! Why didn’t Jesus just instruct his disciples to fast this particular seventh day? Certainly Jesus, a man who had fasted 40 days straight, could expect his own disciples to fast one day. But, he did not choose to fast and he did not want his disciples to fast either. He intended to teach us a lesson concerning God’s plan with mankind.

Remember the man caught by Israel collecting sticks on the Sabbath. They brought the man to Moses and asked him what the judgment should be. Moses inquired of God and God commanded, “Stone him to death.” So, all Israel then stoned the man to death. What is the difference between what this man did in collecting sticks, what David did by eating the showbread, and what Jesus did in harvesting grain on the sabbath? In the natural there exists no difference. All three acts violated God’s revealed law.

The difference between these three acts, therefore, may be a difference in the hearts of each man involved. The Scriptures do not reveal the heart of the man collecting sticks, but we do know the hearts of David and Jesus. Or, the difference may be, and this is what I believe, in the types that each man represents. The man caught collecting sticks represents man under the Old Covenant. He is man under the Law. He must do everything exactly right, according to the written instructions of God to Moses, or he becomes disqualified. He must die. This is the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, the difference between the natural and the spiritual. David and Jesus, on the other hand, obviously represent men under the New Covenant who are not obigated to perfectly keep God’s Law in order to be accepted by him. In the natural we all break the Law and we all die. In this age we all remain utterly incapable of keeping all of God’s Law so long as we remain bound in this carnal flesh. Even the most spiritual of the Old Testament, like Moses and David, could not perfectly keep God’s Law. Thus Moses died before he reached the promised land and David fell into the most heinous acts known to man, adultery and murder, and lost his kingdom for a time. Jesus, though, shed his blood that men could be reconciled to God without perfect obedience to God’s Law.

What, then, is the point of the Law? The Law acts for humans as the bit and bridle does for the horse. Like the bit for the horse, the Law keeps the man on the right path. But, says Paul, the goal or end of the Law is Christ for righteousness.  See Romans 10:4. And the Law is our tutor which leads us to Christ. See Galatians 3:24. Yet, it is not God’s purpose that mankind always be restrained by a rigid set of dos and don’ts. Saying this I do not intend to bring the Law to naught, for if we break God’s moral laws, then be assured that that law will once again discipline us as a rigid schoolmaster and drag us to Christ in repentance and for forgiveness.  But his goal is that that law be written upon our hearts. For then God’s very eye will be our eye, always leading us in righteousness, and thus will be fulfilled the saying, “I will guide thee with mine eye.” (Psalm 32:8)

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