The Bible teaches us that God’s Way is the way of justice. All of Scripture describes and defines this idea. A very poignant picture of this is painted by Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 5:1-5 (ESV)
Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem,
look and take note!
Search her squares to see
if you can find a man,
one who does justice
and seeks truth,
that I may pardon her.
[2] Though they say, “As the Lord lives,”
yet they swear falsely.
[3] O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?
You have struck them down,
but they felt no anguish;
you have consumed them,
but they refused to take correction.
They have made their faces harder than rock;
they have refused to repent.
[4] Then I said, “These are only the poor;
they have no sense;
for they do not know the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.
[5] I will go to the great
and will speak to them,
for they know the way of the Lord,
the justice of their God.”
But they all alike had broken the yoke;
they had burst the bonds.
This is God’s indictment of His holy nation just before they were conquered by Babylon around 600 B.C. He asked Jeremiah to search Jerusalem to see if anyone dwelt there who did justice or sought truth. Jeremiah believed he would find some who did, but he soon found that all refused to repent of sin and that all had “burst the bonds” or restraints of God’s just requirements, even the “great” leaders of the nation. In fact, most of the Bible shows men running away from God’s justice. Only a few run to it and these are the Moses’ and Davids’ of the Bible, God’s “overcomers.”
Notice in the passage above that Jeremiah defines God’s Way in verse 4. David says in Psalm103:7, “He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.” Throughout the ages God has followed this pattern. Only His overcomers know His ways. The rest remain satisfied seeing or participating in His acts, or at least in spiritual acts that they believe emanate from God. The majority of God’s people can only see the physical works or miracles of God; they cannot understand His thoughts or ways. This explains why God’s people often and consistently go astray. They have no inner conviction or sense of why God does what He does or what they themselves should do. David contemplates, “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) This Scripture teaches us that we have to get beyond reliance upon goose bumps, thrilling feelings, glittering gold falling from the sky, “holy laughter,” and a multitude of other “manifestations” of the Spirit if we ever want to understand God’s way. Understanding His way has nothing to do with “feeling” His presence.
Most Christians do not know what to do or how to act if they do not see signs, wonders, and miracles that they can attribute to God. Unfortunately, because they always look for signs and wonders, they are prone to be led astray by lying evil spirits. This ultimately causes many to mistake good for evil and evil for good. Micah warns, “And I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice? ye who hate the good, and love the evil ….” (Micah 3:1-2 ). Today the Church is God’s Israel and this warning applies to all of us. Christians now stand in the very same place as did the Jews when Jesus first came. His words to the Jews, “And when the multitudes were gathering together unto him, he began to say, This generation is an evil generation: it seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah,” now apply to us Christians. (Luke 11:29)
The prophetic Scriptures warn that in the last days God will actually send a spirit of delusion to deceive His people because they refused to love the truth. See 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12. This is a sober warning and needs to be taken seriously. Christian after Christian has followed these spirits of delusion for the entire two millennia since Christ’s resurrection, but it seems that delusion has increased dramatically these past thirty years. I have not been immune from their influence. I have had to contend for “the faith” and I continue doing so. Yet, I know that truth exists, I know the author of truth, and I love the truth. God will protect me from the error that leads to death, the dousing in the Lake of Fire. The same promise applies to you if you love the truth.
Isaiah declares, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 ) But, God does not intend that our thoughts and ways remain estranged from him. He gave us the Scripture for us to apprehend His ways and follow after His thoughts. The coming of Christ is all about taking God’s Law, which was first written on stone, and writing it anew on hearts of flesh. See 2 Corinthians 3:3 and Hebrews 8:10; 10:16. Today, of course, we see that most of those who call themselves Christians have abandoned all pretense of following God’s Law, even those laws and injunctions reiterated in the New Testament. Christians have come to the place where they do not believe in sin. They believe that Jesus’ taking away of the handwriting of the ordinances that was against us (Colossians 2:14) also means that Jesus did away with sin. This is not true. Christians often remain self-deceived in their “faith.” People still sin by disobeying Christ’s commands and they still need to repent of their sins. The penalty for sin is only removed when we “obey” the Gospel, and we need to learn what that means. Understanding the Gospel is to learn God’s way.
And, what is God’s way? “Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.” (Jeremiah 5:4) God’s way is the way of justice. Other Bible versions use different words for justice, like judgment and law, but the meaning is the same. God’s “way” refers to His justice or law which deals with God’s way of relating to mankind and His expectations regarding the way men should treat each other. The entire Bible reveals just exactly what this means. Jesus summed it up in two great commands, love God and love men. He said that all the Law and the prophets explained what this meant. Now it is time for us to understand God’s Way as well. Following pages will examine specific aspects of God’s Way, but first we will begin to understand God’s plan or “way” behind it all. First we will look at the real meaning behind the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
