The first words spoken in the Scriptures sound like a
command to our Western way of hearing (1). We translate those two words (אוֹר הָיָה)
as “Let there be light,” but translating
it “Light, be!” is perhaps more literal, though it feels odd to command light.
And that’s largely because it isn’t really a command in the
“obey this rule” sense. Light didn’t even exist and it couldn’t obey a rule,
not until God called it into existence. When God said, “Light, be!” he was
releasing his power to create light, causing “reality” to conform to his will.
It would be silly to expect the light to hear this as an agenda item, and to
work hard (can you imagine light sweating, feeling guilty for failing?) to
conform to the directive?
His words caused the thing he said to become reality. It was
not reality until he said it. He did the same thing a few more times, and then
he took a day off to reflect on his “very good” creation (2).
In the beginning God established the pattern: he commands a
thing to “be” and suddenly, by the release of his power, it is. And it is good.
This is the way God began this whole creation; this is the pattern he uses.
Years later, he speaks to a family he’s trying to adopt as
his own (and just like in our day, there were lots of complications). He makes
a similar statement to that family, releasing his power in them to accomplish
what he was describing, but this time, they were terrified, and out of their
fear, they interpreted his release of power as a directive (3), as a rule for
them to obey.
“Be holy,” he said (4). And they tried. They sweat and made
laws and practices (5) and did everything they knew to do. And they failed
miserably. They failed because they tried to do in their human obedience what
was released as a disbursal of heaven’s power. They did not receive the power,
therefore they were not able to actually “be holy.”
A few millennia later, he did it again, this time while he
was walking on the planet: he spoke several times in the same ways, releasing
the same creative power.
Nearly a dozen times (6), he declared to various people, “Be
healed!” He’s not telling people to live up to a standard of healed-ness, he’s
not giving them a rule to obey. He’s releasing power. We get it, because we
understand that we don’t generally have the power to “be healed” on our own,
apart from the power of God.
Only twice (one woman literally caught in sin, one man with
a history of brokenness and disappointment) (7), he released the power of God
to remove the bondage of sin: “Sin no more,” he said. We make the silly mistake
here of thinking that we can do this apart from God’s power (we cannot) (8),
and therefore, we think this is a rule to follow (it is not), and we teach
others, “You must be holy! God commands it!”
All of these statements were declared by the same person of
the Godhead (“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made
that has been made” (9) ) and they followed the same pattern: it sounded like a
command, but functionally, this is about the Creator God releasing his power to
create the thing he speaks about, causing “reality” to conform to his will.
When the Godhead declares for something to “be” (whether
it’s “be healed” or “be holy”) it’s not a commandment, not a rule. It’s a
disbursement of his power, a declaration of our destiny. Our response is not to
grunt and sweat and fail and then condemn ourselves for failing to do the
impossible. That’s foolish. We cannot do what it takes the power of God to do
(10). If I may say so, it is the Christians who think they can accomplish in
their will what God has offered his power to
create, whose “gospel” is the least hopeful and the most ridden with
condemnation: their “good news” has the least “good” in it.
When the Scriptures say, “Live this way,” it is a release of
the power of God. Our job is not to make that word come about. Our job is to
set our sights on that target and it is God’s job to pull the trigger, to
release the power to accomplish that word. And that will only come about as he
and I are one, are in actual unity.
And when a prophetic word declares, “This is your destiny,”
it is a release of the power of God. Our job is not to make that word come
about. Our job is to set our sights on that target and it is God’s job to pull
the trigger, to release the power to accomplish that word. And that will only
come about as he and I are one, are in actual unity.
When God speaks, it releases God’s power to accomplish what
he’s saying. If he thinks I need his power to accomplish that task, then it is
extreme arrogance to attempt it in my own will; the only greater arrogance is
teaching others that they should live as I live.
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Footnotes:
1 Genesis 1:3
2 Genesis 1
3 Exodus 20:19
5 see Exodus through Deuteronomy
7 John 5:14 & 8:11
8 Romans 3:23 & 5:12
9 John 1:3
10 Mark 14:38, Romans 8:5-13, 1Corinthians 15:50, Galatians
2:20, 3:3, 5:16, etc.
