05 June 2024
The heart is where we know things that the mind cannot comprehend. It is where God speaks to us.
When we consider God's communications through that means, we need to keep in mind a basic principle: plausible deniability. God rarely compels fleshly will; He prefers to work through the subtle means of speaking to the heart. At the foot of Mount Sinai, there was no limit to His compelling demonstrations, and it accomplished little in the flesh. The flesh too easily forgets and reasserts its own will.
Thus, a covenant of law -- a covenant for the flesh -- was doomed to failure. He knew this. It was important to display the truth of fleshly intransigence. It was all part of a much wider proof of His case against Lucifer. There's no way we could fully grasp the nature of this dispute in our flesh. We will understand it fully only in Eternity. That the flesh cannot grasp it's own frailty is all a part of this.
The flesh can barely understand conformity and performance. This is the nature of a law covenant. However, even at the foot of Mount Sinai, the flesh was not the issue, since it was incapable of participating usefully in God's agenda. God was appealing to the hearts of the people. The real issue was personal loyalty. Loyalty is in the heart, and the heart is fully capable of this without an awakened spirit.
Thus, at the heart of the Law of Moses was this underlying requirement for loyalty. All of the law was covered by a personal devotion from the heart. The whole of the sacrificial system was designed to impress upon the fleshly nature the gravity of things. God Himself was not expecting much from the fleshly nature of the people. He made specific provisions for failure.
He was prepared to accept even a grudging loyalty. God was expecting a petty reluctance from at least some of the nation. This figures into some of the things Jesus said. He made it clear that the flesh alone could never please the Father; there had to be a heart-felt submission to Him.
I don't know if it's possible to clinically distinguish the heart from the rest of our fleshly nature. This is merely a parable, a working model for something inexplicable. It's as if to say that the one part of our fleshly nature that can do righteousness is the heart. What few comprehend is that the Law itself demanded this loyalty. It was part of the Law of Noah, as well. Insofar as a law code can be applicable to our lives here, its primary demand is personal loyalty from the heart.
God could have easily led Israel straight up the coast in Canaan Land. But the fleshly nature would not have benefited from that. Rather, it was necessary that the Exodus be a sort of boot camp for the fleshly nature of Israelis. God indicated through His prophets that Israel was by far the most difficult of all human nations on the earth, and that He could have had a much easier time dealing with any other nation. He gave the elohim council an easier path than He allowed for Himself. It was a calculus we cannot comprehend that He built such a truculent nation for His demonstration.
The New Testament says in 1 Corinthians 10:6-11 that we can learn from this demonstration. We can avoid such a stringent boot camp experience of the flesh if we are willing to face it in our hearts. All it takes is rising above the level of the flesh -- something Israel struggled to do. We must engage our hearts as Israel didn't, and strive to express in our lives the loyalty that Israelis didn't show.
Get your heart to kneel before Him, and everything else will take care of itself. That religious word "faith" means loving feudal submission.
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