Countermanding the Words of God

Four Treasures of Adventism

A lecture series for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Lecture Four: Law

Sabbath afternoon, April 6, 2013

Text: Genesis 18:25

One of the truly distinctive elements of Adventist theology is its elevation of law. According to Adventist theology, the personal, idiosyncratic will of God is not the last word. Rather, we view God himself as subject to the grand principles of law.

You've seen the bumper sticker, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” It's a nice slogan expressing confidence in God, but in some Bible stories God's words are not necessarily the last word. Sometimes when people argue with God, the people win the argument because there is a law that God himself has to obey.

Example One: Genesis 18

God told Abraham he was going to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness. God did not ask Abraham for his opinion. God did not invite Abraham to critique the destruction plan. God simply announced his intentions, “his will.” Instead of bowing and saying, “You are God. You must be correct,” Abraham challenged God, accusing him of injustice.

“Suppose you find fifty righteous people living there in the city—will you still sweep it away and not spare it for their sakes? Surely you wouldn't do such a thing, destroying the righteous along with the wicked. Why, you would be treating the righteous and the wicked exactly the same! Surely you wouldn't do that! Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” Genesis 18:24-25.

Clearly, here, Abraham is referencing a standard, a law or principle, something outside the person of God himself. Abraham emphatically does not approach this conversation with God as a sycophantic courtier. He is not the president's lawyer inventing legal justification for drone strikes or “enhanced interrogation.”

Abraham confronts God. “Whoa! Wait just a minute. You can't just willy-nilly obliterate a whole town. Just because there happen to be bad people there, that does not allow you to disregard the innocent as 'collateral damage.' You have to do what is right.” Abraham is not naïve. He acknowledges that as supreme judge God has the power to do whatever he wants. But having the power to do something does not automatically confer the right to do it. In Abraham's mind God's indisputable power does not confer indisputable authority.

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right!

God did not rebuke Abraham for impudence. God agreed with him. God even allowed Abraham to set the conditions that had to be met if the cities were going to be destroyed. When it turned out that the cities failed to meet even Abraham's conditions for preservation—at least ten righteous inhabitants—God honored Abraham's scruples by sending angels to evacuate Abraham's four relatives before the fire fell. (Genesis 18, 19)

To summarize: God announced his intention in unmistakably clear language. Abraham judged God's declared intention to be a violation of some universal law. When Abraham challenged God, God did not tell him to shut up, God bent to meet the demands of Abraham's conscience.

Example Two: Moses' Rebellion, Exodus 32

The people of Israel were camped at Mt. Sinai. Moses was up on the mountain communing with God. After Moses had been on the mountain for weeks, the people began to fret. They worried that Moses was dead. They needed a god to lead them. So Aaron made a golden calf and the people began dancing around this idol in worship. God informs Moses of this problem and then gives Moses a direct order,

Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation. Exodus 32:10

There was no hint of diffidence or ambiguity in God's command. Moses understood it perfectly. But instead of obeying and getting out of the way, Moses questioned God's judgment. “God, I don't think you really want to do that. If you do it, you'll be sorry.” Later, Moses upped his protest. To paraphrase, Moses said to God, “Over my dead body! I will not step aside. To kill them, you're going to have to go through me.”

God bends. He does not destroy the people en masse.

Abraham's argument against God's proposed action was: That's not right!

Moses' argument was: That's not wise. Then, I will not acquiesce.

In both instances, the human challengers are validated. Their opposition to God's words is celebrated as acts of righteousness.

Example Three, The Gibeonites, Joshua 9

The people of Israel invaded Palestine. Following God's instructions they annihilated Jericho. Every man, woman, child and animal—except Rahab and everyone she manages to squeeze into her Hotel Rwanda. It was a brutal, savage extermination, ordered by God according to the narrative in the Bible.

Next, the Israelites destroyed Ai. But this time they didn't kill the animals, just the people.

The Book of Joshua reports that when tribal groups throughout Palestine heard about Israel's success against these two cities, they formed a league to fight the Israelites. Everybody joined except for the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites sent a delegation to ask for a peace treaty with the Israelites.

When the emissaries arrived, Joshua interrogated them. “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

The ambassadors answered, “Your servants have come from a very distant country. Stories of your exploits have reached even as far as our country. We've heard about what your God did to the Egyptians. We've heard how he gave you victory over Sihon King of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan. Our elders, and in fact, all our people, commissioned us to come and offer ourselves as vassals. We're prepared to pay tribute. We just want to be on your side. We want to connect with the God who is able to do what your God does.”

Joshua was suspicious. “You do realize that God has forbidden us to make treaties with any one in this area, right? How do we know you live far enough away for us to even be able to talk about making a treaty?”

“Look at our bread,” the Gibeonites protested. “When we left home it was fresh out of the oven. See how dry and moldy it is now! These wine skins—when we filled them at home—they were brand new for the trip. Now see how cracked and weathered they are. Our sandals were new. Now, they're worn out.”

Joshua and his assistants peered at the moldy bread. They ran their hands over the rough, weathered skins. They could see the ratty clothes. No self-respecting ambassador would deliberately show up to make a treaty dressed like that. So, Joshua and the elders agreed to a treaty. Three days later the Israelites discovered they'd been fooled. The Gibeonites lived only three days away from the Israelite camp. The Israelites were outraged. They marched the three-days journey to the region of Gibeon and set up camp.

The soldiers were impatient. These people were Canaanites. It was extermination time. But Joshua refused. “We gave our word,” Joshua said. “And even when it comes to pagans, when we make a promise, we keep it. When we make a treaty, we honor it. When we sign a contract, it's binding.”

The entire army was outraged at Joshua's refusal to exterminate these worthless people. There was a threat of mutiny. But Joshua was adamant. “Yes, they are Canaanites. Yes, they fooled us. Yes, they are on God's extermination list. Yes, God forbade us to make a treaty with people like this. But, no, we are not going to break our word. A treaty is a treaty. An oath is an oath.”

The Gibeonites watched all this nervously, to put it mildly. If Jericho hadn't been able to withstand these people, the Gibeonites didn't have a chance. Their fate was in the hands of Joshua. If he blinked, they were dead.

Joshua summoned the Gibeonite leaders. He was not happy. “Why did you deceive us, saying you lived a long way away?

The Gibeonites answered, “Your servants had heard definite, detailed reports about the command your God gave you to wipe out all the inhabitants of the land. We've seen your God's power in Egypt and in the battles against Sihon, king of Hesbon, and Og, king of Bashon, and Jericho and Ai. We are helpless against you militarily. We did the only thing we could think of to save our lives. We are in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right.

So Joshua saved them. He imposed severe “tribute.” They were consigned in perpetuity to serve as temple slaves. But they were alive. Contrary to the explicit annihilation decree of God.

Note, God's command to wipe out the people of Canaan was so emphatic, so clear, so unmistakable, the pagan people themselves had memorized it. There was nothing fuzzy or ambiguous or uncertain in God's directions. God ordered the Israelites to exterminate these wicked people. Joshua countermanded the words of God. When his warriors urged him to implement God's command, Joshua refused. He over overruled his soldiers and God on the basis of a simple law: integrity.

There is a law that is higher than the “word of God.” There is a law that is higher than the idiosyncratic will of God.

A few generations later God demonstrated his approval of Joshua's integrity in protecting the Gibeonites. It's a macabre story: King Saul violated the treaty and tried to exterminate the Gibeonites in obedience to the historic words of God. During the reign of the next king, David, God sent a famine to punish Israel for Saul's massacres. To atone for the genocide, David executed seven of Saul's descendants. Whatever else we make of this story, it clearly endorses Joshua's adamant insistence on honoring a treaty, even though doing so meant Israel was acting directly contrary to the explicit command of God.

“Doing right is more important than obeying God.”

Of course, as believers, we would prefer to say this differently. We would say that doing right is the truest, purest interpretation of God's words. If obeying God's words leads someone to mistreat people, we would insist that the perpetrator has misunderstood God, that God's words didn't really mean what they thought they meant. But I put it the other way, because sometimes we are so sure we know what God meant by what he has said, that our conscience is anesthetized. When a parent spanks their child into unconsciousness because the child is being rebellious, the parent is not intending to do evil. The parent is simply being obedient to the Bible admonition, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” When an Arkansas Republican last year proposed legislation that would allow parents to seek the death penalty for an incorrigible child, that legislator was simply attempting to be faithful to his understanding of the words of God recorded in the Bible.

Mature religion does not ask simply, “What did God say?” Rather it asks, “What is right?” Mature religion assumes the existence of a law that is so noble, so exalted, so universal God himself is not free to violate it. And we are not free to violate it even if it seems God's words require us to do so.

If something looks unfair, even if it appears to be the will of God, mature Christians will speak up. They will join with Abraham and protest. They may even join Moses and defy the plain statement of God. Sometimes, the right thing to do is to challenge God himself. This is the real life application of the Adventist notion of the supremacy of law.

In the Bible God explicitly approved and regulated slavery. Christians, beginning in the 1600s, started asking questions of fairness. This questioning is perhaps most beautifully modeled in the life of John Woolman who traveled up and down the east coast in the late 1700s bearing witness in favor of liberty for slaves.

The Bible explicitly prescribes death by stoning for Sabbath-breakers, adulterers, rebellious sons, homosexual unions, women unable to prove their virginity at their wedding, blasphemers, witches, and rape victims if the rape occurred within the city limits. Even fundamentalists who advocate capital punishment, reject it in connection with every one of these categories. (Except for the Arkansas Republican I mentioned earlier.)

So what is this “law” that is superior even to the words of God?

In the Bible, two criteria show up as effective arguments against the “words of God.” First, is some notion of justice or integrity. Once the treaty with the Gibeonites was signed, the binding obligation of honoring that treaty, of keeping a promise, took precedence over the explicit words of God ordering their destruction. Abraham's argument regarding Sodom was along the same lines: A real judge, a just judge, cannot ignore collateral harm to innocents in his punishment of the guilty.

The second criteria, one that shows up repeatedly is mercy. In each of the instances I mentioned—Abraham pleading for Sodom, Moses defending Israel, Joshua defending the Israelites—the plea for mercy trumps the verdict of condemnation.

Example Four, the Sidonian Woman, Matthew 25

When a pagan woman from the neighborhood of Sidon asked for Jesus' help, he first ignored her, then told her that helping her would take him away from his God-given mission. He compared her to a dog. She then argued that even dogs get crumbs. Finally, Jesus, capitulates. Even though he has said helping her was contrary to God's will, he goes ahead and helps her.

To make sure I am crystal clear, I'll say it again: Jesus told the woman that it was contrary to God's will for him to help her. His God-given mission was to Israelites. She was not an Israelite. She refused to accept his words. She understood his words. She simply rejected them as “the last word.” She insisted that he help her daughter, even though doing so would be a contradiction of his words.

Jesus agreed with her. Jesus took action which he had already pronounced as contrary to the directions he had received from God. In this instance, the woman is countermanding the explicit testimony of Jesus regarding the will of God! To dramatize his capitulation, Jesus says to the woman, “May it be for you as you wish.” Notice, that if we take the words of the Bible at face value, it is the will of the mother that is done, not the will of Jesus.

With these Bible stories as a background, it is easy for Adventists to justify our rejection of eternal torment. No human being could possibly do enough evil to deserve to be tormented for billions and billions of years. Even if they could somehow manage to earn such a horrific fate, mercy would compel God to modify it. God's people in heaven would join Abraham, Moses and the Sidonian woman in begging for mercy. They could not enjoy heaven knowing that someone, somewhere was being tortured at God's direction.

Beyond our rejection of eternal torment, Adventists also reject reject classic Christian soteriology which damns to hell (however long it is) all people who do not have an explicit faith in Jesus. We believe God is capable of saving people who live outside all the traditional (and beautiful and helpful) formulas. We reject the notion that all Buddhists and Hindus and people with severe mental disabilities are automatically excluded from salvation. (For an authoritative expression of the traditional narrow, exclusionary soteriology see Albert Mohler: We dare not retreat from all that the Bible says about hell. We must never confuse the Gospel, nor offer suggestions that there may be any way of salvation outside of conscious faith in Jesus Christ. (http://www.albertmohler.com/2011/03/16/we-have-seen-all-this-before-rob-bell-and-the-reemergence-of-liberal-theology/). Without conscious faith in Jesus Christ, there is no salvation. (http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/07/08/evangelicalisms-terminal-generation/)).

Yes, we know the words of John

"There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son. John 3:18

But it would be unfair to condemn people for not believing something they had no knowledge of. We privilege texts like Psalm 87 and 1 John 2:2 over the texts that describe salvation in very restrictive terms.

The story of the Gibeonites has obvious implications as we think about homosexuality and the church. The Gibeonites were explicitly condemned to annihilation by God. The extermination verdict was pronounced repeatedly. They knew themselves to be under the explicit condemnation of God. Still they were drawn to God. They had to trick their way into the community of God. The community of God did not want to receive them. When the community was forced by the integrity of Joshua to include the Gibeonites, the Gibeonites were received as second class citizens. But, they were, in fact, members of the people of God. They were under the protection of God. And their official role included serving the temple! When they were mistreated by Saul, God acted in judgment against Israel. In light of this story, how can we justify continuing to exclude homosexuals from our community?

Shall we continue to act like the soldiers of Israel using the words of God as a basis for destruction or will we join Joshua (a type of Jesus) in protecting those who seek sanctuary among us?

There is a higher law than the denunciations of Leviticus and Romans.

Adventists believe that law in its most fundamental form is not an arbitrary imposition of rules by God upon humans, rather law is a description of the habits of God, or in the language of Ellen White, “law is a transcript of the character of God.”

God is not right merely because he says so. God is right because there is an absolute congruence between what he requires and what he is/does. Our inescapable human sense of right and wrong is a reflection of God. God must do right. Not simply in the sense that if God does it, it is right, but in the sense of that God is held to the norms expressed in creation and expressed in our own best thoughts and sensibilities.

One stream of Christian theology argues that human questions about divine justice are simply irrelevant. If God calls something right, it is right just because God said so. God is the legal authority. There is no higher law. There is no criteria by which the Creator can be evaluated. This is the view of the Reformers. Martin Luther and John Calvin argued for the absolute sovereignty of God. Human questions about divine justice were silly or worse because God was beyond question.

Adventists, on the other hand, believe that human questions matter. Law may be a divine creation, but having created it, God himself is defined in part by law and will not violate it.

Just as we understand God's love through a variety of earthy metaphors—father, mother, shepherd, dog owner, husband, hen—so we understand God's justice through human metaphors. If a putative action or judgment of God strikes us as unfair, especially when our sense of injustice remains after thoughtful consideration and respectful conversation and study, then it is right that we begin to question whether the putative judgment is, indeed, God's last word. Perhaps what we thought was God's last word was rather a provisional word, a word that was right for a particular situation, but subject to correction and perfection in the movement of God across time.

Holy Rebels

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship, July 2, 2011

235 years ago, a group of wealthy men put their signatures to a document explaining why they were rejecting the authority of the British government, and especially the authority of their king. Here's what they said:

The Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
[The declaration then goes on to enumerate a long list of grievances they have against King George and the British parliament. It concludes with these words:]
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, . . . appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; . . . and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.
. . .

These men were rebels. They were rejecting the authority of a government that had existed for hundreds of years. More than that they were rebelling against the very idea of government that had been held by Christians for almost two thousand years. But notice their words. In rejecting the authority of the British crown, they appealed to higher laws, “the Laws of Nature and Nature's God.” They appealed above the king of England to “the Supreme Judge of the world.”

Which reminds me of some Bible stories.

In Genesis 18, spends some time visiting Abraham. At the end of their visit God tells Abraham about his plans to destroy Sodom. The way the story is told in Genesis, God says to Abraham that he has heard terrible stories about Sodom. It is a hopelessly wicked place. God is going to check it out, and if it's as wicked as he has heard, God is going to wipe it out.
Abraham is appalled. It sounds to him like God is failing to make any distinction between good people and bad people. “You can't do that.” Abraham protests. “You are the Judge of All the Earth. Surely you, in your position, must do right. You, of all beings, must act justly.”
Then Abraham begins bargaining. “What if there are 50 people? Will you spare the city, if you can find 50 good people in the city?”
God agrees. “For 50 people I will spare the entire city.”
“What about 45?” Abraham asks. “Will you destroy the city for the lack of five people? You're short five people and you wipe out the entire population?”
“Okay,” God says. “If I find 45 I'll save the place.”
Abraham keeps bargaining. He gets God down to 10. If God can find ten good people, he'll spare the city.

God's agents cannot find even ten good people. So, under orders from God they evacuate the four decent people they can find before the place is destroyed.
Abraham was a rebel. He challenged God's stated plans. He held God to a “higher authority.” Being the Supreme Judge of All the Earth did not give God the freedom to do whatever he pleased. Instead, according to Abraham, it imposed on God higher obligations. He had to act in accord with the highest law. He had to do what was right and fair.

Abraham was a rebel, a holy rebel. The Bible describes him as a “Friend of God.” There is not the slightest hint anywhere in the Bible that Abraham was mistaken to challenge God to his face. In fact, the kind of challenge Abraham issued to God-- “Far be it from you! Shall not the judge of all the earth do right.” --appears to be a model for holy living and holy praying. When God condemns, when od threatens destruction, the appropriate role for us is to become holy rebels. We are to plead for, and even demand, mercy.

In Exodus, God gets fed up with the Israelites' hard-headedness and chronic complaining. He tells Moses, “Step aside. I'm going to wipe these people out. I'll get rid of all this riffraff and start over with you. I'll make a new nation based on your descendants. ” The implication is that surely Moses' family will get it right. They will be worthy progenitors of the Messiah. They will give birth to the Savior of the world.

Moses refuses to step out of the way. “You're have to go through me. You're going to have to take me out first if you want to get at my people.” Moses bluntly refuses God's direct command. If God had acted like a classic monarch, Moses would have lost his head. Quickly. Instead God acquiesces. He does not destroy the people. He does not make Moses' descendants the new Messianic line. He goes back to his agonizingly complicated relationship with the Israelites.
Moses was a holy rebel.

In the Old Testament, the one kind of rebellion that is blessed is this rebellion in favor of mercy. When God threatens punishment and disaster, it is wholly appropriate to protest God's action, to plead for him to change his mind, to oppose the divine word.

This is highlighted by the opposite kind of action on the part of the prophet Jonah. In his situation, God announces destruction for the heathen city of Nineveh. They king learns of the threat and calls his people to repentance. God observes this behavior and changes his mind. Jonah gets upset at God's softness. Jonah is a tough-on-sin conservative. God is not impressed. Unlike Abraham and Moses who are celebrated for their arguments with God, Jonah is scorned.

We see the same pattern in the New Testament. In the stories of Jesus, people are always arguing with him. And they always lose. Except when they are arguing for greater mercy, greater generosity.

Once Jesus left Judea and went north to the heathen city of Sidon to get away from the crowds so he can spend some quiet time with his disciples. Somehow a mother discovers Jesus is there. She starts hanging around. When Jesus and the disciples come out of their rented house, she's there and follows them down the street, shouting, “Lord, Son of David! Please! My daughter is suffering terribly from a demon.”

Jesus ignored her. The disciples picked up on his coldness and copying him tried ignoring her. But it didn't work. Exasperated, they begged Jesus to get rid of her. “Please, send her away!”

As we watch the scene, Jesus is confronted with two requests. One is in line with his expressed will. The other starkly contradicts the obvious intentions of Jesus.
According to Matthew, Jesus went to this town to get away. He was on retreat with his disciples, deliberately avoiding public attention, so he could do important personal work with his disciples. When the woman shows up, again Matthew is quite clear, Jesus ignores her. Then when she intrudes so emphatically she cannot be ignored, Jesus explains to his disciples, in front of the woman, that he has been sent to the lost sheep of Israel. In this statement Jesus explicitly states that helping someone like this Canaanite woman would be a deviation from his sacred calling.

The disciples get it and urge Jesus to get rid of the woman. “Send her away! She's driving us crazy with her begging cries.”
The woman refuses to get it. She rejects both the implied intention of Jesus and his explicit statement. She presses her request. “Pleeeease help me!”
Jesus makes one last attempt to get her to see helping her is not part of his plan. “Look here.” He says. “It would not be right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.”

She still doesn't get it. Instead of yielding to Jesus' stated intention, she turns Jesus words on their head. “So, you agree your ministry is like feeding children? Then, obviously you understand there will be crumbs. AND,” she goes on, “even the meanest father would not stop the puppies from licking up the crumbs under the table. I'm not taking anything from the children. But if you're feeding the kids, at least let me get at the crumbs.”

Jesus gives in. After three statements of rejection, Jesus looks at the woman and smiles and blesses her for her stubborn argument. “Great is your faith.” He tells her. “Go. Your daughter is healed.”

She is another holy rebel appealing to a higher law.

Abraham, Moses and this nameless pagan woman argue God into changing his mind—or at least acting contrary to his stated intentions. Notice that in every case the successful argument is in favor of greater mercy, a wider circle beneficence.
Abraham appeals to the law of fairness. You can't destroy the good with the bad. And God agrees.

Moses uses two arguments: first, God's own reputation—if you destroy the people that means you failed. You brought them out of Egypt but were unable to get them all the way to Palestine. Second, Moses used his own life as a bargaining chip.

(This second point raises huge questions about the traditional Christian view of the world: We're going to get ours, too bad about the rest. Don't waste emotional energy on the lost. Preach the gospel and move on. Don't get your heart all tied up with the losers. A stark contrast to Moses' emphatic rejection of destruction for the sinners in his neighborhood.)

The woman's argument is simple: My kid needs it. She's not a “tiger mom,” she's a grizzly mom. She will stop at nothing to get the help her kid needs. God, in the person of Jesus, bends to her will.


One of the central pillars of Adventist theology is our regard for God's law. Early on, Adventists paid a lot of attention to the ten commandments. There are TEN commandments, not nine. And all ten still apply. The special focus in our early days was on the Sabbath commandment. God said, Keep the Sabbath holy. Sabbath was the seventh-day of the week. Sunday was the first day of the week, so it was a no-brainer to figure out that going to church on Sunday was not the same thing as keeping Sabbath.

This is still one of our greatest contributions to Christianity. Our spiritual life, our family and civic life are all enriched when we practice Sabbath-keeping.
As Adventists continued to study what the Bible says about God's law we came to realize that God's law is much larger than the Ten Commandments. Jesus summarized God's law for humans in the twin commandments: Love God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself. The Ten Commandments are an elaboration of those two foundational principles. All the other rules for godly living are simply further explanations about how to love.

Taking it one step further, The twin rules, love God and your neighbor are not merely rules for humans, they are descriptions of how God himself operates. God loves—within the trinity and outward toward us. The link between God and the “law of love” is so powerful that the law itself can be appealed to in “arguing with God.”

The early American rebels contradicted millennia of belief about the absolute sovereignty of kings. King George was not right just because he was king. Pointing to the king's position was no argument in favor of the justice or rightness of his actions. The goodness of earthly government was measured by the quality of the service it provided to its people.
Adventists believe the same is true of heavenly government. God is not to be worshiped merely because he occupies the throne but because what God does and who he is aligns perfectly with the law of love. We are called to be holy rebels pleading with God to “have mercy.” We are to pray against destruction and condemnation. We are to join Abraham and Moses in resisting the sweep of disastrous judgment. We are to join the Canaanite woman in urging God to show mercy and favor to those who are tormented and enslaved by the Devil.


Some practical implications:
Classic Christian understanding of all three stories argues they were set-ups. Abraham, Moses and the Canaanite woman were actually doing the very thing God wanted. When they argue for mercy over against destruction and rejection they are, in fact, voicing the deeper will of God. The moral of the stories is clear: the job of humans is to push mercy not judgment.

Slavery, women as chattel, the execution of homosexuals, rebellious sons and Sabbath breakers are all presented as God's will. They are the law. Abraham, Moses and the Canaanite woman model a holy rebelliousness in the face of divine severity. It is a kind of rebelliousness we would do well to copy. Instead of gleefully joining other fundamentalists in condemning people and celebrating the wrath of God, we ought to join the holy rebels in reminding God that it makes him look bad in the world if he fails to save all his children. “Holy rebels” are indefatigable partisans of love, fighting not for their own rights and privileges, but for the well being of those who need a champion. This kind of holy rebellion will transform us and bring in deeper, richer friendship with God.