A Holy People--Dedicated to the Lord's Words

Deuteronomy 29:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deu%2029&version=NIV

            There were two interesting turns-of-phrase in today’s reading.  The first was in Deuteronomy 29:10, “You are standing today—all of you—before the Lord your God.”  I found that interesting because of the common inclination to think that spiritual things belong to a more spiritual class of people.  I notice it all the time:  people seem to think that just because you’re a pastor you’ve got some sort of special prayer ability.  I don’t know if people think that the Lord listens more closely to well-spoken prayers, or if they think that pastors pray more than every other Christian, or if they think that clergy have a hotline to God—like he lets your prayers go to voicemail, but he gets mine on the direct line.  But here, the entire population of Israel (along with the foreigners living in their midst!) enters into the covenant; everyone stands before the Lord.  While the Church has a collective life, within that collective life, each one is called to stand individually with the Lord.  Classically, Lutherans have referred to this as the priesthood of all believers, the fact that every believer has the same standing, honor, and dignity before the Lord.

            The second turn of phrase is in verse 29, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us.”  Lutherans make a theological distinction between what we call the Deus absonditus, that is, the hidden God, and the Deus revelatus, that is, the revealed God.  It’s a principle of our theology that God has not chosen to reveal every facet of Himself to us.  There are things that remain hidden in the mind of God, questions that we’ll never answer.  Think of the questions raised about conversion and salvation—why some are saved and others aren’t?  Think of the questions that tragedy raises—why would God let that happen?  Think of questions of timing—why does God delay?  Each of those is a question that the Lord has not answered.  On the other hand, the things that we are called to follow are those things that God has revealed in His Word.  His earnest desire to save humankind, the reality that not all will enjoy His presence for eternity, His sovereignty over all creation, His determined plan to work all things out for good—all of those we are bound to, even if we can’t answer all the questions they raise in our minds.