The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. | Deuteronomy 29:29
In the sermon Sunday, I mentioned that I am not comfortable with many of the yes/no, or black/white options that we are offered in the world. Too often, we are asked to choose a side or pick a team, when it isn’t as simple as us and them. I said this in the midst of Hebrews dropping some binary scenarios for us:
- Are you growing in the faith or weakening?
- Are you embracing salvation through faith in Jesus Christ or are you relying on yourself?
- Is Jesus a liar, a lunatic, or is He the Lord?
- Do you accept all of Scripture or do you reject it?
The Bible does this all of the time. There are: the sheep and the goats, the wise and the fool, and God’s people and everyone else. It is obvious that there are places where we should be clear that there are only two options. On the other hand, Christians have often made the mistake of creating either/or choices when there was a bit more of a spectrum; we don’t have to look too hard at Church History to find some hard lines drawn that would have been helped by a slightly greyer view of the situation (Salem Witch Trials anyone?). We also see in the gospels that the people who drew the most critique and rebuke from Jesus, the Pharisees, were those who attempted to fit the entire law into a binary paradigm. In the Bible itself, we seem to get some very black/white definitions, alongside some that require more discernment.
I believe that the verse above, from Deuteronomy 29 helps us with this. This chapter is about God renewing His covenant with His people. God restates what He has done to rescue them and reminds them of the law that He has provided so that they can respond to Him in faithfulness and worship. He then provides a warning for turning away:
Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book. | Deuteronomy 29:25–27
In the blessings of obedience and the curses for disobedience we see a strict dichotomy. This distinction is given directly by God. It shows us that the revelation of God is the perfect measure for how clear of fuzzy we should draw lines: the secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.
There are truths that the Bible is both clear and exclusive on: God is Creator, salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, and murder is wrong; this is by no means a complete list, but a good start. These are things that we should be willing to draw hard lines on, being as clear and strong as God is on these topics. We should reveal what He does.
There are a number of issues that the Bible does not address; things that we are interested in having a clear answer on, that God simply does not give. These are issues that we should think about through a Biblical lens and do our best on, but where we may find ourselves at odds with other Bible-submitted Christians. We have to be willing to have some humility and grace in these grey areas.
I think this is where a lot of conflict in the church comes from. There are people in the church that believe that every single debate belongs in the first category; there is a Biblical absolute and we must find it. Others tend to think that the limitations of humanity make everything unknowable; they are comfortable standing in mystery. Yet, the Bible doesn’t seem interested in either of these positions as a place to live. God makes some things clear and leaves others hidden; He does this intentionally. He gives us what we need, while not giving us so much that we begin to think that we can rely on ourselves for truth.
As we saw in Deuteronomy 29, absolute dependence is one of God’s clearest revelations. We need Him. We need Him for life, we need Him to know what is true, we need Him to differentiate good/evil, and we need Him to tell us what situations in this life are binary and which are grey. The only way that we will know this is by interacting with His revelation in the Word. The only way that we can decide what issues are important enough to divide over and which require some nuance is to listen to what He says. He alone is the determiner of what is absolute and what is subjective. Let Him set the categories in how He chooses to make Himself known.
When we read what He says, we should learn to hear the volume it is written in. There are certain doctrines that should come through blaring: sin, grace, and redemption. There are some that we should hear clearly, while others are merely a whisper (and some not there at all). By hearing the Bible this way, it helps us not to, in the words of RC Sproul: shout where the Bible whispers. It also helps us to not make the mistake of whispering where the Bible shouts. Instead, we should strive to hear God as He reveals Himself, sometimes in uncomfortable distinctions, and sometimes in uncomfortable mystery. In both, so that we will learn to trust Him more.