Christians live with the thought that someday they will do something great for God. But that day is here today.
I first heard those words some fifty years ago, listening to a conference speaker on tape (Yes, yes. That was in the Stone Age). It got my attention because I’m often indecisive, hesitant to do new things, and attached to routine and ordinary living. These words opened up before me another vista concerning my life and faith.
It’s possible to read these words with suspicious minds, at least the matter of “doing something great for God.” It can give an impression of self-importance and self-centeredness. It could generate a belief that God is in need of our help in this world, and I am the one who can provide it. I take center stage. It is up to me to bring about this “something great”.
On the whole, I would more likely resonate with an alternative statement: What needs to be done, God has done - in Creation, Redemption, Perseverance, and Glory. God iofs the beginning and the end. And his good work begun in our lives by grace he will bring to completion himself (Philippians 1:5).
But the conference quotation may not be as self-centered as we suspect. Its purpose may simply be to emphasize the importance of moving forward in faith, as opposed to resignation in the face of obstacles. That, too, I recognize in myself; and Scripture reinforces that message.
Let Us Worship, Bow Down, and….what?
This perspective is on display in Psalm 95. The psalm begins with praise and adoration for God in the company of God’s people in gathered worship
Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
But then an admonition appears in stark contrast to the festive mood of the psalm:
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness.
Commentators have noted the distinct horizons which are established here. One horizon lies in the past - the warnings and punishments which God brought upon Israel, from their journey toward Mt Sinai, to their exploration of the promised land. In those times and circumstances, Israel blinked. Israel balked. They saw obstacles too big in their journey, and even more in the land which God had promised. And that is where they stopped. They went no further, and found themselves destined to die in the wilderness.
But this psalm also establishes another horizon, that of the psalmist in the present day, which he also calls “Today.” The psalmist sees in his present moment and context the same crisis of faith and obedience which ancient Israel faced. Being a psalm of David, it addresses the questions about loyalty to the Davidic throne, and commitment to God’s anointed leader. For David, “that day is here today.”
Just like Rod Sargent said at a conference fifty years ago. What goes around comes around. God works full-circle, and the means by which he works is his word. The voice of God is heard in the word of God written.
Three can play this game
Interestingly, that is not the end of Psalm 95 in Scripture. It appears in Hebrews 3, where the author of Hebrews warns Christians of his day against unbelief and hardening of heart to what God says.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God
Here is yet a third horizon where the word of God continues to call for faith and obedience. It is the “day” when early Jewish believers must calculate the cost of returning to Judaism when pressure is felt from their ethnic kin.
So Scripture gives us the time of Israel and the promised land which they abandoned, to the time of David, who is King of Israel in the 11th century B.C., and the first century A.D., at the time of the writing of Hebrews. In every instance, they are all “Today”, because the word of the Lord speaks through that which he has spoken.
But what difference does this make? What issues does this address in our context? Here are some takeaways.
There is no “spirituality” without biblical authority. The author of Hebrews makes explicit that what is written in Scripture is that which the Holy Spirit says. The Spirit does not work independently of biblical truth. No one can claim to be Spirit-led without the objective truth of Scripture.
There is no “word of God for today” apart from Scripture. Many Christians are tempted to trust in an immediate sensation of God’s voice as evidence of what God wants in our present moment. “God spoke to me”, “I heard God say to me”, “God revealed to me” are words which suggest that I as an individual am the recipient of divine revelation above and beyond Scripture.
To be sure, those who seek such experiences would say that they are just wanting God’s word to be relevant for today. But this path to relevance, adding to what Scripture says (or in some instances, taking away what Scripture says), establishes the believer as the judge of what is true and what is binding. If we can fudge in small ways what Scripture says or doesn’t say, there is in principle nothing we cannot also add or subtract. Once the door is open, there is no one on duty to shut it.
Today is closer than we think, and sooner than we expect
The Spanish author Jose Ortega Y. Gasset observed that
We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness. It is always urgent, always “here and now”, without any postponement. Life is fired at us point blank.
This is surely correct. And this is surely what is entailed in the word, “Today.” Today is now. It is tomorrow, as well. God’s voice makes it permanent and urgent. It carries the same urgency Jesus claimed in his sermon in Nazareth: “Today this [Old Testament prophecies] has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It carries the urgency expressed by the Apostle Paul: “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
Like the man said, “That day is today.”