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I was studying the SS lesson this week on Daniel and was contemplating Daniel 4:27:
Here's sort of my train of thought on this.
All throughout the Bible we see God giving us spiritual advice by telling us specific ways to behave. In the context of this verse God is telling Nebuchadnezzer, whom God had told that he, Nebuchadnezzer, had a serious pride problem. In fact Nebuchadnezzer was very arrogant. Yet God condescended to Nebuchadnezzer's level to give him a personal warning about where he was headed spiritually, and then through Daniel gave him advice on how to behave if he didn't want to be that cut down tree of Daniel 4.
Now we are all born in sin. None of us know what a world without sin looks like. Not in reality anyway because try as hard as we like we cannot imagine what a world without sin really looks like. It's just too far outside of everything we know. Therefore sin is woven throughout our personalities, characters, thinking patters, beliefs, etc.... It is who we are. But at the same time Jesus came to save us from our sins.
So how does Jesus save us from our sins? Does He just provide us with a desire to not sin any more and then we are supposed to figure out how to get rid of our sins? Does He provide us with the power to fight temptation and that is how be beat down sin in our lives? Or does God have some other kind of prescription for removing sin from us? We know that He tells us that He works within us both to will and to do His good pleasure, but how does this process work?
Is it possible that the presciptions God gives us are His revelations of exactly what we need to do to overcome specific sins? Look again at Daniel 4:27. Daniel gives Nebuchadnezzer very specific spiritual advice on what to do avoid being that cut down tree. Nebuchadnezzer's specifc problem at that time was extreme pride and the given behavior for treatment was "showing mercy to the poor".
The word translated as "iniquities" there according to Strong's means perverseness. Thus God's view of Nebuchadnezzer's pride and arrogance was that Nebuchadnezzer was pervese in his attitudes towards, God, his own spiritual life, and other people.
What exactly does perverse mean? It's an interesting word.
So Daniel is telling Nebuchadnezzer God viewed him as obstinately commited to exactly the wrong behavior, stubborn, intractable, petulant, vexatious, ungovernable, willfully erring, perverted, etc.... And what is God's prescription for this? Nebuchadnezzer was unbelievably wealthy and God's prescription for Nebuchadnezzer's spiritual sickness was to go deal with people at the very opposite end of the wealth spectrum. He was to go work with those who had nothing. Why do I say that? Because you can't show someone true mercy unless you personally understand their circumstances, needs, and lives. It has to be personal or it isn't merciful for mercy is having compassion, and you can't feel compassion for someone you don't know personally.
So God gave Nebuchadnezzer a specific treatment for his specific spiritual problem. Nebuchadnezzer ignored the advice and he was given the mind of a beast and ate the grasses in the fields for 7 years as a result.
We see this type of situation all throughout the Bible. Isaiah 58 is a great example of this. It lists the sins of a wealthy nation that is all wrapped up in itself and is full of debate, strife and self-righteousness. It thinks it is doing great, and yet God says differently. And, to my point here, God gives them specific spiritual treatments for their sins. In other words, the ways, if they would just trust God enough to obey Him, for God to work and to do in them according to His own pleasure which is saving them from their sins.
Many times in Paul's writings he uses the Greek word nomos in referring to God's law. Here is Strong's definition of nomos:
Notice the multiple ways of looking at this word. To parcel out as food. Hmmm... The law as spiritual food. Our spiritual sustenance. Law through the idea of prescriptive use. God's law as a prescription for sin. A prescription contains the idea of something prescribed for healing.
So, to sum this all up God gave us His moral law, the 10 commandments, as His prescription to heal us from sin. But we have to follow the prescription He has given us to overcome sin. If we ignore His presciption to heal us it can't work for us. If we say obeying the law is a bad thing we are actually ignoring/rejecting the prescription God has given us for removing sin from our lives. This comes down to having the trust and faith in God to do what He tells us to do and leaving the process of removing sin up to Him, for we can never figure out how to get rid of sin ourselves. We just have to, as the old song says, trust and obey. Remember, the oil of gladness, the Holy Spirit, was given without measure to Jesus because He fully committed Himself to always do what His heavenly Father asked him to do. And Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit in our lives violates zero laws.
Here's sort of my train of thought on this.
All throughout the Bible we see God giving us spiritual advice by telling us specific ways to behave. In the context of this verse God is telling Nebuchadnezzer, whom God had told that he, Nebuchadnezzer, had a serious pride problem. In fact Nebuchadnezzer was very arrogant. Yet God condescended to Nebuchadnezzer's level to give him a personal warning about where he was headed spiritually, and then through Daniel gave him advice on how to behave if he didn't want to be that cut down tree of Daniel 4.
Now we are all born in sin. None of us know what a world without sin looks like. Not in reality anyway because try as hard as we like we cannot imagine what a world without sin really looks like. It's just too far outside of everything we know. Therefore sin is woven throughout our personalities, characters, thinking patters, beliefs, etc.... It is who we are. But at the same time Jesus came to save us from our sins.
So how does Jesus save us from our sins? Does He just provide us with a desire to not sin any more and then we are supposed to figure out how to get rid of our sins? Does He provide us with the power to fight temptation and that is how be beat down sin in our lives? Or does God have some other kind of prescription for removing sin from us? We know that He tells us that He works within us both to will and to do His good pleasure, but how does this process work?
Is it possible that the presciptions God gives us are His revelations of exactly what we need to do to overcome specific sins? Look again at Daniel 4:27. Daniel gives Nebuchadnezzer very specific spiritual advice on what to do avoid being that cut down tree. Nebuchadnezzer's specifc problem at that time was extreme pride and the given behavior for treatment was "showing mercy to the poor".
The word translated as "iniquities" there according to Strong's means perverseness. Thus God's view of Nebuchadnezzer's pride and arrogance was that Nebuchadnezzer was pervese in his attitudes towards, God, his own spiritual life, and other people.
What exactly does perverse mean? It's an interesting word.
So Daniel is telling Nebuchadnezzer God viewed him as obstinately commited to exactly the wrong behavior, stubborn, intractable, petulant, vexatious, ungovernable, willfully erring, perverted, etc.... And what is God's prescription for this? Nebuchadnezzer was unbelievably wealthy and God's prescription for Nebuchadnezzer's spiritual sickness was to go deal with people at the very opposite end of the wealth spectrum. He was to go work with those who had nothing. Why do I say that? Because you can't show someone true mercy unless you personally understand their circumstances, needs, and lives. It has to be personal or it isn't merciful for mercy is having compassion, and you can't feel compassion for someone you don't know personally.
So God gave Nebuchadnezzer a specific treatment for his specific spiritual problem. Nebuchadnezzer ignored the advice and he was given the mind of a beast and ate the grasses in the fields for 7 years as a result.
We see this type of situation all throughout the Bible. Isaiah 58 is a great example of this. It lists the sins of a wealthy nation that is all wrapped up in itself and is full of debate, strife and self-righteousness. It thinks it is doing great, and yet God says differently. And, to my point here, God gives them specific spiritual treatments for their sins. In other words, the ways, if they would just trust God enough to obey Him, for God to work and to do in them according to His own pleasure which is saving them from their sins.
Many times in Paul's writings he uses the Greek word nomos in referring to God's law. Here is Strong's definition of nomos:
Notice the multiple ways of looking at this word. To parcel out as food. Hmmm... The law as spiritual food. Our spiritual sustenance. Law through the idea of prescriptive use. God's law as a prescription for sin. A prescription contains the idea of something prescribed for healing.
So, to sum this all up God gave us His moral law, the 10 commandments, as His prescription to heal us from sin. But we have to follow the prescription He has given us to overcome sin. If we ignore His presciption to heal us it can't work for us. If we say obeying the law is a bad thing we are actually ignoring/rejecting the prescription God has given us for removing sin from our lives. This comes down to having the trust and faith in God to do what He tells us to do and leaving the process of removing sin up to Him, for we can never figure out how to get rid of sin ourselves. We just have to, as the old song says, trust and obey. Remember, the oil of gladness, the Holy Spirit, was given without measure to Jesus because He fully committed Himself to always do what His heavenly Father asked him to do. And Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit in our lives violates zero laws.
