Revealed in the Law - Commandment 3

Commandment 3 - Commitment to God

"You must not misuse the name of the LORD your God."

Deuteronomy 13:1-14:21

Everything we do should reflect our commitment to God,
not just when we are at church.

Building upon the previous two, we can easily see how much God wants a commitment from us for an exclusive divine-human relationship and to treat Him with respect and dignity.  This is especially true of how we treat His Name.

In the ANE, your family name meant status, land, inheritance, rights and privileges.  The abundance of genealogies across Scripture testifies to the importance of the family name, specifically Jesus's family name.  It also meant, as it still does today in many cultures, your reputation, your status, your identity.  We are all hyper-vigilant these days of protecting our identities, which are tied to our names, from theft.  Why? Because criminals can use our identity to do things in our name that we would never do.  They want to rob us of our resources and don't care about our reputations.  With our names tarnished, we are robbed of our dignity and even personhood, through no actions of our own to bring that about.  God cares deeply about His family name, which we represent to an unbelieving world.

These passages in Deuteronomy 13 give us the examples to avoid those who would entice us to worship other gods, even in the ways we discussed in the previous posts to blend worship practices.  Chapter 14 speaks to how the Israelites could demonstrate their commitment through their diet. (6.1) All of this was designed specifically so that the Israelites were set apart from the rest of the world, with the clear imprint of the character of God on them.

Roy E. Gane summarizes this principle so well when he says that any use of God's name "that is not in harmony with his exalted nature and character is deceitful at least in the sense that is misrepresents his incomparable identity, just as idolatry fails to do justice to his form." He goes on to give the example that "punctuating speech with empty and therefore profane references to God would falsely trivialize him" (emphasis mine) even though reverently speaking His name in prayer, worship and honest judicial oaths are very appropriate (Leviticus 19:12 prohibits false oaths, more on this in Commandment 9). (6.2)

Commitment to this level transforms it into something more - devotion.  To me, the difference is the status of your heart.  We can have a commitment to our place of work, to a contract, to a committee, but we reserve devotion for those people and things we have a love and absolute passion for.  God wants nothing less than our complete and utter devotion to Him alone, in everything we do and say.

Gane draws out another level of this principle when he points out that His "people's behavior can affect his reputation, through which he seeks to draw other nations to himself (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:5-8)." (6.3) This is a very important and serious responsibility we have as followers of Jesus.  But notice who the action is demanded of here, His people's - not the other nations!  Look again at Moses' words in Deuteronomy 4:6, 8 where we are to be accurately representing our God so that unbelievers will be drawn to Him.  Nowhere does it say that we are to impose these principles upon them against their will!  My sense of some of the polarization in today's culture is due to the misplaced zeal for these principles of God to be imposed upon ALL citizens where we live, not just be the responsibility of believers. Even Daniel did not seek to do this (Daniel 1:8-9) and God made the way for Daniel, he didn't need to impose his beliefs on others.  We see this crossing into our politics which deals with the physical kingdom and makes the same mistake that the Pharisees did when Jesus came to establish not a physical kingdom but a spiritual one (Mark 7:1-9).  The Law says to love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39), not judge your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 7:1-6)!

I love the correlation that using the words "drawn to/by" makes with the previous commandment.  In Commandment 2, we are not to be drawn to/by empty lifeless representations away from God, but rather in Commandment 3 we ourselves are to be life-full, loving, made-in-His-image representatives of God to draw others to and point the way to Him!  Only conversion by the Holy Spirit and a maturing of faith in that person will inspire a transformation of their behaviors to God's ways.  Forcing them against their wills will only push them away from the faith and God -- that is not God's way! (Deuteronomy 30:19-20; Joshua 24:14-15)

It is critical here to remember that the law did not come with a how.  The Israelites were never given the means by which to fulfill these commandments!  It is only by the law of Christ that we are given the how.  The how is the power of the Holy Spirit (His Presence) that dwells in us only AFTER we profess faith in Jesus (John 14:12-13)!  How can we possibly expect unbelievers to live out and even comprehend God's ways if they have not yet drawn near enough to God to be converted by the Holy Spirit (His Presence)?  How much of our behavior actually repels so many unbelievers from ever seeking Him?  We are called to model and teach our children and others about these precious principles, but we are not called to impose them on others against their will. Just as God called us to make a choice to follow Him, God is calling others to make that choice too and uses us as models for others to see.  Daniel serves here again as model for us in that he did not just accept and adopt inappropriate behaviors because of where he lived, and appealed to the human authority for the right to serve his God appropriately.  But it is crucial to recognize where the favor ultimately came from - it was because of Daniel's faith that God granted favor through the human authority.  Daniel's testimony is incredibly comforting to me living in these current times!

As I walk my dog through my sub-urban neighborhood, I see so many of my neighbors who have responded to recent cultural clashes by putting signs in their front yards or windows that have the catchy slogan statement "Hate has no home here," and repeated in the languages of many other nations in the background.  It is an expression of these very same principles, by people who have faith in God or not.  But as I ponder why there seems to be something not quite complete with this expression as it is presented, I have come to realize that it's only half of the equation, and the derivative half at that.  We cannot possibly eradicate hate from our homes (noticeably absent is a mention of our hearts by the way) without first establishing an exclusive relationship with God.  He alone gives us the power to overcome evil, we can't just stick a sign in our front yard and by our sheer self-will make it happen.  We can't adopt the "love your neighbor" part without the first essential part of "Love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength." We need to live our lives in view of all the nations as if we have the sign tattooed on our foreheads on the outside (that only comes from it being tattooed on our hearts on the inside), which we can only do by staying rooted and connected to God on His terms and thereby cultivating His powerful Presence in our hearts.  Then, by our witness, others will be drawn to Him as well and only then can we become a kingdom eventually eradicated of hate and evil through His power alone.


Here are a few questions to ponder before you continue:

How is your heart responding to what you just learned?  
How might you be trivializing the name of God, or failing to do justice to representing Him to a fallen world that desperately needs His restoration?
How might you be trivializing God's ability to make a way for believers to live appropriately in a pluralistic and hostile culture?
How might you be taking God's principles for human relationships and trying to achieve them with your own self-will and not seeking His Presence for the power to succeed?
How is your behavior drawing unbelievers to Him, or repelling them?

Next Post:  Commandment 4

Credit Notes

Previous Posts:

Commandment 2

Commandment 1

The Decalogue (The Ten Commandments)

Some Background

Introduction

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Last updated: July 9, 2018