LIKE THE GREAT MOUNTAINS

Scientists measure items so small that most of us would find it impossible to see them. They also measure distances in space that leave us behind because they are so mindboggling. It was different three thousand plus years ago. You measured items by things you personally knew about or matters you heard about from reliable sources. This was particularly true when individu­als in ancient times tried to understand God.

The subject is God’s righteousness. This is a word that encompasses thoughts of love, grace, faithfulness and holi­ness. During a period of chaotic turmoil, Judges records, ‘And he (God) could bear Israel’s misery no longer’, 10. 16 NIV. The nation did not merit God’s intervention, yet in grace God intervened repeatedly to help Israel. Grace is a vital part of God’s righteousness.

John writes, ‘For God so loved the world’, John 3. 16. The world of two thousand years ago was not a pleasant sight. The religious world centred in Jerusalem was blatantly hypocrit­ical. Rome was the centre of world government and maintained that order by exercising her military power ruthlessly. The pre­vailing Greek culture was devoid of moral values, especially in the area of sexuality. This was John’s world when he wrote, ‘God so loved the world’. I suggest, borrowing from Judges, that it means, in a paraphrase, ‘God could bear the world’s misery no longer’, and He acted in grace - ‘the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world’, 1 John 4. 14.

Drawing from his own world, David likens the divine righ­teousness to great mountains. I suggest that love, grace and holiness are the mountain peaks that highlight God’s righteous­ness. The great mountains are always there and they never change. They give a special continuity to life. Children are born under the shade of the mountains. They grow up, live out their lives and end their days in plain view of the mountains. As gen­eration follows generation, the mountains remained to David a symbol of God’s righteousness expressed in unbelievable grace.

To ‘the God of all grace … be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen’, 1 Pet. 5. 10, 11.