Formalism and Obedience

¹

Oh, slavish fear!

Futile questions arising out of hearts bound by the chains of barren tradition.

Should I weep?

Must I separate myself and fast in the fifth month? 

Must I wring tears from my eyes, even though my heart shouts for joy?

Must I sing sad songs, even though I want to make a joyful noise?

Must I deny myself food and drink, even though within me there is a jubilant shout: “Let us eat and drink and be merry!”?

Is such compulsory, external, and formal worship that is without substance, Spirit, and truth ever pleasing to the Lord?

Oh, yes, the forefathers had so spoken!

During the exile the forefathers had instituted days of fasting and weeping in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months in connection with specific events, such as the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and the assassination of Gedaliah.² Then the people abstained from food and drink, broke into lamentations, and sat down by the rivers of Babylon in sackcloth and ashes. Especially then in that alien land, they hung their harps on the willows and refused to sing one of Zion’s songs. And that institution became an ordinance in Israel. The people gradually forgot that the ordinance was not obedience to the word of the Lord but a commandment of men. When the people returned to the land of their fathers, they remained faithful to that institution of men. They lived again in the land of their fathers, and they still always wept and fasted in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months.

“Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?”

Must I?

The men of Bethel had sent a delegation to Jerusalem with this very question to seek the advice of the leaders of the people about this matter of conscience. That is how the second verse of Zechariah 7 ought to be understood. Our translation makes it seem as though the delegation was sent to the temple. However, the words “house of God” in the original is the word Bethel. Furthermore, “unto the house of God” should be translated as “from the house of God,” or from Bethel. Although the temple was being built in Jerusalem, it was far from finished. Still more, the temple was commonly called the house of the Lord. Thus we should understand that the men of Bethel sent Sherezer and Regem-melech and their men to pray before the Lord and to seek an answer from the “priests which were in the house of the Lord of hosts and…the prophets” concerning this weighty question: “Should I weep in the fifth month?”

The ordinance did not appear to make sense any longer.

The men of Bethel were in earnest.

On the one side weighed tradition, the ordinance of the forefathers that seemed to be an ordinance of God. The men of Bethel did not want to do something that was displeasing to the Lord. If the ordinance really was an ordinance of the Lord—a word of God—then, very well, they would stifle the joy in their hearts on one day, and they would break into lamentations in the fifth month. The ordinance of the forefathers weighed heavily on the men. They could hardly escape from under its weight.

But on the other side, the men were alive to reality, and they believed that there had to be a ground for their weeping and wailing. After all, there had to be a reason for their fasting and weeping if it was going to be done in sincerity and from the heart. And the fasting and weeping had to be done from the heart if it was to be pleasing to the Lord!

The men of Bethel could no longer fast and weep from their hearts!

Not in the fifth month!

Nor in the fourth, seventh, and tenth months!

Circumstances had changed. It was the ninth month of the fourth year of King Darius, nearly two years after the night of visions that had taken place on the twenty-fourth day of the second year of the reign of King Darius. It was nearly two years after the construction of the temple had resumed and about two years before the completion of the house of the Lord. There was progress that had been made. People were beginning to look forward to the dedication of the temple.

Moreover, Bethel had been rebuilt quickly. The evidences of the exile—the revelations of God’s wrath over his people—in large measure had diminished, and everything declared that God was looking down with favor upon his heritage.

Must we still always weep in the fifth month, separating ourselves, as we have done these so many years?

Is it not more pleasing to God to eat and to drink, to sing and to rejoice, and to praise and to give thanks?

Yet, there was the ordinance of the forefathers.

Men could not cast off that ordinance!

Must we?

Spirit of bondage!

Significant question!

Because at its core the question concerned the matter of sacrifice or obedience, form or substance, flesh or spirit, appearance or reality.

And the sinful heart is ever inclined to give a positive answer to the question and—instead of letting the offering be an act of obedience—to substitute that offering for obedience itself, to weep only with the eyes rather than with the heart, to fast in a mere outward show, and to honor the Lord with the lips while the heart is far from him!

The Pharisees—the theologians, the leaders of the people, the men of the law—living after the exile always quickly gave an affirmative answer to the question. They pursued—and they taught the people to pursue—the righteousness that was out of the law, not the law in the spiritual-ethical sense but the law of ordinances, the law as an externally imposed yoke. Indeed—so ran their answer—you must fast and you must weep precisely in the fifth month and in the fourth, seventh, and tenth months too. You must go to the temple; you must offer sacrifices; you must pay tithes; you must pray, and you must do—oh, so much more to do—just as the ancients meticulously have worked out and prescribed. And in all that lies your righteousness before God!

Yet these men overlooked that all those ordinances were meant to be expressions of penance and repentance, of love and fear of the Lord—from which the weightier and essential matters of the law ultimately spring. And so it came to pass that the people tithed mint and anise and cumin, while neglecting the weightier matters of the law—judgment, mercy, and faith—and they strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel. And under the guise of pious, lengthy prayers, they devoured widows’ houses!

Must I weep?

Oh, the culmination of this question you see later in the Pharisee, who stood in the temple giving thanks that he actually was the only good man:

11. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

12. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. (Luke 18:11–12)

Must I weep?

Momentous question!

But, therefore, the answer to the question of the men of Bethel did not come from the priests and the prophets. No, the men of the theological college were not equipped to lead in the right way, for they always stood in the service of tradition. They would certainly have answered, “The traditions of the forefathers must be maintained!”

The word of the Lord alone is a decisive answer to the question: “Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time…but I say unto you!” Therefore, because the question was indeed fundamental and important for all, the word of the Lord came not only to the men of Bethel but also to all the people and priests by the mouth of the prophet Zechariah.

Fast and weep?

Oh, yes, go ahead and fast and weep and pour out your hearts before the Lord! But not in the fifth month and not in the fourth, seventh, and tenth months either. Because you rightly feel in your hearts that there is much more reason to sing, rejoice, and celebrate—to eat and drink and feast—because of the blessings and faithfulness of the Lord shown to you. He remembered his covenant; he redeemed you out of a strange country; he brought you back to the land of your fathers; your cities have been rebuilt, and the house of the Lord is near completion; the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. Rejoice in praise and thanks to the Lord your God, who had mercy on his inheritance!

Must I weep?

Oh, certainly, go and weep because there is enough about which to sorrow and mourn as long as you still lie in this present death. But do not let your weeping be the upholding of an ordinance of men without your hearts being able to express themselves in that weeping. Do not suppose by weeping and by fasting as such that you are well-pleasing to me. As bare forms they have no significance for me. Your fasting and your weeping are of no significance to me. By your formal worship you are not righteous before me:

5. When ye fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all fast unto me, even to me?

6. And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did not ye eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves? (Zech. 7:5–6)

Weeping and fasting?

Certainly, weep and mourn in sackcloth and ashes!

And do much more than that! Maintain all the institutions of the Lord: Pay your tithes, bring your offerings, and honor your Sabbaths and feast days. Or, to speak the language of the new dispensation: Attend faithfully the Lord’s services on the day of rest, bring your children for baptism, celebrate the holy supper, sing and pray, and be devoted to and administer the word of God.

But do not ask, “Must we?”

Then you are nothing but slaves, bondmen in God’s house!

Then you perform only an external, formal service!

And slaves do not remain forever in the house, but only the Son remains forever. God does not want a house full of slaves who endlessly ask how much is required of them and who are glad when the work is done. But God desires a home filled with free and joyful children who understand and cherish the unspeakably great privilege of serving the God of the covenant.

Children, for whom nothing is ever too much!

Who no longer anxiously ask, “How much must we do?” but who eagerly ask, “How much may we do?” and who sing as they serve:

What peace is theirs who love thy holy law!
They shall not fall on paths of consecration;
Lord, I find in thee my joy without flaw.
With thy chosen ones, I hope for salvation.
All thy commands I keep with loving awe;
No burden to me in this blest relation.³

Must we weep and fast in the fifth month?

Serious question!

Weep?

Yes, but weep because you have understood the full demand of the eternally abiding word of the Lord: Thou shalt love!

Indeed, that is the word of your God:

9. Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother:

10. And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. (Zech. 7:9–10)

Love!

For how will you truly administer justice unless you love truth and righteousness? And how will you show kindness and mercy to one another unless you love each other? Or how will you be able to resist the temptations to oppress the widow and the orphan—who, after all, cannot withstand you—and to trample upon the stranger and the wretched—who may well be regarded as having no rights—if you are ruled by hatred and envy and lust and greed? Or how will you prevent yourselves from plotting evil in your hearts against your neighbors, if you are filled with resentment and envy toward them?

Love!

Oh, that always has been the demand of the covenant! Thus spoke the Lord through his servant Moses. Thus spoke the prophets whom the Lord sent to his people since the days of Moses. Thus God spoke through the ministry of the former prophets: “Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?” (Zech. 7:7).

And it was because they neither understood nor desired this weightiest part of the law that God the Lord was angry with the forefathers and swept them away among the Gentiles! “I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate” (Zech. 7:14).

Thus the Lord had spoken to Israel prior to the exile:

7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8. He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Mic. 6:7–8)

And so the Lord spoke when he came in the flesh: “If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless” (Matt. 12:7).

And thus the Lord spoke through the apostles: “All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Gal. 5:14). And again: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27).⁴

Love!

Love one another!

But how shall you love one another if the love of God is not in your hearts? Oh, no, do not prattle, as the moderns do, that upholding justice and judgment and practicing benevolence and mercy—which constitutes true religion—is something man can perform by nature with a loving Jesus as a teacher and an example. Such a person has not grasped the weightiest part of the law. For you do not love your neighbor if you do not love God. There is no love other than the love of God! And that love of God you do not know by nature. You are enemies of God—hateful and hating one another.

Must I weep?

Yes, you! But then weep because you have understood the weightiest part of the law. Weep because it presses on your soul as so many tons, a burden that you are unable to bear or to cast off.

Weep until—with tear-stained face and weeping heart—you have found, and time and again find, the God of your perfect salvation, the God who reveals himself in the face of Jesus Christ, the Lord!

Weep until you have found forgiveness and peace at his cross and in his resurrection!

And weep until your weeping has turned into eternal joy!

Through faith!