“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”  (Deuteronomy 32:39)

Throughout the Scriptures we hear directly from God claims that would not be true if spoken by any other being. In the face of all god-like pretenders, the Lord Almighty asserts divine sovereignty – even over life and death itself. Scripture maintains a monotheistic view of one God who is above all. In fact, the very word “holy” means “set apart.”

When it comes to the Commandments, people often seem to forget this radical “otherness” of God. We talk as if we think God is (or ought to be) subject to the same standards and limitations that we are. We point out places in the Bible where God does not seem to follow his own rules, and are troubled when God does things that he told us not to do.

But that is precisely the point.  Strictly speaking, good and evil, right and wrong — these are standards given to us for how we are to live as God’s creatures. They are not laws to which God is subject.

We all know that God is able to do things that human beings cannot (Matthew 19:6); but what we often forget is that God may do things that we may not.  That is to say, God, as Ruler of the Universe, may legitimately do things that we, as limited finite creatures, are not allowed to do. In fact, the very reason that we are not allowed to do some things, is because those things are functions reserved for God alone.

Take killing for example. God has made it a commandment that, “You shall not kill.” Yet, in Scripture we see God killing as a matter of course (in examples such as the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah, the Egyptians at the Red Sea, etc.). It seems like a contradiction, with God breaking his own rules.  But God is not subject to the rules he made for us; we — and the rules — are subject to God.

To put it crudely, what if the reason we, as human beings, are not allowed to kill each other, is because killing is God’s job. The reason we may not kill or take life is because life and death are under God’s purview alone. To take such matters into our own hands is to put ourselves in the place of God — the kind of idolatry that is the very foundation of sin itself (Genesis 3:5).

This is why, in the verse above, God says: “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.” (Deuteronomy 32:39)

And lest we, like the heretic Marcion, think this is just the “Old Testament God of Wrath” talking, we should pay attention to what the New Testament says about Christ. The Apostle Paul writes:

“If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” (Romans 14:8-9)

The very center of the Gospel — the death and resurrection of Christ himself — is founded on the logic of there being One God to whom all things belong, even our own life and death.

So what does all this have to do with Christian discipleship?

It shows that being a follower of Christ is more than just being the adherent of some moral code. Christ is not simply a wise guru whose advice we heed in a personal effort to live a more spiritual or religious life. Christ is not simply an ethical teacher who has found enlightenment and has now become a motivational speaker or life-coach to teach us his “best practices.”

Jesus Christ is Lord of the Living and the Dead. He himself is the end goal and basis of our faith. To be a disciple of Jesus is not simply to follow the example of a great teacher, but rather, to be captured by his lordship as the Ruler of Heaven and Earth, and to be transformed by his sovereign will at work in us.

When it comes to discipleship — whether it be in regard to the Ten Commandments, or “the Law” in general – God’s purpose is not to lay out a path by which we navigate our way through right and wrong to reach spiritual perfection.  Faith is simple obedience to our Master, for his sake alone, brought about by the Holy Spirit of God. It is Christ’s own work in us, exercised in his sovereign lordship over life and death, which puts to death the sinner in us in order to raise us up to new life. This is something only God can do.

As Luther observed: “He has done all this in order that I might be his own, live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as he is risen from the dead and lives and reigns for all eternity. This is most certainly true!”

– Pastor Steven E. King