Our modern minds can bristle at God keeping a man within His good graces despite a terminally bad performance. I suppose this idea appeals to me because my personal failures are various and sundry, and I can be acutely aware of them at times.
I’ve heard pastors calling it “cheap grace” and actually preaching a sermon against it, though I don’t think it’s entirely unwarranted because of Romans 6. But, calling it “cheap” is a valuation that wouldn’t occur to the ancient Near East man. He wouldn’t think to use a dismissive phrase like that to describe what his master granted him (everyone back then had a person they were accountable to). If anything, that grace would be called “priceless,” because a member of your lord’s household, you always sought to stay within his favored circle, and unmerited favor in response to conspicuous failure would have been the gold standard of interpersonal wealth (heh) in those days.
“Believing loyalty” is a good phrase but I dislike using a progressive verb as an adjective where the meaning can be bumbled—”loyal belief” says the same thing but avoids potential misunderstanding.
The core of the law was fidelity to Yahweh alone, above all gods. To worship other gods was to demonstrate the absence of belief, love, and loyalty. Doing the works of the law without having the heart aligned only to Yahweh was inadequate. This is why the promise of the possession of the promised land is repeatedly and inextricably linked in the Torah to the first two commandments (i.e., staying clear of idolatry and apostasy).18
The history of Israel’s kings illustrates the point. King David was guilty of the worst crimes against humanity in the incident with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam 11). He was clearly in violation of the law and deserving of death. Nevertheless, his belief in who Yahweh was among all gods never wavered. God was merciful to him, sparing him from death, though his sin had consequences the rest of his life. But there was no doubt that David was ever a believer in Yahweh and never worshipped another. Yet other kings of Israel and Judah were tossed aside and both kingdoms sent into exile—because they worshipped other gods. Personal failure, even of the worst kind, did not send the nation into exile. Choosing other gods did.
The same is true in the New Testament. Believing the gospel means believing that Yahweh, the God of Israel, came to earth incarnated as a man, voluntarily died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin, and rose again on the third day. That is the content of our faith on this side of the cross. Our believing loyalty is demonstrated by by our obedience to the “law of Christ” (1 Cor 9:21; Gal 6:2). We cannot worship another. Salvation means believing loyalty to Christ, who was and is the visible Yahweh. There is no salvation in any other name (Acts 4:12), and faith must remain intact (Rom 11:17-24; Heb 3:19; 10:22, 38-39). Personal failure is not the same as trading Jesus for another God—and God knows that.
18. Lev 26; Deut 4:15-16; 5:7; 6:14; 7:4, 16; 8:19; 11:16, 28; 13:2, 6, 13; 17:3, 28:14, 36, 64; 29:18; 30:17-18
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It’s good to have someone smart enough to articulate things that should be obvious. This is how we are dragged back to the reality of what God said.