There is, apparently, no end to the ways rebellious man finds to justify breaking God’s Law while claiming to keep it.
So here is another. It works like this: pit one law against another by creating a false conundrum. Sometimes known by the fanciful name “Graded Absolutism,” this doctrine purports to justify the breaking of one law by postulating a circumstance where a weightier law takes precedence.
This provides another “handy dandy bucket” that men immediately seize upon to then throw out any and all commandments they don’t like, especially anything that would require a change of behavior. I am here to kick this bucket over.
Now, what one must not ever do is to impugn God’s providence or His Law, not even the least of His commands.
That is God. We are a different matter altogether. We are deeply infested with sin. We fall short of God’s law as naturally as breathing. It is in our bones. This leads to all kinds of curses being applied to our lives. Sinners are put between a hard place and a rock and then squeezed. We often do not enjoy the blessings of obedience: health, long life, dominion, peace, and prosperity.
But we believers have been redeemed and so we have the principle of life in us through Christ’s obedience. No longer outlaws, we strive to obey the law and learn it and teach it to our children. We want to obey, we want the blessings of obedience, we want to please God first and not ourselves or other men. It is our new life.
I had a circumstance in my life where I listened to a sermon on the “Biblical Significance of the Beard” by John Weaver on www.SermonAudio.com and became convinced that I must keep the command of Leviticus not to mar the beard. So I grew one. But I was economically dependent on a man who disproved of a beard, especially an untrimmed one. My choice was between two bad choices. I could risk my family’s income or shave the beard I had grown.
I shaved it off.
But it grated on me that I could not keep this command without risking my family’s income. I did not have dominion and freedom in my source of income and therefore not in my freedom to wear a beard. I was falling short and could not expect God’s blessing for obedience in this.
Now, the brain is an amazing thing. This circumstance of mine was an irritation to me and it bothered me. So my brain sought a way of escape from this irritation.
Accusing God’s providence for failing me was out of the question. Compromising God’s Law and justifying my breaking it was out of the question.
It took a year or more, but eventually I had the opportunity to perform some extraordinary service to this man – above and beyond. He was very pleased with me at that point so I struck while the iron was hot and asked him for the small favor of letting me wear the beard. He agreed.
I had to work very hard for the privilege of obedience. No I am able to please God and receive His blessings for obedience to this command, whatever they may be.
In this I did no violence to the law of God by saying, “God put me in this circumstance so I am free to disobey.” This is the sin Adam committed when he indirectly accused God saying, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”
I have many other circumstances like this in my life. They all irritate me. My brain is continually seeking a way to obey. With all my heart I am seeking God’s kingdom, when and where I am fully able to obey all God’s laws and commands and no longer have to choose between one cursed disobedience or another. Until then we must not make peace with sin, not even disobedience to the least of His commandments.
Let us understand that we are justified by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, not by accusing God for our circumstances or by pitting one law against another.
Next time I will, Lord willing, address the passages in Scripture used to support “Graded Absolutism.”