The Water of Bitterness

I’m back to laboring through Numbers. Wasn’t as much of a struggle though Leviticus because I mostly slept through it. But for some reason, this time, whenever I click play on Numbers I actually wake up. The thing is, Numbers hard. All the books of the Bible are a little bit hard, but Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy are especially so.

And I think it’s because, or at least this is my working hypothesis, no matter how on board intellectually I am with the idea that humanity is basically bad rather than good, I don’t really accept it at the bone level, and so I’m always surprised and ready to take up Israel’s part against God, to repeat their refrain, ‘that’s not fair.’

Human justice has to be built on the presumption of innocence. I’m assuming that this person is innocent until I have incontrovertible evidence that he’s guilty. It’s better, in fact, that a few guilty people go free than that an innocent man be unjustly convicted. That’s the ideal. Though we constantly pervert justice every day.

If that’s your world view, and I guess it must be mine, then you are likely always to stub your toe on the severity of the law in the Pentateuch. In our modern day of inclusion, of letting no one be left out of anything for any reason, it is really alarming to read the list of illnesses and troubles for which a person wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the temple, or wouldn’t be allowed to keep the Passover, or wouldn’t allowed to come inside the camp. The one that got me this time was the regulation for figuring out if your wife is cheating on you. You take her to the priest and she has to drink some concoction–the water of bitterness–and if she’s innocent she’ll be fine, but if she’s guilty her ‘thigh will fall away.’

I read through it, again, and was bitter against God. But the only reason for me to be bitter is if I’m assuming she’s definitely innocent, which I am. Women are always innocent. And the men are usually always guilty. And everyone should do whatever they want, because innocence is the property of being human.

Trouble is, it’s not true. It wouldn’t be God’s property always to have mercy if we were not always needing mercy, and innocent people don’t need mercy. Mercy isn’t required if everyone just sort of some times makes a few mistakes but meant well. The trouble with the revelation of the law to humanity is that we are more far gone than just making a few mistakes. We are really and truly guilty, individually and corporately all together. And so it’s perfectly right and fair for no one to approach the tent of meeting, or to bring any sacrifice, or to come anywhere near anything having to do with God at all. The presumption is of guilt, and it’s a fair and right one, there isn’t any innocence.

The Bible really doesn’t make sense at all until this is known by the reader in a layered and settled way. The deep lie of personal goodness has to be stripped back, leaf by leaf, over and over, until you get to the heart and find it was there too. The human posture is always outrage, always aggrieved injustice about perceived wrongs. It’s almost never on the side of God who can see the human mind and heart and rightly pronounce a sentence without ever perverting justice.

This is why we can’t really do anything to make it ok, either. There isn’t any amount of bargaining, of doing some good things to try to make up for the bad ones, that overturns the profound level of human guilt in relation to God. An yet the Christian, yea even the Christian, often falls into the way of trying to get one over on God, of doing certain things to balance it up. I’m not that guilty, if I just do this and this and this it will be fine. In fact, God will owe me, rather than the other way around.

But truly, we are the cheating woman, the wife who commits adultery against the husband. We constantly run away from God to, how can I put this delicately, ‘be’ with other gods. We deserve to drink the water of bitterness, down to its very dregs, and have the thigh fall away, as hideous as that sounds. And yet, God, whose property is absolutely to have mercy, takes the cup and knocks it back and drinks it all, so that we go free–body and soul in tact. And truly, it isn’t the least bit fair. That God, in Christ, would come and take our place, him, the very perfection of innocence. It isn’t fair. The guilty one goes free. The innocent one dies.

And in his death he absorbs not only the guilt, but also the illnesses and trouble that flow out from our guilty stature. The inclusion we think we want to embrace–letting anyone come in–is actually won, is actually possible. The Only requirement is acknowledging that indeed, it isn’t fair, but that the unfairness is all on the side of God who didn’t have to have mercy, but did. And so we still stand afar off. Whereas before, we couldn’t come, now we can, but maybe now we don’t want to.

But truly, come. There is no condemnation. The cup has already been drunk. There is no terrible judgement waiting. There is only the unfathomable mercy of God. Go to church, not a soul should keep you out. Go look on the innocent one who took your place and turned the water of bitterness into streams of gladness, the perfect wine of the wedding feast, the cup of salvation.