To Covenant or Not

That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. (Hebrews 12:16-17)

There is a great deal of wisdom and insights in these verses that is well beyond my reach with my limited knowledge of both languages and mid-east culture. But I have learned enough about some of these to realize that this could be studied for a long time with very effective results. I will at least try to pursue whatever I can learn from digging deeper into the background as much as is possible for me and depend on the Holy Spirit to inform and guide me to learn the things that will be helpful and transformative for me.

I looked up the words for immoral and godless and saw more interesting allusions. Immoral has to do with transforming and debasing something that contains immense internal value into something external that is merchandised, thereby cheapening it. It is clearly following the same path as Lucifer followed by moving his value system from internal character beauty and worth to investing and trusting in externals, value based on external performance, external importance and external beauty. This process when condensed becomes identified and exposed as prostitution. It does not have to involve sex but it often does, because that is exactly what happens in sexual prostitution and pornography.

This reinforces what I have been learning over the past few months about the whole system of civilization we are immersed in and developed from the earliest days of Babylon. It is what I sometimes call the false trinity, viewing life and reality through economics, hierarchy and law. It is the basis of the whole counterfeit system of governance created and promoted by Satan himself and adopted by men as the standard by which to measure everything and everyone. It is the great distortion that causes most of our problems in trying to perceive God correctly, because we view Him through the distorting lenses of these assumptions. But what I see in the meaning of this word is the description of what it means to view reality and God through these paradigms. Basically it is immoral, it is prostituting the truth about God and reality into these false perceptions of reality and religion.

The word godless follows closely along the same lines in some respects. But from what I see in the original words it additionally involves the concept of covenants. For those who have learned something about middle-eastern culture and perceptions from which both our religion and the roots of civilization spring, covenants are an integral part of that mindset. It is so deeply embedded in that culture that it is often just an assumption in their minds that baffles most western thinkers. We in the west are most familiar with contract-style relationships and have almost totally lost all concept of what a covenant means or involves. For a much more thorough explanation of covenant thinking I always highly recommend the teachings on this subject available from Family Foundations.

What caught my attention in the meaning of the original word translated godless was the strong reference to threshold and foot. One of the important covenants in mid-east culture is called the threshold covenant. It is the deep-seated and very strong belief in their minds that if a person is welcomed into your home and steps across the threshold of your doorway with their foot, then the host of that house is duty bound by an assumed covenant to not only provide all the needs of that person, but the visitor comes under the protection of that host even to the point of the host giving his life to protect them. This is true even if the host does not like the person or that person is an enemy. In their mind it is an act of honor more important than life itself to protect and serve their guest until that guest leaves the house. Then the covenant is no longer in force and the host can treat them any way he wishes. This is covenant thinking and culture.

What I find in the meaning behind the word translated to godless is either a blatant violation of the principles of covenant terms or it is entering into another covenant with those opposed to God and the covenant He has with us. Whatever it is it is clearly associated with the idea of covenant and the problems that can arise from that.

As I wrote previously, when looking at the story of Esau and considering what this passage has to say about him, it becomes clear that he had almost nothing but disdain for the terms of the covenant that God had with his family. He was far more concerned with satisfying his external desires and had almost no use for anything spiritual except when it might be exploited for his own benefit and selfish pleasure. Because of this attitude cultivated throughout his life, when the opportunity came for him to consummate the covenant with his family's God he could not find the ability or capacity within him to have the spirit and attitude necessary to confirm and connect with the covenant-keeping God.

Even though he intensely desired the benefits of the covenant when they became apparent to him, he had spent so many years ignoring and even despising the very internal character traits needed to bond in a true covenant with God that when the time finally came those traits were simply missing and there was nothing he could do then to recapture them. Once the character has become set through repeated wrong choices there is no longer left the ability to cultivate the needed character to live in covenant relationship with God. This highlights the immense importance of focusing on the internals, the issues of the heart and not become so distracted with external piety and performance or selfish pursuits and gratification that we fail to nurture the only parts of our heart critically necessary to enter into total intimacy with God.

Marriage is about the only covenant example that we have left in the western world and even it is becoming so misunderstood and distorted that it is often a poor example of a covenant. But properly understood, a healthy, strong, vibrant and intimate marriage relationship is just a small foretaste of the relationship that God intends to have with every one of us who accept His offer of grace and salvation. It is a foretaste of the covenant that God has offered us where He is willing to provide for and protect us even to the point of giving up His life for us.

This is what Esau rejected and then found that because of his lifetime of choices he was no longer capable of entering into the joy-bonds of the covenant. His example is given here as a sad but clear warning of the danger everyone of us faces if we do not pay attention to the condition of our hearts and respond to the drawing, transforming work of the Holy Spirit who desires to prepare us for the full intimacy of the covenant relationship God wants with us.

This also make very clear that there does come a point of no return in our life where we become so callous in our thinking, so external in our orientation that it becomes impossible to grow the plants of grace in our heart. When we allow our hearts to become so hardened that the presence of Jesus cannot thrive in our soul, then God will be forced to respect our determined decision to live apart from Him and we will find ourselves facing eternal death. The saddest part about this condition is that it often takes place in the life of a person quite taken up with religion itself. For the real problem is not whether a person is religious or not but is whether they are willing to live from their heart, to make themselves vulnerable in honesty and be open to the transforming grace that God is eager to provide to nourish real life within them.

God, I have a great deal to learn about living from the heart. Please continue teaching and mentoring and discipling me in this growth. I choose to open myself to You today to receive the grace that only You can provide for me. Fill me with the spirit of genuine repentance while I still have opportunity to nurture Your seeds in my heart. Rain Your Spirit onto the ground of my soul and cause Your Word to spring up and bring out Your fruit in my life as You continue to remove all the bitter roots still buried in me. Make me Your experimental garden of grace as an example of Your skill and love.

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