A Few Things About God

"For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us." Isaiah 33:22

There are a few things that are necessary to understand about God:

1. "Our lawgiver," i.e., the giver of morality. He says what is good and evil, right and wrong, holy and sinful. He lays down the rules; and because He lays them down, He is the only one who knows fully what is right and wrong. No one else can say anything against Him, and no one else can create any new morality (see C.S. Lewis' essay "On Ethics" for further study). To the old question, "Does God gives us morality because it is good, or does His giving it make it good?" I have only this to say: the morality God gives us is good because it is God's morality, and He is good. The question makes it look like morality is something separate from God. It is not; they are one and the same.
   
2. "Our judge," i.e., the interpreter of morality. Because it is His morality that He gives us, only He knows what it says and means, for they are His words and meanings. This is why eisegesis is so dangerous: any attempt to understand a biblical principle apart from the Spirit and within agenda driven mindsets is bound for disaster.
3. "Our king," i.e., the enforcer of morality. He gives us His morality, and just as that makes Him the only one who can properly say what it means, so also He is the only one who can properly enforce it. There is no "divine right of kings" here. God does not enforce it for some self-centered, tyrannical purpose. God is holy and good, and thus His morality is holy and good; therefore, us keeping it and Him enforcing it are all for our benefit and not detriment.
4. "He will save us," i.e., the source of salvation. I fear most people would skip this one due to grammatical biases in sermon notes. However, it is vital to a full understanding of God. It is interesting to note that the morality God gives us, the "law" He gives to us, cannot save us; only He can. God is the Savior (Isaiah 49:26; Jude 25), not the law. As fallen people, the law cannot save us, it can only condemn us (Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:10, 11), and through condemnation, point us to salvation, i.e., God through Christ (Galatians 3:23, 24).

It only makes sense that because God gave us the law, He is the only person who can properly keep it (as well as properly interpret and enforce it). That makes Him our savior, not the law. The law cannot make us keep itself; it can only tell us that we fail to keep it. God, however, can make us keep the law by giving us His nature through the sacrifice of Christ. When God's Spirit tabernacles within us, when His disposition has replaced our own, when can keep His morality, because it is Him keeping it through us.

"What this world needs
Is not to do good.
What this world needs
Is to be Good.
God above, invade our souls..."
-Jon Vowell