“Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you. (Isaiah 54:10 NIV)

I posted this verse yesterday; however, I wanted to make some points about it. The most obvious point of this passage that God is saying centers on a simple use of logic. God’s logic lecture is this: Category (A) and its necessary connections, is not the same category (B) with its necessary connections.  They are not the same; therefore, whether something is affirmed or denied in category (A), then it does not logically infer this other category (B) is affirmed or denied in the same way.

I happen to read this excerpt from Vincent Cheung yesterday, in which he was giving a similar logic lecture:

“We reject the positive thinking of self-help psychology. Yet there is a biblical faith, which indeed produces a positive outlook, and constitutes a spiritual and psychological power in the Christian. The two are different, and it requires some misunderstanding of both to mix them up. If you reject Budd[h]a, do you have to renounce Jehovah? What does one have to do with the other?”[1]

Psalm 91 says although 10,000 people perish at my feet, what does that have to do with me? There is no logical connection of 10,000 people dying right next to me, to me dying. The Psalmist is sitting under the shadow of God’s wing. He is in a different category, in a different location, in a different reality from these other people. Those people were under their own strength. He is under the promise of Yahweh to strengthen him and protect him. What applies to them, has no necessary connection to him. The Psalmist is logically saying this: “Even if there is no light in a deep cave, it does not logically infer that there is not a frog in my pond.” What does one have to logically do with the other?

Christians can forget that the consistency of this world we live, stands only on the word, and promise of God. God promised after the flood that there would be seasons on earth. This constant reality that the whole world revolves around, in which billions of people plan their calendars by every year, stands solely on the mere word and promise of God to do it.

Back to our verse. God is addressing a category error in the thinking of His beloved children. The mountains shaking is a different category of God’s promise being shaken. What does one have to do with the other? In the new testament this vast category difference is clearer. Paul tells us that we are (here and now) the righteousness of God. We are a new creation, so that the old has indeed past away, (past tense). Paul’s point is the old is gone, the new is here and now. You are already a child of God. Paul says he does not even consider Christians as mortals anymore, because they have been so drastically made into a new category of reality, in Christ. And as Vincent points out in “The “Already / Not Yet” Fallacy,”[2] the necessary consequent of being a new creation and a child of God is here and now, and not over there, and not some time in the future. Jesus’ resurrection of life, is not spiritual now and physical for later; rather, His lecture to Martha was that His resurrection is physical. It is for here and now. It is for those who believe.

So from now on we regard no one from a [human] point of view. …Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God… God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:16-18,21 NIV)

A good example of this is seen with Peter walking and then sinking on the water. Calm waves and stormy waves have no logical connection to the promise of Jesus commanding him to walk on the water. The only necessary connection of sinking in the water or walking on it that Jesus made was, “faith.” So what, if the whole world is shaken and stormy, the only necessary connection here for the child of God, is faith. God will do, what He said He will do.

It is interesting that many who think themselves spiritual have this necessary connection flipped upside down. They deny Jesus’ claim about the necessary connection of faith in the storm. To make it worse, they affirm the shaking mountains and stormy waves, infer that it is “God’s Will” for you to suffer, that it is “God’s will” for you to die with the 10,000. Their Satanic connection is for you to fall with the shaking rocks upon the mountain, and to sink in the stormy water, for the “glory of God.” Their condemnation is just..

As for us, let us sit in the secret place of Yahweh. Let us sit at His feet and be teachable children. Let us enjoy the safety under the promise of God’s wings. If we must, then let us cry out, “help my unbelief,” but let us never excuse our unbelief and then encourage others to join in our rebellion.

——-Endnotes——-

[1] Vincent Cheung. Sermonettes Vol. 2. 2010. Pg. 7

[2] Vincent Cheung. “The “Already / Not Yet” Fallacy.” From, TRACE. 2018. Chapter 2.

I say this sometimes for clarity, Vincent is the main pastor I read, and so I quote him often; however, I am not officially with him or represent him.