An Apron of Fig Leaves — by Keith Petersen
An Apron of Fig Leaves
One of the great results of understanding why the Bible shows the First Commandment as first and the Second Commandment as second is the recognition that that there is an immediate, preserving power in hearkening to and obeying God before any other considerations. Thus, the Lord could refer to the First Commandment as the “great and first commandment” (Matthew 22:38). The Second Commandment, He could say, “is like it”; however, it is not first. If we move towards the reversal of these two commandments—if we put man and natural affections and circumstances first and God second there are two immediate results: (1) we are, in practice, indicating to God that natural relationships, influences, predispositions or teachings here are more important than is He and the doctrine of Scripture and (2) we are immediately starting to move away from a Divinely given sphere in which God and His truths provide an infinite protection from error and evil. This opens us up for failure, and, in extended circumstances, even shipwreck.
What is stated in the First Commandment? It is this: “Thou shalt love [the] Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy understanding.” We must notice that there is nothing vague in this language. The First Commandment does not simply say, “Love God”. It says we are to love Him with all the heart, all the soul and all the understanding. Why the “all”? Simply, all leaves no room for anything that would hinder—and, reflexively, this also involves the reality that the relationship is to be full and rich. God does not, speaking reverently, love us with a partial love—“God is love” (1 John 4:8)—He cannot love in any lesser way that would be contrary to His Nature.
Why “the heart”? The heart is critical—Proverbs 4:23 says, “Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded; for out of it are the issues of life.” The soul? The soul is eternal—as a “possession” it must be carefully protected. We can read in Mark 8 that the Lord says, “For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? for what should a man give in exchange for his soul?” Last, “the understanding” is included. The understanding, of necessity, involves intelligence—we have to be intelligent as to right and wrong (among other concerns) and the apostle Paul writes, “I myself with the mind serve God's law” (Romans 7:25).
It is important to recognize that Satan, if necessary, is content to work a bit at a time to devalue anything that is of God—including or starting with our immediate relationship with Himself. This can be plainly seen in the history of King Solomon. We have the early history of Solomon in 1 Kings, and we can read “And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the sons of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all the nations round about. And he spoke three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five.” The early part of this Book shows the remarkable intelligence of Solomon, and, in addition, we can read Solomon’s Song of Songs and his Proverbs and understand the spiritual depth of this brother.
However, when we come to 1 Kings 11 we are given to understand Solomon’s downfall: “But king Solomon loved many foreign women, besides the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, Hittites; of the nations of which Jehovah had said to the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in to you; they would certainly turn away your heart after their gods: to these Solomon was attached in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.” It evidently took quite some time (it was not until Solomon “was old”) and a steady, Satanic influence; but, as the Holy Spirit notes, apparently commencing with Pharoah’s daughter, Satan was able to successfully use 1,000 foreign women, as it were, to move Solomon’s heart away from what was due to God.
It should be of interest that it was many years before in which God had said “they would certainly turn away your heart after their gods” and Solomon and all Israel well knew this. It is even shown earlier on in Solomon’s history as seen in 2 Chronicles 8, that “Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David to the house which he had built for her; for he said, My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the [places] are holy to which the ark of Jehovah has come.” But, regardless of this early evidence of his recognition of the inconsistency of having married Pharoah’s daughter, we can say that it is apparent that, one woman at a time so to speak, Satan influenced Solomon to deflect from whole-heartedly following the Lord. Let us be forewarned and forearmed! Doctrinal knowledge alone does not deliver—we must cleave to the Lord through affection so that such deflections cannot happen. In respect to what is set out above we can be reminded of another Scripture that says it is the “little foxes, that spoil the vineyards” (Solomon’s own words—Song of Songs 2:15). This is to say that small things cumulatively have the capacity to despoil what is of God.
Is this not like us? We might eschew the more gross elements and influences of this life; however, if even a bit uneasily, continue to cater to smaller influences that, in the aggregate, dull our Christian spirituality and relationship with Divine Persons and others. Luke 16:13 says distinctly, “No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and will love the other, or he will cleave to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” There is no middle ground, as our Christian relationship with Divine Persons is not to be “shaded” by other, undue influences. We are back to the “all” of the First Commandment.
In some contrast to Solomon, if we look at the history of Joseph we see a brother—a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus—who was wonderfully faithful in and unmoved away from his relationship with God even in the midst of Satan’s best efforts to cause him to not fully love and obey God. Sold by his brothers—terrible hatred—there is no evidence that he impugned God for his circumstances[1]. Even though he was in “anguish of soul” over this betrayal (Genesis 42:21), he accepted his lot at God’s hand and, being sold to Potiphar the captain of Pharoah’s life-guard, accordingly referred to Potiphar as his “master”. When Potiphar’s unfaithful wife “spoke to Joseph day by day …. to lie with her [and] to be with her” he refused, and, when she falsely accused him of attempted rape and he was put into prison, he further endured with no resentment towards God—his only statement to Pharoah’s cupbearer his fellow-prisoner was “Only bear a remembrance with thee of me when it goes well with thee, and deal kindly, I pray thee, with me, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house; for indeed I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.” Ultimately, as we know, God blessed this brother with wonderful blessings and ascendency—again, a lovely type of the Lord Jesus.
When reduction takes place with a Christian as noted above—including, as indicated, a dulling of spiritual sensibilities[2]--there is an immediate (and, potentially, extremely grave) danger of “doublemindedness”. This is to say that a parallel path can take place whereby, speaking figuratively, one foot can be set in the world and the other in a Christian routine. Such a person cannot, of course, be happy—the apostle James writes “let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord; [he is] a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways”. This is sobering language. However, this helps explain why a failure can suddenly and perhaps unexpectedly appear when some (well-known) Christian is exposed and shown to be living a double life—in some cases having, as referenced earlier, made an absolute “shipwreck as to faith” (1 Timothy 1:19). One part of their mind and heart had been, in whatever measure, taken up with Christian circumstances; the other part focused on natural influences or desires of this life. I think that any honest Christian would shrink from such a prospect in their own life; however, as has been well said, we (using a nautical allusion) may pander to a tendency to sail close to the wind. This should be a warning to us. The apostle Paul referenced the danger of diverting from God and Divine truths when he wrote, “But I buffet my body[3], and lead it captive, lest [after] having preached to others I should be myself rejected” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
What is the import in all this and the Apron of Leaves? Simply this: the single most catastrophic example of the First Commandment being abrogated in favor of the Second Commandment can be seen in the Garden of Eden when Adam evidently deferred to his wife (who, in turn, in not relying upon the faithfulness of God’s commandment, was deceived by Satan) in eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This involved partaking of the only fruit in Creation as to which God had expressly commanded that they should not eat[4]—and the consequences, as we well know, were disastrous. As well as hoping to hide from God, an apron of leaves sewn together for each was the immediate result—an attempt to cover up the nakedness of their sin. The natural mind seeks to cover its fallen, sinful nature—John 3 says “For every one that does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light that his works may not be shewn as they are.” The converse is seen in the next verse of this same chapter—"but he that practises the truth comes to the light, that his works may be manifested that they have been wrought in God.”
This independency from God is the pattern that has marked mankind ever since. The Lord could say “I do always the things that are pleasing to him [i.e., God]” (John 8:29) and again, in John 5:30, “I cannot do anything of myself; as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my will, but the will of him that has sent me.” The natural man, on the other hand, effectually thinks, `Not God’s will; but, my will predominant’. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2 that “But [the] natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him”—a terrible indictment against the nature of fallen humanity.
What does the Bible say as to all this? Ecclesiastes 12:13 gives us the immediate answer: “Let us hear the end of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole of man.” This involves the practical working out of the truth. Of course, it is a reciprocal love and affection for God that provides the catalyst for doing what is right. The fear noted above is a healthy and respectful fear (“The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom”—Proverbs 9:10), and Paul writes in Philippians 2:12 that we are to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. But, the apostle writes in 1 John 4 that “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has torment, and he that fears has not been made perfect in love. We love because he has first loved us.”
This latter should be the necessary response to God’s love—and, it is this that is emphasized in the First Commandment. Then and only then, can we be in proper reflex to the Second Commandment.
Amen.
[1] He subsequently said, “Ye indeed meant evil against me: God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).
[2] When spiritual sensibilities become dulled it should be evident that the panoply of offensive and defensive spiritual “weaponry” of Ephesians 6 begins to show signs of “rust”. This results in the Christian having even lesser abilities to resist and overcome the continuing and unsuitable influences, teachings and overtures of Satan.
[3] This, of course, is a moral allusion. There is a Satanic delusion with some that this means self-flagellation or worse—the Bible shows clearly that God has no intent for such a practice (see Leviticus 21:5 and Mark 5:1-5).
[4] God well knew that Adam and Eve would be incapable on their own of handling the moral realities of “knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). God’s initial statement to them regarding the penalty of death involved the simple reality that death would put a righteous halt to the activity of a man’s sin in this world.