The Bible: The Moral and Ethical Foundation for Life

This is the third blog in a series on how we understand and relate to the Bible. If you have not read the previous two blogs, I encourage you to do so. The first blog presented the Bible as a narrative of redemption. Because God never leaves those He redeems in some frozen limbo, the second blog depicted the Bible as the revelation of how we should live life as a redeemed person.

This blog focuses on the Bible as the moral and ethical foundation for life.

What would life be without a moral and ethical foundation? No one can answer that question with complete accuracy because we have never seen life without some moral and ethical influence and consideration. When God created life, the moral and ethical components were inherent. As mankind relates to his Creator and his fellowman, he is free to act in a moral and ethical manner or to use his freedom to forsake any moral or ethical considerations.

The Bible will never remove the moral and ethical choice from man's hands. While God is sovereign, He will never turn us into programmed robot. We must choose how we will respond to the moral and ethical choices of life. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation gives us ample knowledge and clarity to follow God's moral and ethical will. We are equipped to live lives which are morally and ethically pleasing to God.

Are we giving due diligence to morals and ethics today? How important are morals and ethics today? When it comes to pleasing God in our relationship with Him, how important are morals and ethics? When it comes to the relationships with other people, what weight does morals and ethics have? When we enter into a voting both to cast votes as a citizen, where does morals and ethics rank in how we cast our ballot? To ignore morals and ethics in any of these speres of life reveals a woeful lack of understanding of the Bible.

To help us understand how the Bible reveals the moral and ethical foundation for life, I want to take a closer look at three major parts of the Bible that have inherent moral and ethical ramifications.

1. Creation

The Bible describes creation as the work of the self-existent, self-sustaining, self-sufficient God of all life. Much can be said and written about God's creation, but there is one significant detail that relates to the moral and ethical foundation for life. Five times in Genesis 1 God makes the statement about what He has created by saying, "...It was good." The statements of the goodness of what God created are found in verses 4,10,12,18,21 and 25. To cap it all off God ended His creative masterpiece by creating man and woman in His own image and likeness as the crown of His creation. Genesis 1:31 voices one last declaration as to the goodness of what God created, "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good..."

Should we understand God's assessment of His creation as being good in mere descriptive terms? While I acknowledge that good is clearly a description of what God created, I think we should understand the description of God's creation as good in moral terms. There is no evil in what God created. Nor was there any imperfection! God's creation is a moral and ethical creation. As the "Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters" the perfect Creator of this universe and all things created a good creation that was consistent with His person and character. This good creation is a moral creation, and morals and ethics can never be separated from it.

2. The Law

As we move past Creation in the pages of the Bible, we later come to the giving of the law. We read about the giving of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. It is important to note that the Ten Commandments was only a part of a larger body of law that related to all facets of life. The first five books of the Bible are considered to be the Book of the Law. Just as redeemed people need to know how to live as a redeemed person, God's chosen people needed to know how to live as God's chosen people.

Jesus made it very clear that the Old Testament law is applicable for all people. "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets, I did not come to destroy but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). Jesus went on in Matthew 5 to directly address two of the Ten Commandants directly, the commandments not to murder and not to commit adultery. In addresses these two commandments, Jesus showed that the law went beyond individual actions. What motivates and precipitates the actions? Morals and ethics can never be confined to a person's actions. Our thoughts, feelings, attitudes, intentions and yes, ultimately, our actions all have moral and ethical implications.

The law was given to provide a moral and ethical standard by which all human conduct can be measured. As such, the law is crucial and absolutely necessary. Paul pinpointed the function of the law in his epistle to the Romans. "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, 'You shall not covet'"(Romans 7:7). Another verse that explicitly speaks to the purpose of the law is Romans 3:20 "Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin."

The law provided the knowledge of sin, but it in no way provided the solution or a path of salvation. The solution was provided by the redemptive work of Christ which was the subject matter of the first of this three-blog series. While the law does not provide the solution, it did provide a clear delineation of the moral and ethical standards of the God of holiness and righteousness.

Today we still have the moral code of the Bible. We also have civil law and legislative law. The question that desperately matters is this, does any of it matter? Absolute yes is the definitive answer of the Bible. In addition to writing about the law of God in Romans, Paul addressed the matter of man's laws. As we obey the law of God, we should also obey the laws of man. "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. Sor there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God" (Romans 13:1).

3. The End

The moral and ethical foundation for life was inherent in creation and then amplified through the law which was fulfilled and completed by Christ. There is one more place where the moral and ethical foundation of life is clearly seen in the Bible. It comes at the very end. Revelation, the last book of the Bible, in vivid, dramatic and sometime symbolic language and pictures, portrays the moral and ethical foundation of life that God established in the very beginning.

In Revelation sin is dealt with in vivid, terrifying judgment. Evil is completely and ultimately defeated and destroyed. The books are opened, and the records of our lives are laid bare before the eyes of a holy and just God. The moral and ethical component that was inherent in creation will be inherent in judgment. The judgment that God renders will be moral and ethical.

Heaven and hell are both present in the book of Revelation. They are both present because they are moral and ethical necessities. Heaven is the home and reward of the redeemed, those who read, believed and responded to the biblical narrative of redemption by repenting of their sins and placing their faith in Christ. Hell will be the home and destination of those who spurned the biblical narrative of redemption. Maybe they had good intentions. Perhaps some were agnostics and others arrogant atheists. Whatever the course that led to their final decision, they refused God's loving, gracious and merciful offer of redemption. Hell is the moral and ethical necessity of their moral and ethical choice.

If life is moral and ethical, it cannot come to an end without a moral and ethical resolution. Mother Theresa and Hitler cannot end life in the same place. It must matter if one is a saint or a tyrant. The moral and ethical accountability that life demands will surely come to past. All through the pages of the Bible, the moral and ethical foundation of life is laid. We dare not ignore it.

This blog is a reminder to me that God has established a moral and ethical foundation for life. Hopefully, it will be a reminder for you the reader.

The Bible that established the moral and ethical foundation for life does not place judgment in my hands. "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1). Matthew 7:1-5 tells me that I am in no way qualified to judge. If I try to judge I may end up trying to remove a speck from my brother's eye while I have a plank in my own eye.

Without being a judge, I am greatly concerned about morals and ethics in our world today. It seems to me they are being ignored or willfully distained and denied. Even among professing Christians, a multitude of things such as economics and ideological stances seem to be more important. Cliques such as "no one is perfect," "everyone does it," or "it's the lesser of two evils" allow people to dispense of morals and ethics.

What is the Bible? It is the moral and ethical foundation for life!