The Rorschach GodНамуна

The Enemy’s Table:
In perhaps the most popular of all the Psalms, we find David singing of the Lord’s comfort and companionship, even in the valley of the shadow of death. But the part of the song I’ve been contemplating for a few years now is, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows” (Psalm 23:5, ESV).

Have you noticed how David sings that he’s anointed at the table in the presence of his enemies, not God’s enemies? Jesus teaches us to love our enemies, not His enemies. These are not small semantic distinctions. Just because we perceive people as being our enemies doesn’t make them His enemies. Did you also notice that in the book of Romans, Paul throws us all together in the same group as God’s enemies? We need some additional clarity! Let’s add another perspective from Paul that will help us greatly. He declares:

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:21-22, NIV).

We all first approach God as enemies, not on His part, but on ours. This reality is hard to grasp because the lens of our experiences suggests that God postures Himself as an enemy, though He never will. He will certainly chase us down with a storm of divine intervention, similar to the pursuit of His beloved prophet-son Jonah. Yes, there are times when the love of God might bruise, but it’s out of His desperate love to spare us destruction, similar to a parent tackling their child out of the way of oncoming traffic. We too often allow the consequences of our behavior to fuel the delusion that God is angry with us or out to harm us, but this simply is not true. We simply cannot make God become our enemy.

When we realize that Christ alone is our peace, we can truly walk in peace with one another. All people who view themselves as enemies of God will one day encounter the One who is both their peace within and the source of their peace with everyone else. The Lord's work concerning this issue will not end until humanity collectively declares that it no longer has enemies.

"For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility."—Ephesians 2:14-16 (ESV)