A few months ago, we bought my son his first car. It looked great, drove well and seemed to tick all the right boxes. Sadly, it turned out to be a disastrous purchase. A problem became apparent within days, resulting in a lengthy investigation by a local garage that revealed significant engine defects that must have been present before we bought the car.
Of course, as soon as it became apparent that there were significant problems, we contacted the dealer who had sold us the car. Unfortunately, he could not have been less helpful. In spite of repeated phone calls, face-to-face encounters and letters, he flatly refused to get involved in any way – either by arranging repairs, exchanging the car for another one or taking it back and giving us a refund. We ended up having to spend a large amount of money to get the car back on the road, and are now faced with the prospect of taking the dealer to court to try to recover the repair costs. From the research we’ve done and the advice we’ve been given, it seems the law is on our side and we have a good chance of winning in court.
Our dealings in this matter are governed by a contract, which takes the form of a bill of sale issued to us by the dealer. That contract is in turn governed by legislation (specifically, the Sale of Goods Act 1979 – oh yes, I know all about this stuff now…). Both we as buyers and the dealer as seller have obligations under the contract. How we feel towards each other has no bearing on those obligations or their ramifications. (And believe me, my feelings towards the dealer are very strong). Nor do our preferences and desires. The contract, and the law it embodies, is immutable.
Contract law is, it would seem, a necessary part of any organised society. It protects the rights of individuals and companies and ensures that no one can back out of serious commitments on a whim.
Generally speaking, the parties to a contract hope they will not need to resort to legal redress to enforce their rights. When we ran into problems with our son’s car, we hoped the dealer would acknowledge his legal responsibility and willingly take some kind of action. It’s only because he has failed to do so that we’re now having to consider court action.
A contract, then, is in some sense the legal formalisation of an existing relationship. We and the dealer wanted to engage in a buyer-seller relationship, and that relationship is formalised in and governed by contract law.
Another significant relationship that is legally governed by contract is marriage. The precise nature of the marriage contract is much more complex than that between a buyer and a seller, mainly because it is not documented in a single recent Act of Parliament, but instead has its roots in centuries-old laws scattered throughout the statute books. As a result, when a marriage ends, the process of working out just who has the right to what is often long, messy and painful.
Nowadays, we’re pretty used to viewing most relationships through a contractual framework. That is to say, our default assumption tends to be that the only thing that can make anyone honour their commitments is the law. The problem with this perspective, of course, is that it tends to lead to a rather transactional view of life and relationships. Don’t like your church? You’re under no obligation to stay – might as well go shopping for a new one. Not happy with your marriage? No problem. Just pay your contractual dues and you can be free from its constraints.
Because we’re so used to operating under this contractual/transactional view of the world, we often bring it into our relationship with God. In an evangelical culture in which the primary metaphor used to illustrate Jesus’ work on the cross is that of a legal transaction in a courtroom, it should be no surprise that we’re prone to treat our relationship with God as though it were governed by contract. The contract through which we enter this relationship might, for example, be to pray some kind of “sinner’s prayer” or to “make a commitment”. We then load onto our contract with God various expectations as to what He might expect from us and what we should rightfully expect from Him. (I previously blogged on a related theme here.)
The trouble with this approach to our relationship with God is that when life takes an unexpected turn and deals us a bad hand, we look at our contract and begin to suspect that God may not have honoured His contractual commitments. I thought You’d promised to keep my family safe and healthy! I’ve tithed faithfully for years, and now I’ve lost my job and can’t afford to put food on the table! How could You let that happen, God!
There’s something we need to understand: God doesn’t relate to us or anyone else on the basis of a contract. Instead, He relates to us on a very different basis: that of a covenant. Whereas a contract is backed by force of law, a covenant is underpinned by the word, character and personal commitment of the one who enters into it. Because we human beings are such selfish, broken creatures who are very bad at keeping our word even at the best of times, and often because we’ve suffered as a result of other people’s broken promises, we find the idea of a covenant hard to digest. We want the reassurance of knowing that we can legally enforce our rights, without realising that God’s covenant commitment to us is infinitely more valuable and reliable than any court order.
One of the most potent illustrations of the enduring strength of God’s covenant commitment is found in the Old Testament book of Hosea. If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend that you do – it’s fairly short and quite easy to understand. In summary, God tells His prophet Hosea to go and marry Gomer, a prostitute, and Hosea duly obeys. Unsurprisingly, it’s not long before his wife is sleeping around and flouting her marriage vows. But each time she commits adultery, God tells Hosea to forgive her and take her back.
Reading this account from our contractual worldview, our response is to cry foul. Gomer has openly broken her marriage vows and shamed Hosea: she has no right to expect him to continue in relationship with her. And that’s entirely true. The only possible reason for Hosea to forgive her and take her back is if his love, mercy and compassion for her are greater than any contractual obligation placed upon him.
The lesson, of course, is obvious: what God asks Hosea to model with his unfaithful wife is exactly what He does with us. From our youngest days, we give Him ample reason to walk away from us: we flout his commands in thought, word and deed; we abuse His good creation; we blame Him for problems largely brought on by ourselves or others; we throw our toys out of the pram when He fails to deliver against some unfounded expectation on our part; we routinely break our word to Him and to other people. And His response is utterly confounding to anyone who insists on looking at the world through a contractual lens: He continues to pursue us, to woo us, to court us, to forgive us, to heap His love, mercy and compassion upon us. Not because He is under any contractual obligation to do so, but because He is love, and His word – His covenant – is His eternally secure bond.
Learning to trust in the infinitely good and perfectly loving heart and character of God is not easy. Our responses are so often fashioned by all the disappointments and let-downs we’ve experienced and all the ways we’ve been screwed by others. But it’s really the only way to experience the full magnitude and blessing of what it means to be in a covenant relationship with the eternally faithful and loving God. The only way our relationship with Him will ever be in jeopardy is if we choose to walk away. And even if we do, He’ll do everything in His power to come after us. And, just like the father of the prodigal son, when we finally return to our senses and come crawling back, muddied, bloodied and ashamed, He’ll come running out to meet us, enfold us in His loving arms and restore us to the relationship we were always meant to be in – that of beloved sons and daughters.
Contracts are all very well when you’re dealing with car salesmen. But there is no contract in heaven or on earth that can equal the covenant freely given by God – a covenant backed by the relentless, all-consuming and all-forgiving love of a perfectly good and compassionate Father for His wayward children.
