The Duplicity of Dust Pt. II: Biblical Examples

In the last post, we discussed how God is an all-encompassing purpose that envelops our duplicitous, sinful nature that drags us back and forth on this never-ending chase of our own self-perceived good. Our duplicity of good and bad is conquered through Christ who gives us the direction of where to go by establishing good, and then integrating us with a purpose that integrates our desires in a perfect manner to be fulfilled with him. If you need a refresher, check out the post The Duplicity of Dust.

This post is to offer Biblical examples of this duplicity at work. Why? Because I believe Scripture to be the most life-changing, inspirational, and critical piece of literature in the fact that it is not purely literature meant to entertain parts of the mind, but it is God-breathed meant to impact our mind and heart for the sake of Christ.

So my first example is in Matthew 19:16-22 with the story of the rich young man. The first thing to notice is when the man asks Jesus what good thing he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus answers by establishing what good is. He says only God is good. And in that, by establishing good, He offers direction. The man now knows what is good, so He won’t follow His own interpretation of what good is. Next, the man notices that there is something more to the Commandments. In verse 20, he says that he has kept all the Commandments that Jesus has commanded but he still lacks. This correlates with what I said in my last post about how the Commandments merely makes us conscious of sin. In this case, it is making the rich young man conscious that he is lacking. He seeks a solution, which is only available in Christ. In verse 21, Jesus says to sell all his possessions. He says this not because He is saying this is what it takes for all of us to inherit eternal life, but rather because Jesus notices that the rich young man is married to his possessions. In order for him to adopt a new identity as a child of God, he has to be divorced from His stuff. And the result: the rich young man turns his back on his own good. He could not overcome his duplicity because he could not confront who he truly was before a holy and righteous God. The identity of a rich young man was far to better for him to pass up than being a child of God. Because being a child of God meant to look at his identity as a rich young man and say to it that it holds no significance in the grand scheme of things. But the man chose not to believe this truth, and as a result, he will forever be haunted by his duplicity.

In the last post we talked about how the 10 Commandments exposed the people for who they were. They were in need. We see that definitely applied in this story with the rich young man. Only when we confront our true nature of being in need can we follow the solution to that need. And it is in following that solution that we are offered the direction and purpose that conquers our duplicity.

But what about the times before the 10 Commandments? Do we still see people in need and struggling with a duplicitous nature? The answer is yes, and I will use some examples to explain.

In Genesis 27, Jacob confronts his father, Isaac, pretending to be his brother, Esau. He did this in order to obtain the birthright in a deceitful manner, the birthright that belonged to Esau. In verse 18, Isaac asks who is it that approaches him for he is an old man who is losing his senses. Isaac says he is Esau. Out of deceit and trickery, he gains the birthright and takes off with it, haunted by the torment and fear that his brother would exact revenge on him. All he wanted was to be blessed by his father. But now a couple chapters later in chapter 32, Jacob is looking for another man, which turns out to be his Heavenly Father, to bless him. In verse 27, the man, who is God, asks what his name is. Now, why would God ask what his name is? Doesn’t He already know? Of course. God is concerned with how Jacob will answer. And Jacob answers rightly, with his own name. And right after that Jacob is given a new identity. It is the new identity of Israel which blesses generations long after him.

You see what happened here? Jacob was only blessed when he owned up to who he really was: the lying, deceiving man of Jacob. And after that, he receives the blessing he so desperately sought. He then became someone different. He was given a new identity which goes far beyond him. Does this sound familiar? To me, it sounds like coming into faith with Jesus. When we come to Jesus, we confront who we really are: sinful, broken, and in need of saving. Then we are given a new identity with Him, now being a child of God. It is the latter identity that changes the world and generations after.

But now, let me pull another example to show how the world responds to this new identity.

In Genesis 41:41-52, Pharaoh gives authority to Joseph. But Egyptians are not too keen of Hebrews. In order for Joseph to assume power over the Egyptians, he is given An Egyptian name and an Egyptian wife. Basically, the world gives him a new identity. But later in verses 51-52, Joseph gives his children Hebrew names, which suggests that he honored his identity given to him in God. Now later in Genesis 42-45, Joseph continues to be duplicitous. The brothers who gave him up for slavery now came to Egypt in want of food from Joseph. But Joseph, undertaking his Egyptian identity, asserts power over his brothers and torments them. It is only when Joseph makes himself known to them for who he truly is, is there reconciliation and peace. It is then that he and others outside of himself receive the blessing of God.

The world will try to counter our original identity in God by stacking on ever-changing identities for us to conform to. But those identities, offering no true purpose, further confuse us by throwing a variety of desires out there for us to follow. But then comes the call of Jesus. Jesus, giving us a true direction and purpose, reintroduces us to our identity of being a child of God, and it is only then do we truly bless ourselves and others. By conforming to the identity the world gives us, we just further aggravate the problem. But by conforming to our original identity do we find ourselves in peace and reconciliation. Yet the important thing to remember is that this only happens when we confront who we really are before a Holy and Righteous God. We conquer our duplicity by fishing through the lies we have constructed to be our identities, and then bringing that before the cross.

Though we might be a duplicitous people, bringing led astray by every so desire, we were created for a singular purpose from a singular origin. It is only through seeing how our identity has strayed so far from that singular origin that we can be brought through to the singular salvation that conquers our duplicitous nature.

"The integrity of the upright guides them,

but the unfaithful are destroyed by their

duplicity."

-Proverbs 11:3

The Duplicity of Dust

Continuing on dust, if you look closely at dust roaming the air, you can notice that dust hairs never travel in any singular direction. You can hold your hand up to try and catch a piece, but once you make the move to snatch at one, you find it being very elusive to your hand. Even if you hold your hand still, the dust wanders, sometimes towards your hand or sometimes away from it. The dust is able to turn from its own good- the hand- and left to be wandering the air.

James 1: 6-8 says, “But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

We have a duplicitous nature, constantly led by a variety of desires dipped in good and evil motives. We struggle back and forth on this spectrum of good and evil. Back and forth between the two we go, and that is what makes us duplicitous.

Now, speaking in a religious context, the only way we can really know how to distinguish good and evil is because of the absolute morality of the 10 Commandments coming down. In Scripture, we see God send down a code of morality for the Israelites in the desert and then for years after, the Jews regard this as the Law. Usually, in our culture, we see people try to poke holes at the 10 Commandments, saying that it is virtually impossible to be a set of morality because it cannot be fulfilled. A good number of people use this as an argument for why Christianity is “faulty”, but usually when they do this, they take Jesus out of the picture. Jesus says He has come to fulfill the law. And then we see this concept put into understanding in Romans 7 where Paul basically says that the law only makes us conscious of sin, but it is up to the Spirit working in us to redeem our sinful nature. The absolute morality of the 10 Commandments has come down and placed a dividing line on the spectrum between good and evil. But we as a people just became conscious of what good and evil was then. We still struggled being dragged back and forth between the two.

So Jesus came and offered us a way to repent. Now the Greek word for repentance is metanoia, and it basically means after thought or to change one’s mind and as a result change one’s behavior. In Romans 7, Paul points at this change of mind behavior saying that it makes us conscious of sin. In verse 25 it says, “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” By having our mind repent and conform to what God deems as good and bad, we become integrated with direction. From there we want to move towards the good. But outside of God, our own mind becomes the judge of what is good and bad, with no conformity to any sort of foundation other than what society thinks. And even then, society itself struggles with what is good and bad. You see the battleground of this displayed all the time in politics. With God we are integrated with direction because we know what the good is, and by grace we pursue it instead of moving back and forth on the spectrum because we are pursuing our own self-perceived good.

Mary Wollstonecraft, a British writer, philosopher, and advocate for women’s rights in the 18^th century said this quote: “No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistake it for happiness, the good he seeks.” I find some truth in this. We are always pursuing our own good, but in doing so, we keep moving the dividing line between good and evil up and down the spectrum to conform to our own 10 Commandments. We always want to see ourselves in the best possible light, so why not conform to our own law which says we are always pursuing good? Basically the duality between these two positions (a mind conformed to our own law and a mind conformed to God’s law) is this: a purpose for ourselves to seek our own good vs. a purpose for God’s glory, which ultimately works for our good.

Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

Notice the plural “plans” verses the singular “purpose.” Ravi Zecharias, a Christian evangelical apologist, says this: “What we need is for our diversity of desires to be unified with purpose.” We have different desires for what is good and we are dragged back and forth because of them. But these desires aren’t really unified under a true purpose. Our purpose is for our good, but our desires go every which way trying to pursue this purpose while the Lord defines for us in the Scripture what is good and gives us a true purpose, one which we can pursue with a singular direction. And this true purpose is given to us in Christ Jesus. Jesus pierces through our duplicity and calls us into a good life with Him.

Outside of Him there really is no purpose that can perfectly integrate all of our desires that are dragging us back and forth.

For instance, if we make ideals our purpose (ex: Purpose of life is love) outside of God, there is no way we can carry out these expressions to the fullest without violating another ideal. If we love too much we end up infringing on someone’s freedom by smothering him or her. Another example of if we love too much, we might end up not working within the parameters of justice.

But with the cross we see it perfectly integrate love, justice, liberty, etc. Out of perfect love, Christ died for us, setting us free from sin and paying the debt owed because of it.

Some make their purpose to be that there is no God. But this isn’t right because it further confuses the desires of men. This is because you have a number of paths you can take. One path is to substitute yourself as God, being your own flawed meaning to the universe. Another way you could go is to propose that life has no meaning, burdening yourself with the hopelessness of a purposeless existence. Or you could make people your salvation. There are too many ways to go if we adopt no God as our purpose!

A true purpose is that which we can pursue with a singular direction. A singular direction is the only way our desires can be perfectly unified, and a purpose should be able to encompass all of our desires. Otherwise it is not a fulfilling purpose. The example of this that is most alive in my life is this: when we have a multiplicity of desires and we can’t fit them under the umbrella of what this world has to offer, then my purpose is not the world but the Kingdom.

With God, we are integrated with a definite direction and purpose. It is as if God wants us to stand before Him as a being who is whole and not torn in every direction while pursuing his own good.

“Teach me your way, O Lord,

and I will walk in your truth;

give me an undivided heart,

that I may fear your name.”

-Psalm 86:11

In the next post, I want to offer Biblical examples of the duplicitous nature of man and how it is overcome through God.