“Therefore, ‘it was credited to him for righteousness.’ Now ‘it was credited to him’ was not written for Abraham alone, but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I enjoy listening to classical music. I also enjoy listening to new music. Those two musical preferences don’t often play very well together because there aren’t very many albums featuring new classical music coming out. Instead, there are new recordings of old music. That’s the thing about classical music, though: it’s classic. It has withstood the test of time and is good enough to keep being played and replayed over and over again. Every now and then, though, you come across something different like a variation on an old theme. Let me tell you about a fun recording I found the other day and another variation on a theme that’s rather more important.

Mark Twain was one of those unique individuals with a remarkable ability to turn a phrase. He was a master with words; a storyteller extraordinaire. One of his many famous aphorisms is that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. The first part of this is self-evidently true, of course. One event of history has never repeated itself. The second part, though is equally true. If you study history for very long, clear themes quickly begins to emerge. There address cyclical patterns in which one set of events seems to happen again and again with variations each time.

It’s like the recording I stumbled across on Apple Music the other day. It was a collection of different takes on Ravel’s classic piece, Bolero. Each one was in a different thematic style from Christmas to creepy to epic to toy box to lo-fi. Each version was totally unique and different from all the others, and yet they were all unmistakably Ravel’s Bolero. It was one of the more creative, enjoyable classical albums I’ve listened to in quite a while.

This same kind of thing is true when you study the Scriptures. Biblical history doesn’t repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes. Actually, it does more than rhyme. It develops themes and applies them forward to make an ever more beautiful symphony of grace.

When God “credited Abraham with righteousness” because of his faith, that was a declaration that was intended for the moment it happened. But it was more than that. It was a signal to the rest of the world of how a right relationship with God was going to work. This is why God’s Spirit directed Moses to bring attention to His declaration. It was a foundation stone that He was going to build on in the centuries of human history left to unfold ahead of Abraham.

Between then and the full payoff of the development of this important theme came the Law. The Law functioned a little like the rules of classical form and structure. I remember taking a form and structure class in college. It was one of the basic requirements for a music degree. I didn’t wind up pursuing that degree to its completion meaning I didn’t actually have to take the class, but I’m glad that I did because I never would have learned to enjoy classical music as much as I do without it.

Classical music is governed by a set of rules. If you want to write good classical music, much less learn how to enjoy it, you have to learn the rules. And in the learning process, they feel needlessly restrictive. They feel like they can limit creativity. But the rules matter. Apple Music has a series on their Classical Music App that explores the history of classical music from the Baroque period through late 20th century and 21st century works. In the early-20th century, composers began exploring with loosening, changing, or even rejecting the basic rules that had governed the genre for centuries. By the mid-20th century they had thrown them off altogether. Composers like John Cage wrote music that was so devoid of structure that it became inaccessible to nearly everyone but the most high brow purveyors and those folks who were willing to fake it so they could gain the high cultural credits of saying they enjoyed it. After Cage, composers began to return a bit to the rules of the past and the music quality and accessibility improved almost immediately.

The Law functioned like those rules to a certain extent. They gave structure to a relationship with God that was rooted in faith. Along the way of human history, though, we tended to get so focused on the laws that we lost sight of the relationship. God kept pursuing the relationship, inviting us into it, calling us back to it, but like students in advanced theory and beginning composition classes who don’t yet understand that you don’t have to sacrifice creativity in order to live within the rules, we couldn’t see past the do’s and don’ts. But God was patient. In the midst of our struggles, He promised that the day was coming when He was going to write the rules on our very hearts. When that day came, we would comfortably live within them, and from that place of comfort begin to enjoy the full limits of the creativity and freedom now available to us. Just like the variations on Ravel’s Bolero, our commitment to living within the boundaries of a relationship with God allows us the freedom to explore all of the beautiful variations of how that relationship can be expressed and enjoyed.

That day finally arrived when Jesus came and proclaimed the advent of God’s final kingdom. Then, He laid down His own life so that we could enter it. But He didn’t stay dead. On the third day, He rose again, bringing the life of the kingdom with Him for all who would receive it. “He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Now, when we believe in Him, when we place our faith in Him, we can enjoy for ourselves the life He lives. He takes up residence in our heart by His Spirit and writes the rules there just like God said. With these boundaries now imprinted, rather than constantly seeking expression beyond the limits of grace where there is no life, we can live with the joyous creativity and abundant life of God’s eternal kingdom.

Sometimes His kingdom appears with great form and liturgy. Sometimes it manifests as something entirely more ecstatic and primal. Sometimes we find it in the midst of the suburbs with neat, clean lines everywhere we look. Other times it is urban and chaotic and messy. Sometimes it is found in going far away and taking on great risk to show the love of Christ to a people who have never experienced anything like it before. Sometimes it is comfortable never drifting more than a few miles from home, patiently and intentionally helping those who have experienced that love before but have drifted from it find their way back to it. It appears in every language and has the power to redeem and bring out the best parts of every culture. And while we occasionally forget that these are all different expressions of the same foundational theme, it is this very possibility of nearly endless varieties that makes the foundational theme so powerfully beautiful.

Wherever you find yourself in life, this foundational theme is still something you can embrace and with which merge your rhythms. It’ll probably mean making some changes to how you are doing things, but exactly what those changes will be you likely won’t fully know until you get into the composing. And that’s okay. The great Composer will be your faithful guide in the process if you will only trust Him and follow His lead. He will help you become more fully who He made you to be, becoming every day more fully yourself. All it takes is that willingness to trust in Him. He’s dealt with all the things in your past already. You may have to take some intentional steps away from some of those things, but He’ll help you see which ones, why, and how. Following His lead is the key. And if you will turn it, it will unlock a world bigger than you ever thought to imagine. I hope you will.