The Truth Tellers

It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, and you probably did this. No, not dived into the crowds wanting “Black Friday” bargains. How about “stood on the scale”? We currently have two scales in our bathroom. The clear one (right) was left behind in a vacated rental that we helped the landlord (a relative) clean out.  A friendly scale, it weighs you two pounds lighter than truth, and can’t be adjusted.  (It will eventually get donated somewhere.) The white scale is our Old Faithful, which gives the brutal facts about true weight. 

I’d like to believe the untruth on “light” scale, but I know the other tells me what I need to know.  The scales also remind me of a story in the book of Daniel with the key verse, “You have been weighed on the scales and been found wanting”  (Daniel 5:26). Well, I’m wanting to weigh less on the “truthful” scales, but we’ll move on from there. The quote comes from an account about a rascal king named Belshazzar, the grandson of more famous Nebuchadnezzar. King B had thrown a party for a thousand noblemen, bringing out the sacred gold and silver goblets they’d raided from the temple in Jerusalem.  While chugging the bubbly, they began praising their various idols.  Suddenly, a giant hand began writing on the wall, bringing a quick end to the party. He finally called in the Hebrew worker Daniel, known for his wisdom in such puzzling situations.  Daniel interpreted the three words written by the giant hand: mene, tekel, and peres. Their meanings (numbered, measured, divided) spelled doom for Belshazzar.  “Tekel”(for “measured”) brings up the idea of double-panned scales used by merchants, like that in the famous blindfolded “Lady Justice” statue of the 1500s. Belshazzar’s sins and arrogance made one side dip to the max, while the other side of true faith was empty.

Now, a disclaimer. A lot of people use the idea of “spiritual scales” the wrong way. They say something on the line of this: “Well, when I die, I guess God will put my good deeds on one scale and the bad on another, and hopefully the good will outweigh the bad so I can go to heaven.”  There’s not a single verse in the Bible to support that. We’re never “good enough” for heaven.  We are able to go there only through accepting Christ’s atoning work on the cross for our sins.

The other problem comes when people think they’re good enough already for Heaven—in other words, the scales are already stacked in their favor.  They echo Job’s opinion that he was so good that he didn’t deserve to suffer: “Let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless” (Job 30:4). In truth, as “good” as he was, Job fell short of perfection. Proverbs 16:2 seems to point to his blind spot: “All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.”

Instead of trying to affix our own measuring system on God, maybe we need to step back and simply worship Him for His wisdom, power and majesty.  In images that drew from “measurements,” Isaiah did that with a magnificent picture of the God who measured water in the hollow of His hand, marked off the breadth of the heavens, held earth’s dust in a basket, and “weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance” (see Isaiah 40). Nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare with the greatness of God.

The disparity between God’s purity and our sin is hard to admit. But seeing ourselves as we really are requires that we use the “truth scales” of scripture.  For example, the book of James reveals my spiritual flab in a lot of places: trials, controlling my tongue, guarding against favoritism, helping the poor, avoiding quarrels, not grumbling, and praying in faith. “Humble yourselves before the Lord,” James says, “and he will lift you up” (James 4:10). 

Well, “lifting me up” as I stand on the household “truthful scales” might lower the numbers a bit. But I know wherein I stand, and that’s in need of grace!