Halakhah: Walking with God

Pleasing God by Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus

The God of Scripture is a walker, not a jogger or a runner! He prefers a leisurely pace that facilitates conversation and fellowship rather than a break-neck dash hither, thither, and yon that leaves behind little more than exhaustion and confusion. Scripture specifically declares that there is no condemnation to believers when they “walk in the Spirit,” not “run in the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). God expects his children to take a disciplined, measured approach to relationship with the Divine that is carried out systematically, methodically, and continually. This is the Christian halakhah that rests on the principle of the Jewish halakhah that seeks to define and point out the way in which believers in the God of Scripture should walk before him in faith and faithfulness.

The Dilemma: Can Human Beings Discover God?

The obvious question that must be answered is this: Is it even remotely possible for finite human beings to walk with—and have fellowship with—the infinite and Almighty God? Both Plato and Aristotle answered this question with an absolute No! The infinite cannot connect with the finite, much less have social discourse with it. Similarly, Islam scoffs at the idea of divine relationship with humanity, for even the slightest such contact would pollute the divine. Similarly, Islam scoffs at the idea of divine relationship with humanity, for even the slightest such contact would pollute the divine. Seeking human relationship with God, therefore, would be blasphemous. Sadly, many Christian theologians mirror the same line of thinking, arguing that God neither hears nor responds to human prayers. What are the odds that humans could have fellowship with God? they ask. Somewhere between slim to none!

If getting past the hurdle of the seeming impossibility of finite—infinite interaction could be bridged, how could such a relationship be initiated and maintained? Can a human being “probe the limits of the Almighty?” Job’s “friend” Zophar asked (Job 11:7). “Can you by investigation discover the mysteries of God,” he wondered. Solomon answered this question well: “No human can discover the work that God has done from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Human searches for God with the empirical method can only prove fruitless and frustrating, for God says, “My ways are above your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). The learned and urbane apostle Paul concluded his discussion of one of the divine mysteries with this exclamation: “O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how unfathomable are his ways! Who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counselor?”” (Romans 11:33–34), and then his spirit erupted with this doxology: “From him and through him and unto him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).

Solving the Dilemma: God Takes the Initiative

Fortunately for human beings, God himself has taken the initiative to establish and maintain relationship with humanity. “History is not a record of man’s search for God,” says Abraham Joshua Heschel. Instead, “History is a record of God’s search for man,” he concludes. And so it is: “In the past God spoke to [the Israelites] through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,” declares the author of Hebrews (1:1–2). King David concluded that, “[God] made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel” (Psalm 103:7).

The answer to the dilemma of finding a way for divine/human interaction is to begin with the initiator of the relationship. The only possible means for such a relationship is through divine self-disclosure, the act of revelation. Walking with God, then, is accomplished solely on the basis of divine initiative when “holy men and women of God are carried along by the Holy Spirit” when they respond to God’s summons with the oft-repeated biblical phrase, “Hineini!”—“Here am I!” (Genesis 22:1; Isaiah 6:8), and God begins to download his Word and will into their spirits in an environment of quiet confidence and enduring faith.

Through his own sovereign will, Yhwh chose to create humanity in his own image and likeness and to manifest the very essence of his own being—divine love—in his relationship with humanity. This God is not an anthropomorphic creation, a figment of human imagination. Humanity is the one and only theomorphic creation of God who continually manifests himself anthropopathically toward humanity with both rationality and sentience, the fundamental requirements for relationship.

God proved unequivocally and irrevocably in Scripture that he is not the deus absconditus—the detached, emotional iceberg who is utterly unknowable and is totally absent from the world—nor is he the deus otiosus, the “inactive god” who created the universe, then withdrew from it, and has since had no interaction with it. Yhwh is an entirely relational being who chose to limit his own sovereignty, his omnipotence, and his omniscience in order to establish and maintain a loving relationship with the earthlings whom he created through a degree of fellowship and mutuality that they could experience. In effect, God decided to walk with humanity.

The Walk Begins and Continues

The Hebrew Scriptures answer the question of the possibility of divine-human interaction with a resounding and frequently repeated, Yes, indeed! And they are replete with examples of divine-human interaction, most of which are poignant and a few of which are downright humorous (e.g., Balaam’s experience with a talking donkey that sensed the presence of the Divine when the pagan “prophet for hire” was oblivious to the fact!).

As a matter of fact, walking with God is fundamental to biblical faith. The corporate heads of the human race experienced this kind of relationship with their Creator, for “they heard the sound of Yhwh Elohim walking in the Garden in the breeze of the day” (Genesis 3:8). The earliest account of continuing human interaction with the Divine describes God as “walking” in Adam and Eve’s environment to maintain fellowship with them. That is why the Almighty uniquely created humanity ex nihilo when he infusing them with his own neshamah (“breath of life”) which “became in humanity a loquating spirit,” making them capable of the thought and speech that are essential to relationship (cf. Targum Onkelos Genesis 2:7).

In the face of humanity’s lapse into rebellion and sin, however, God still sought them out. Rather than simply destroying his human creation in accordance with the penalty that he had decreed in his proscription of their eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (“You shall surely die.”), God sought them out. Now, the omniscient God knew precisely where to locate them as they cowered in shame, trying fruitlessly to hide from him and cover their own sin with fig leaves, but he asked them this question, “Where are you?” hoping that they would recognize where they were spiritually more so than physically.

Even in the then fallen state of his human creation, the loving God had a plan for their redemption that had been sealed from “before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8). God’s love for the telos (“goal”) of his creation was in place before he created the tri-universe of space, matter/energy, and time. Even when he exiled them from Eden, he did so not because of anger or for retribution but as an act of mercy so that in their condition they could not eat of the Tree of Life and be ever thereafter irredeemable sinners, forever banished from the divine presence as are the immortal angels who “left their first estate” and were, therefore, “reserved in chains of darkness forever” (Jude 1:6). God’s plan for interaction with humanity even in the most abject of circumstances had been instituted before he initiated the creation of the cosmos, and it continued to operate.

During the seventh generation from Eden (Jude 1:14), perhaps the prime example of walking with God in an intimate and personal relationship was demonstrated in the life of Enoch, who Scripture says walked with God “by faith” and thereby “pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5) for 300 years before he was “taken” (Genesis 5:22–24) by “translation” directly to heaven without having experienced death.

Enoch’s great-grandson, Noah, had a relationship with God that was similar to that of his ancestor. “Noah was a tzadik (righteous man) who was tamiym (undefiled, perfect) in his genealogy (generations), and Noah walked with God . . . and found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:9, 8). As Noah walked in integrity before God—and with God—he discovered that God’s grace continually abounded to him, so much so that when the pervasive evil in the world prompted God to destroy the human race (Genesis 6:13), God revealed to Noah a plan to save his righteous household: build an ark! Walking with God is a process wherein as one walks with integrity, he finds ever-increasing grace for every need (Hebrews 4:16; 1 Peter 5:10).

Walking: The Fundamental Divine Command

 Walking with God, therefore, is not an addendum to either Judaism or Christianity. In fact, it predates and is the foundation of both faiths. When by his own initiative God first entered into covenantal relationship with a “chosen people,” his command to their patriarch was clear. “Walk before me and be complete,” he instructed Abraham (Genesis 17:1).

Now, Abraham was a Babylonian by birth and an Assyrian by nationality. He was a Gentile as it is possible to be. In fact, he was born into an idol-worshiping family (Joshua 24:2). Rabbinic tradition suggests that his father Terah may have been a “wicked” (Numbers Rabbah 19:1; 19:33) and “idolatrous priest” (Midrash haGadol on Genesis 11:28). Even while Abraham lived in his native Ur of the Chaldees (Sumero-Babylon), God, however, revealed himself to young Abraham as the one-and-only God who was invisible. Subsequently, Terah determined to move his family to Canaan but eventually settled in Haran of Assyria.

When his father died, Abraham received the dramatic divine commission: “Lech l’chah!”—literally “Go for yourself”; that is, “summon from within yourself all of your inner resources and go!” (Genesis 12:1). God even predated this call to Abraham when he later said to the patriarch, “I am the Lord who brought yhou out of Ur of the Chaldeans” (Genesis 15:7). In fact, Stephen declares that “the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran and told him, ‘Go out from your country and your kindred and go to the land I will show you’” (Acts 7:2–3). So, God’s hand was on Abraham from his youth and continued to direct him in his walk with the Almighty.

Walking with God is always an action of faith, not of sight (Hebrews 11:1; 2 Corinthians 5:7). It means taking on the challenge of the unknown, often in an assignment from God that is impossible for the one who has accepted that challenge (Matthew 19:26). It is the act of continuing to walk with utter confidence tht God will send his angels before to prepare the way for prosperity of his divine purposes (Exodus 23:20). It is walking in a spirit of sincerity and integrity (Matthew 5:48). In short, walking with God is hearing God say, “Go!” and then immediately setting out with total confidence in God’s provision to take on the challenge of the unknown, knowing God is leading the way and just following in his footsteps.

Walking Means Following

Walking with God does not mean sauntering aimlessly along, meandering here, thither, and yon, trying to discover something thast strikes a fancy and makes one “happy.” In reality, it means to follow in the footsteps of the Master, to follow the Lord totally and without reservation: “Where he leads me, I will follow!”

This kind of tenacity was demonstrated by Caleb during and after his reconnoitering mission in Canaan when he had this testimony after the he and the faithful Israelites entered the land of promise: “I was forty years old when Moses sent me to explore the land, and I brought him a report according to my convictions. . . . I wholly followed (followed wholeheartedly) the Lord my God . So Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance because you have wholly followed the Lord.’ I am as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out. . . . The Lord has kept me alive fore forty-five years. Today, I am eight-five years old! Now, give me this hill country [Hebron] whereof the Lord spoke in that day” (Joshua 14:7–13).

The phrase wholly followed the Lord is repeated five times in Scripture as it speaks of the uniqueness of Caleb’s walk with God (Joshua 14:8, 14; Numbers 14:24; 32:12; Deuteronomy 1:36). It also characterized Joshua, insisted on remaining in the Tent of Meeting when Moses anointed him as his servant and successor (Exodus 33:11). His walk with God was so powerful that he commanded the sun to stand still during an intense battle, prompting Scripture to say, “There has never been a day like it before or since, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man because the Lord fought for Israel” (Joshua 10:14). Moses even changed his servant’s name from Hoshea to Yehoshua when he sent him to reconnoiter the Promised Land. Both Joshua and Caleb believed God’s promise that they would inherit the land of promise when the rest of Israel’s leaders did not believe, and to this day everyone knows their names while no one knows the names of their ten companions who refused to stand in faith on God’s promises!

Another biblical example of walking wholeheartedly with God can be seen in the life of King Hezekiah who, when he was instructed to prepare for his imminent death prayed this prayer to God: “Remember now, O Lord, I pray, how I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart, and have done what was good in your sight.” God responded through the prophet Isaiah: “I will add unto your days fifteen years,” and he confirmed his promise with one of the Bible’s most astounding miracles when he caused the sun to return ten degrees of the sundial! (2 Kings 20:3–5). Hezekiah’s heart was shalam (perfect in the sends of complete and healthy). He walked in truth, the truth that makes one free (John 8:32). He walked with God in a relationship that precipitated answers to prayer, including petitions for miracles.

Walking with God means living in the truth of God’s Word, for “the Father seeks those who will worship him in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). It means maintaining a level of relationship with God that one’s prayers are answered. The Psalmist observed, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). The apostle John declared, “Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments and to those things that are pleasing in his sight” (1 John 3:22). Walking with God brings completeness, peace in the sense of absence of conflict, and wholeness that transcends conflict and suffering.   

In an even more recent example that transcends the patriarchs of old, Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth were recognized as being “both righteous before God, walking in all of the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:5–6). They had living proof that they truly loved God “with all their heart, mind, and resources” (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37) because they could say like Jesus later declared, “I have loved my Father and kept his commandments” (John 15:10). When God searched for a means of bringing the forerunner of the Messiah into the world, he chose Zacharias and Elizabeth for whom faith was not mere punctilious performance of ordinances but walking with God in the integrity of the Spirit (Romans 8:1; 1 John 5:3).

Walking with God means delighting in God by walking in the truth on a straight path that does not meander into the ditches of error. This brings believers into relationship that will cause their prayers to be answered so that God will give them the desires of their hearts Those who “wholly follow the Lord” (or “follow God wholeheartedly”) by walking unconditionally in the footsteps that God has laid out for them in his instructions for humanity will, therefore, always receive God’s unqualified blessing and reward.

“Go! Means Walk!”

Lech l’chah, still remains as God’s foundational declaration to all the Family of Faith and Faithfulness. All other summons from the Eternal are similar and derivative from the original call: Lech l’chah, and they all intrinsically involve the act of walking with God.

In Hebrew, the word for “walk” is halak, which means “to go, to walk, to go along.” In modern Hebrew, the phrase havah halak means, “Let’s go!” The word halak is, however, pregnant with much more profound meaning in the texts of Scripture than mere ambulation. Halak means “to live or to follow a manner of life as in Psalm 1:1–2: “Blessed is the person who does not halak (walk) . . . in the path of the sinful. . . . for his delight is in the Torah(law) of Yhwh, and in his Torah he meditates day and night.” Halak also means to “walk or follow in one’s footsteps by imitating him in life and manners” (cf. Deuteronomy 19:9: “I command you today to love the Lord your God and to walk in his ways (“halak bid’rakey Yhwh).”

In the Hiphil, halak becomes holik, which means to “cause one to go; hence, to lead.” The Hebrew word halak, therefore, has profound spiritual meaning for Christians in that it means to walk with God in the fellowship of the Spirit so that one follows in the footsteps of Jesus and imitates him as a disciple. This, in turn, empowers a disciple to lead others in the paths of righteousness as Paul declared, “Follow me as I follow Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:1).

Walking Humbly with God

After Solomon had analyzed the futility of many of life’s pleasures, he came to this conclusion: “Fear [revere] God and keep his commandments because this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Micah extrapolated further on this theme: “With what shall I come before the Lord when I bow before God on high? . . . He has told you, O mortal one, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice (mishpat), to love mercy (chesed), and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

In this regard, Abraham again is a prime witness to what it means to walk humbly with God. He was dedicated to doing justice, not in inflicting the pain and penalty of exacted legalisms but seeing to it that justice for all people pours forth “like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). His lifestyle was like that of Job, who had this testimony: “I rescued the poor who cried for help and the orphans who had no assist them. . . . I made the widow’s heart sing. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My justice was like a robe. . . . I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy, and I assisted strangers who needed help. I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched victims from their teeth” (Job 29:12–17). Doing justice is simply doing what is right in the sight of God. And, how does one know what is right. It is utterly simple: it is whatever God says about anything. It is observing God’s instructions by not doing what he forbids and doing what he enjoins.

At the same time, Abraham was the epitome of chesed. He loved mercy. The word chesed is from the verb chasad, which means “to be kind” and “to bow” in the sense of showing deference toward others. Abraham’s deference was on display for all to see on three separate occasions, and the result was astounding.

When his nephew Lot reported conflict between Abraham’s servants and his own herdsmen, Abraham said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me. . . . Let’s part company.” So Lot chose the whole well-watered plain of Jordan that was like “the garden of the Lord,” and he chose the best for himself (Genesis 13:10–11). Abraham had no qualms about giving up this land, for God had promised him the entire land of Canaan. Interestingly following Lot’s choice, God expanded the land contract that he had sworn to Abraham from a simple “I will give you this land” (Genesis 12:7) to “Look around to the east, west, north, and south. All that you can see I will give to you and your offspring” (Genesis 13:14–15).

Later, Abraham displayed astounding deference when God promised to fulfill Abraham and Sarah’s greatest desire, saying, “I will bless [Sarah] and give you a son by her” (Genesis 17:16), Abraham’s immediate—and incongruous—response was this: “O that Ishmael might live before you!” (Genesis 17:18).

Sometime after that, God and two of his angels visited Abraham’s tent complex to inform him of his impending judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Instead of rejoicing in the obliteration of history’s most evil cities, Abraham remembered that God had commanded him: “Be a blessing!” (Genesis 12:2) and promised that in him “all the nations and families of the earth” (Genesis 22:18; 12:3) would be blessed. So, he took up the mantle of intercessor for blessing for all nations and families and began to negotiate with God over the fate of Sodom—and if the city had had just ten righteous citizens, God would have spared it from obliteration (Genesis 18:16–33).

Toward a Christian Halakhah

Judaism’s concept of walking with God is encapsulated in the term Halakhah (“the way in which one should walk”). This involves living a Torah-centric lifestyle by fulfilling the Torah’s 365 commandments and “doing mitzvot” (good deeds). The Torah contains 365 negative commandments instructing Israel in what not to do, and it contains 248 positive commandments instructing Israel in what to do.

The Christian Halakhah is fulfilled in the Living Torah, the person of Jesus Christ through whom one lives a life that is directed by the Holy Spirit. It involves being dedicated to observing the Messiah’s commandments just as he himself was devoted to keeping his Father’s commandments (John 15:10). These are the Torah’s 365 commandments as they are explicated and defined by Jesus. It is possible only when the Living Torah (John 1:14) lives in the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:4) and empowers them to do the Father’s will. Christian Halakhah is fulfilled when believers learn to hear God’s voice writing God’s Word in their hearts and minds (Jeremiah 31:33) so that “there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1).

When Christians follow Jesus wholeheartedly in the power of the Holy Spirit, they will do justice by keeping God’s commandments, and they will love mercy by submitting themselves one to another. In the process of both dimensions, they will walk humbly before God and fulfill God’s command to Abraham: “Be a blessing!”, they will walk humbly before God and fulfill God’s command to Abraham: “Be a blessing!”

About the Author

John D. Garr, Ph.D.

President & CEO