What follows? As
the story goes, “The Lord’s angelic messenger appeared to the woman and said to
her, ‘You are infertile and childless, but you will conceive and have a son” (Judges
13:3). Clearly, this is understood to be a miraculous intervention.
Though infertile, this woman was promised a son. This is not an uncommon story within Israel’s
controlling narrative. In the midst of cursing (both nationally and
individually), the Creator God breaks in and chooses to render a blessing to
one of His chosen people. The messenger repeated the report, saying
“Look, you will conceive and have a son” (13:5a), adding “You must never cut
his hair, for the child will be dedicated to God from birth” (13:5b).
With that said, we of
course find that we are in the midst of the story of Samson. It is said
of him that “He will begin to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines”
(13:5c). In this, we are able to hear the message of God’s salvation, not
just in that He will be providing rescue and deliverance for His people Israel,
but from our post-Christ event position, we can hear the message of deliverance
for those that would come to be His covenant people through believing and
declaring that Jesus is Lord through (faith). In addition to that, we also
hear the message of the salvation of the Creator God that is going to be
extended to His once very good creation. How so?
As can be here seen,
it is in the midst of Israel’s evil that God enters in for the purpose of providing
His blessing. If we make a wider application, appropriately thinking of
Israel’s story (both as a people and as a land as a microcosm of all peoples
and the entire creation), we can look to Israel as being representative of all
peoples. With that, we can then transpose the Samson story to see the
promised son as Jesus, as the same Creator God (that is to be understood
through the Israelites narrative that stretches back to the creation and Adam)
breaks in to history amidst a race of people condemned to experience nothing
beyond the wrath of God (as understood by Israel---the Levitical and
Deuteronomic curses?), to deliver the blessing of His salvation---the renewal,
re-creation, restoration, and life of the age to come in the here and now to be
had through union with Christ---to people of all nations.
In the Christ (a very
Samson-like figure) and in His people, the kingdom of heaven has been
established on earth, and is daily extended as His lordship is declared over
all rulers and all powers. Through His people, which is the renewed
Israel under the new covenant marker of faith in Jesus as Messiah and Lord of
all, the Creator God demonstrates His power, as it flows through His people as
vessels for the communication of the Gospel in both word and deed, as they
participate in His purposes for His creation.
Just as we can see the gift of a Son into the midst of fallen humanity
as God’s faithful action for the salvation (deliverance from exile from the
ability to rightly bear the divine image) of those that He declared to be His
people from before the foundation of the world (all peoples, not national
Israel alone---the inclusion of Gentiles in the covenant family was not a
surprise, but always God’s intention, as is fairly clear from the Abraham story
and the initial announcement of the covenant), we can also see a foreshadowing
of God’s intention to restore and renew a world of His creation that was marred
by that fall, when we read about the fact that this promised son would “begin
to deliver Israel from the power of the Philistines.”
Through Samson, there
would not be a complete deliverance, but a beginning. So too can we
understand, through the power that is unleashed in a marred world by the
proclamation of the Gospel, as a measure of that power that raised up Jesus
from the dead is graciously shared, by the Spirit of God, through His people,
that even the creation itself is beginning to be delivered from the power of
death under which it is held and under which it groans. Creation’s
complete renewal will be consummated upon Christ’s return, in conjunction with
the resurrection of His people, as they are brought forth into a renewed
physicality in the exact same way that Jesus was brought forth from the grave.
This beginning of the deliverance of creation (His people and this world) from
the bondage of death to which it was unwillingly subjected by mankind’s
rebellion against God, occurs because of the deliverance from that same bondage
that is realized by those that share in eternal life, here and now, through
their union with Christ.
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