These three men
(Abraham, Isaac & Jacob), and even their nephews and brothers (Lot, Ishmael
& Esau), who also benefited greatly and were apparently able to amass fortunes
of their own, would only be able to point to the covenant of the Creator God as
the source of blessing. Thus, they would be that blessing to the world,
causing men to turn their eyes to that God and away from idols, and in so doing
diminish the power of the work of the devil, which seems to have always been
(since Adam) to get men to worship and honor that which is not actually God.
That said, it is now
possible to turn attention specifically to Israel, the son of God, and another
revelation of the Creator God’s love. Is Israel rightfully considered to
be the son of God? Not only did Israel largely think of themselves in
that way, thus undoubtedly causing the author of the Johannine letters to
operate within this cultural and mental framework, but the whole of the Bible
is infused with the idea of Israel as the son of God.
This idea takes
shape, unsurprisingly, within the book of Exodus. It does so
“unsurprisingly” because the story of the Egyptian experience and the exodus is
the single most defining story of Israel’s history. It is the exodus and
the associated fulfillment of long-held expectations associated with that
exodus that gave them their identity as a nation, and it is that to which they
were constantly looking back, with regularity, to understand the various
situations in which they would find themselves and to properly understand their
God and His dealings with them.
In the fourth chapter
of Exodus, the Creator God is said to have personally instructed Moses to go to
the Egyptian Pharaoh and tell him, on behalf of his God, that “Israel is My
son, My firstborn… Let My son go that he may serve Me” (4:22b,23b). Of
course, there are numerous other examples littered throughout the divine
record, but the example of Exodus will suffice because the portrayal of Israel
is suffused with this understanding that is rooted in their experience of
exodus no matter where one were to look, be it the Hebrew histories, poets, or
prophets.
Consequently, this
self-understanding bleeds through to the Gospels, into Acts, and into the
letters of the New Testament, which means that the whole of the Bible, with all
of it written in the wake of Israel’s understanding of their being chosen out
as the covenant people of God, is written within the context of Israel, the
covenant people, understood as the son of God. One must not fail to
understand that the concept of covenant people as God’s children, with that as
the basis for mission, is a paradigmatic construct of Scripture.
If all of this is the
case (and it would seem to be clear that it is), then Israel had been given the
task of destroying the works of the devil. This will be in response to
the love and grace that their God has shown to them in bringing them into
covenant with Him, and the associated response will result in showing forth their
God’s love for the world (which is thematic for the Johannine writer). Israel
would be initially charged with taking possession of the land that had been
promised to them through Abraham, and to do so through the extermination of the
peoples that occupied the land (the record of which is loaded with hyperbole,
and which they would never accomplish).
When considered
within the covenantal narrative, this would appear to be a strikingly overt
call to destroy that which represented the works of the devil, along with that
which defiled and defaced the land that their God had given to His son, His
firstborn. Putting aside the call for extermination,
this serves as something of a microcosm of what the Creator God intended for
the whole of the creation.
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