Only Son (part 13)

In the twenty-sixth verse of the first chapter of Genesis, after God has pronounced everything as good and established an order in this world that He so obviously loved, He takes one final step and says “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth” (Genesis 1:26). 

Yes, the Creator God loved the world, and He showed forth that love by creating a being in and as His own image that would reflect His glory into the creation and be a reminder of His creative power and His rule.  He created Adam.  He sent the one originally understood, as part of the story of the covenant people, to be His one and only son into the world to rule the creation in proxy for Him.  If this is understood, then the one that has that understanding is one step closer to appreciating the full impact of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. 

Genesis insists that “God created humankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them” (1:27).  Furthermore, in relation to being created in and as the image of the Creator God, so as to bear that image in and for the whole of the creation, the language of covenant is employed when the author confirms that “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply!  Fill the earth and subdue it!” (1:28a)  What follows from that report is rounded off with “God saw all that He had made---and it was very good!” (1:31a) 

So humankind (Adam) is given a charge by their Creator.  It could easily be said that the covenant God of Israel loved His good creation (world).  Owing to that love, He created a son (Adam) in His own image and sent that son into the world with a specific purpose.  What was that purpose?  It was to rule and steward and subdue and represent the Creator to the world.  Ultimately though, there was something underlying all of that.  The foundation on which those purposes rested was belief.  It was trust. 

Trust in what?  “The Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (2:16-17a).  This was an obvious commandment and a test.  The Creator God loved the world and sent His one and only son into the world, and set up a perimeter to see whether or not His Son would follow the commandment as part of the charge to be reflect his Father’s glory into the world.  Would the word of the Creator be believed?  Of course, all live with the sad result of the failure associated with this relatively simple commandment, which was that it was not something to which Adam (the one originally thought of as the son of God) adhered. 

The corollary to the Creator God’s commandment to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is well known, as it was said “for when you eat from it you will surely die” (2:17b).  Genesis reports that Adam, as the divine image-bearer, had been offered up the fruit of every tree of the garden, save one.  One of those trees was the tree of life (2:9).  When Adam and Eve were exiled from the garden after violating their God’s clear commandment (thereby finding themselves outside of their God’s purpose for them), careful attention is paid to this tree of life. 

This demonstrates that the tree of life is of special concern to the Creator God, thus it is said that “When He drove the man out, He placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life” (3:24).  This is explaining in the report of the Creator saying “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (3:22).  Clearly then, it is being communicated that the covenant God did not want His now fallen image-bearer to live forever in a state of corruption, so He made a move to limit access to the tree of life.  Apparently, it is to be taken that the fruit of this tree was designed to render possible such an eternal existence. 

Faithfully Turned Over & Overwhelmed (part 2 of 2)

How do the implications of Leviticus and Deuteronomy relate to the text with which we began?  Israel is said to have done evil, and is subsequently subjected to Midian.  This is to be understood and being in accordance with the covenant of their Creator God.  So having done evil, it can be said that the Lord faithfully turned Israel over to Midian.  Faithfully?  Yes, for Israel’s God is understood to be faithful to His promises.  If He was not, and if the Scriptural record could not be looked to as the record of that faithfulness, then Israel would not be recognize Him as a God that was worthy of trust. 

The Scriptural narrative informs Israel that through Moses, God had warned His people, saying “if you ignore the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force” (Deuteronomy 28:15).  Moses begins outlining curses and comes to the point where he says, “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies” (28:25a), which sounds suspiciously like being turned over to and overwhelmed by Midian. 

With our return here to Judges then, we read that “Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites… would attack them.  They invaded the land and devoured its crops…  They left nothing for the Israelites to eat, and they took away the sheep, oxen, and donkeys.  When they invaded… they were as thick as locusts… They came to devour the land” (6:3-5).  Looking again to the curse tradition as recorded in Deuteronomy, in an effort to make sense of the plight of Israel, what do we find?  “You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it.  Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it.  Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you.  Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you” (28:30b-31).  In Judges we can read that their invaders were as thick as locusts that devour the land, and in Deuteronomy, we find that “You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it” (28:38).  Clearly, the author of Judges well understood the terms of God’s covenant, along with His blessings and curses---his worldview shaped by the Levitical and Deuteronomic traditions.   

Yes, and that tradition includes the sense that their God will fulfill His promises.  The faithfulness of Israel’s God is not limited to doing only what His covenant people will view and agree upon as good (blessings), though all things to which God subjects His people (even His curses) are ultimately for the working of His good.  The words of this message are not offered as a warning, but rather, as a reminder of the steadfast, promise giving and promise fulfilling nature of that God.  Though we can read about His people suffering for their failure to perform as God would have had them perform in accordance with His covenant with them, and though we can read about the curses that could and would come upon His people as a result of those failures, and though we can certainly accept them as warnings about the wrath of that God in response to sin (word and deed not in keeping with His covenant, failure to bear the divine image), we are best served by letting these things remind us of the steadfast love and faithfulness of the God that reached out and chose a people for Himself---a renewed Israel---by and through which to bring the blessings of that God into the world. 

Abraham's Family (part 2 of 3)

After Abraham’s response of faith, which proved his genuine loyalty, God continues to speak to Abraham, saying “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess” (15:7b).  Having responded in faith, Abraham has accepted that this can be made to happen, even if his situation and circumstances seemed to militate against the possibility; but he does ask “O Sovereign Lord, by what can I know that I am to possess it?” (15:8)  The Lord responded with directions concerning some animals, which would lead to a covenant ritual.  As it relates to what Paul is attempting to prove in Romans four, given the opportunity to here enshrine circumcision as the proof of God’s covenant promise to Abraham, the proof comes in the form of yet one more thing for which Abraham will have to trust is going to come about under the ultimate control of this sovereign God. 

Strangely, Abraham is told “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign country.  They will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.  But I will execute judgment on the nation that they will serve.  Afterward they will come out with many possessions.  But as for you, you will go to your ancestors in peace a be buried at a good old age.  In the fourth generation your descendants will return here” (15:13b-16b).  The eighteenth verse stresses what it is that God is doing, as we read “That day the Lord made a covenant with Abram: ‘To your descendants I give this land” (15:18a).  So here we have explicit language of covenant, and a specific promise related to Abraham’s descendants, with this following Abraham’s belief, which has induced the continued communication between God and Abraham, and there is still no circumcision (or any other visible or physical covenant marker besides loyalty).  Though he does not offer any outward signs, can it be doubted that Abraham is operating under the auspices of God’s covenant with him?  Of course not.

At least thirteen years later, as we press forward to chapter seventeen to hear God again speaking to Abraham, we hear Him say “I am the sovereign God.  Walk before Me and be blameless.  Then I will confirm My covenant between Me and you, and I will give you a multitude of descendants” (17:1b-2).  We bear usefully in mind that it has been quite some time since Abraham has heard “a son who comes from your own body will be your heir” (15:4b).  In the meantime, and according to his belief in God and his response of faith, Abraham has produced an heir, from his own body, with that heir being his son, Ishmael.  In fact, those hearing the story would also have heard God speaking to Ishmael’s mother and saying to her (using language that is heavy with Abrahamic covenant implications ) “I will greatly multiply your descendants… so that they will be too numerous to count” (16:10). 

This sounds quite similar to the words that have been spoken to Abraham in regards to his descendants.  Assuredly, these words of promise, though offered to Hagar, would not go unheard by Abraham, and would be evidence, to him, of the faithfulness of his God.  We simply cannot imagine Hagar keeping this experience from him.  As one of Abraham’s wives, and as one who, as a servant in his household prior to gaining status as a wife, would have learned about the God that is said to have revealed Himself to Abraham, we can only imagine her excitedly sharing the good news with her husband, as it would have been received as yet another confirmation of the words of promise that had been previously directed only to Abraham himself.  Hagar would not have heard them as an independent promise to her.  She would have heard them in the context of the promise to Abraham, especially since she had been taken as his wife specifically in relation to Abraham’s belief in God that he would have countless descendants.  For Abraham, Hagar and the son to be born through Hagar were integral components of the fulfillment of promise.    

When Abraham hears God speaking again in the words that open the seventeenth chapter, and when those that hear the story of Abraham again here the voice of God, what is heard is renewed talk of a multitude of descendants that follows hard upon nearly identical words spoken to Hagar.  Surely this of interest to someone like Paul, who has as his mission to throw wide the gate of entry into the fold of the covenant people of God, firmly believing that, in Christ, this covenant encompasses all peoples (and hence all creation as the land of promise), not being limited to the physical descendants of Abraham through Isaac or to those that take up covenant markers that the Abraham story clearly reveals to be of a secondary concern.  To this point in the Abraham story, it has been well demonstrated that belief in God is the primary concern and the basis for a covenantal relationship.