Dedication
When
I started writing this, I meant it for the the Church, those of us
who have found that Jesus of Nazareth is alive and who he says he is,
and whose reaction to that discovery is to lovingly trust and follow
him as the core basis of how we conduct our lives. Nevertheless, I
found myself writing about the Scriptures
as if my audience had never known what they say. In
many cases, people who think they know what the Scriptures
say have never really looked very closely at them. So
it seems to me that the rest of the world might find what I say
interesting too, and not be left behind. I sincerely hope that is
true.
Introduction
Why
is the world, that is, humanity, so screwed up? Why do we make so
many bad decisions, and then justify them to each other and
ourselves? The answer in Christianity is Original Sin.
According
to the Wikipedia,
Original
sin, also called ancestral sin,
is the Christian doctrine of humanity's state of sin
resulting from the fall of man, stemming from Adam and Eve's
rebellion in Eden, namely the sin
of disobedience in consuming from the tree of knowledge of good and
evil.
This
is a very common interpretation of the story of the fall of Adam and
Eve from their original innocent relationship with God. The emphasis
on disobedience has been used by men to lord it over women (and other
men too) ever since; but I have come to see it differently.
‘Disobedience’ is a self-serving abstraction of the original
error, and authoritarian assholes of both sexes decry (and fear) the
disobedience of people under their power more than just about
anything else.
It
seems that those who are most interested in telling the world about
the despicable nature of our sins are least interested in reminding
us of God's loving solution to the problem. They do their best to
make us feel guilty about our “disobedience”
and “rebellion”.
They expect us to follow their lead (at
least what they say if not what they actually do) and
live pious lives (by which they mean follow their rules), go to their
churches/synagogues/mosques
on Sunday,
or Saturday, or Friday,
and give generously to their treasuries in
order to be “right” with God.
In
the case of Original Sin,
I ask you, Dear
Reader,
to consider my take on this mythical story. I
call it mythical because it is a story that explains something about
the way life is for us humans. I believe this myth
is actually
true, and I take the
words of Moses
seriously enough to try to understand when I should or
should not take them
literally. The God of
Israel and His son, Jesus of Nazareth, are given to a poetic,
metaphorical use of language, and it is important to understand the
many layers of truth They are trying to express in the Scripture.
That is not to say They
did not speak plainly in
many passages.
Most
fundamentalists do not take this
story literally enough.
It
was not the disobedience so much as the literal eating of that fruit
that was the big
mistake that changed the nature of Adam and Eve, and their offspring.
Making choices based on
our innate Knowledge of Good and Evil almost always separates us from
God. Thus, all we like sheep have gone astray.
God
Himself did not react to Adam and Eve’s sins as an authoritarian,
even though He alone has the absolute right to do so. As you should
expect, there is much more going on, both
in Him and in the story.
He cares for our good. God is not some mean old guy who doesn't want
us to have any fun. He/They
created the universe as a work of art, and made Adam and Eve as a
self-portrait. He had reasons for making things the way they were
originally, and the universe continues to play out, a work of
performance art, in ways that nobody, including Satan, God's
self-styled chief enemy, completely
understands.
In
this piece, I do not propose to give a tidy little answer to all the
questions about how the world ended up the mess it is; but I hope to
get you looking in the right direction at the Scripture, the World,
and your own heart, so that you can minimize the damage that the
Knowledge of Good and Evil is causing you and attain the greatest
measure of joy and satisfaction in this life and in the next, as God
intends. This goes for people who don’t believe in Him as much as
for all the Church of Jesus Christ.
In
the Beginning
First,
God kicks off the space-time continuum. Genesis says, “In the
beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was
without form and void.” In light of current astronomy, this seems
to be a compact and poetic way of describing that moment of zero
entropy that the universe had before the Big Bang. Nothing had any
form and it was all an undifferentiated soup. The Scripture expresses
this moment when it came into being as the waters over which the
spirit of God moved. Then God said, “Let there be light.” And the
Bang went off and shortly thereafter there was light, as the universe
expanded and cooled to where photons could be distinguished from
other particles. “And the evening and the morning were the first
day.” God likes the ideas of evening and morning so much that he
used them before there were even stars, never mind a twirling planet,
to describe the beginning of time unfolding. One must accept the idea
that God is using poetic language, as he so often does throughout the
Scriptures, so a day in this passage really cannot be reasonably
construed to be a twenty-four hour period such as we experience on
our planet in the most physical sense. Day, evening, morning, are all
metaphors that have physical analogues in our life on earth, and God
is not the only one who has expanded on them.
The
“days” of Creation are more like movements of a symphony. In six
days, He created the heavens and the earth, had the earth bring forth
plants and animals that reproduced “after their kind,” ie using
the gene machine and as far as Science can tell, the mechanism of
evolution. Remember that the way He put it was “let the earth bring
forth...” I think there is plenty of room there for several major
evolutionary waves in the development of plants and animals on earth,
but while they might eventually have produced Man, they didn’t get
the chance. On the sixth day, God said, “Let us create Adam in our
own image...” And He/They personally and specifically formed a
self-portrait, the Adam, out of the dust (adamah in Biblical
Hebrew) of the earth, and told him/them to be fruitful, and to have
dominion, and, along with the other animals, to eat plants for food.
I am not being politically correct when I use all those pronouns.
Christianity has a mainstream doctrine that describes the god of
Israel as a multi-person being, who is nevertheless highly unified.
In modern terms, the persons of the godhead have low entropy: they
are difficult to distinguish. Similarly, the Adam was created “male
and female” but a single body in the beginning. Adam v1.0 was a
metaphor for God, complete and entire. God then pronounced his work
Very Good, and took the next day off, ending the first act of this
work of performance art we know as the temporal universe.
Okay,
so then God planted a garden out
east, in Eden,
and put the Adam into it to "dress it and keep it", ie to
take care of it and to watch over it. Contrary to some assertions,
gardening is mankind's oldest profession. Then the Lord God added
a rule,
saying
to the Adam that they may eat from any tree in the garden - except
one of those trees that stand right
in
the center, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. "In the
day that you eat from that tree, you will surely die," He says.
The scripture does not record any response the
Adam
may have made, but we know they got the message because later, after
Eve had been created, again by a personal creative act on God's part,
she cites
the rule to the serpent. In fact, she over-states it, saying they
aren't even supposed to touch it. I have written elsewhere
about some of the differences between the man and the woman, but
let's focus here on the promise: eat that fruit and you will die.
This is the first mention of the concept of death, but it seems that
they knew what it was.
Now,
plants were growing elsewhere on the earth. At His word, the earth
brought forth plants bearing seed and animals too. A garden, though,
is different. It is a work of art, like Adam, personally and
particularly created by the artist. And every work of art has a
concept, a message, which it embodies and tries to convey as a
metaphor. Not to get too far afield, let me assert here that God is
more an artist than an engineer, more like Leonardo da Vinci than
Thomas Edison. The entire space-time universe is a work of art, and
the unrolling of time in this universe enables it to be the original
work of performance art, within which all other performance art
exists.
Perhaps
this garden was an abstraction of what we now call Life As We Know
It, a microcosm celebrating the Gene Machine. It could have been
organized in waves of variation through families of plants; or it
could have been done in little ecological plots, illustrating how the
different combinations work together. I’m sure there are many other
possibilities, and there are many who know more than I do about
garden design. However it was organized, this design seemed to
require a centerpiece consisting of two special trees: the Tree of
Life and Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The
Tree of Life is mentioned in the Scripture as standing in only one
other place: the heavenly Jerusalem that comes down to earth at the
end. I think that the Tree of Life symbolizes the aspect of God’s
nature that we call Life. He is not merely alive, but the author of
all other life, an overflowing fountain of Life. Our liveliness is
just a pale shadow of His.
But
nowhere else is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil mentioned.
It only existed there, in the Garden of Eden. It has been suggested
that the expression ‘knowledge of good and evil’ really means
having all knowledge, omniscience. This is also considered a property
of God, like His being alive; but I take it more literally than that.
I take it to embody this bifurcating concept of Good and Evil.
Perhaps in order to correctly judge good versus evil, one must be
omniscient, but the message of God’s rule not to eat that fruit
might be that, as we move along the timeline, one moment to the next,
we don’t need to know everything: instead we can follow after Life.
The
Adam, a unified multi-person being that was a metaphor for God
himself, was told to tend this garden, eat anything except the fruit
of that one tree. All good. Suddenly, a new movement of this symphony
begins. God says, “It is not good that the Adam should be alone. I
will make him a help meet for him.” A quick linguistic note here:
‘meet’ is an archaic word that meant ‘appropriate’. The
Hebrew word that was translated ‘help meet’ is ‘ayzer ‘
and in every place other than Genesis 2, it is simply translated
‘help’. In many of those places, it refers to God Himself in
relation to the nation of Israel. So this ‘help’ God said he
would make for the Adam is not just some hired hand, some servant.
A
friend of mine once said, “What God says, goes.” That’s how He
created things. His word has creative force. When He said that, it
disrupted the cozy life Adam had in the garden (which you recall God
had pronounced ‘very good’), and it was no longer good for him to
be alone. So then God goes into this artistic feint, forming a copy
of every land animal and every bird, and bringing them one by one to
the Adam, “to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called
it, that’s what its name was.” This naming thing was not a task
given by God; it was an integral part of Adam’s nature to name
things. This is another aspect of the self-portrait.
So,
after trying every animal and never having it end up being an
appropriate companion (even the dogs!), God finally puts Adam into a
deep sleep and does a little surgery. From a rib, God makes woman.
When God brings her to Adam, he renames himself even as he names her,
exclaiming, “Here now is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh: she
shall be called Woman (ishsha) because she was taken out of
Man (ish).” At this point the Holy Spirit, speaking through
Moses, interjects into the narrative, “Therefore shall an ish
leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his ishsha, and
they two shall be one organism.”
God
has raised the entropy of the Adam. Now to recreate the Adamic
metaphor of God, a man and a woman must form an intimate loving
couple. Thus, they were both naked and they were not ashamed. This is
Adam v1.1. Its higher entropy enables us to see more details about
God than we would have been able to see with Adam v1.0.
The
man and the woman had an intimate, loving relationship, and having
sex is a physical metaphor for that relationship. They “knew”
each other’s bodies as they knew their hearts and minds.
Enter
the serpent, the liar,
the vandal. He
“beguiled”
the woman by making her think she could be “like God”. She
was already a lot like
God, but she looks at
it and sees that it is pleasant to the eye, good for food, and
helpful in making one wise. Who wouldn’t want to be more like God?
She took some and ate it, gave some to the man and he ate it too. And
“their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”
Their
eyes were opened. It’s not as if their eyes had not been working up
to that point. So to take a common interpretation of this phrase,
they suddenly understood something that they hadn’t understood
before: they
were naked. Again, in some sense, they had known they were naked all
along – but suddenly they saw it from a new point of view: the cold
light of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, outside
of their loving intimacy.
And the part of their naked bodies that they immediately covered up
was clearly their genitalia, the
parts that most directly represent the
intimacy of a loving
relationship. They
are embarrassing when
viewed in that light. Consider your body
honestly. They
may not have much visual appeal, but the
exposure of our genital parts humiliates what
is called our human dignity,
when it happens outside of a
relationship of loving intimacy.
When God separated the Adam into man and woman, He/They exposed
something in the
self-portrait that relates to
the intimacy of the
Godhead. This was a big
personal risk on God’s part.
Disrupting
that loving intimacy between the man and the woman and
God was the serpent’s
plan. I don’t know why the Adversary chose to take the form of a
serpent, but his goal has been exactly that, to disrupt any form of
loving intimacy, from the Beginning.
I
assert once
again that it
was not Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience
that caused the problem: it was literally the eating of that fruit,
which altered their thought processes. I guess you are what you eat
after all! They acquired the “Knowledge
of Good
and Evil”, and ever since they ate that fruit and gained that
knowledge, Adam and Eve and their children after them have suffered
from the deleterious effects of having this perceptual outlook in
their minds. This is
the sin that leads to all others. This
too may be some kind of poetical language, because the idea of eating
something and having it cause such a change is outside common
experience to say the least. I would like to point out, however, that
there are viruses known to reprogram the DNA of the tissues they
invade, so a physical
effect as described is not so
far-fetched.
All
of us routinely conduct our lives and evaluate the world around us on
the basis of our own
personal sense of Good vs Evil.
Try getting through a day, even an hour, without pronouncing
something to be good or bad. And getting it wrong as often as not;
yet this is our natural bent, our strongly preferred way of
evaluating things. We look on the surface of the people, things,
events of our lives and decide: Good or Bad.
The
stress of living like this is killing us. We were not designed to
live like this; we were intended to live in the love of God and each
other. Our original nature did not include this tendency: it comes
from the vandalism of our nature and we are stuck with it. It is an
aspect of God’s greatness, though, that He has provided a remedy.
While
the Adam was physically unified, as God is spiritually unified, there
was a risk for Adam - why God warned them not to eat that fruit -
that the metaphor they embodied could be damaged. Later when they
were separated into man and woman, the metaphor not only held up, it
was enhanced by the increase
in entropy, revealing more details
of what God is like;
but it was still vulnerable to
this attack. When they
ate that fruit, they
received the Knowledge
of Good
and Evil; and the
stress of acting on it brings on death.
How
did the Adam conduct their lives before the Knowledge
of Good and Evil came?
I believe their primary
orientation was Life,
in the
love of God and each
other and themselves. I
don’t think the concept of righteousness, being in the “right
relationship” with God, was the kind of concern for the Adam that
it is for us, because from the beginning they had the right
relationship with God: they loved Him. Righteousness became an issue
only after the Knowledge of Good and Evil came to us.
I
base this on two main things in Scripture. First,
there is what Jesus
said was the greatest
commandment, given to Moses (Deut.
6:4,5), “thou shalt
love ×™ְ×”ֹוָ×”
your
god with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your
strength.” Loving
someone changes you (that is those of us afflicted with the Knowledge
of Good and Evil). It changes your perception of the beloved and
often of the whole world. Loving
someone gives us a
perspective by which we often ignore the outward appearance in favor
of something unseen and
eternal. And
loving God, whom you
can’t see, is a step up from loving some other human whom you can
see, and they are directly related.
The
second main thing in the scripture is its depiction of the life of
Jesus. Being born of a
woman but not by a man,
he was never under
Adam’s inherited nature (recall
that the consequences of Eve’s sin came to her own body, but to
Adam God said, “The whole world is cursed for your sake”, and see
also Romans 5). Jesus
lived his life, not by
the Knowledge
of Good
and Evil,
but by Life
in the spirit, loving
God. That’s why
nobody understood him, and
why he liked being around little children: He
was more like them. Small
children do not operate under the Knowledge
of Good
and Evil.
They operate mostly out of love for their parents, wanting
to please them,
thinking nothing of consequences. As they get older, they lose this
innocence, and begin to consider things in terms of good and bad,
right and
wrong. Their parents and others may
have taught them rules
to follow, but in any
case, assimilating
rules with their inherent conflicts, kids begin to decide for
themselves what is good or evil. And so it goes.
Jesus
lived moment to moment by the direction of the Spirit of God, and in
communion with the Father. You may scoff
that if he was God, then he was just loving himself, and that is
true: the
multi-personhood of God is intimately
unified. That is why so
many passages in the gospel of John are so confusing and
circular-sounding, as Jesus tries to describe his relationship with
the Father. They are like a many faceted jewel. You can see different
qualities as you look in different directions but it is all one.
Hear, O Israel, ×™ְ×”ֹוָ×”
[the
LORD] is one. And as for loving himself, yes. God is the very essence
and definition of love and this love is the fountain of life in the
intimacy of the godhead. They can hardly do otherwise. We, however,
must choose to turn away from our inherited
propensity to judge good and evil, and live by love through
faith in Him. The books of the Hebrews and the New Testament writings
of the Apostles are full of examples of people making or not making
this choice.
In
way of completing this
discussion,
let me say that God also loves us, the children of the Adam. He
increased Adam’s entropy in
order to reveal aspects
of God’s multi-person nature that simply were not possible to
reveal in the original form of Adam. It also suggests why the
second-greatest commandment is that we love our neighbors as
ourselves. God’s artistic purpose in
creating us is to
illustrate His nature.
And enable
us to become His
companion.
A
portion of the Adam’s many children are even
now being built into
the body
of Christ, and we
will some day be separated
like Adam’s rib and united
with the Son
in a way analogous
to how a man and woman unite (ideally) in loving intimate marriage.
Not just physically: a permanent
commitment of loving companionship
and pleasure and fruitfulness. A great deal more of the nature of God
will be revealed by the
marriage of the Christ and the Church,
God’s raising of His own entropy in order to not be alone. As
with the Adam, He will provide Himself a help.
Those of us who enter into a loving, intimate sexual relationship get
a taste of this mystery. Those
of us who give ourselves to Him in love will see the fulfillment of
it.
Some
Old Testament Illustrations
1 Cain and
Abel
What
was wrong with Cain’s sacrifice?
It
didn’t take long for the Knowledge of Good and Evil – shall I
abbreviate this phrase? Yes, KGE – to reach beyond the person
suffering from it and cause harm, indeed death, to someone else.
Genesis chapter four begins with Adam and Eve having sex (not
that they didn’t do
it before this), and
Eve conceives and bears Cain, saying "I have gotten a man from
the Lord." And then some time after that, she bears his brother
Abel. Cain is the first child of Adam and Eve to
be mentioned, and
his name means ‘gotten’, ‘acquired’,
‘created’, which
strongly suggests that he was the first begotten child.
I don't know that that matters at this point. Abel, whose
name means ‘feeder’
grew up to become a feeder
of sheep, but Cain
became a farmer. At some point, Cain brought an offering of his
produce to the Lord. Abel also brought some of the firstborn of his
flock and some of the fat. Well, the Lord "had respect" for
Abel's offering, but not for Cain's. This made Cain very angry, and
the Lord said to him, "Why are you so angry? Why the long face?
If you do well, won't you be accepted? And if not, sin is crouching
at the door. It's desire is for you, but you must rule over it."
Are you saying, "Of course Cain is angry!"? Are
you wondering why the Lord did not have respect for Cain's offering?
Why didn't the Lord seem to understand the situation? Was
He on a keto
diet? Remember
that God doesn't really care about offerings, high or low in
fat. Consider that he
cares about the heart of
the offerer. He says by
the prophet Samuel, "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt
offerings as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."
Keep in mind my assertion that God is not an authoritarian ruler. So
why else would he say a thing like that? Because He
was warning Cain not to follow the impulses of KGE, but instead to
follow Life and trust Him.
Cain
judged that his
offering was good.
God's lack of regard immediately revealed this when Cain reacted with
anger. If Cain had loved God, his reaction would have been different.
So again, why did God
do that? But
with Cain, the Knowledge of Good and Evil told him this was wrong. He
was offended. God tries to counsel him about it, but he doesn't
listen. Instead, he kills
his brother. After that, God comes to Cain and says, "Where's
your brother?" to which Cain answers
with another question, one that is voiced through the ages: "Am
I my brother's keeper?" I suggest that the answer is yes.
2 Noah
A Righteous Man Saves Humanity
Since
Noah was mentioned by God as one of three men (the other two being
Job and Daniel, per
Ezekiel
14) whose righteousness would have saved them (though nobody else)
from the Carrying Away, Noah deserves a mention in this discussion.
When
God had decided that the violence and corruption of mankind were too
grievous for Him to bear any longer, and was going to kill everyone,
Noah “found grace in the eyes of God.” Notice that God wasn’t
said to be angry, but rather “it grieved Him to His heart.” Noah,
whose name means “rest”, “was a just man, perfect in his
generations; Noah walked with God.” He had a relationship. It was
not just out of the blue when God came and told him to build an ark.
By
the way, Noah’s generations bring up some interesting details that
seem to conflict with our best scientific findings. Genesis makes
clear that Noah was born only 926 years after Seth was born. In
fact Seth was still alive when Noah was born, and Noah could have
heard the story of the Fall second-hand from him, or
from his own father, Lamech, who could have heard it first-hand
from Adam.
The
Scripture does not record any such meetings, only that they were
possible, and so these stories could have been passed down
personally. Meanwhile,
Science tells us that there is ample evidence of “modern man”
living at least a hundred thousand years ago. Even if you disregard
the hominids that Evolution claims led to man, a hundred thousand is
a huge difference from the
ten thousand
or
less that we calculate from the Scriptures plus history as the time
we’ve been on this planet. I believe in Science, in the scientific
method of constructing theories about how the universe works, but
when there is a clear conflict, I have to admit that I have more
faith in the scripture. On the other hand, my
understanding
of scripture can change
and
has changed, with prayer and meditation. Our knowledge is imperfect.
So I try
to keep
an open mind. But let us continue to consider the story in its mythic
nature.
Noah
spends the next hundred years building the
ark.
This is reminiscent of the time God started bringing animals to Adam.
It must have seemed like “so this is what my life is about”
during this period; it gave a certain focus to walking with God. Then
it came to an end.
The
ark is done, the animals come, Noah and his family go aboard, and it
starts raining.
After
the Flood, Noah’s kids go off and start to resettle the earth and
God makes a few more basic rules changes. He lifts the curse on the
earth, though people still have to work for their living, and says
it’s okay to eat animals, and makes the rainbow a reminder that He
won’t kill everyone again, acknowledging
that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”
This may be when He decided, as Jesus taught us, to let the weeds of
humanity grow up with the good seed, and will deal with them all at
the harvest.
3 Abraham
Father
of the Promise
Abraham
was born Abram, son of Terah, when Noah and Shem were still alive.
When Abram grew up and was married, Terah his father decided to leave
Ur, his homeland, and go to Haran, a place in Canaan, taking his sons
and their wives with him. When Abram, whose name means ‘exalted
father’ (possibly a prophetic decision by his father), was
seventy-five years old, and still had no children, God came to him
and told him to leave his father’s place and go to a place He would
show him. He also told Abram that he would make of him a great nation
and a blessing. Abram went, taking with him Lot his brother's son,
and all their property, and went into Canaan, to the plain of Moreh.
Here, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “Unto thy seed will I
give this land.” Abram’s response was to build an altar to the
Lord. I think this implies that he believed the promise. He believed
that promise in spite of being childless all his life. He may not
have been old by the standards of the time, but he had been married
for many years and his wife was said to be barren. Most of the men
born in his ancestral line since the Flood were born when their
fathers were around thirty.
After
rescuing his brother’s son Lot, Abram has a vision of the Lord, who
tells him, “Fear not, for I am your shield and your exceeding great
reward.” Abram then complains that he has gone childless, and
that’s when God promises him that his own child will be his heir,
and that his children will be like the stars of heaven for number.
Abram believes God and “he [God] accounted it to him [Abram] for
righteousness.” This is another moment of editorial narrative by
the Holy Spirit. Abram may not have been perfect but God graciously
counted his faith as that he had the right relationship.
Ten
years later, they still have no children and Sarai decides to solve
the problem in a practical, womanly way: she tells Abram to go and
take her maid-servant, whom she had acquired in Egypt, as another
wife, and see if he can have children with her. As Adam did with Eve,
Abram listened to his wife and took her maid-servant. Sure enough,
Hagar got pregnant, which made her begin to despise her mistress.
Sarai complained to Abram, who said to do with her whatever she
liked. So Sarai treated her badly enough that eventually she fled.
Now,
let’s just stop here and consider. Sarai must have known about the
promise concerning Abram’s seed and the promised land. She assumed
that she would be bearing children to fulfill the promise, and I
suggest the idea made her happy after all the time being married and
not conceiving. Ten years later, still no children. So she decides to
do “the right thing”, or at least what seemed to be the best
alternative. I believe she thought she was making a personal
sacrifice for the good of her husband. In any case, the result was
Ishmael, whom God promised to bless and make a great nation, but who
was never accepted as the fulfillment of Abraham’s promise.
Abram
is 86 when Ishmael is born, 99 when God visits again and renames him
and Sarai (she is 90). When God tells him that Sarah will bear him a
son, he falls on his face and laughs, prompting God to say the boy
will be named Isaac ("he laughs"). I think that the
laughter was not out of disbelief or scorn, because Abraham believed
God, that was his main characteristic. I think Abraham saw the humour
in God's promise, and laughed out of joy, with God, not at Him. This
is a demonstration of how loving God can make your behaviour
different from what it might be under KGE. It also shows how God
reacts ad libertum to those who love him, by naming Issac. But
there are limits: Abraham asks God to accept Ishmael instead, but God
says no. Abraham goes on to comply with the requirement of
circumcision for himself and all his house.
Speaking
of circumcision,...
In
the year before Issac was born, Sarah has never conceived and is in
menopause, making it doubly unlikely – you would think impossible -
that she will have the promised child. They travel south to Gerar.
And just as he did years before when they went into Egypt, Abraham
asks Sarah to say she is his sister! She is still such a beautiful,
desirable woman that he is still convinced they will kill him in
order to take her. And as before, he is right about her beauty,
because the king does take her into his harem, which seems to be a
kingly right. This time around, we learn she really IS his sister, or
half-sister, and once again the king in question, Abimelech, is a
righteous man who fears God; but only because God intervenes does the
king not have sex with her. I’m guessing that out of your own
Knowledge of Good and Evil, you would likely scoff at such a man
being made the father of the faithful. He didn’t lie, exactly, but
he certainly misled two kings about his wife in order to keep from
being killed. Judging by the Knowledge of Good and Evil, this is an
act of cowardice and thus, of sin. From the way Sarah tells it, this
deception had been their standard operating procedure whenever they
traveled together, and Abraham says it’s because he “thought,
Surely the fear of God is not in this place...”, judging by
appearances and the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Even Father Abraham
is not perfect; like us, his faith in what God told him was accounted
as righteousness: it was a gift by grace and not something he earned.
So
once again, Sarah is returned to Abraham. And then, finally, God
visits her and fixes her up so she conceives with Abraham. Now, Sarah
laughs too when she hears the promise, but this time it is out of
unbelief. Her previous lack of faith was what prompted her to offer
her husband the maidservant in order to fulfill the promise. She is
just being rational and trying to work it out as she thinks best
under the circumstances. This is Eve's version of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil at work. Even so, she conceives and bears Isaac as
promised. Then she laughs again, out of joy for the miracle, after
all those years of being childless with a husband whose name is all
about being a father.
Ishmael
mocked rather than laugh with her, and so Sarah, acting out of her
sense of right and wrong, which is another way of describing the
Knowledge of Good and Evil, sees to it that Ishmael and his mother
were cast out of the camp and the community, so that they would not
be part of Abraham’s inheritance; but God keeps his promise to
Hagar and saves them to go on and become a great nation for Abraham’s
sake. The children of Ishmael are not in the royal line that leads to
the promised blessing in Abraham’s seed, but they are evidence that
God is willing to bless all the world through him.
Then
some years after that the trial of his faith comes, when God tells
Abraham to take his son and go to the land of Moriah and offer him as
a sacrifice. Abraham obeys, passing the test, as the writer of the
letter to the Hebrews tells us much later:
By
faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had
received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it
was said, that in Isaac shall thy seed be called. Accounting that God
was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he
received him in a figure.
The
“figure” is a parable foreshadowing God’s offering His only son
in sacrifice, both fathers believing that God is able to raise their
sons from the dead; and this trial is also similar to the incident
with Jesus and the Syro-phoenician woman, who comes to ask Jesus to
heal her daughter and he tells her, “It isn’t right to take the
children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” Far from being an
example of Jesus’ “humanity” in form of ethnic prejudice, it is
an example of his divinity, where he knew her faith and took the
opportunity to “try” it in the sense of refining gold. When she
answers, her loving faithfulness is manifested for all the world to
see, burnished bright, and she gets the help she asked for too. And
by the way, if you are looking for an example of Jesus’ humanity,
you have to remember that humanity was designed without original sin.
Sin is not what makes us human, though it is something we all have in
common.
4 Isaac and Jacob/Israel
Not
a lot is said about Isaac’s life compared to Abraham’s. It had
some parallels to his father’s, including telling people that his
wife was his sister! And having a similar result. Rebeka was also
barren for the first twenty years of marriage. Isaac also personally
received a reiteration of the promise that God had made to Abraham.
God goes on to bless Isaac’s sojurn in the land of the Philistines.
With
Esau and Jacob, the plot thickens, and again a choice is made up
front, as with Isaac versus Ismael. Jacob is the one God seems to
favor and not Esau, before either of them did anything good or bad,
before they were even born, of the same parents. This was purely
God’s own choice, revealed to Rebekah while she was pregnant with
them. As Paul writes (Romans 9), this was to establish that it has
nothing to do with works and everything to do with the Lord’s
choices. Like the material success of Issac, this choice is unearned,
beyond good and evil, to coin a phrase.
At
the end of Genesis 25, Esau sells his birthright to Jacob for a pot
of red lentil stew. In the King James version it concludes, “thus
Esau despised his birthright.” In all fairness to Esau, ‘despise’
has taken on a more emotional connotation than it had in 1611, but
even in the most charitable interpretation, it remains that he cared
little enough about his birthright to sell it for a meal when he was
hungry. He honestly may have thought he was going to die if he didn’t
eat, but this again reflects a lack of faith in God and a leaning to
his own understanding. I also want to point out that the way the
story is told, there isn’t evidence that he deliberately set out to
trick Esau out of his birthright, but he did come up with the idea
when the opportunity arose. Why would he even think of it? The boys
may have grown up hearing from their mother about the prophecy that
the elder would serve the younger. That is a reasonable assumption
but it is not stated in the scripture. It could also have been a
moment of inspiration from God, calculated to show Esau’s true
colors, but that is not stated in the scripture either. The reader
may benefit from meditating on this, but remember there is no
certainty about the answer.
Jacob’s
life goes on to fly in the face of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
His own mother conspires with him to deceive his father and cheat
Esau out of a prophetic blessing. This only makes sense when the
chief principle by which she is operating is wanting to please God,
and not whether something seems right or wrong. Rebekah seems to be
the active agent here. After Jacob gets the blessing that Isaac
intended for Esau, Rebekah is given to know that Esau intends to kill
Jacob, so she tells Jacob he should go visit his Uncle Laban for a
while, until Esau gets over his anger. Then she gets Isaac to send
Jacob off to Laban to get a wife, so he won’t marry any of the
local girls. She clearly uses her relationships to manipulate events
here, all in the service of fulfilling the prophecies that have
guided her life.
Esau,
however,
manifests his anger toward Isaac and God when he plans to kill his
brother, and failing that, “seeing that the daughters
of Canaan pleased not Isaac his father”, takes
a wife from Ishmael’s people. Again, his actions are understandable
in the light of the Knowledge
of Good
and Evil,
but not from the standpoint of wanting righteousness with God. If you
love God, then you need to trust him, even
in the face of a perceived wrong.
Just
as when God warned Cain, “sin
is at the door,”
it didn’t have to work out the way it did. It
was not part of “God’s Wonderful Plan” for Cain to murder his
brother; it was instead part of the outworking of sin, which when it
is finished brings
death. Similarly, Ishmael or
Esau could
well have chosen to humble himself and trust God, and the history of
his people would have been very different if he had. And it would not
have changed a thing, theologically, about the promise.
Now,
as Aslan said in C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books, no one is ever told
what might have happened. It is useless to speculate about how human
history might have gone if Cain or Sarai or Esau or David, or any
number of other people depicted in the scripture had made different
choices. My point is that, while God is able to work out things for
good that were meant for evil, He would be happier not to have to.
Going forward, we by the choices we
make can make the world a much better place than most people think is
possible. We cannot ever restore
it to paradise
because we can never totally escape original sin; but we can, through
the grace of God, choose not to act on it a lot more than we do.
Loving God will give you the power to be His will being done on earth
as it is in heaven.
Jacob’s
story has many parallels to those of Abraham and Isaac, and I
encourage you to read it again with these ideas in mind.
5 Joseph
Saving His Family By Saving Egypt
Joseph
is an example of this subversive power of love. He patiently endured
the “bad” things that happened to him, and was equally unfazed by
the “good” things. By recognizing God’s word to him, he saved
Egypt, and by so doing he saved his family.
When
Joseph was a teenager, his father loved him more than his other
children and everybody knew it. So they hated him. So what happens?
He dreams a dream and tells them about it, and they hate him all the
more. The dream clearly indicates that they will all bow down to him
some day. And he dreams another one that includes his mother and
father bowing down to him. The boys’ reaction was envy, but Israel
“observed” the saying, ie guarded it in his heart, and pondered
it. They all had the sense, much as they didn’t like it, that this
was prophetic. They felt, in the light of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil, that it was wrong, it was unjust, for the youngest son to end
up with dominion over the rest, even the parents. But Joseph dreamed
his dreams and told them to his family, with a childlike innocence,
ie with no regard for whether it might be construed as good or evil.
It was more important to speak the prophecy than it was to cultivate
peaceful relations.
So
then the older boys went out to feed their father’s flocks in
Shechem. It is not at all clear why Joseph didn’t go with them, he
was plenty old enough to do shepherding, and it is not clear why
Israel later sent him out after them. The reason given was so he
could bring word back on how they were doing, but this seems like
make-work, or maybe just an excuse to get Joseph out of the camp, if
Israel is still resentful about his dreams. “Go play in the
street,” as we used to joke about that parental fatigue.
Joseph
goes, the boys see him coming and conspire to kill him, in order to
thwart the dreams. Reuben, to his credit, talks them out of killing
him outright, planning to rescue him later, and they strip Joseph of
his fancy coat and throw him into a pit with no water. This way they
can tell themselves they didn’t kill him, though they expect him to
die there. This is classic rationalization in the Knowledge of Good
and Evil. The coat was offensive to them, symbolizing Israel’s
favoritism, as well as those pesky dreams.
The
boys sit down to eat, and along comes a caravan on its way to Egypt,
so they get another idea. They pull Joseph out and sell him into
slavery for twenty pieces of silver, and the Ishmaelites take him to
Egypt. Reuben, who was apparently gone when that happened, comes back
to the pit to find it empty, and rends his clothes, a traditional
expression of grief, sadness, and distress. He intended to return the
kid back home and thus save his life. He also says nothing to spoil
the deception when Israel is shown the bloodied coat of many colors
and is allowed to conclude that the kid was killed by a wild animal.
Reuben
is trying to balance his relational obligations rather than follow
some right or wrong rule of criminal justice. It might seem that evil
thus triumphs over good, but of course, the story does not end here.
In
Egypt, Joseph is sold to the captain of pharaoh’s guard; but he
ends up running the place because his owner saw that God was with him
and prospered everything he put his hand to. He had so much
confidence in Joseph’s integrity that he didn’t even keep track
of what he had, so great was Joseph’s service to him. So God was
prospering everybody in Potiphar’s household, when his wife started
to fancy him. She asked him for sex, which he declined. Honestly, how
many men would have declined that offer? How many different ways can
you think of to justify going with her, since she asked? Yet, Joseph
saw only the betrayal of trust, God’s first and secondly his
master’s. We might call it foolish innocence, but that would be
looking at it from the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God has made it
clear many times how much he doesn’t like adultery. The very name
of this sin indicates the kind of damage it does. Even in Jesus’
day, nobody could believe he was being so strict about it.
There
is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished, but that is a terrible
lie. The truth illustrated in this story is that our sins can damage
others. Potiphar’s wife lied to her husband about Joseph and got
him thrown into prison; but that didn’t change the fact that God
was with him. Being thrown into prison, especially for something he
didn’t do, might seem “bad”, going by the Knowledge of Good and
Evil, but once again, God is with Joseph and everyone around him
recognizes it. The narration doesn’t say what he might have said or
done to give people that impression, only that people, the “keeper
of the prison” in particular, recognize it; and he ends up running
the place, and again the whole place prospers. This is not a zero-sum
situation: when God prospers someone or something, everyone benefits.
Joseph
was still in prison, even if he was running it and highly esteemed.
When the Pharaoh's butler and baker offended their lord, they were
thrown into prison and Joseph was charged with looking after them.
After being there for “a season”, they dreamed their dreams and
the lack of interpretation made them sad. Joseph, when he heard about
it, said, “Don’t interpretations belong to God? Tell me.”
Joseph continues to demonstrate that he is not living out of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil, but instead is living out of love of God.
He tells them what their dreams mean, regardless of the perceived
good or bad meanings; and it comes to pass.
Two
years later, Pharaoh was troubled by dreams, and the Pharaoh’s
butler remembered that Hebrew guy who was in the prison with him and
interpreted his dream. Next thing you know, Joseph is hauled out of
the dungeon, shaved and given some nicer clothes, and hustled in to
meet the Big Guy. On hearing Pharaoh's wish that he would interpret
his dream, Joseph does not take the occasion to complain that the
butler forgot him for two years, nor does he aggrandize himself for
his wonderful ability to interpret dreams. No, he actually says, “It
isn’t in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” This is
not some false modesty: Joseph lives his life loving God and is
describing the situation to Pharaoh as honestly as he can. This is a
major victory over the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
You
probably know the rest of the story. Joseph becomes the Pharaoh's
chief of staff, and sets about heeding the warning of the dreams,
saving Egypt. When the famine comes, it brings with it his brothers
trying to buy food, and again, rather than lord it over them, Joseph
is almost embarrassed by the fulfillment of the dreams of his youth.
He cares only about bringing his entire family to Egypt so they can
survive and prosper. No revenge, no complaints, only joy at seeing
God’s purposes fulfilled. In the end, his brothers “fell down
before his face and they said ‘Behold, we be thy servants’.”
They quite literally fulfilled Joseph’s long-ago dream, and he
answers, Yeah, you meant it for evil but God meant it for good, to be
as it is this day and saved many lives.
6 Moses
The
first
scene
in the story of Moses’ life that I want to examine is the one where
he sees the Burning Bush. He has fled Egypt after killing a man and
is living quietly in the land of Midian with his wife’s people. He
sees this bush burning and he turns aside to see why it isn’t
consumed. He gets way more than he bargained for. The reason the bush
is flaming but not consumed is because the Angel of the Lord is
there, the personal manifestation of God Himself, calling to Moses.
God
lays out this heroic mission: I am the god of Abraham, of Issac, of
Jacob. I have seen the affliction of my people and heard their cry. I
have come down to deliver them out of Egypt and bring them into the
promised land.
When
the Lord God tells him that He is
sending
Moses back to Pharaoh,
to
bring the children of Israel out,
Moses
reacts with great humility – but it is a humility originating from
guilt. Looking with the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Moses
is clearly frightened, not so much of God, but of going back to
Egypt. He
says, who am I to go to Pharaoh and do this? God says don’t worry,
I will be with you. Already,
God is showing that he wants a personal relationship here.
Moses parries with who are you? Okay, he was polite enough to put it
a different way, similar
to how your mother taught you to ask on the telephone,
who shall I say is
calling? The way Moses puts it, though, turns into a moment of great
personal revelation on God’s part. He names Himself. Personally, I
think that it was that question that actually caused
God to give Himself a personal name. I-AM contains two of the most
important attributes of God: He exists and He is a person, not just
“The Force.” He
tells Moses, say to the children of Israel, I-AM, the God of your
fathers has sent me to you; and this is My name forever, a
remembrance to all generations. Then God goes on to lay out the
mission. But Moses still tries to get out this. He says, but look –
they aren’t going to believe me. The scripture doesn’t say this,
but I think the Lord heaved a sigh. Then
He
says, whatcha got in your hand there? And he goes on to give Moses
the ability to show three signs and wonders. Each one is designed to
overcome the potential disbelief of Israel and maybe Moses too. Moses
still resists, saying, Please Lord, I am no good at public speaking,
slow
of speech and slow of tongue.
God once again shows how much He wants to be personally right there
with him. He
probably picked Moses in part because
he
was slow of speech, instead of some fast-talker who wound be prone to
jump in on his own. Go,
He says, I will be your mouth and teach you what you have to say.
Even then, Moses asks one more time to please send someone else. Now
God officially gets angry, the scripture says so, and says okay,
we’ll work with Aaron your brother. He’ll be glad to see you.
Even now, God is more interested in having a living relationship. And
Moses is still scared.
Moses
goes home and asks his father-in-law
if
it’s okay to go back to Egypt and see if his people are still
alive. Jethro says go in peace. God
comes
to him in Midian and says,
don’t worry, the men who sought your life are dead. So
Moses runs
out of excuses and
finally loads his wife and kids on a donkey and goes. He
meets his brother at Mt. Horeb and together they go to the elders of
Israel and tell them what has happened. The people believe them; but
when Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh and ask to let the people go for
three days’ journey
into the desert, of course Pharaoh refuses. Not only that, he decides
the Hebrews are a bunch of slackers and makes their work harder. When
the Hebrew taskmasters tell Moses what’s going on, Moses reacts
once again out of his own guilt and fear, asking God, why did you
send me? Why haven’t you rescued the people yet? Clearly he was not
listening when God told him the plan. He
does not have the kind of trust that God wants him to have. God
makes a series of eloquent speeches about who He is and what He
intends to do with Pharaoh. Then Moses
seems to be convinced. Once he and Aaron begin
doing signs and wonders, Moses does not complain again.
God
gives them detailed instructions, which they carry out.
Evidence
of this comes when the people are camped by the Red Sea. Pharaoh's
chariots have come after them, having once again hardened their
hearts, just as the Lord had said they would. The people look back
and see the Egyptians coming after them, and they cry out to the Lord
and go to Moses to complain (which might be the same thing). Looking
at the situation in the light of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the
Israelites complain
that it would have been
better to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. Moses
has the answer of faith: fear not, stand still and see the salvation
of I-AM. Moses
knows that they are trapped, and unlike with all the signs he
performed before this, he has not been told the plan in advance; but
this time he doesn’t cry out “why me?” He trusts in the Lord,
and of course, this leads to the greatest sign yet, the parting of
the Red Sea. Moses has come a long way in his relationship with God.
Now,
the people have been murmurring against Moses and Aaron whenever they
saw that things were getting bad. On the other side of the Red Sea,
for a few moments, they all joined Moses in singing praises to the
Lord, and Miriam and the women danced. Walking across a sea bed
that’s dry, with walls of water on either side, then turning around
on the other side to see Pharaoh's chariots and horsemen engulfed as
the waters returned, is a pretty convincing sign that God is looking
out for you. The happiness lasted for three days, as Moses led them
out into the desert of Shur, with
no water, and
came to a place whose water was bitter. The murmuring started up
again. Moses cries to the Lord and the water is turned sweet. Moses
is still trusting the Lord, willing to do whatever He says. Through
him, the Lord tries to tell Israel to listen to Him, do what is right
in His (the Lord’s not Moses’)
sight, and follow instructions, promising that He will put none of
the diseases on them that he had put on the Egyptians, “for I am
the Lord, who heals thee.” This
is another way of expressing the alternative. Instead of following
their own sense of good and evil, they are told to follow God’s
sense of good and evil. The only way to know this is through a
relationship with Him. Then
they came to Elim, with the twelve wells of water and seventy palm
trees, where
they can rest a while, with nothing to complain about.
Next
they head toward Mt. Sinai, and again at least some of the people
start to complain because they get hungry. God responds by
instituting bread and quails from heaven to feed them. If it were not
for the people complaining
out of their
Knowledge of Good and Evil, the Lord would have had few opportunities
to show his love and patience. What
He keeps saying He wants is for them to know that he is I-AM, their
god. He wants a relationship of love and trust; but the people’s
trust is short-lived, in spite of the miracles. They
keep choosing to follow their sense of good and evil – what appears
to be good or bad for them.
This
is probably a good time for me to assert that following the Knowledge
of Good and Evil is indeed a choice. The alternative is following the
Spirit of God,
ie a living relationship with God, a
lamp unto our feet.
The Knowledge of Good and Evil is deeply embedded in us; but just as
we are not bound to follow our instinctual impulses like the animals
do, we are not bound to follow these other things: we choose. Many of
the children of Israel kept choosing to
follow their
own sense
of Good and Evil.
In
contrast, when they come near Mt. Sinai, Moses’
father-in-law Jethro hears of them and comes, bringing Moses’ wife
and children. Moses
had sent them back to Midian at some earlier point, and Jethro had
taken them in. He clearly has a kinder, more loving relationship with
Moses than Laban had with Jacob. When he comes to the Israeli
encampment at the foot of Mt. Sinai, after proper greetings have been
exchanged, Moses tells Jethro all about what has happened, and what
was Jethro’s reaction? He “rejoiced for all the goodness which
the Lord had done to Israel” and he blessed the Lord and said, “Now
I know that I-AM is greater than all gods.” Later,
he offers Moses a suggestion out of his concern for Moses getting
burned out. He tells him to find trustworthy men who hate
covetousness and delegate some authority to them. God is always
wanting more people to join in and know Him better. Even
so, Jethro finishes his advice to Moses by saying, “If you shall do
this thing, and
God commands you so,
you’ll be able to endure.” So even then he is not relying on his
sense of what’s good, or what God’s ‘policy’ might be
construed as. Jethro understands the nature of a living relationship.
7 Job
“Bad”
Things Can Happen to “Good” People
What
would happen if a child of Adam was perfect and upright, fearing God
and avoiding evil?
It
is not at all clear when, or
indeed if, Job
lived. More
scholarly people than I am
say
this book is structured like a heroic poem and written in
deliberately archaic language, a sort of fairy tale even in Moses’
time, so that perhaps the story really is an allegorical poem, like
the Song of Songs. I am reluctant to believe that because there is no
reason for this story to be fiction. The
prophet Ezekiel mentions Job, or rather God does as he speaks through
him, and groups him in with Noah and Daniel as men of righteousness;
and James in his letter speaks of hearing about the patience of Job,
though his reference would work just as well if Job is merely an
allegorical character. It could just as easily be that the events
of
this book
actually took place, just as I believe the creation story told in
Genesis actually took place. The World is His literature; the
Scripture is more like Cliff’s Notes. Like every other part of the
Scripture,
this story is a many-faceted gem, rich in meaning; but
one
thing it illustrates is
how
“bad” things happening to “good” people is man’s point of
view as flawed by the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
At
the beginning of the story, Job is described by
our genuinely omniscient narrator
as
perfect
and upright, fearing God and shunning
evil. He
has seven sons and three daughters, plenty of wealth, and is said
to be
the greatest man of the East. Up
in Heaven, the
“sons of God,” by which most people assume is meant angels, come
before His throne and present themselves, including Satan, whose
name means ‘the accuser, the
adversary’.
The
story doesn’t explain
why God allowed him
into His presence;
the
only reason I can think of is that God wanted him there so this story
could happen. God asks him where he has come from, and Satan answers
that he came from “going to and fro in the earth, and walking up
and down in it.” This is echoed in what Peter wrote to us about
Satan walking around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
Nothing much has changed with Satan. Knowing both him and Job, God
issues the challenge, and Satan falls for it. So the trial of Job’s
faith begins.
Satan
is given leave to destroy all Job’s wealth and kill his children,
and yet Job does not “sin nor charge God foolishly,” which is to
say, he does not charge Him with doing
anything that isn’t perfectly within His rights and nature.
Satan returns to God in humiliated defeat, but snipes that nobody
cares much about their wealth as long as they have their health. He
is like so many people, who assume everyone has their
values. So God lets him have another round and Job is stricken with
sore boils all over his body. Still he maintains “his integrity”,
even against his wife’s advice, and doesn’t curse God. “Shall
we accept good at the hand of God, and not evil?” he asks. In
all this, he
does not sin with his lips, says the Narrator.
‘Evil’,
like ‘sin’, carries with it today a narrow religious connotation
that it did not have until around a hundred years ago. Evil
is commonly thought of as a quality that by definition is
antithetical to God’s nature, and something that characterizes
Satan. Thus it is very confusing, to say the least, for God to say by
the prophet Isaiah, “I form the light and create darkness; I make
peace and create evil; I the Lord, do all these things.”
This
is the King James, but other translations use ‘evil’ too. We
could hedge a bit and say that in contrast to peace, the word evil
means something more like calamity. Even so, to
the casual observer, this is a contradiction. How could God create
evil if He is all loving and good? The only reasonable answer is that
the
good-evil axis is not the only way to judge. In the garden of Eden,
there were two central trees. By only considering the good-evil
perspective, we flatten out the world and distort it. We look only on
the outward appearance, the surface, and not the full richness that
appears with considering the dimension of Life.
Calamities, distresses, injuries, things that we so easily identify
as bad, are not necessarily so simple
from
God’s perspective.
The
exchanges between Job and his wife and friends amount to
misunderstandings due to different perspectives. The wife and friends
advance arguments based on the Knowledge of Good and Evil, whereas
Job answers from the perspective of loving and trusting in God.
After
the bout with his wife, Job is visited by three friends. The sight
of him in his distress and bereavement is so shocking to them that
they tear their clothes, put dust on their own heads, and sit with
him unable to speak for seven days. Clearly,
they are moved by their friend’s losses of health, wealth, and
family.
Then
Job curses the day he was born, admiring the peace of death. He is
genuinely miserable but cannot understand why this has happened.
Then
Eliphaz the Temanite says, you’ve always been such a good guy, so
now that you have trouble, shouldn’t your goodness give you hope?
Still, you reap what you sow, right? So you must have done some bad
things to end up like this. Nobody is so good that God doesn’t
find fault in them, even the angels, never mind men of clay. So ask
God to show you what you did wrong.
Job
answers, the only thing I want to ask God is to let me die without
ever having denied the words of the Holy One. Why would I rely on
myself [ie self-righteousness] to justify my case? You guys are no
help to me.
Bildad
the Shuhite says, God is just; your children died for their own
sins, but if you earnestly seek God, he will restore you to your
former wealth, even more. Those who forget God will be destitute.
Job
answers, yeah God is just, his wisdom is profound and his power is
vast. How can I argue with Him? Though I were righteous, I would
only ask him to have mercy on me, not argue right and wrong. If only
there were a mediator between him and me, someone to take away God’s
rod [see I Tim 2:5]. I would talk to him, but as it stands right
now, there’s nobody.
Job
goes on to say to God, don’t condemn me, but show me why you are
contending with me. You made me and you can unmake me. Do you have
eyes of flesh and see as mortal man sees [ie just the surface good
and evil]? You know I’m not guilty, so what is the issue?
Zophar
the Naamathite says, I wish God would speak up and let you know that
your iniquities deserve more than you’ve gotten. God is so much
greater than we are, how can we know anything? But reach out to him
and put away your wickedness, and you’ll be okay.
Job
answers, I know God as well as you do. The whole world is in his
hands. I surely would like to speak with God, and reason with him;
but you guys are a bunch of quacks and I wish you would be quiet.
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. He will be my salvation.
God, just tell me why you’re doing this to me.
Eliphaz
answers, you can’t be as good a man as you say, look at you.
Everybody knows that the wicked never prosper in the end.
Job
replies, you guys are miserable comforters, trying to lecture me
about right and wrong. If I were in your place, I would be trying to
offer comfort and encouragement. Oh God! You have worn me out.
Ungodly people just jeer at me. You have devastated me, but my hands
are clean. Even now, my witness is in heaven. I wish someone could
plead for a man before God, as a man can plead for a friend in
court. In a few years I’ll die, but the thoughts of my heart
change night into day.
Bildad
answers, enough with the long speeches; do you think we’re stupid?
What is your anger going to accomplish? The wicked are doomed to die
like this, like you.
Job
replies, ten times you have reproached me, putting yourselves above
me and using my humiliation against me. But God has done this to me,
he is angry and has set everyone against me, my wife, my servants,
neighborhood boys, even my own body. Have pity on me my friends. Oh,
I wish my words could be written in a book! I know that my redeemer
lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth [thus
prophesying of the coming of Christ]. And after my body has been
destroyed, yet will I see God with my own eyes [thus prophesying of
the Resurrection]. How my heart yearns for that! If you keep
hounding me thinking the problem lies in me, beware of the
punishment of the Almighty.
Zophar
answers, your rebuke is an insult. Since Adam was put on the earth,
we have been told that the triumphs of the wicked are short-lived.
There is no escape.
Job
answers, hush your mouth and let me tell you something that
frightens me. The wicked seem to prosper plenty, and their children
party all the time. They see no profit in following God. And yet
plenty of them live and die without seeing God’s wrath. So don’t
try to console me with your nonsense.
Eliphaz
answers, what good would your righteousness do God? Is He reproving
you because of your reverence? Isn’t your wickedness great? Your
sinning endless? You’ve done all kinds of bad stuff, I’m sure.
Still, if you submit to Him, receive His instruction, and you will
be restored, with plenty of silver and gold. Your prayers will be
answered and you will be able to help the needy.
Job
answers, oh, I wish I knew where He was, so I could come to him with
my complaint. Then He would answer me and I would understand. In His
presence the righteous can argue their innocence, and I would be
delivered from my judge. I can’t see Him, not in the east, west,
north or south. He knows the way I’m going, so when he has tried
me, I will come forth as gold [echoed in I Peter 1:7]. I have
followed Him and treasured His words more than my daily bread [Deut.
8:3]. He has plans and he accomplishes them; and He has many more,
that’s what terrifies me.
Bildad
says, God is powerful and fearsome. He controls the heavens, and who
can number his army? How can a man possibly be clean before Him?
Even the Moon and stars are imperfect to Him. How much less a man,
born of woman? We are just maggots.
Job
answers, well aren’t you the helpful one! God is indeed vastly
more powerful than you can imagine. As long as I live, I will not
speak wickedness, nor deceit. May my enemy be punished as a wicked
man, who has no hope in God no matter how rich he becomes. People
know how to mine precious metals and stones, but where will they
find wisdom? It’s more valuable than anything and cannot simply be
bought. God alone understands the way to wisdom. He sees to the ends
of the earth, everything under heaven. And here is what He says to
man: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; departing from
evil is understanding.
Job
continues his parable, saying, I long for the good old days when I
was in my prime, God was known in my house, my children were around
me, and I was respected in town. I helped the poor, the widows, the
strangers. I comforted everyone around me. Now I am mocked, by men
whose fathers I wouldn’t let sit with my sheepdogs. God has
humbled me and these people are emboldened to kick me when I’m
down. God, I cry out to you and you don’t answer. Didn’t I weep
for those in trouble, and grieve for the poor? Isn’t destruction
for the wicked, misfortune for evildoers? Don’t you know me and
every step I take? If there is any lustful fantasy, any deceit, any
way my heart went after appearances, then punish me. If I went after
wealth or idolatry, then I should be punished for that too. I have
never wished evil to those who hated me. I have always opened my
door to the traveler. I have never tried to cover my sins like Adam
did, nor succumb to peer pressure. If my land has any complaint
against me, let it bring forth thistles and cockles instead of wheat
and barley. I’m done.
By
clinging to his love for God, Job blurts
out many interesting ideas that run the gamut from Adam to Christ;
and his three friends cannot refute his arguments.
They
can’t believe
God could
be unjust,
so
Job or his children must have sinned, or sown something bad that he
is now reaping; but
Job
keeps insisting that he is blameless.
We
are at an impasse. The
comforters keep looking at this situation in terms of good and evil,
and Job keeps looking at it in terms of his relationship to God. Even
so, Job commits a sin here, in believing that God has brought evil
upon him because He’s angry with him.
Out
of nowhere, Elihu
the
son of Barachel the Buzite,
feels compelled to speak. Elihu
is a Christ-like figure, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say
a Son-like figure (Elihu means ‘my God himself’ and son of
Barachel means literally, son of ‘God Blesses’). Before the
Scripture says he was angry, there was no mention of anyone other
than the three miserable comforters being present for the
conversation. Maybe he was really there all along, but his sudden
appearance feels
like when Christ appeared in the room with the disciples after His
resurrection. It says Elihu
was angry that Job had justified himself rather than God, and angry
that the three friends had no answer. He says he’s a young man, but
that inspiration can come to anyone, and in him the Spirit of the
Almighty was welling up like new wine in a wine-skin. He tells Job he
is, according to Job’s previously expressed wish, here in God’s
place, though he be made of clay, so there’s nothing to be afraid
of.
He
approaches
Job on
the relationship plane, saying
You
say you are pure and
yet God has started treating you
like an enemy; well
He doesn’t have to answer for anything He does, but
you
are being unjust. God
speaks
repeatedly to warn people.
Sometimes
God speaks in dreams, sometimes with pain, to save people from their
sin and pride. If anyone repents, God will restore him to
righteousness. Again and again, God rescues them. With all His power
and judgment, He will not afflict us.
Then
Elihu turns to the three friends. He says, listen
now and let’s figure out together what is good. Job says he is
innocent but that God has taken away his vindication. Is
there anyone like Job? This
remark echoes nicely what the Father said in the beginning of the
story.
Approaching
the three friends on the good-evil plane, Elihu repeats some of their
arguments, that God will not do wrong, and rewards everyone justly
according to their deeds. He
goes on to say that God is the ultimate in justice and He sees all.
This
is all true. What’s more, even though God did not actually afflict
Job directly (Satan did), He actually takes responsibility for it.
After all, He did allow it to happen. What is unjust of Job is for
him to
say that he is being treated as a wicked man, one of God’s enemies,
that he has lost his standing and he doesn’t know why; but we, the
readers know. God permitted all these bad things to be done to Job,
not to punish him, since there was nothing to punish him for, but to
demonstrate
to Satan and all the world
the depths of
his faith in
and love for
God. I am saying that these bad things that happened are not really
bad.
As with Christ’s suffering and death, these seemingly
bad
things were allowed, for which God takes responsibility, to
accomplish something good. Elihu says (Job 37:5) “God thunders
marvelously
with his voice; great things he does, which we cannot comprehend.”
And
suddenly, the Lord God himself speaks to Job out of a whirlwind. He
says gird up your loins like a man, for I will ask you and demand an
answer: where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Who
set the dimensions of the universe? God goes on to ask questions we
would consider rhetorical, whose asking points out Job’s lack of
perspective, knowledge,
and power.
These questions, by the way, are full of cool hints about the nature
of the universe and the earth in particular. God
finishes by saying, so you who want to criticize, do you have the
answers? Job says, I’m vile, what can I say? I will put my hand
over my mouth, I’ve said enough already. God answers and goes
another round, saying so you’re going to discredit my judgment just
to prove you’re right? Go on, let’s see you do my job. And God
goes on to describe what He does, again giving a lot of cool hints as
to the nature of the world and some
notable monsters, one
of whom seems to symbolize pride.
Job
then confesses his mistake and apologizes.
Then
the Lord God turns to Eliphaz and tells him and his friends that He
is angry with them because they have not spoken of Him correctly, and
the only way they can restore themselves with Him is by offering a
sacrifice and asking Job to pray for them. Then, after Job prays for
them, God restores Job to health and prosperity, and gives him seven
more sons and three more daughters.
Notice
that all through the story, the friends take turns speaking to Job;
Job answers them back, and then turns and speaks to God directly;
Elihu speaks first to the three friends, then to Job; Finally the
Lord God speaks directly to Job, then to the friends. God chastens
Job but defends him to the friends, as a loving father would his
child. This was not a punishment: it was a trial of Job’s faith,
allowing the whole world to see how great it was, more precious than
gold.
So
the sins of the friends are covered by a sacrifice and Job’s
prayers; Job
is elevated in his relationship with God, as a result of his response
to chastisement, to an even better relationship than he had at the
beginning.
He
lives a hundred and forty years after this, and see his children to
the fourth generation.
8Kings of Israel - Saul and David
The
children of Israel, after living in the promised land for some four
hundred years, decided they wanted a king like other nations had. Up
to that time, they had been “judged” by various prophets
beginning with Joshua (well, really beginning with Moses). Remember,
God wanted to be there Himself, speaking to the people, shepherding
them directly; but the presence of God was so upsetting to the
Israelites that they thought they were going to die whenever God
spoke, so they told Moses, then Joshua, you talk with God and just
tell us what to do. God acquiesced to this arrangement. At least He
was still the acknowledged leader, and the prophet spoke to the
people in His name.
A
king would be a step further away from this and Samuel didn’t like
it; and
God told him, Listen to what they say; they haven’t rejected you:
they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. So go and
tell them what it will be like to have a human king. Samuel goes and
tells them, Here’s what it will be like: this king you want will
take your sons and make them his household servants, your daughters
too will become his cooks and bakers; he will take your best fields
and vineyards and oliveyards and give them to his officers; he will
take a tenth of all your stuff, and make you his slaves; and when you
cry out to The
Lord God,
He will not hear you.
The
people wanted a king anyway; they were willing to let a man rule over
them if he would go and fight their battles for them. So Samuel finds
them a king from among them.
Saul
was everything they expected. He was head and shoulders taller than
anyone, and handsome. That
is how Samuel describes him. This
guy has the right stuff,
to judge by the outward appearance, but soon enough we find out that
there are problems with the heart.
First,
Saul
comes looking for Samuel in order to get some help in finding his
father’s lost asses. God had told Samuel the day before that Saul
was coming and this was to be the new king. When
they meet, Samuel says, Don’t worry about the asses, for they have
been found. Come with me to dinner and I will tell you all that is in
your heart. Don’t you know that the heart of all Israel is set on
you and your father’s house? Saul
says, I’m a Benjamite, the smallest tribe of Israel, and my family
the smallest clan of the Benjamites. Why are you talking to me like
this?Saul’s reaction is not
one of humility, but one
of low self-esteem.
In
his letter to the Romans, Paul advises us not to think of ourselves
more highly than we
ought, but to think “soberly, according to the measure of faith.”
Now in these later times, we understand that a man also
should
not think of himself more lowly than
he ought,
and the one error is a reflection of the other. To think of oneself
soberly is to esteem
oneself
accurately
and
in accord with the faith God has given in the heart. Too
low
self-esteem, just like
too
high,
is the result of turning the Knowledge of Good and Evil upon
yourself. You will not judge as God does.
Samuel
places Saul at the most prominent seat in a dinner party of thirty
and gives him the choice meat he has saved for the occasion. The next
day, Samuel
gets Saul alone and anoints him king and tells him what’s going to
happen next. Among
other things, Samuel says, “And the Spirit
of I-AM will come upon you and you will be turned into another man.”
Samuel then advises him to do as occasion serves, for God is with
you. “And
so it was that when he had turned his back to go from Samuel, God
gave him another heart: and all those signs came to pass.”
Saul
gets home and tells his father about meeting Samuel and hearing that
the asses were found, but does not reveal the part about becoming
king. Later when all Israel is gathered before Samuel for the public,
ceremonial identifying of the new king, Saul disrupts
it
by hiding himself. God tells where Saul is hidden and they go
and fetch
him, and finish the job of making him king.
Saul
still seems not to get it. He just goes home and tends to the family
cattle. Then he hears about a threat to the
clan of Jabesh
and the Spirit of God falls on him, changing his heart again. He
takes command and gets all Israel to go and fight, winning the
victory again. Then he goes back in triumph to Gilgal to see Samuel
and re-establish his kingship. Samuel
once more explains to them the offense that wanting a king is to God,
and this time they seem convinced; but they still want to have their
king. They ask Samuel to pray for them. See, they still don’t want
to talk to God directly. Samuel says, “Fear not; you have done all
this wickedness; yet
turn not aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all
your heart.” God is even
now willing
to overlook their offense if they would only turn their hearts toward
him. God gave His reluctant blessing on the king, and will let that
stand, as long as the people will worship Him and not some idol or
their king in His place. This is a good illustration of how He
considers the heart and relationships above issues of Good and Evil,
even though He is fully capable of judging on that basis. God knows
that Good vs Evil is not the basis on which to judge, even for Him.
Samuel
finishes this exchange with, “Only fear I-AM and serve Him in truth
with all your heart; for consider how great things He has done for
you. But if you will still do wickedly, you will be consumed, both
you and your king.” As Jesus points out much later, God is a
spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in
truth, not
just go through the motions.
Of
course, both Saul and the people turn aside. This loving God, so
worthy of being loved, has chosen the most ornery,
good-and-evil-oriented tribe of people on earth to be called by His
name. They test
the
limits of His mercy and love, revealing
some of
them for us.
God
tells Samuel to go to Jesse, another Bethlehemite, because He has
provided Himself
a king among his sons. It’s clear that the cultural expectation, ie
the collective Knowledge of Good and Evil, is that Jesse’s oldest
son, another big good-looking guy, is the Lord’s choice, and
even Samuel judges by the outward appearance;
but God
says no, don’t look at his handsome
face
or height.
I-AM does not see as man sees things; for man looks on the outward
appearance but
I-AM looks on the heart.
Eventually Jesse runs out of sons to show Samuel, and they
have to go and fetch David, not because he was hiding like Saul did,
but because he was the youngest and thus stuck with shepherd duty,
since
this king stuff obviously had nothing to do with him.
He too is healthy and handsome, but he is the one that the LORD tells
Samuel to anoint as the new king. Samuel does it in front of all
David’s brothers. The
Spirit of God comes upon David, but unlike with Saul, he doesn’t
get “another heart”. The one he has is just fine.
In
fact, when Samuel describes David to Saul, he says God has sought a
man after His own heart. David
is one of the most thoroughly described people in the Bible. Not only
are many of his adventures told in the books of Samuel, but in the
Psalms we have extensive illustration of his inner thoughts and
meditations. David
was courageous, and crafty. He was a talented musician and composer.
He was passionate and childlike, at least when it came to worshiping
God. Though
David
was a sinner like the rest of us, and his sins had consequences for
Israel to this day, yet in his heart he loved God. “My
heart is fixed,” he says in Psalm 57 and elsewhere. His
love of God may not always have guided his choices, but it was always
there.
Perhaps
the easiest story to understand is David’s victory over Goliath.
The only reason he was even there was, as the youngest, his mother
sent him to the battle to bring his brothers some food. When he sees
Goliath come out and taunt the army of Israel, he is
incensed that anyone should get away with insulting God, that was how
he saw it. So he goes
to Saul and says
let me kill this guy. Saul says you’re just a kid! David says I
have defended my sheep against lions and bears, and so
will it be with
this uncircumcised Philistine, who
defies the armies of the living god.
Saul tries to fit him out in armour and a sword, but David rejects
them, being unfamiliar with such equipment. As he says to Goliath,
you come at me with a sword and spear,
but I come in the name of I-AM of
armies, the god of the armies of Israel.
Acting in faith, believing he was obeying God, was all the armour
David needed.
One
of the worst mistakes David makes is when he
sees
Bathsheba,
a
woman of great beauty, bathing
herself on the roof at night. The reason she is out there is she is
fulfilling the Law after finishing menstruation.
David
asks who she is, and
sends
some messengers to bring her to him.
Apparently,
kings of Israel are no different from the kings Abraham encountered
in his travels, and nobody bats an eye at the idea that he wants her,
even though she is married. He
takes her and gets her pregnant while her husband, Uriah
the Hittite,
is off fighting for him.
After David finds
out she’s pregnant, he calls for Uriah to come see him, figuring he
will sleep with his wife when he gets home and
no one the wiser.
Uriah
proves
to be a noble soldier who sleeps with the servants instead, out of
esprit
de corps,
even
after David tries to get him drunk. So David
conspires to have him killed in battle, and
then takes Bathsheba into his house.
She
becomes his wife and bears him a son. Again,
nobody else in this story seems to bat an eye
at
this
cowardly betrayal
(though
nobody but David has all the pieces of the story),
but
the narrator of this story, whom I take to be the Spirit of God by
the hand of Samuel, says plainly, “But the thing that David had
done displeased I-AM.”
Just
in case you were wondering. In
the First Book of Kings, 15:5 it says, “...David did that which was
right in the eyes of I-AM, and turned not aside from any thing that
He commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of
Uriah the Hittite.”
God
(via the
prophet Nathan)
tells him a
parable illustrating how He sees it, and then says that
the sword will never depart from his house because
“you have despised me.” He also declares that “I will raise up
evil against you out of your own house, and I will take
your
wives right before your eyes and give them to your neighbor. You did
this [took your neighbor’s wife] secretly, but I will do it in
broad daylight.”
Adultery
and abuse of power are two things God complains about more than most
other sins; and yet David
is said to be a man “after God’s own heart”. So in what way is
he similar to God’s heart? In
this moment of public rebuke, David repents from his Knowledge of
Good and Evil, turning instead toward his love and trust in God. He
says, “I have sinned against I-AM.”
He
might
have told himself and
Nathan that
it was for the good of the country, as politicians everywhere have
justified themselves to this day. David
had even declared that the man in the parable, who turns out to be
himself, should die because he had no pity. But Nathan answers, I-AM
has put away your sin: you will not die; but because you have given
great occasion to the enemies of I-AM to blaspheme, the child is
going to die. Here
is the lesson about God’s heart: He wants to live by life and love
and relationship, not out of right and wrong. Thus He forgives sins,
when we turn toward Him. But
there are consequences.
Now
comes one more illustration of David’s relationship with God: he
goes into fasting and prayer, hoping to change God’s mind. When the
child dies, David gives it up, saying, “I will go to him, but he
will not return to me.” He is the God of the living and not the
dead.
Jesus, the Adam v2.0
He
was born of a woman, but not conceived with a man, thus escaping the
vandalism of Adam v1.1, for whom the whole world was cursed and even
now groans until Jesus’ glory is fully revealed. He was human, yet
he was able to live his life without resorting to the Knowledge of
Good and Evil. He lived his life in a loving relationship with God
the Father. This made him often misunderstood, even by his disciples.
Many of the incidents recorded in the Gospels are confusing when
viewed through the lens of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; by
examining some of them perhaps we can illustrate this idea.
1 What
Did the Virgin Birth Do For Jesus?
Most
people know that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that he lived a life
without sin. At least that is the claim, and I believe it. Of course
there are skeptics who question whether a woman could conceive by the
Holy Spirit, and of course they really believe that Mary simply lied
about having sex. But if you accept the idea that Mary did not have
sex with any man before she allowed God to impregnate her (which
she plainly stated to the angel who visited her),
the question is why did that get Jesus out from under original sin?
He was still born of a woman after all. And ALL, men and women, have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, including Mother
Mary.
I believe that the answer lies in the difference
between men and women, between Adam and Eve. Recall that it was Adam
who was made out of the dust (heb. adamah)
of the universe: he was made from the elements of the physical
creation. The woman was made from a piece of the living Adam, not
from adamah. And so, it was Adam's sin that brought sin into the
world (Romans 5:12-14). The woman was beguiled - such a more accurate
idea than merely 'deceived' - into eating the fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. Adam did it knowing full well that it
was against God's command; he did it simply because Eve put it in
front of him, typical guy; but they both received the knowledge of
good and evil. When you look at God's reaction to this, you see that
the consequences of her sin were visited upon Eve's body (and
those of her daughters),
but the consequences of Adam's sin were visited upon the whole
world.
So it is that the generations of Adam, propagating
out from him like a wave of smoke, inherit the knowledge of good and
evil, which causes us all to go astray. Jesus avoided this
inheritance by being conceived by God himself. This is a mystery, but
having God for his father disrupted that original sin nature. He
gained his authentic human nature from Mary his mother, and so was
able to live a life, if only for 33 years, in loving fellowship with
the Father as we were all originally designed to do.
If
all he had wanted to do was set an example, he could have gone on
living indefinitely, to the utter confusion of everyone around him;
but there was much more to the plan, of course. He voluntarily gave
up his life for us, a spotless sacrifice for sin that ultimately
broke its power, and God raised Him from the dead a glorified new
Adam. Now we too can choose to give up our lives, in a metaphorical
way, surrendering our will to the Father by identifying with Jesus
the Christ, ie the anointed sacrifice, and God will raise us up too,
in Christ. Following Him out of love, we can receive the power to
live life rejecting the knowledge of good and evil, abiding with the
Father and the Son in the Spirit now and in the world to come.
2 When Jesus was a Child
When
he was twelve years old, Jesus went with his family to Jerusalem for
the Passover feast. They did this every year with a company of other
pilgrims, walking from Nazareth. On the way home, Joseph and Mary
didn’t notice that Jesus had stayed behind, but supposing that he
was somewhere in the group, they went a day’s journey toward
Nazareth. When they stopped for the night they couldn’t find him.
You don’t have to be a Jewish mother to imagine that they were
really upset about this! Far being an example of child-neglect, as
some people these days might suppose, this was a fairly reasonable
misunderstanding on their part. Still, they started back to Jerusalem
looking for him, and searched for three days before they found him
sitting in the Temple. This kid was not just sitting quietly, lost
and lonely – he was discussing the scriptures with the rabbis, and
everyone who heard him was amazed at the things he was saying. When
Mary comes up and says, Son, how could you do this to us? Your father
and I have been searching for you for three days! The kid answers,
Why were you searching? Didn’t you know that I must be in my
father’s house?
Though
it sounds like a smart-aleck answer, it really wasn’t. Jesus knew
who his real father was, and he couldn’t imagine why his family
would not figure that he was there. I want to point out here that
Mary is quoted as saying “Your father and I” referring to Joseph.
No doubt this is simply a relational shorthand and not the seed of
some conspiracy theory or argument about the Gospel being
inconsistent. Joseph undoubtedly took on the role of Jesus’ father
in the practical day-to-day life of the family. I myself have six
grandchildren with whom I have no direct biological connection, but
the relationship exists. On the other hand, this was a moment when it
became important for Jesus to clarify things.
He
may have had a youthful lack of perspective, but he didn’t mean it
as any kind of disrespect. It’s pretty easy to imagine how the kid
heard some rabbi say something and started talking to him about it,
and the conversation just went on from there – for three days! That
may not have been so unusual in that culture, having long discussions
of the scriptures among a bunch of elite rabbis, but for such a
discussion to include a twelve-year-old would have been unheard of.
It must have been a fascinating discussion. This did not mark the
beginning of Jesus ministry either. No, he went home and “was
subject” to Joseph and Mary, growing up with increasing wisdom and
favor with God and his community. The Scripture says nothing more
about Jesus’ childhood. The next thing we hear about is when he
began his ministry at “about the age of thirty”.
3 When Jesus Was Baptised
In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, John the son of
Zacharias came out of the wilderness where he had been living and
started proclaiming that the Kingdom of Heaven was immanent and
everyone needed to get ready for the coming of Messiah. Something
about his preaching had many people convinced and they all come out
to see him by the river Jordan. When the crowd got there, John said
to them, “Oh, you brood of snakes! Who warned you to flee the wrath
to come?”
Not the most welcoming message; but people hadn’t really turned
to God. They thought they were doing okay under the Law of Moses.
They were God’s chosen people. Their Knowledge of Good and Evil had
them justifying themselves and it was always the other guy who was a
sinner. Once John convinced them that they too needed to get
straight, they asked, as they had been asking since Moses, “what do
we need to do?”
John did not have a pat little formula; he wanted them to turn
toward the Lord God. Some examples he gave as indicating that people
had done this (which he characterized as “fruits worthy of
repentance”, were for tax collectors to only collect what was owed
under the law (not as much as they could scare people out of), or
those who had two coats giving one of them to someone who had none.
As a way of demonstrating their repentance, they would allow John
or one of his disciples to dip (greek, ‘baptismos’) them in the
water, ceremonially washing away their old sins. John was forceful
enough that people wondered if he himself might be the Anointed One;
but he insisted he was not, and that the one who was coming after him
was so much greater that he, John, was unworthy to even loosen his
sandal laces. “I am baptizing you in water, but He will baptize you
in the Holy Spirit.”
When Jesus comes into the middle of this scene, wanting to be
baptized like the others, John is surprised. “I need to be baptized
by you, and do you come to me?” he asks. Clearly he did not think
Jesus had need of any repentance, and he was correct. Jesus had never
erred into conducting his life on any basis but loving and pleasing
God. “Let it be so now,” Jesus answers, “for thus it becomes us
to fulfill all righteousness.” So John baptized him, and when he
came out of the water, John saw the Spirit of God come down from
Heaven like a dove and rest on him. There was also a voice from
Heaven saying, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”
These were signs that John had been told to watch for, and so when he
saw them, he confirmed for the crowd that this truly was the Anointed
One, the son of God. I truly believe that this action fulfilled both
John’s and Jesus’ rightful relationship, to each other and to
God.
As with the baptism of John, so also the baptism of Jesus, as
performed by his disciples, is an outward sign, a confession to the
world, of an inward change in the believer: we don’t get baptized
in water in order to enter the body of Christ: we get baptized in
water to signify that
we have been baptized into the body of Christ.
4 When Jesus Was Tempted By the Adversary
Matthew 4; Luke 4
Right after Jesus was baptized by John, he was led by the Spirit
of God into the wilderness and fasted for forty days. And you might
not think this necessary, but the Scripture takes the trouble to say,
“and afterward he was hungry.” If you have ever been led by the
Spirit to fast (and I hope you have), you will know that you don’t
especially feel hungry. Jesus did, perhaps because the time of
fasting was coming to an end. So Satan comes to him and says, “If
you’re the son of God, command these stones to become bread.”
This attitude of “prove it” comes up often during Jesus’
ministry. But Jesus has nothing to prove. His equality with God was
nothing to be grasped at; for him it was a simple abiding truth. “Man
does not live by bread alone,” he quotes, “but by every word that
comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus asserts that we are more than
just physical beings. Even though he was hungry, and it’s a simple
bit of good/bad thinking to say if you’re hungry it would be good
to eat, Jesus demonstrates that there are larger issues. Food isn’t
the only thing that keeps us alive: “My food is to do the will of
Him who sent me,” Jesus says after his talk with the Samaritan
woman at Jacob’s well.
Matthew and Luke tell the next two incidents in a different order,
so I infer that the order doesn’t much matter. Satan takes him to a
pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and says, “If you’re the son
of God, throw yourself down,” and quotes Scripture at him to effect
that angels will protect him. Jesus answers that the Scripture also
says don’t put Yahweh your God to the test. Satan’s legal
reasoning is just more Knowledge of Good and Evil looking at the
surface, without wisdom. Such reasoning has caused much suffering in
the world. Satan also takes him to the top of a high mountain and
shows him all the kingdoms of the earth, saying I’ll give them all
to you if you fall down and worship me. Having tried to beguile,
which after all worked with Eve, Satan resorts to a bald-faced bribe.
It didn’t work. This temptation is at once much greater and much
more obviously a ploy to betray his love for the Father, and Jesus
answers, “Get outa here, Satan! It is written that you shall
worship Yahweh your God, and Him only shall you serve.” Jesus’
love of the Father gave him the strength not to betray Him.
5 When Jesus Healed On the Sabbath
When he got back from his temptations in the wilderness, Jesus
starts preaching that the kingdom of Heaven is “at hand” and
starts healing people and casting out devils. Coming on the heels of
John’s tremendously successful preaching, the fame of Jesus spreads
throughout the region. On several occasions, the Scriptures tell of
him going into the synagogue on the sabbath day and healing someone.
The reaction of the scribes and Pharisees, self-appointed experts in
the Law of Moses, is to take offense at his doing work on the sabbath
day. Jesus directly challenges their idea of how to keep the sabbath
day holy. “Which of you, having a sheep that fell into a pit on the
sabbath day, doesn’t go and pull it out?” When they didn’t
answer, Mark records that Jesus looked around at them “with anger,
being grieved at the hardness of their hearts.” Then he healed the
man right in their faces. Rather than thank God for a miracle of
healing, they are outraged and “take counsel together how they
might destroy him”. Jesus broke their idea of The Rules. We have
often heard men in history complaining about people breaking “God’s
law”. How often has it been merely their own self-serving idea of
that?
6 The Sermon on the Mount
After beginning to preach that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,
and healing all kinds of illnesses and casting out demons, gathering
a big following and getting into trouble with the religious leaders,
Jesus goes up into a mountain. When the crowd settles around him, he
starts to teach them a radically different interpretation of the Law
and the Prophets. Among other things, Jesus makes clear (or tries to)
that there is an underlying truth behind the commandments.
For example, he says that you heard it said by the ancient ones,
you shall not kill; but I say to you that whoever is angry with his
brother without cause, whoever calls his brother a fool, is liable to
judgment under that precept. One of the commandments is that you
shall not commit adultery, but Jesus says if you so much as look on a
woman lustfully, you have already committed adultery with her in your
heart. So the commandments express certain forbidden behaviours, but
Jesus equates them to the innermost attitudes of the heart of man.
Over and over again, Jesus gives examples of the difference in this
sermon. And all who hear it are astonished at the idea. Don’t
divorce your wife? Love your enemies? Do your charitable giving
secretly? Don’t pray those officially sanctioned formulaic prayers
to God?
God sees your heart: he knows what you mean, what you need, what
you want. Trust Him. Don’t worry about what you will eat or what
clothes you’re going to wear. Finally, God is pushing back on the
ancient attitude of “just tell us what to do”. Jesus makes it
clear that God loves us and he longs for us to love Him. On that
basis we are to live our lives, not by a bunch of laws. By grace we
are not above the law: we are beyond it.
7 Further Pushback on the Law
In Mark 7 and elsewhere, the Scribes and Pharisees critcize Jesus
and his disciples for not washing their hands before they eat. Mark
goes on to mention that the Jews observe many rules about ritual
washing of their hands, their utensils, and their tables. To their
astonishment, Jesus answers that it isn’t what goes into a man that
defiles him, but what comes out of him. Later he explains to the
disciples that food just goes into the belly, not into the heart,
again making clear that it is the heart that God is interested in.
Even they did not understand how that could be so. The Law does set
out rules about these things – but Jesus complains that they spend
all their time following the physical rules and ignore the deeper,
spiritual rules, like honor your father and mother. They tithe down
to the mint and cumin, but ignore the matters of mercy and compassion
and justice. Jesus quotes Isaiah to them, “This people honor me
with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” He complains
that they weasel out of God’s commandments with their traditions.
In closing, I want to reiterate that I hope I have helped you see
things in a more loving light, and that your view of the Scriptures,
the World, and yourself will be more loving than it was.
