Revised: A Brief Simple Explanation of the Biblical Story Act 3: Covenant: God’s Dream Rebuilt (Gen.12-Malachi 4) A Programmatic Promise The bleak scenario of Gen.3-11 is, fortunately, broken up by a theme that resounds on through the whole of scripture becoming one of the keynotes of the gospel. The Apostle Paul gave memorable expression to this theme in Romans 5:20: “where sin increased, grace multiplied even more“ (CEB). Three patterns emerge in Gen.1-11 that shape the rest of the Pentateuch (Gen.-Deut.; see David Clines, The Theme of the Pentateuch). (1) a Sin – Speech (Judgment) – Mitigation – (lesser) Punishment theme; (2) a Spread-of-Sin, Spread-of-Grace theme, and (3) a Creation – Uncreation (flood) – Re-creation theme. Each of these are variations of Paul’s theme and together they provide incontrovertible evidence that God’s grace “trumps” sin at every turn. In Gen.12 God calls a pagan couple from their pagan lives to journey to a place he will tell them of when they arrive. To this couple God gives a three-part promise that is programmatic for the rest of the Bible. In Gen.12:1-3 God promises to get a great people through this couple, to bless that people that come from them, and to bless the rest of the world through them. God will use this Abraham-Sarah people to deal with the problem sin has created as well as to restore and advance his dream of creation (see Part 1) Henceforth this people, eventually known as Israel, will bear the meaning of world history and carry the destiny of all humanity within them. This people will do so as what I call a “Subversive Counter-Revolutionary Movement” (hereafter SCRM). The world after sin is revolutionary – in revolt against God and God’s ways. The Abraham-Sarah people are called and commissioned by Yahweh to live “counter” to the sin-soaked attitudes, actions, patterns, and structures of this world. And they will do so subversively. That is, not as a take-over of power and imposing a new order from the top-down. But from within, ordering their life as God intended and living that out amid day to day relationships and interactions with others from the bottom-up. Whether as a family line, a fugitive people, a wandering nomadic tribe, a loose confederation of clans, a united and then divided monarchy, a people in exile, an oppressed nation, or a diaspora-people, in whatever form this people existed in the story, their mandate was to live as a SCRM as a vehicle of God’s reclaiming and restoring creation to his dream for it. The “Grace Trumps Sin” theme of Gen.1-11 along with this programmatic promise of Gen.12:1-3 makes the story of this “Subversive Counter-Revolutionary Movement” the plot line of the Bible’s story. This theme and that promise are formalized in biblical covenants. Covenants, in turn, establish a relationship between God, the Great King and his royal priestly people. God’s promise to Abraham is formalized in Gen.17 comprising the three elements noted above. Subsequent to Abraham’s family’s rescue from slavery in Pharaoh’s Egypt, God established another covenant with the people at Mt. Sinai. Through Moses, God gives the people their “national constitution” in the Ten Commandments (Ex.20:1-17) and the legislation following it in Exodus and Leviticus. Already God’s people (Abrahamic covenant; rescue from Egypt), this covenant speaks to how the people express and live out their liberation and new relationship to Yahweh (the personal covenant name of their God). These laws, then, are not about earning or meriting a relationship with Yahweh – Yahweh has unilaterally seen to that himself! They are about demonstrating to the world the life Yahweh intended and still intends for all his creatures. A further covenant comes with the rise of David and the United Monarchy of Israel (2 Sam.7:12ff.). God reaffirms his unilateral commitment to the people by promising them a Davidic king in perpetuity. With the depressingly regular failure of the subsequent monarchs of both the United and Divided kingdom(s), hope for a special “Davidic” ruler arose, one specially anointed by God to bring his promises to their fulfillment – the Messiah (anointed one)! A “new covenant” (Jer.31:31ff.) would be the fruit of Messiah’s work which will fulfill and transform this covenant into the instrument through which all will relate to God and God will fulfill his great promise (Gen.12:1-3). In 586 BC the southern kingdom of Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. The northern kingdom had succumbed to Assyria some 150 years earlier. This trauma of destruction and exile called into question everything about God’s relationship to his people. In the Hebrew canon, in addition to the Law and the Prophets, there is a third category of “Writings” consisting of material designed to help Israel cope with this multi-faceted crisis of hope. This collection gives voice to the rawest pain (Lamentations, Job) to a measured skepticism (Ecclesiastes) to practical direction (Proverbs) to a reprise and updating of the people’s history (1-2 Chron., Ezra, Nehemiah), apocalyptic (Daniel) and the like. This third chapter of the biblical drama, the Covenant Act, closes in a minor key. Even the return from exile in Babylon had not resulted in the fulfillment of the great promises for Israel’s restoration and renewal of her status as God’s people. Even the rebuilt temple (516 BC) was but a poor shadow of Solomon’s. No messiah, still under foreign domination, shabby temple, a divided people, all of this set the stage for the next act in the drama – the Christ (Messiah) Act!
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 18:40:32 +0000
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