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Author: Glen

I'm a preacher in Eastbourne, married to Emma.

About Glen

I'm a preacher in Eastbourne, married to Emma.

Published on Leave a comment on Responding to sin

How should we respond to sin in our lives?

One response is to think 'Come on Glen, I'm better than that.'

Another is to think 'Come on Glen, Christ is better than that.'

The first may produce a very moral life.  But the devil is more than happy to concede to you a Christ-less morality.  Self-righteousness is a far muddier swamp than unrighteous living.  I am not better than my sin.  I am not even better than the foulest evil I've imagined.

Instead, when I sin I am revealed as the person I've always been.  Psalm 51:5 has often struck me.  Here is David with blood on his hands.  Yet his confession is that the man who committed adultery and murder is the man he had always been.

We think when we've sinned that it was just a blot on our otherwise acceptable record.  The word of God says our sins simply express the person we have always been (Matt 7:17f). My gross sins are not 'out of character' - they are me with the hand-brake off.

No sin can shock me.  Not my own, nor the sins of my brothers and sisters who confess to me.  If the blood of God was shed for my sin (Acts 20:28) - then my sin is infinitely heinous.  No, I'm not better than sin.  But Christ is. 

This is true in two senses. 

First it's true in the sense that Christ is more desirable than sin.  In the wilderness of temptations, Satan can only offer me a bucket of salt.  Christ always stands before me with living waters (John 4:10; 7:38; Rev 7:17).  The father of lies tells me life is found in this sin.  Jesus tells me it's a broken cistern that can hold no water.  Only His waters are truly life-giving. (Jer 2:12-13)  I forsake even my precious sins because I have learnt that Jesus is more desirable.

But Christ is better than sin in another, much more important, sense.  For He is the good person that I fail to be.  He is the reality that stands before the holy Father - not my sin. 

My sin, though it clings to my bones and sinks to the depths of my heart, does not define me, Christ does.  When the Father looks to find me, He does not look in the record that stands against me (Ps 130:3; Col 2:14).  He looks to His Beloved Son and finds me hidden there. 

Which means even as the diseased tree of my flesh produces in me the very worst fruit, Christ is my Plea, my Status, my Righteousness.  Even as the chief of sinners, even in the act of my worst rebellion, Christ - the One who is infinitely better - defines me and not my sin.

So Christ is better in both these senses.  But - and here's where this post has been heading - without being utterly convinced of this latter sense, the former sense could easily lead to a Pharasaism not unlike the 'I am better than sin' response.

How so?

Well if I respond to sin simply by saying 'Jesus is more desirable' it basically throws me back on myself.  I am left with my own heart and its ability to desire Jesus.  The work of annihilating sin becomes simply my work of destroying my heart idols.  The work of liberation is simply the work of my affections desiring Christ with sufficient ardour.  Where is the locus of this redemption?  Me.

Now do my heart-idols need crucifying?  Yes.  Do I need Christ uppermost in my affections?  Yes.  But by golly, if I found it hard to reform my outward behaviour - how hard is it going to be to reform my inner world??!  Impossible.

So, you say, that's why we need the gracious work of the Spirit and diligently to employ the means of grace, etc, etc.  Well... there's a time and a place for that.  But let's think.  If that's our bottom line, doesn't it sound exactly like the Catholic view of grace?  "It's all of grace" says the Catholic "... supernatural, infused grace worked in us, with which we cooperate, making us better and better over time."  Doesn't that sound very similar to "We fight sin by enflaming our affections for Christ - flames stoked by the Spirit via His means of grace"?  

It's not that there's no place for the 'Christ is more desirable' approach.  It's that we must recognize it's true place - i.e. after we're assured of the extrinsic work of Christ.  "Grace" is not basically a supernatural empowerment to work at my salvation or to enflame my Christian affections.  "Grace" is the work of Christ alone on behalf of sinners who contribute nothing.  (This is similar to the points I made here - grace is not so much the bread David provides as the victory David wins).

Therefore my first reponse to sin is this - even in the very midst of sin, Jesus has been carrying me on His heart before the Father.  Even ensnared in the darkest selfishness, the Spirit has been calling 'Abba' from within me.  Even as my heart desired worthless idols, the Father loved me even as He loves Christ.

This is the truth that really changes us.  It reveals to us that not even our sin can separate us from the love of God in Christ.  We realize again that our darkness is not a locked basement to the Lord.  Even our self-willed rebellion cannot remove us from His embrace.  We sin in His face - this drives us down in contrition.  And at the same time He is lifting us up to the Father. 

The truth that really changes us is that our lives are not our own.  Jesus has taken possession of us in spite of ourselves and wills to do us eternal good.  The Spirit of sonship is already praying 'Abba' in you.  The affections you are so keen to enflame are already ablaze - and that, even as you quench Him!   

Now surrender.  Now be conquered. Now receive what is entirely beyond you.  And see if you don't love Him with renewed and supernatural vigour!  But don't begin with your heart for Christ.  Begin with His heart for you.

We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19

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Published on Leave a comment on Some responses

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking 'Where's Glen been the last few days?  Why has he abandoned us?  For where else can we go to find such pithy and incisive theological tid-bits??'

Where else indeed dear reader!?

Unless of course you've been reading here and here where I've been responding to some thoughtful critiques of my Christ in the OT views.  Watch these spaces for responses to the responses.

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Published on Leave a comment on Jonah song
 I'm preaching through Jonah this August.  Every service is all-age so I've dredged up a song I wrote a couple of years ago.  Here's how it sounds (click here for a rough recording).  And here are the words - the kids sing (shout!) all the bolded words:

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Verse 1: 

 

God said ‘GO – to Nineveh

All those baddies I want to win-over.’

 

Jonah said ‘NO – not Nineveh

All those people are terrible sin-lovers.’

 

God said ‘GO!’

Jonah said ‘NO!’

The storm went BLOW

Jonah said ‘THROW!’

And down he GO!

Into the Depths of the Sea!

 

 

Verse 2:

 

God said GO – to a giant fish

Save my prophet before he gets smelly

 

The fish said OH what a lovely dish

Swallowed him whole so he lived in his belly

 

God said GO!

The fish swam LOW

Through the FLOW

Jonah said WHOAH!

And down he GO!

Into the belly of the fish!

 

 

Verse 3:

 

Jonah said OH – what a mess

I’ve done things my way I must confess

 

I’m so LOW – I could die

But even now God hears my cry

 

Jonah said ‘OH

You’ve brought me LOW

I’m sorry SO

Save my SOUL.’

And up he GO

Spat up onto the beach.

 

 

Verse 4:

 

God said ‘GO – once again

Nineveh needs your word to repent.’

 

Jonah said ‘OH – alright

I’ll tell them there’s Woe if they don’t get it right.’

 

So Jonah said WOE,

Cos God says ‘NO’

The people went ‘OH!

We’re sorry SO

Save our SOUL!’

And God saved every one!

 

 

Verse 5:

 

Jonah said ‘NO – I guessed

God would have mercy if they confessed.

 

‘God’s so SLOW to judge

He loves to forgive, never bears a grudge.’

 

God said ‘GO!’

Jonah said ‘NO!’

But God changed ROLE

He washed their SOUL

Whiter than SNOW

Cos God’s the best preacher of all!

 

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Published on 8 Comments on Jesus is LORD – not Son of LORD. Some clarifications

Dave K has asked some excellent questions of my last post on this issue.  Here they are in full.  Afterwards is my attempt to address them. 

I’ve been musing on this post over the last day. This is what I have been wondering:

This is clearly right, in many passages NT writers read Jesus in OT passages saying YHWH, as well as ascribing him the same attributes, relationships etc as YHWH in the OT.

But how do you deal with the psalm in which David says ‘The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’? The NT writers here interpret ‘my lord’ to be Christ and, at least in Heb 1, ‘the LORD’ as ‘God’. In a way I expect you would draw on what you say that ‘there is more than one Person called LORD’. But is there a danger here that we flatten the relationship between the two persons and lose the clear emphasis of the bible that Jesus receives his authority from the Father. So while he is never called the Son of the LORD, he is called the Son of God.

Also I wonder if there how you would demonstrate that in the OT ‘most often “Lord” refers to the Son’. To me it seems that this is far from clear, and while it is clear that ‘more than one Person called LORD’ in the OT, it is not so clear that you can always confidently identify which person is being referred to. In fact, often it seems that the Trinity and one person of the Trinity is in view.

Thirdly, how confident can we be that NT references to Jesus as lord are primarily about identifying with YHWH, and not the Davidic messiah? Both are obviously in view but, again, it is a lot more murky to me than you I think.

Dave

…nervous that his attachment to the murkiness is diluting Jesus’ claims, but still struggling with the revelation of the Trinity in the OT.

 

Let me begin by trying to say a bit better what I said quite obscurely in my last post.

To say "Jesus is the Son of the God of the Old Testament" is technically true.  The Father (and the Spirit) were equally active in the OT and, just as in the NT, Jesus has always been Son of God Most High.  However it must give us pause for thought that Jesus is never called "Son of the LORD."  Instead He is consistently called LORD.  I believe that Jesus and the Apostles are telling us not simply that "Jesus is ontologically equal to the God of Israel" but that "Jesus is and always has been the God of Israel."  ie not just "Jesus has the same status, dignity and attributes as Yahweh" but that "He is and always has been Yahweh.  Here is the One who brought the Israelites out of Egypt etc"  (cf Jude 4,5)

Some further thoughts in no particular order:

  • There could be a number of reasons why NT says Jesus is the referent of OT passages saying YHWH.

   1) The second Person of the trinity was not the original referent but He is equal to the original referent (""God"") and so deserves the title.

   2) The second Person of the trinity was the original referent.

 I go for number 2) because:

A) I find the second solution much more straightforward (to be honest I find the first solution really quite strange.) 

B) I think the pre-existence of Jesus is not just a 'being' issue but a 'doing' issue.  John 5 says Jesus has been working from the beginning with His Father.  I just find it odd to say the Father was the hero of the OT while Jesus only becomes the hero in the second half.  I'm not sure that takes His pre-existence (and equal deity) seriously enough as an equality of doing as well as being.

C) I see number 2 taught in places like like Hebrews 1 ("About the Son He says...")

Basically I think that either 1) or 2) could, once assumed, account for the NT data but that actually 2) is taught.  I can't think of where 1) is taught.

  • The equation of "Jesus is Kurios" as "Jesus is YHWH" seems to me the most obvious meaning if we simply let the bible interpret the bible.  (I don't know about you but I get frustrated when commentators immediately go to Caeser Kurios as the equivalent of Jesus is Lord.  As though the Roman Empire is a more important interpretive context than the OT!?)

Certainly, as you note, the NT cites OT references to YHWH and applies them straight to Christ.  I think the 'I AM' statements also function as straightforward claims to being YHWH (see esp John 8:56-58). 

To say that 'Lord' could simply refer to the 'Davidic Messiah' begs the question about how the Israelites were to understand the High Priest at God's right hand (see the points below).  Certainly people like Philo called him the 'deuteros theos' - the second God!  And Jesus considered the Adonai of Ps 110 to be a far more exalted title than Davidic King (Mk 12:35-37).   

At the end of the day I think that a person reading the Septuagint would get a pretty good idea of what kurios meant (6818 times YHWH!)  When they turned to the Gospels they would be introduced to John the Baptist who prepared the way for the LORD (ho kurios) who was this man called Jesus.  And as they kept reading they'd see ho kurios now eating at a Pharisee's house (Luke 11:39) etc etc.  And on they'd go.  I propose that if they were reading it according to its natural sense they would simply exclaim: "The Lord God of Israel is among us"

 

  • As for how to prove that "Lord" refers predominantly to the Son, I'd say, first of all, that's virtually undisputed when it comes to NT.  But I also think the NT teaches a similar expectation for reading the OT.  When 1 Cor 8:6 says "for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" OT usage (esp Deut 6:4) is almost certainly in view.

But I suppose you're only likely to be persuaded that LORD is mostly used of the Son in the OT if you agree with my take on Christ in the OT.  Basically I'd say that the One Word and Image of God Most High has been the eternal Mediator of all the Father's business (John 1:18).  He is the One walking in the garden, the One who appears to Abraham, who wrestles with Jacob, who brings Israel out of Egypt etc etc.  It takes 70 chapters of the bible before we are brought to the Unseen LORD on Sinai, yet we have been led by the Appearing LORD throughout.  It is He who has been revealing the divine name to us, even as this name has been given Him by the Father (Ex 23:21).  Given that this is just the same dynamic as the NT then in both testaments my default supposition is that 'Lord' refers to the Son unless proved otherwise.  Following this pattern, there's many passages that I'm confused about in the OT.  But there's also a few in the New too.  (What's going on in 2 Cor 3:16-18??)

 

  • I hear you on not flattening the distinctions between Persons!  I'm the last person to want to do that!  And the truth that Jesus is fully divine in His obedience to / dependence upon the Father is a glorious truth (with much gospel comfort actually - maybe that's for another post).

 But I also think that this truth is as much an OT as a NT truth.

So, it's as the Angel sent from the LORD (Ex 3:2) that He is the great I AM (v14) who will bring people to God (v12)

It's as the Most Excellent of Men that the Bridegroom Warrior is anointed King by God, His God (Psalm 45:6-7)

It's as the Priest at God's right hand that He is Lord. (Psalm 110)

So I affirm absolutely that His deity includes and is expressed in His dependence and difference from the Father.  I would add that this is the OT's teaching as much as the New.  And I also affirm that it's technically true that Jesus is Son of the LORD who is the Father (since all three Persons can take that name).  But the real issue is whether the Sent One of the Gospels is claiming to be the Sent One of the Torah.  This is my claim.

Jesus is the LORD who remembers meeting Abraham (John 8:56-58), who led Israel out of Egypt (Jude 4,5) and who appeared to Isaiah (John 12:40,41).  He's not simply closely related to the God of Israel.  He is the God of Israel.  And there's no better way for the NT to affirm that than to simply say Jesus is LORD.

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Published on 20 Comments on Paul Blackham sermons and other links

No other preacher has had a bigger impact on me.  Not only theologically but also in terms of what preaching actually is.

The sermon invariably begins 'In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'  The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.

Immediately he states the passage.  It's the Scriptures that define the event.

The conclusion is always "Therefore to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be ascribed all the glory, all the power, all the majesty, all the honour, all the praise and all our love, now and forever, Amen."  The whole thing is worship.

In between, the content is exposition (most often verse by verse) and the manner is strongly declarative, strongly devotional and strongly Christ focused.   Perhaps most refreshing of all, the over-riding tone of the sermon is a child-like enthusiasm for Christ and the Scriptures that is far removed from the world-weariness of many military-briefing-style preachers.

I've linked to some of my favourite Blackham sermons on my new "Other Sermons" page. (It's a tab at the top).  I've also put "My sermons" on a page, but do yourself a favour and work your way through these other sermons - awesome stuff.

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Paul's website.

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Sermons from All Souls, Langham Place

Sermons from Tarleton Farm Fellowship

Some Favourite sermons:

Genesis 3:1-15

"What of those who have never heard?" Colossians 1:15-23

"Why isn't good good enough?" Philippians 3:1-11

Luke 7:11-16

Daniel 3

2 Peter 3:11-18

Ephesians 3:14-21

Ephesians 6:10-24

Other talks and lectures:

"Faith in Christ in the Old Testament"

Five talks on the Cross

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Published on Leave a comment on Jesus is LORD – not Son of LORD

Just a brief point about my recent posts on the tribal deity of Israel (here, here and here).  

In those posts I assumed that the LORD of the burning bush was the very One who became incarnate of the virgin Mary.  Just to say, that wasn't sloppy grammar or fuzzy thinking (I don't think!).  To many of you the point is obvious but I've read enough biblical theology around the place to know that other views abound.  So often you hear things like: "Jesus is the Son of the one the OT calls Yahweh."  Now in one sense that is true.  In the OT, the Father often goes by the name of Yahweh, just as in the NT He often goes by the name Lord.  But most often 'Lord' refers to the Son - this is true in both testaments. 

Jesus' claim, and the claim of the NT, is that He is Yahweh (in Greek 'kurios'), the God of Abraham, the God of the burning bush (e.g. John 8:56-58).  Now the God of the burning bush is the Sent One from Yahweh ('The Angel of the LORD' Ex 3:2) and so clearly there is more than one Person called LORD.  But Jesus, the Sent One of the Father, claims to be the One who calls Himself I AM. 

Nowhere is Jesus ever called the Son of the Lord.  Everywhere Jesus is called the Lord.

I just mention this because it seems to me that many, wittingly or unwittingly, dilute the claims of Jesus in the Gospels.  But we must be aware of how radical Jesus' claims are - He's not simply saying 'I am the Son of the God of the Old Testament.'  He's saying 'I am the God of the Old Testament.'  The implications are many but I said I'd be brief, so there you are.

For more see Christ in OT.

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Published on Leave a comment on What changes the heart?

Tim VB put me onto this 9 week course about Gospel Centred Living which is freely available here.  It looks great.  They draw on material from World Harvest Mission - their Gospel Tranformation and Sonship courses.  To give you a flavour of these, here is the blurb about the Sonship course:

Sonship: Live the theology you believe!

Many of us understand the faith intellectually, but our hearts have not quite kept up with our heads. Sonship is designed to help you take some of the glorious theological truths of the gospel - truths that you may know in your head - and apply them to the nitty gritty reality of daily life.

You'll find that as the gospel re-makes you, there is greater joy and desire to share the wonderful news of God's lovingkindness with others.

I have to say I've been very impressed by what I've seen so far. 

One thing that struck me was this testimony found here in the Sonship course.  It illustrates brilliantly a truth I'll remark on at the end: 

One day when I was very young, I saw my older sister hanging up my father's white business shirts on the clothesline to dry. I was suddenly filled with the urge to hang up one of my daddy's white shirts. He was my daddy too, and I was his daughter; I loved him in my childlike way and wanted to express it. I couldn't reach the clothesline-it was too high, but I saw a wheel barrow in the yard and its handles were just the right height for me. I didn't notice how rusty it was and I rather joyfully clothes pinned the wet shirt to the handles.

When my dad got home and saw the shirt on the wheelbarrow, he became very angry with me and punished me severely for ruining his shirt. I had not realized the impact that event and others like it had made on me. However, as I was repeatedly convicted during the Sonship conference for not believing God concerning his delight in me and in the gracious nature of my relationship with him, this memory returned to me. Now, you cannot hardly get through 24 hours of a Sonship conference without realizing that your own heart is as murderous as anyone else's-so I wasn't primarily focusing on only being the innocent victim of my father's cruel anger.

As I remembered these scenes from the past, I saw that through the years I had not been believing that my Father in heaven was any different than my earthly father. I had not been listening when he described himself. In short, I hadn't been believing the gospel, that by faith in Christ and his perfect atoning sacrifice, he now loves me, and is forever for me and delighted in me. In Christ, he has made me beautiful and pleasing to him forever.

So the next morning I told our counselor that I thought I was beginning to understand. I told him the memory and said that I guess if the Father saw me standing next to the wheelbarrow with the ruined shirt on it, he would forget the shirt and hug me. "You still don't understand fully," Jeff said. "God would not overlook the shirt, but take it, put it on, and wear it to work. And when someone commented on the rust marks, he would say, ‘Let me tell you about my little girl and how much she loves me.'" I was overwhelmed with that realization.

What a brilliant picture of the gospel!  Not just overlooking the shirt - wearing the shirt and celebrating his daughter!

Often we think of the gospel as God overlooking our sin, tolerating our presence and simply relenting from judgement.  We are left in the law court, the not-guilty verdict is passed and we're just relieved to have avoided hell.  But can such a gospel change our hearts?  Somewhat, I'm sure.

But the good news is not that God allows us to live in the suburbs of His presence.  We are adopted, indwelt, sung over, glorified, rejoiced in.  Letting the Father love us in Christ is the kind of 'overwhelming' that truly changes.

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Published on Leave a comment on Israel's Tribal Deity 3

We've been considering the logic of the OT arguments for the true God.  The argument is not: Think about who the true God is - the true God is actually Yahweh.  The argument is: Think about Yahweh (encounter Him, see Him at work, trust Him) - Yahweh is the true God.

The former argument assumes we know who the true God is and then gets us to re-shape our view of Yahweh around that.  The latter argument invites us into relationship with the tribal deity of Israel and then makes us re-shape our views of the true God around Him. 

Of course the scandal of identifying Israel's tribal deity as the true God is ratcheted up several million notches with the incarnation.  It's not just that the God of Abraham is the living God, it's that the Seed of Abraham is the living God!  Yahweh shows up among us as an itinerant Nazarene Rabbi.  He is not just God in a concrete relation, He is God as a concrete human.  Not only the God of Israel but an Israelite. Nonetheless His claim is not diminished - this Jewish man, born of Mary is the LORD of Israel.

And again His identity as the LORD is seen in His concrete work of redemption.

"When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM." (John 8:28)

How is the true God known?  Look to this particular, historical event.  Look at this act of infinitely costly service for my people.  Look to my redemption.

Yet how often in evangelism do we do things the other way around?  We either assume that people know 'God' in the abstract or we actively try to prove to them some kind of 'God' in the abstract (the First Cause, the Moral Legislator, the Fine-Tuning Creator).  And then we try to say to them, "Jesus is actually this abstract 'God'."  To which people usually frown, cock their head and set about doing the mental gymnastics required to squish the Son of Man into this pre-fab abstract-deity mould.

How many testimonies run along the lines of, "I always knew God and then the preacher convinced me that Jesus fitted the bill of the God-I-had-always-known."  When this happens both 'God' and 'Jesus' are going to get majorly distorted.

Let's instead resolve to tell people, "Whatever you thought God was like, allow the LORD of Israel, the Son of God, to recalibrate all God-thoughts."

As Lord Byron once said, "If God isn't like Jesus, He ought to be."  That's exactly right - that's the logic of the bible: Jesus must shape all God-thoughts.  Our 'God' must be determined entirely by what we meet in the pre-incarnate LORD and the incarnate, crucified and risen Son of Man.

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Published on Leave a comment on Israel's Tribal Deity 2

Where is the decisive revelation of the name of Israel's tribal deity?  Mount Sinai:

12 [The Angel of the LORD] said, "But I WILL BE with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain." 13 Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is His name?' what shall I say to them?" 14 God said to Moses, "I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE". And He said, "Say this to the people of Israel, "I WILL BE" has sent me to you.'" 15 God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. (Exodus 3:12-15)

Some observations:

1. The name Yahweh is taken by many scholars to be the nominal form of the first person verb "I WILL BE". (i.e. Yahweh is what we call Him, "I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE" is what He says about Himself).  Thus the burning bush represents His own unpacking of the name of Yahweh. 

2. This unpacking of His own name is not His handing over to us of some interpretive maxim by which we can understand Him.  Emphatically it is the LORD holding onto His own prerogative to self-disclose.  The possibility for knowing the LORD is not delivered over to man - He holds onto it forever.  He will always be the One to intepret Himself.  We must continually come to Him for knowledge of Him. 

3. The future tense is probably the better translation of what's usually rendered "I AM" - it's exactly the same Hebrew as v12 "I will be with you..."  It's therefore not a static thing.  It's not basically the claim to be self-existent, it's something much more dynamic.

4. It's ironic that people use the 'I AM' as itself a proof-text for presupposing their own classical attributes of God (like His aseity or whatever).  The whole point of this name is that He defines who He is in contrast to every human definition - even (and especially!) the most philosophically sophisticated.  "I will be Who I will be - not who you say I am."

5. We must never forget the context of His self-identification - decisive historical action.  Involvement.  Redemption. Exodus.  He will be who He will be in salvation.  He drops His name into conversation first in verse 12 and it's in the form of a promise:  "I will be with you."   And He follows verse 14 with the reassurance that He, the LORD, is the God of your fathers - the tribal deity of Israel.

All in all, Yahweh's declaration that He is the great I AM is not the same as Him claiming to be Unoriginate.  For some the "I AM" is equivalent to some divine attribute of self-existence, as though it's the Hebrew form of "I am the Ground of all Being."  It is not as though the philosopher who has thought of the unmoved Mover has thought of Yahweh.  Not at all.  The I AM is met only as the Redeemer of His particular people.  He is met in the context of promise, in the context of covenant.  He is met as the tribal deity of Israel - in this way He proves His unassailable right to define Himself.

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Published on Leave a comment on Israel's Tribal Deity

This week I was reading Jeremiah 10 on the difference between Yahweh and idols.  It struck me that the prophet doesn't argue the way we often do.  We usually say 'There are idols that are tribal deities of the nations, but the living God is not like that.  The living God is the uncreated Creator.  (Oh and the uncreated Creator happens to be Yahweh).'  

Jeremiah does something different.  He certainly plays up the worthlessness of the foreign idols (v1-9). But then he says:

But Yahweh is the true God; He is the living God, the eternal King.

Note that his argument is not "the true God is Yahweh."  Rather he argues "Yahweh is the true God."  In other words he doesn't assume some notion of deity and then says Yahweh fits the bill.  Instead he says, in effect, "You know the tribal deity of Israel?  The One from the burning bush?  He's the true God." 

He does it again in verse 16.  After continuing the worthlessness-of-idols theme, Jeremiah says:

He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these, for He is the Maker of all things, including Israel, the tribe of His inheritance--the LORD Almighty (Yahweh Sebaoth) is His name.

Note the particularity of this statement.  The tribe of Jacob will inherit their God called Yahweh Sebaoth, and He in turn will inherit them.  This tribal deity who is strongly (and it seems exclusively!) linked to his particular people - He is the Maker of all things.  Interesting!

Think of how He definitively reveals His name to Moses at Sinai.  The Angel says to Moses "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. At this Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God." (Ex 3:6).  If we were writing Exodus 3 we'd have Moses hiding his face because the LORD says, "I am God the Unoriginate, the Infinite, the Transcendent and Immense.   But no, the LORD says "I am your people's God, your dad's God, the God of that guy Abraham and his family."  The living God is made known as the tribal deity of Israel.  He is revealed in His covenant approaches towards particular people in concrete historical situations.  And from within that particular frame - as Jacob's Portion - He reveals Himself to be the true and living God.

So often we conceive of the direction of argument as this:

"You know God ??  Well that tribal deity Yahweh is actually God." 

Instead it's:

"You know that tribal deity Yahweh?  Well He's God." 

The former argument forces Yahweh into a procrustean bed.  The latter argument makes us reconfigure everything we thought we knew about 'God' since we've met Him as the covenant-LORD.

I'll look at some implications of this next time...

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Rest of series:

Part two

Part three

Jesus is LORD, not Son of LORD

Some clarifications

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