biblical theology

On Sound Speech, Part 4

January 16, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

We’ve surveyed how God speaks. Should we seek to speak in similar ways? And if so, specifically how?

Let me start with the “should we?” question.

Back to the beginning. 

This God, who created so much simply by speaking, goes to another level when he makes Adam. On Day Six, after all that speaking things into existence, he stops speaking, and he gets out of his chair, so to speak, and he kneels in the clay outside Eden—this is the Son, remember (Jn 1.1-3; He 1.2)—and he fashions from the clay a recumbent statue that looks like him. And he bends over that lifeless statue and breathes life into it. And Adam pinks up; he is alive. 

And he is, as God had planned, in the very image of God. 

And we, Adam’s billions of descendants, are in God’s image too. 

Further, when God placed us in Christ—when we repented and believed and were justified freely by his grace—God began to enable us to be in his image in much more powerful and effective ways. God, through his Spirit, began to conform us, slowly, steadily, surely into the image of his Son (2Co 3.18)—and to empower us to imitate him genuinely and delightfully. 

And so we find that we too can speak truth, and justly, and rightly. We too can speak and see good things happen. 

And now for the “how?” question. The New Testament gives us specific guidance on how we are able to speak well, by the grace of God and the power of his Spirit. Let me marshal some examples.

Thinkingly

James tells us that everyone should be “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (Jam 1.19). God speaks that way, because he’s like that. That means we shouldn’t shoot our mouths off. First we should listen long enough to know what we’re talking about. (Of course, God, as omniscient, doesn’t need to listen first in order to understand something. But he’s still slow to wrath.)

A few verses later James tells us to “bridle” our tongues (Jam 1.26); he even says that the person who doesn’t do that has “vain [empty, meaningless]” religion. And later in his epistle he speaks of the tongue as unbridled, untamable (Jam 3.8); consider carefully the entire context (Jam 3.1-12), and note his words about meekness and strife in the following paragraph (Jam 3.13-18).

Well. Taming the untamable. That’s a lot to work on, but the grace of God is sufficient (2Co 12.9). And it needs to be, because there’s a lot more.

Truthfully

²⁵Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another (Ep 4.25).

We ought to tell the truth. All the time. God does.

Now, some might observe that in context Paul is writing of relationships between believers, within the body of Christ. But that’s arguable; he’s talking about “putting off the old man” (Ep 4.22), including “stealing no more” (Ep 4.28). It would be absurd to suggest that it’s okay to steal from, or to lie to, nonbelievers.

Now, this raises a question. Do we always speak “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”? I’d suggest that guiding our everyday conversation by that common legal oath is problematic, especially in the phrase “the whole truth.” First, I note that God doesn’t tell us everything, and I see no obligation on us to tell anybody else “everything.” If the baby is not in fact the most beautiful baby ever born (as my children and grandchild most certainly are), you can rejoice with the new parents in the wonder of birth and the delights of children without flat-out lying.

And, not surprisingly, the Scripture gives us further guidance on how we can do that. We’ll look further in the next post.

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On Sound Speech, Part 3

January 13, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 | Part 2

And now, in the New Testament, God speaks in a way he never has before.

He speaks in person, visibly, incarnately, powerfully.

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²The same was in the beginning with God. ³All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴In him was life; and the life was the light of men. ⁵And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not (Jn 1.1-5).

Later in that prologue his claim is even more explicit:

¹⁴And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. … ¹⁸No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared [lit., exegeted] him” (Jn 1.14-18).

With this change, God speaks through his incarnate, eternally human Son.

I should take a moment, I suppose, to deal with a possible objection to what I’ve just claimed.

There are many, including me, who believe that “the Angel of Yahweh” in the Old Testament is a preincarnate appearance of God the Son. If this idea is correct, then God did indeed speak “visibly” in the Old Testament, even appearing to be incarnate; as just one example, he appears to Abraham as one of three men walking down a road past Abraham’s tent, and he eats a meal with him (Ge 18.1-8)—and by the end of their conversation it’s clear that Abraham understands that he’s speaking face to face with God himself (Ge 18.22-33). But the angel is not directly presented in the Old Testament as God himself; what John is claiming in the prologue of his Gospel is qualitatively different.

To verify that the Son is the perfect expression of God—the Logos—the Father twice speaks from heaven, once at Jesus’ baptism:

And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Mt 3.17).

and a second time at his Transfiguration:

and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him (Mt 17.5).

Perhaps 30 years after the Son returns to the Father in heaven, an anonymous author explains what has happened: 

¹God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, ²Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; ³Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; ⁴Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they (He 1.1-4).

And finally, our friend John tells us that at the end of time God speaks again:

⁶And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. ⁷He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son (Re 22.6-7).

When God speaks, he speaks the truth. He speaks justly. He speaks rightly. And good things happen. 

Sure, sometimes he speaks in judgment. But even then—perhaps especially then—he speaks truth, and he speaks justly, and he speaks rightly.

We’ve engaged in this survey to summarize how God speaks, and specifically to consider following his example, to the extent that we are able, in our own speech. We’ll turn to that next time.

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On Sound Speech, Part 2

January 9, 2025 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1

We’re looking at God’s speech as a model for our own. The previous post ended with God speaking of delivering his people Israel from their Egyptian taskmasters, and of his keeping that promise through the plagues.

After crossing the Red Sea—miraculously—Israel travels to Mount Sinai, where they will meet God and receive the Law of Moses.

And God spake all these words, saying, ²I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage (Ex 20.1-2).

And here come the Ten Commandments, a constitution for the new nation. For the next forty years, God talks to Moses as he wishes, and he talks to him in a special way. 

The Lord talked with [Moses] face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire (Dt 5.4).

Face to face, without distance, without danger.

As we know, those forty years were a judgment in response to Israel’s unbelief. But God is faithful, even when his people are not, and he brings them to the Promised Land and empowers their victory over the perverse peoples living in it.

Centuries pass. Israel is now well settled into the Land, after initially living in houses they didn’t build and eating from gardens they didn’t plant. And when they want a king, God gives them the king he had long ago promised them. David, the man after God’s own heart, the sweet singer of Israel, sets the nation off on a course toward prosperity and peace—and at the end of his life he reveals where his sweet songs came from:

¹Now these be the last words of David. 
David the son of Jesse said, 
And the man who was raised up on high, 
The anointed of the God of Jacob, 
And the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, 
²The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, 
And his word was in my tongue. 
³The God of Israel said, 
The Rock of Israel spake to me, 
He that ruleth over men must be just, 
Ruling in the fear of God. 
⁴And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, 
Even a morning without clouds; 
As the tender grass springing out of the earth 
By clear shining after rain (2S 23.1-4).

After David and his son Solomon come other kings, mostly evil ones, and God, graciously, speaks once again, this time through prophets. 

Therefore thus saith the Lord God, 
Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, 
A tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: 
He that believeth shall not make haste (Is 28.16).

More prophets come, for three more centuries, bringing words from God, calling God’s people to truth, to righteousness, to justice, to peace. But for the most part, the people don’t listen. There are two periods of exile and a return, and then more self-centered living. 

 And after that, silence. 

 Four centuries of silence. 

 God does not speak. 

 And all the light and wisdom and truth and direction and power that consistently come when he speaks—are missing. They’re not there. 

 Silence from God is not a good thing. 

 When will he speak again? 

 When will we know what we so desperately need to know? 

Oh, he will speak again, and he will speak in a way that he never has before.

Next time.

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On Sound Speech, Part 1

January 6, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Do you have trouble with your mouth?

I do. And I always have. Since birth.

Really.

There are few things worse than saying something that you regret, whether immediately or eventually.

How should we then speak?

I’d like to take a few posts to meditate on that.

And I’d like to begin by considering someone who speaks, and who speaks well.

The Bible begins with a speech act:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. ²And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. ³And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. ⁴And God saw the light, that it was good (Ge 1.1-4).

God spoke, and something good happened. As the chapter continues, he continues to speak, every utterance bringing things—good things—into existence, and by the end of the chapter God declares everything he has spoken, and thus created, to be “very good” (Ge 1.31).

A few generations later, God speaks to Noah, whom he has closed up in the Ark, and tells him to leave the ship that has been his shelter for the past year:

¹⁵And God spake unto Noah, saying, ¹⁶Go forth out of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee. ¹⁷Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth (Ge 8.15-17).

Here the earth thrives with new life—a second chance at life, if you will—after a devastating judgment. God speaks, and good things happen.

But God is not done. He’s going to choose a people to bless in a special way, with a universal outcome:

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: ²And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: ³And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed (Ge 12.1-3).

And so he does. But within just three generations Abraham’s descendants will be out of the Land, and decades later they will be slaves in Egypt—but they will have grown to 2 million strong. 

And God will see the suffering of his people, and he will remember his promises to Abraham, and he will find Moses on the west side of the Arabian desert and speak once again, this time from a burning bush:

⁷And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; ⁸And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey (Ex 3.7-8).

And he does deliver them, with a series of spectacular plagues that demonstrate that all the gods of Egypt are just papyrus tigers. And he will gather his people at the foot of a mountain in the Sinai, and he will speak them into existence as a nation.

God is demonstrating his power, and accomplishing global good, by his words.

But there’s much more to see here.

Next time.

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Immanuel, Part 5: Forever

December 19, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Creation | Part 2: Covenant | Part 3: Marriage | Part 4: Turning the Page

As we’ve seen in this series, God has always wanted to dwell with his people. From the very beginning he made humans in his image and apparently walked with them in the Garden. Throughout the biblical narrative there are people who “walk with God,” and the storyline consists largely of God’s choosing a people for himself: first, a nation (Abraham, Moses, David) and then a spiritual kingdom, the church, which, following Jesus’ Great Commission, will take his story, and the opportunity for fellowship with him, to the ends of the earth.

We find ourselves in the process of fulfilling that Commission, waiting expectantly for his return. Though we don’t know when that will happen, we do know that it may happen at any time. We don’t know how far away the tape is in this race.

But one day he will come. Some Christians (amillennialists and postmillennialists) think that eternity will begin right then. Others, including me (premillennialists) think there will first be a thousand-year earthly reign of Christ, the Millennium, during which sin and death will still be operative, but righteousness and justice will prevail under the perfect King. And then, eternity.

The Bible doesn’t seem to have a lot to tell us about the eternal state—though it speaks much, in my opinion, about the Millennium. (My premill assumptions are showing here.) Most of what we can read about eternity is in the last two chapters of the Scripture, Revelation 21 and 22.

So I pose a question. Will this fellowship, this walking with God, his dwelling in the midst of his people—will that continue beyond time and into eternity? Is history just preparation for an eternal dwelling with God?

Let’s survey those two chapters.

After the Millennium (Re 20) and the Great White Throne judgment (Re 20.11-15), which ends with the “second death,” when “death and hell [are] cast into the lake of fire” (Re 20.14-15), the eternal state begins. And it begins with the presentation of the new heaven and new earth. Note the matrimonial language here: the New Jerusalem is “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Re 21.2), and eventually an angel calls the heavenly Jerusalem “the bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Re 21.9). It’s no stretch to see this as a continuation of the marital language God has used to describe first Israel and then the church. This is the realization, the consummation, of that intimate relationship.

And how is it described?

The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God (Re 21.3).

After a description of the city, John says,

I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it (Re 21.22).

And again,

The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: ⁴And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads (Re 22.3-4).

And finally,

The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely (Re 22.17).

And there is our answer.

God dwells with his people not just for time, but for eternity.

That has always been the plan.

So the Bible is, in literary terminology, an inclusio: it begins and ends with the same theme of God’s desire to dwell with his people in the most intimate and eternal of relationships.

It will be done.

This Christmas season we’re reminded of the completeness of God’s commitment to this relationship, and the certainty that it will happen.

Immanuel.

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Immanuel, Part 4: Turning the Page

December 16, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Creation | Part 2: Covenant | Part 3: Marriage

Has God given up on his people? Has he divorced them with no hope of reconciliation?

In the account so far, we have reason to think otherwise.

At the dedication of the Temple, Solomon had prayed,

Now therefore arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place, thou, and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in goodness (2Ch 6.41).

Solomon, who will be worshiping idols in his old age (1K 11.4-8), invites God to reside in the house he has built in Israel’s capital city. Will God refuse the invitation because of how he knows Israel will behave?

Perhaps surprisingly, no.

Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house. ²And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord’s house. ³And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever (2Ch 7.1-3).

God wants to dwell in the midst of his people, in spite of everything.

Four centuries later, when some of the Babylonian exiles return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, God promises to make this Second Temple, admittedly an inferior one (Hag 2.3), even greater than Solomon’s (Hag 2.4-9).

We’ll get to how he does that in a little bit.

And a prophet, Micah, in the midst of lambasting Israel for their sin, writes,

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
And what doth the Lord require of thee,
But to do justly, and to love mercy,
And to walk humbly with thy God? (Mic 6.8).

God wants, he really wants, to dwell with his people.

By his providence, the Protestant canon of the Old Testament ends with the word curse (Mal 4.6)—and it is a threat.

But as I noted last time, there’s a page to turn.

Let’s turn it now.

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (Mt 1.1).

That first chapter of Matthew demonstrates that Jesus is indeed the son of David (Mt 1.6) and of Abraham (Mt 1.2), and then it demonstrates even more: that this Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (Is 7.14) of one to be born of a virgin (Mt 1.18), one who would be “Immanuel” (Mt 1.23)—and Matthew kindly assists his Greek- and English-speaking readers by translating that Hebrew word: “which being interpreted is, God with us.”

God has been silent for 400 years, since Malachi’s “curse.” But now he speaks, and his words reverberate through the halls of history with an assurance: God still wants to dwell with his people.

He is so committed to this intimacy that he himself, in the person of God the Son, takes on human flesh and becomes one of us.

One of Jesus’ closest earthly disciples put it this way:

The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth (Jn 1.14).

He walks among us.

As a baby, he is presented to the Lord in the Temple—a renovated Temple, yes, but still the Temple that Haggai’s people had built.

He will teach and heal in that Temple, in Solomon’s porch, and he will clear the neighboring plaza of moneychangers and profiteers.

He experiences deprivation—hunger, thirst, sorrow, and physical, emotional, and spiritual pain.

He is in all points tempted just as we are, but without sin.

And one Friday afternoon, as he delivers his spirit to God from a cross, the veil of that Temple will be torn in two, from the top to the bottom, opening the way for all to see that the Holiest Place is empty of a physical Ark, but access to God is open as it had never been before.

God with us.

He lives here with us for 30 or 35 years, and then he ascends back to heaven and takes his seat at the Father’s right hand.

Is that it? Less than 4 decades? Or will he dwell with us forever?

Next time.

Part 5: Forever

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Immanuel, Part 3: Marriage

December 12, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Creation | Part 2: Covenant

After the wedding, as they say, comes the marriage. And we all know that in human marriages, there are ups and downs, times of bliss and rockier roads.

God’s marriage to his people is half human; his people are sinful beings, and this marriage exhibits that kind of instability—due not to any instability in God, but rather to the deep brokenness of his wife, his people.

The trouble begins before we even get out of Exodus. There are multiple instances of Israel’s unfaithfulness, most notoriously that of the golden calf, which the people worship even before Moses has returned from the mountaintop. Soon after, they refuse God’s wedding gift of the land of Canaan, fearing that their new husband is not powerful or faithful enough to defeat the land’s imposing inhabitants on their behalf. Forty years they wander in the wilderness, slow to learn of their husband’s goodness and strength.

Eventually God returns them to their gift, and they take the land. But they refuse his command to destroy the inhabitants, setting up centuries of unfaithfulness in worshiping the various Canaanite gods.

How stupid do you have to be to worship the gods of people you just defeated in battle?

Once in the land, they stumble into a government of sorts, entrusting their fates to judges who they believe will protect them from the enemies that surround them. They have not learned, apparently, from God’s defeating of the Canaanites. But the judges, while sometimes temporarily successful, are generally disappointing—Samson the most—and by the end of the judges era their land is chaotic and dysfunctional.

And so they look for a king.

Now, God has always wanted them to have a king; Jacob had prophesied on his deathbed that “the scepter shall not depart from Judah … until the one to whom it belongs² comes” (Ge 49.10). But the Israelites, once again, are focused on the strength of their enemies rather than the strength of their God, and they go for the tall guy. (Don’t get me started.) He has no heart for God and little to no personal character, and after a full 40-year career God rejects him—and his line, as represented in David’s friend Jonathan.

This should not be a surprise; Saul, the people’s choice, is from the tribe of Benjamin, and Jacob’s prophecy has identified the royal tribe as Judah.

So God chooses Judah’s David, a man after his own heart. And at the anointing of the young shepherd boy by Samuel, we’re told that “the Spirit of God came upon David from that day forward” (1S 16.13). There are a dozen or so people of whom the Old Testament says that the Spirit “came upon” them—warriors and prophets, mostly—but it is said of no one else that the Spirit came upon them “from that day forward.” I suspect that David was the only person before Jesus to experience the permanent indwelling of the Spirit.

God dwelt with him.

The rest of the Old Testament is largely a story of frustration. David and Solomon both fall into great sin; the kingdom is divided. Then every single king of Israel is evil, while most of the kings of Judah are evil as well. The prophets present countless examples of the Israelites’ unfaithfulness to God, their husband. Israel goes into exile in Assyria; Judah in Babylon.

In Jerusalem as Nebuchadnezzar’s army approaches, Jeremiah writes God’s message:

And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also (Jer 3.8).

Living in the exile community in Babylon, Ezekiel describes a vision in which the glory of God—the pillar of cloud and fire—departs from the Temple (Ezk 10.18).

Divorce. Departure.

But, my friends, the divorce is not final.

God’s final prophetic word to his ex-wife is “Curse” (Mal 4.6).

But there is a page yet to turn.

² The KJV famously renders this as “Shiloh.” That’s the underlying Hebrew word, and it may be a proper name. But if it is, the Bible gives us no further information about the person, and it never refers to Jesus with that name. Several other translations parse the Hebrew word as a contraction of sorts, consisting of “sh,” a possible contraction of asher, meaning “which,” and “l,” a preposition meaning “to,” and “h,” which as an ending in Hebrew often means “him.” Thus “which to him,” or “which is his.”

Part 4: Turning the Page | Part 5: Forever

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Immanuel, Part 2: Covenant

December 9, 2024 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: Creation

God begins our story by emphasizing that he wants to fellowship intimately with us. The book of Genesis contains many indications of that idea not mentioned in the previous post—his fellowship with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob most notably, a story punctuated with the building of altars and the offering of sacrifices that speak of such fellowship, and indeed of love.

As we move into Exodus, the theme continues.

God has promised Abraham that he will give his descendants a certain land—the land God has directed him to, and on which Abraham has already walked—the land of Canaan. As Exodus opens, Jacob (Israel) and his handful of descendants have left the land of promise—because they were in danger of starving in the famine—and have relocated to Egypt, at the clear providential direction of God through Jacob’s son Joseph. And under Joseph’s protection, they flourish there.

But dark times come. A new Pharoah arises, who knows nothing of the centuries-old stories of Joseph, the savior of Egypt, and who sees Jacob’s descendants as simply a supply of free manual labor.

So the Israelites become slaves—toiling under merciless taskmasters, and for free.

But God sees, and he hears their cries, and he raises up Moses, providentially raised in Pharaoh’s very courts, to take a message to Pharaoh:

Let my people go.

Did you hear that?

My people. Mine.

Family. Intimacy. Love.

And through a series of plagues, which are clearly direct attacks on and defeats of Egypt’s many gods, the LORD brings his beloved people out of Egypt, through the Red Sea to Sinai, where he meets with their leaders—face to face with Moses—and enters into a covenant with them. That covenant is rich and multifaceted; he is their Lord, their King. But he is also their Husband.

He marries them.

And during an extended period with Moses on the mountain, he gives extensive instructions for a Tabernacle, a tent where he will dwell among them. When Moses returns down the mountain, his face shines with the intensity of his fellowship with God.

And with the energetic cooperation of the people, skilled and gifted craftsmen build the tent to the exact specifications God has given. They call it “the Tent of Meeting,” because in that simple edifice both Moses and the high priest can meet with God. The Tabernacle is set up in the very middle of the camp.

And as the crowning element of this marriage ceremony, the visible light of God’s presence, the pillar of cloud and fire¹, descends and hovers over the tent, directly over the Holiest Place, the section of the tent where the Ark of the Covenant is placed.

This Ark is a gold-plated box containing the Ten Commandments—the marriage license, if you will—and Aaron’s rod, the symbol of priestly authority. Its solid-gold lid, the Covering or Mercy Seat, features images of two cherubim facing each other, and God says that he dwells there on the Mercy Seat, between the cherubim. It is there that the high priest, once a year on the Day of Atonement, sprinkles the sacrificial blood that will cover the sins of the people for another year.

God dwells among them.

He has married them, and now they move in together and set up house.

Next time: the theme continues.

¹ In my loosely held opinion, there were not two pillars, one of “cloud” during the day and another of “fire” during the night, with daily transitions from one to the other. Rather there was a single bright white pillar, which looked like a bright cloud during daylight hours and then, with darkness, appeared more luminescent, like fire. The cloud is referred to as a “pillar [singular] of cloud and of fire” in Ex 14.24. This seems consistent with Solomon’s statement that the Lord “would dwell in thick darkness” (1K 8.12 // 2Ch 6.1; cf. Ex 20.21; Dt 4.11; 5.22).

Part 3: Marriage | Part 4: Turning the Page | Part 5: Forever

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Immanuel, Part 1: Creation

December 5, 2024 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

One of the key pursuits in Biblical Studies is discerning the central theme of the Bible. In Biblical Theology, which is essentially the study of the Bible as literature, this question is the end of the entire discipline, the goal toward which all the other work is pointing. In German scholarship it’s called the Mitte, or center.

Over the years several candidates have been suggested. A popular one is “kingdom”: Thurman Wisdom and Thomas Schreiner have both recently favored this idea in one form or another. Another popular suggestion is “covenant,” suggested influentially a century ago by Walther Eichrodt. And recently Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum have combined the two ideas.

For a time I toyed with the idea of “Messiah” as the central theme. I noted that the Hebrew Canon has three parts—the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings—each of which introduces us to offices (priest, prophet, and king, respectively) that were filled by disappointing people, all anticipating the perfect Prophet, Priest, and King who would lead without disappointment. He was, of course, the Messiah, the Anointed One—and all of these offices typically involved anointing.

I think that’s a defensible suggestion for a central, governing theme; it seems comprehensive, with good explanatory power for all the biblical contents.

But lately I’ve been meditating on another possibility, a theme that has been observed and commented on by a number of other students of the Word.

It’s the idea of God dwelling with, among, his people.

I’d like to spend a few posts tracing that idea through the Scripture.

__________

We begin, of course, in Genesis, in the primeval history. The first thing we learn is that God is the author of creation; he made all things (Ge 1.1). Later in that first chapter we see him creating the first humans and distinguishing them from the other living creatures: they are in the image of God (Ge 1.26-27). In fact, rather than just speaking them into existence, as he had other living things (Ge 1.11-12, 20-21, 24-25), he intervenes personally, seemingly physically, to form Adam from the dust of the ground (Ge 2.7) and then to form Eve from one of Adam’s ribs (Ge 2.21-22). This seems much more intimate, much more personal, than the way he created the animals. Along the way we hear God give Adam and Eve dominion over all the earth (Ge 1.28), intending them to use plant life for their sustenance.

Now, I need to deal with a misconception. I suppose this misconception was most artfully rendered in James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones:

 And God stepped out on space,
 And he looked around and said:
 I’m lonely —
 I’ll make me a world.

Johnson’s work is worthwhile reading by every American for its cultural and historical significance, its lyricism, its artistry. It is a remarkable piece of literature.

But God was not lonely.

God is, and always has been, completely satisfied in himself. There is no lack, no need, no shortcoming in him.

And thus he did not need to make us.

And yet, he wanted to.

Why? If he didn’t need us, why did he make us at all?

We get a tiny, possible hint shortly later in the narrative. Adam and Eve have sinned (Ge 3.6) and then tried to cover their newfound shame (Ge 3.7), and

they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Ge 3.8).

Now, we’re not told that this had been a daily practice. Perhaps God, knowing that his creatures have sinned, is coming to announce their judgment (Ge 3.16-19)—and their eventual glorious deliverance (Ge 3.15).

But this does speak of God desiring to be in company with Adam and Eve—perhaps even to walk with them in the beauty of the Garden, to point out its delights, to savor the wonder and joy in their faces as they realize what he has given them.

Of course, sin has changed all that.

But even so the fellowship continues. Just two scant chapters later, we find Enoch “walk[ing] with God” (Ge 5.22), and in the next chapter, Noah doing the same thing (Ge 6.9).

God wants to fellowship with his people, to interact with them in loving and friendly and intimate ways.

From the beginning it has always been so.

And as the story continues, the evidence will continue to accumulate.

Next time, from a family to a nation.

Part 2: Covenant | Part 3: Marriage | Part 4: Turning the Page | Part 5: Forever

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

How God Speaks, Part 3

December 5, 2019 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1 | Part 2

In Part 1 we noted that in biblical times God spoke a lot—as Hebrews 1.1 puts it, in different times, in different ways, to different people. But the same passage also says that with the incarnation there’s come a change; now things are different, and radically different. Part 2 lays out my reasons for saying that.

Some people find that sad. How great would it be to hear Isaiah preach, or David sing, or Moses thunder! And how much greater would it be to hear the Son himself teach, and see him heal, and watch him work! And wouldn’t it be great if God spoke to us, directly, in our heads? Isn’t it sad that we can’t do any of these things today? Don’t we feel a little bit … well, deprived?

No, we’re not deprived, regardless of how we feel. How do I know that? Because it isn’t in God’s character to deprive his people. He sometimes chastens us (Heb 12.6), but he doesn’t hold back from us anything we need (Php 4.19), or anything good (Ps 84.11). Jesus told his disciples that it was better for them that he go away (Jn 16.7). The same book that tells us about this change in the way God speaks also has as its primary point the great superiority of the New Way over the Old.

We may not feel like it’s better not to have prophets among us, but it is.

What’s better about it?

Let’s begin by making the obvious point. God still speaks to us today, but he does so in very specific ways. He speaks through his created works (Ps 19.1; Rom 1.20), but that medium is tainted by sin (Rom 8.22) and therefore unreliable as revelation. He spoke fully and perfectly by revealing himself in the person of his Son, as Hebrews 1.2 says. And as the Son told his disciples, after he left them he would send the Spirit, who would do certain things in and through them—most specifically, he would “bring all things to [their] remembrance” (Jn 14.26) and “guide [them] into all truth” (Jn 16.13). When did he do that? When they wrote the New Testament, completing the Scriptures.

So how does he speak authoritatively today? In the written Word, which is the Spirit-given record of the living Word, the incarnation, “the express image of [God’s] person” (Heb 1.3), “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1.15), the one “in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2.9). And that’s much better than the old way.

How?

Let me suggest three ways; I’m confident there are more.

The Word is objective. It’s written down, for all the world to see. The words are on the page; there’s a permanent record. It’s not a fleeting impression in your mind. There’s no question of whether it’s from God or just the product of your own imagination. It’s there.

The Word is firsthand. The Spirit of God directly guided the biblical authors so that they wrote what he intended (2P 1.21), down to the letter (Mt 5.18). We don’t have to depend on somebody else’s account of a dream he had once.

The Word can’t be faked. About that guy and his dream—how do you know if God really told him that? How do you know he’s not a crook? These days we have a pretty lousy record of discerning the spirits of preachers. Elmer Gantry is not entirely fiction, is he? We’re really good at being duped, because our flesh wants us to be. Jesus calls us sheep for a reason, no?

Back in the late 1970s I went to a healing service in Greenville featuring Ernest Angley. I decided to see what would happen if I asked to be healed. I got there about 10 minutes before show time and headed for the front row on the left side, from where I knew he called up the people he was going to heal. About 10 rows from the front an usher stopped me and asked if he could help. I told him I wanted to be healed. He told me that if God told Brother Angley to heal me, he’d call me out of the crowd regardless of where I was sitting. And he told me to go sit further back.

Which I did, about the middle of the house. And over the next 10 minutes I saw people trickle out, one by one, from behind the curtain and take their seats in the front row on the left. Those were the people he healed.

I don’t really need to tell you what was going on there, do I?

The written Word, my friends. The New Covenant. It’s better. It’s all we need.

Hear it.

Photo by Sunyu on Unsplash