Old Testament Theology - Lesson 4

Samuel asked a question: Do you have a distinct description of what the Old Testament does that would in any way approximate, say, John’s statement? You know John makes the statement in chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, “And many other things Jesus did that aren’t written in this book, but I have written this so that you might believe in him and have life in his name.” If I were – I mean, I would be happy to do it either now or later – but if I were to say, okay, a canonical theology of Scripture, where would you start? If I started with Genesis and on, I would eventually come to what I think are the strongest statements about Scripture, maybe in the Bible, but at least the Old Testament. 

We looked at what the New Testament said about itself, you know, “all Scripture,” but if I were to do that for the Old Testament, the two major texts would be Psalm 19 and Psalm 119. In Psalm 19:1-6, you have what we typically call ‘general revelation,’ that is, God revealing himself in the created world. Certainly, Romans 1 makes a similar point. But then, Psalm 19:7-14, “The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.” Now, so far, we’ve been given a variety of genres of literary types that you find in the Bible: law, testimony (which I think is narrative description), precepts (being case laws – if you do this, then this will occur), commandments of the Lord, then probably into the wisdom literature, “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.”

So in those verses you have a type, assessment, value. Law of the Lord? Perfect. What’s it do? Restores the soul. Testimonies of the Lord? Sure or certain; they will make wise the simple, in other words. When Paul talked about the book of Numbers, which I think was a testimony, in other words, a narrative, he says these things were written for our examples and basically states it as a negative sample so that we won’t sin as they sinned. Commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. “Fear of the Lord is clean; it endures forever.” Then it goes on, verse 10: “They are more desirable than gold, yea, than much fine gold.” Verse 11: “by them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward.” Verse 12: “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults.” It goes on to conclude with that great prayer: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Having done the Law and the Prophets and the Writings, we would have come up with this statement about Scripture in Psalm 119, as you know, the longest chapter in the Bible, the 176 verses about the worth of God’s word and what it does for the individual who lives by it. So I won’t take time to do all 176 verses, but I can say about the word of God that it is a place that gives a strong summary in a manner similar to, say, in fact, if you lay Psalm 19 and 2 Timothy 3:16 side by side, you have to wonder if Paul doesn’t have Psalm 19 in mind because he is saying the Bible is God-breathed. In other words, he talks about the Scripture, its quality, and then its usefulness, and it’s profitable for doctrine and for correction; the same sort of formula you get in Psalm 19. 

So as I said, I think this and other texts, I would begin, having studied the Old Testament with the presupposition of this being God’s word written and finding evidence of that in the Psalms themselves. Going back to the Prophets, you could do similar work way back then, even in Deuteronomy, where in chapter 31 it’s saying Moses wrote down the law. In Deuteronomy 32 Moses said, “These are not idle words to you; this is your life” (in 32:47). 

So he wasn’t just talking about oral word of God or oral tradition; they are committing these words to writing already. How important are these words coming out of the Pentateuch? You know, Joshua 1; how is Joshua to be successful in his path? By “meditating day and night on the Law of Moses.” 

You get to, later on, 1 Kings 2. How does David tell Solomon to succeed as king? By “meditating on the Law of Moses;” he uses that phrase. So in the Law itself – these words are your life – in the former prophets beginning with Joshua, on: “meditate on this law.” The Writings, we looked at first Psalm 19 and Psalm 119. When I go to the gospels, what does Jesus say about the Scriptures? He says in John 5:39 that they are about him – “search the Scriptures” – and that “Moses wrote of me.” Chapter 17 in verse 17, he prays for the disciples, “Keep them in thy word; thy word is truth.” (I went King James on you, didn’t I? Showing my background there.) So the gospel is called the “written word that Moses wrote about me,” Jesus said. He said, “These words are truth.” 

Paul we’ve already looked at, and certainly, if the quotations of the Scriptures as authoritative mean a whole lot, then a book like Hebrews, though it never says, necessarily, the Bible is pure, that it enlightens the eyes, or the Bible is God-breathed, or whatever, with one quotation after another it’s expounding the word, and the same thing on to Revelations. So I suppose one of the reasons I don’t start with a theology of the word is because it’s not the first thing the Bible says about itself. 

So you know, you make a decision. It’s not the first thing the Bible says about itself, but it is a primary question: Why would we study the Bible; what does it say about itself? It speaks of itself in the highest terms, of purity, surety, etc., on down to the New Testament, truth and God breathed. This is why, you know, this is my personal belief, and expounded much more thoroughly in God, Revelation, and Authority, volume 4. Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for people who disagree with me, and I hope I’ve shown you in my survey of scholarship, though I disagree with certain ones of these fundamentally, it does not mean I have nothing to learn or see no value in people who disagree with me. 

By the time the psalmist writes, he’s certain that if you come to Genesis 1:1 and start with creation, you will find a perfect, sure, and valuable and enlightening word. Now, when you come to Genesis 1 and 2, there are a lot of summaries you can draw. Though I know that the Bible itself is perfect and pure and God breathed, I don’t claim that for my own theological summary; you might make a better one, so what I offer is, certainly, my own findings, and I am willing to discuss them. 

I suppose in recent times, few passages of Scripture – if I could refer to something I’m working on now – I suppose few passages of Scripture have generated as much heated discussion as Genesis 1 and 2. On the one side, if you want kind of the boundaries of the discussion: On the one hand, you have naturalistic evolutionists – as Carl Sagan said, “The universe is all there is and all there ever will be,” a pretty strong statement of naturalistic evolutionists – and on the other hand, you have young earth, six-day, literal creationists, I mean, that would kind of be the opposite camp, wouldn’t it? And in between those two camps stood theistic evolutionists, framework theory proponents, non-young-earth-literal-six-day creationists, and others. Basically, what these folks are discussing are where did the world come from, how long has it been here, and in what form? 

Of course, these aren’t irrelevant discussions, you know. What little television I’ve seen recently, yesterday it was announced that a T. rex dinosaur had a cousin that only ate plants, not as big, not as fearsome, thank goodness only ate plants. Ninety million years ago is the date. Why not 85? I don’t know. You know, I’m not a scientist – I know no science, really – but I’ve just always been struck by how sometimes scientists seem to toss around numbers and dates the way some politicians toss around numbers. As one famous politician said, you know, a few more million dollars, and we’re going to be talking about real money here.

So, these are issues that are important, partly because I’m not qualified to discuss science. I don’t mean that because I’m a theologian; I know theologians who have science degrees. But I’m not going to pretend with my C- work, literally, in high school in biology, and my C work, all the way up to C in college, don’t know a whole lot about biology and I know nothing of chemistry. I’m not proud of that any more than I’m not proud that I don’t play any instrument. Again, I take no pride in that, but I’m not going to get a group of people and think I know something I don’t, at least not at this time. But there have been a lot of gains made, I think; I think this dialog, though it has been in many ways at times strident, at other times – I mean, I was involved in a panel discussion once at the University of Louisville where I just tried to say to them, “You want to understand a Christian?” Because we believe in the integration of faith and learning, we can’t leave God out of any discussion, really, and feel like we’ve had a full discussion, whether that’s science or history or theology or what it is, English lit, whatever. But that’s just unacceptable to some people. But to others, they say, “Sure, we see that.” 

But there’s been a lot of discussion about creation theology lately as well, and there’ve been some gains there. The discussion continues. There’s a new anthology, 2000, really: ‘God who creates,’ and a lot of contributors, but all of it on creation theology. Leo Perdue has recently written about wisdom in creation. Creation theology is getting more air time. 

I’m not going to try to cover all the variety of disputes on Genesis 1 and 2. I would just encourage you to read Dr. Mackie’s commentary, and then ask him any questions along those lines, but I want to talk about creation along the following line. Genesis 1 and 2, I think, stress God’s person in creation, who God is and how he acts, what he does.

So when you come to Genesis, you’re going to find the beginning point of some important themes, such as God’s personal involvement with human beings. God is personally involved with people; he doesn’t just make them, but is involved with them. God is sovereign. God is powerful. God is the one giving standards in Genesis 1 and 2, and if we creep over into Genesis 3, God is the one who is willing to forgive erring human beings, all of this at the beginning. 

The fact that God is the only Creator indicates that he is the only God. I want to say right from the beginning that believing what the Bible says obviously requires faith, and the church has long confessed the fact that God is the Creator as a key article of faith. The Apostle Creed’s carved up in the chapel here, I think: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” The Nicene Creed: “I believe in God…” and it goes on to say he is the Creator of all things, seen and unseen, right? I don’t have the Nicene Creed memorized, but that’s a phrase from it, and were the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed written today, we might include more data, more statements of faith, because it was radical enough at that point to say he is the Creator of all things, seen and unseen, but this is a statement of faith. You must perceive these things through the normal reception of thought and reason and believing by faith. 

So two different sorts of theologians, Carl Henry and Carl Barth, say the following. Henry asserts the question of the ultimate source of the universe brings human experience and reasoning to a standstill, how we got here, and bring our reasoning to a standstill, and he says only revelation from above can overcome this standstill. In other words, if we don’t have revelation, we are a bit in a muddle as to how we got here and why we’re here, and Henry’d argue that God has revealed how we got here and why we’re here. Carl Barth argues that the doctrine of creation, no less than the remaining content of Christian confession, is an article of faith and must be believed by those who accept God’s revelation. Barth believes revelation got here differently than Henry does, they disagree on certain things qualitatively, but both agree that Hebrews 11:3 summarizes the necessity for faith. Remember Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” God made it out of things that are not visible by his word. 

So one thing we must keep in mind is that creation itself is a confessional faith-based doctrine like all the rest and that it’s fundamental to your faith and commitments as the Bible unfolds, because eventually – you say, well again, “Just give me Jesus.” Well, John 1’s going to claim that all things came in through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. And Paul is going to confess in Colossians 1 that in Him all things were made and in Him all things hold together. We cannot bypass creation theology if we want to be Christians, so with these things in mind, we come to Genesis 1 and 2 and say what does it teach us? As I said, I think it emphasizes that God, and his person… 

Quotation from Ken Mathews: “Genesis 1 and 2 teaches God is not merely an idea. He is an eternal being whom we can know and experience personally.” Now, let’s keep first things first. Once we understand the importance of God’s person, we can then put human beings into proper perspective. In his interpretation commentary, Walter Brueggemann says, “Genesis 1 and 2 stresses the Creator created creation,” and he says if we get the subject, the verb, or the object out of order, that’s where trouble starts, to start flipping those three ideas, Creator, created, creation. You take the Creator created out, you’ve got a problem. If you make the object, the creation, the subject of that sentence, you’ve got a problem. I mean, it’s a simple, but deep insight, and I think Mathews is exactly right, too. 

What do you learn about God’s person in Genesis 1:2, God created the heaven and the earth. According to this verse, the Lord is the sole source and cause of things seen and unseen; sole source, sole cause. What’s the source of all things? God; in the beginning, God created them. He made them happen, and they came from him, and he is directly and personally involved in creation. That’s important, but it’s also important to see he is not the same thing as creation; he’s not part of it. The Creator created creation. Of course, there are a lot of theologies that try to tie God to the world, that somehow he gains his existence from the world or he is evolving with or like the world (process theology) but the biblical evidence would be that God, though actively, intimately involved with creation, is not dependent upon creation or the same as creation. To say that God is other than creation is not to say he is not involved with creation, so let’s not tie God to the world.

So God is the source, the cause of creation, yet is other than creation. But it is also noticed in 1:1 that God is acting alone. There is only one God operating here. Now, this separates the Genesis account from virtually all other – maybe one exception in Egyptian records – but virtually all other ancient Near Eastern accounts, all of which have multiple gods involved in creation, and if you are a polytheist, that’s what you would need to believe. But here there’s one God acting unaided by other deities creating the heavens and earth. But even though God is unique and acting alone, he is not alone, because verse 2 says a Spirit of himself yet separate from himself is hovering over the waters. I think Josh was asking yesterday about, you know, the notion of theology of the Spirit in the Old Testament. You get all the way to the second verse before you have to deal with that subject. The Lord is working personally in creation through his Spirit. “The earth is formless and void, but the Spirit of God is moving over the face of the water, hovering.” 

It is possible for Spirit to mean either wind (you’ve heard this), ‘ruach’ or ‘Spirit.’ But there are several texts, you know the Keil and Delitzsch Commentary series, Keil correctly comments, I think, that the Spirit is “the creative Spirit of God, the principle of all life,” and he said that’s true in several passages, including several Psalms. S.R. Driver adds, “The chaos of verse 2 is not left in hopelessness. Even before God speaks, the Spirit of God, with its life-giving energy, is brooding over the waters like a bird on its nest.” I like that emphasis. Even before God speaks, the Spirit is prepared to act, then God will speak. I do not believe the Spirit of God would indicate two Gods here because again, the Spirit is of this God. We’re talking about two parts, or two persons, of the same God acting purposefully in creation. This is obviously not a full-blown doctrine of the Trinity, by any means, but it is a beginning point. How may we speak of God and the Spirit of God intelligently? Well, the Scripture begins to unfold. 

You’ll begin to see a problem with doing canonical theology in Genesis; there’s a sense in which you could do all of theology starting with Genesis and working the whole of it out in Genesis. I happen to think if not the weakest chapter in my book, Genesis is one of them because it’s hard to decide how many connections to make from Genesis to the rest of Scripture. But God is solitary, he is unique, he is the source, he is the cause, and he operates in concert with the Spirit of himself in verse 2.

In verse 3, God speaks. “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Notice that God speaks and communicates. As Francis Schaeffer wrote, “He is very not silent. He reveals himself. God not only creates, he communicates.” And notice the power of these words. He says, “Let there be light,” and there is light, and on down the line, as God speaks, things happen. Human words are given extraordinary emphasis and power in the Old Testament; they have a light of their own. Much less the divine word; if a human word has power, how much more power would a divine word have? 

So he communicates and he creates, and notice that the word for create that’s in verse 1, ‘bara,’ God is the only subject of that verb in the Old Testament. Both God and human beings can make things, ‘asah;’ that means, you know, I can take stuff. One of the fun things of watching Apollo 13, you know, the movie where you’ve got this crippled spaceship up there, and they only have so many things on the ship, and I like this one part where they give some engineer the stuff the guys on the ship have and say this is what they need; make it out of this stuff. I saw a show once on how it is that Cuban mechanics keep those old, old, old American cars running, saw them make a fender out of cardboard, then saw them make a fuel pump out of a lawn sprinkler. This is extraordinary stuff! Human beings can asah nearly anything, but they cannot bara anything; only God can create. So you get to a text, you know, it’s interesting, like Psalm 51 that says, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Only God can do that, see, so God creates. 

But notice already in verse 3 to 5, he’s assessing, he names, he has the power to name things. And God saw the light was good. We’d prefer God to assess and say “It is good;” however, we will find out in biblical theology he can also assess in another manner, can’t he? So that by chapter 6, “And God saw that the intention of the human heart was only evil always.” But God assesses. We see in the reading you did for today in the Psalms, God is the Creator and he is the Judge; that’s another way of saying it, a judge assesses a situation, right? And puts out either penalties or blessings. So I would also say in verses 3 and following, “Don’t you have an ordered intelligence?” Things are in an orderly fashion here, and they seem to be created with some purpose. Orderly how? One thing following another, one day following another. And so one thing you can say about this brief account of creation is that you can say it’s ordered and intelligent. 

Does this mean there are not scientific questions even someone like me could ask and not have answered here? Sure; I don’t know how bright the light was. I don’t know how hot the water was. That about exhausts my knowledge, but I mean, you know, you could ask certain questions. There are also theological questions you could ask that aren’t fully answered in this text, but that does not take from the fact you have an ordered, intelligent statement here that is also theologically ordered and intelligent. It may not answer every question you want, but it does answer specific questions like did the world just happen, or did God do it on purpose? Was the world created in some specific, organized fashion or not? 

Notice that God possesses all the power there is to possess here, and that the only word used for what God makes is good. We look around, and even on the best days, everything is not good, but we are not yet to Genesis 3 yet, are we? God possesses all power for good. 

Now then, when you come to chapter 1, verses 26 to 31, we find then that God is not only personally involved with creation as a whole, he is going to make man and woman in his image, bless them, command them to care for the earth. 

This is a crucial point – we were talking about this after class yesterday – Genesis 1:26 is a crucial point for the rest of the Bible’s view of individuals, communities, justice, etc. 1:26: “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps.’ God created Adam in his image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth.’” And we go on through 31. 

So the charter of the human race’s responsibilities and privileges are found in Genesis 1:26-31, but those privileges and responsibilities begin with the fact that, unlike anything else we’ve seen in the first 25 verses, human beings alone are made in God’s image. Animals aren’t made in God’s image, plants aren’t made in God’s image, planets aren’t made in God’s image; human beings are, and as the text unfolds, only human beings can relate to God through spoken communication, right? Only human beings can see God’s personal blessing and God’s personal, specific command to be stewards of the earth, to take care of it. 

Now, then, on the one hand we can say, “My, what privileges!” For instance, Karl Barth comments, “It is in consequence of their divine likeness that men are distinguished from all other creatures with autonomous life. They are distinguished by superior position, by higher dignity and might, and by greater power of disposal and control.” So human beings have more power and privileges, but then, more responsibilities. In this God Who Creates volume Marsha Wilfong notes, “But if humankind is to carry out the task of dominion as God’s representatives on earth, then the exercise of human dominion should imitate God’s own dominion over creation and should have as its goal the fulfillment of God’s good purpose for creation. Exploitation of animals of the earth is not appropriate. Autonomous dominion that ignores or seeks to overthrow God’s ultimate dominion over creation is not appropriate. I would add to that what many have added, if we take this seriously, what reasons we have to be fair with all human beings regardless of gender or race or location; equality before God is based on the fact that human beings are made in God’s image. 

In my view, any other basis for fairness can falter. Any other basis for equality and kindness can falter because, let’s face it, if we tell a child to be nice to the kids at school, or they may not be nice to you, self interest is involved there, and it’s not so bad, and there is a sense in which there is a little self interest in saying “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” There’s something positive in that, but ultimately, if you say, “Why should I treat person X with dignity because they’re made in God’s image?” Though I forget the text, I’m sorry to say, when I get to Proverbs, I read, “Those who despise the poor despise the One who made them.” Or that Jesus says in Matthew 25:31-46; what’s his principle for saying “If you didn’t visit me or clothe me…” (or whatever) …when did we see you…?” and “We didn’t do that…” “When you did or did not do to the least of these, my brothers…” 

The principle of human beings made in God’s image is important throughout history, and it begins with creation theology, and I think if I were going to do a biblical ethics, which I’m probably not, I would begin with Genesis 1:26-31, and I would ask the simple question that has many manifestations and difficulties: What does it mean in Scripture to treat people as if they’re made in the image of God? What would that mean? What would that look like? What would a community founded on that principle look like? Well, I think in many cases we see that in Scripture. But what would it look like, justice and fairness and kindness, based on this principle, and human responsibilities and privileges?

Now I want to keep those in attention because it is true, as any decent farmer would know, that if you abuse the land long enough, it won’t serve you well. If you mistreat animals, they won’t grow. I mean, there is a whole host of things that basically you’d understand. So I want us to see our responsibility not to rape the earth and not to…but I also want to understand that human beings have the privilege of being made in God’s image so that my dog, my pug, is not my… I once said in a seminary class that seriously, and after that it became a two-year joke: do dogs go to heaven? And I said based on what would they go? They’re not made in God’s image. They’re not moral beings. If my dog disobeys me, it is hardly a moral fault, best I can tell; seems that way to me. And these pugs are interesting because they can know exactly what you want and not do it, more so than other dogs I’ve seen who are more eager to please. Pugs are eager to be your equal; they’re not necessarily eager to please, and I used to think cats were very independent; now I just don’t think they know much of anything. But when it’s all said and done, though animals are not to be mistreated by the stewards of creation, let’s not forget that they are not people, and you can work the implications of that out. 

Now, what else does God do here? He starts early, having made human beings in chapters 2 and 3, as a personal God. He starts to set an example for them. In other words, he starts instructing human beings right after he has them. Someone once asked me (I just have the one child, may retire undefeated, I don’t know [laughter]). But I just have the one child, and some people think she’s a good person and that I had something to do with it, and say “When did you start training her to do thus and so?” And I thought, and then I said, “I think when we brought her home, actually, in that case, or very early on, and it’s very much like this here.” 

The seventh day is a day of example where God rests and makes holy a day of rest. If we want to set aside a Sabbath principle, we’ve got to go back further than the 10 commandments; we’ve got to go back to creation, and the older I get, the more I say not, “Do I have to keep the Sabbath?” But, “When is the Sabbath coming?” I can have one day in seven; the Bible says so! And for ministers, you mean, it’s almost to get to pragmatics, pretty soon it’d better be some day besides Sunday, because even though, particularly in the reformed tradition says you can do good works on the Sabbath, and the Calvinists talk about preaching and teaching and good works that you’re not breaking the Sabbath if you do. That does not mean it’s a healthy thing, nor even a godly thing to do, to work seven days a week. There must be some Sabbath that gets to be. So Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, which means you can have a Sabbath, but you’re not supposed to be its servant; that’s what God’s driving at here. Yeah, you can slap enough rules and regulations, and it’s just one more job to do, but the Sabbath has been given to you as a gift. So I embrace it.

So God sets the example, and then as he begins to put people to work doing what he commanded them to do in Genesis 1:26-31, puts them in this place where they’re supposed to work and keep and be stewards. 

Notice another important point in chapter 2, verses 15 to 17, God is the one who sets standards for human beings. He says to them, “Now, you may eat of anything except for this tree, these trees.” I think this shows not only is he the one who gives standards, but he is concerned about human beings. He wants them to be sustained, but he also wants to have an ongoing relationship with them, and he walks with them and allows them total freedom, with one exception: “You may not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and breaking this command would mean death.” So the man and woman may not do as they please and maintain a good relationship with the Creator, right? Reformed theology talks somewhat about this being a covenant of works, which I don’t believe is true. The fact is, to abide by this prohibition, they have to trust the Creator’s word. They’re either going to believe this command or not. When Genesis 3 comes up, what do they do? The woman knows what God has said, she hears what the serpent says, she believes what the serpent says, and apparently, her husband does as well because he also eats (John Milton’s and others’ reconstruction notwithstanding).

Faith is required, so they’ve entered into a faith-based agreement with God, keeping the commandment is no meritorious work because they wouldn’t even know they were in danger unless God had told them; what merit could you have when you’re totally ignorant of something. There’s no meritorious work in believing God, ever, so I don’t like the terminology of the ‘covenant of works,’ but the situation comes unraveled in Genesis 3. Daniel Fuller writes in his book, The Unity of the Bible, excellent volume, “By disbelieving in God’s mercy, Eve and Adam utterly scorned his glory, whose apex is his disposition of being merciful and benevolent and to tell them how they may be protected.” 

There are many consequences to their lack of faith as a sin. There are personal consequences that their relationship, which according to Genesis 2:25 was “naked and not ashamed.” There were absolutely no barriers between them. I have often heard, growing up, these things: “Adam and Eve, they were good looking; Adam was buff and Eve was really attractive.” For all I know, they were truly ugly persons; it did not matter. And there’s a difference.

It’s hardly a virtue, it’s just a matter of intelligence and maybe of personal taste to say somebody’s attractive. But for that not to matter is a whole separate issue, and it didn’t matter in Genesis 2; whatever they looked like, it’s unstated, it didn’t matter. They were naked and not ashamed. But their personal relationship is now at a strain. Their relationship with God, more importantly, is at a strain. Genesis 3:15, which is a related theme to creation and the fall, is that evil won’t always triumph; there is someone coming from the woman who will crush the serpent’s head. This is hardly a full-blown doctrine of the Messiah, but it’s a start. We’ll be talking about that on day six or seven or something. 

But God has set standards, and they have broken it. God has provided for them. He has initiated relationship with them, and yet there has been sin. 

So we’ve said a variety of things. God is the only God. He is the source and cause of creation. His Spirit operates separately from himself at times. He is the Creator. He speaks, he communicates. He assesses. His is an ordered intelligence. He relates to human beings. He creates them in his image. He sets examples for them. He initiates relationships with them. He sets standards for them, and in Genesis 3, forgives them. 

So we’ve kind of a mini theology of the Scriptures here, all this flowing from the fact that God is the Creator. No wonder, then, is it Psalm 95 and Psalm 100 that both say, “Bow down and worship the Lord, for he is our Maker, and not we ourselves.” And so whatever fault one can find, it would be hard to find it with God unless you said he created a world in which sin was a possibility, and I think those who have in a variety of different ways and formats, or whatever, those who have said it is necessary for that possibility to exist for relationship to exist; in other words, for a true and deep relationship to exist, there has to be the possibility for someone of rejecting that relationship. It’s another way of saying all relationships are by grace. You cannot make someone love you, but the fact that that is true somehow enriches a relationship that is done by choice, right? I don’t know, I can’t begin to answer all the issues of evil and suffering. 

The Bible is clear that God did not create evil. He did create a world in which, though, that choice was possible. But there is something about that choice being possible that makes the relationship what it is, and I know we’ve really kind of stepped into a land mine there, but the fact is, human beings were offered by grace. I don’t think sin is always necessary for grace to be a—because to me, grace is someone extending a kindness that is not required, and God extends the kindness of his company and a relationship with him in the garden. He doesn’t need people; he existed before the world did, right? “In the beginning, God…” He was already there. There’s no evidence in Scripture that unless he had made the world, he would have been in trouble somehow, so he by grace has this relationship with people, and they sin against that grace and need further grace with forgiveness of their sin.

We’ve learned a bit about God’s person that flows from the fact that he is the Creator, and the next step would be to work with some of these same principles in Isaiah 40-48. And I want to pause, at least, and because this is so foundational to what we’ll do the rest of today and part of tomorrow, where there are other items you’d want to add to the list; and you know, we ended up with a summary there of God with about 15 parts, all of which would be vital to the whole biblical theology in serious Christian life, but if someone ever wondered why would God send Jesus to have a relationship with us, God has been working for relationship with human beings since Genesis 1:26-31. Are there points of agreement or disagreement here?

Student: [Inaudible]

Dr. House: We’re going to discuss that more in the next session, Isaiah 40-48, because it is a more relevant place, but the openness of God as articulated… Well first of all we’ll start with process theology as different from the openness of God as process theology says God is in some way dependent and connected to his own creation, and that he is developing and getting greater as time goes on, so if you’re going to talk—usually the issue starts with evil and suffering; how do we explain evil and suffering. The process theologian will say “Well, God cannot yet come up with an antidote for certain illnesses, for instance, but he has been able to overcome some, but used to…” In other words, God’s getting greater; he’s more knowledgeable today than he ever was. He’s learning and growing and evolving, and, gratefully, at a faster rate than we are, and he is connected to his creation. 

Now, openness-of-God people, as you just described them, first of all believe that God is the Creator. They believe that he knows some future events, both by intuition and experience that we don’t have, that he has fixed some future events and that they are unchangeable, but that he is open to a variety of possibilities, so that human freedom can occur. They would believe that if God knows every future contingent event, if he knows them, he has caused them, and you are not free, so that though God has set forth the day for Jesus to return – to use a personal example from yesterday, a lady said you know, “Not married, but take an application!” A friend of mine says her life verse now is if any man will come, let him! God may not know how that’s going to turn out. He gives you complete freedom; he may not know how that turns out. 

That would be the ‘openness-of-God’ approach, so to give you freedom. What I want to do here now is not critique it, but we’re going to get to that important issue in current theology, and a lot of people it makes sense to them. “Why didn’t God do something about thing X?” He’d really like to, but in order for us to be free, he’s gotta let it go. Or, you know, well, I guess he doesn’t… It makes sense to me that God’s unable at this point in time to do something, but as time goes on… So it makes sense to a variety of people. Yes ma’am?

Student: [Inaudible] …he would know all of the—

Dr. House: That’s right, and even whether you made a good choice – will make a good choice or not. Right. That’s correct. And see, at first blush, you think this is a Calvinism versus Arminianism thing; that’s what a lot of people, or a theologically literate person thinks, well, there we go again. No. Wesley, read his 1788 sermons. Wesley, of course, believed that God knew everything, the end from the beginning, everything that’s going to happen or ever would, but that because he sees them in a moment of time, he’s not necessarily causing them, so it’s not a traditional Armenian view or Wesleyan view. Some Armenians and Wesleyans don’t want to be lumped together, to say that God, somehow, for you to be free and totally free, they would not argue that the fact that God knows everything means he causes them. 

But now the issue is omniscience, and – in kind of a joking way – I remember this whole Watergate thing from when I was a kid, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” is the question that’s being asked about God. What does God know, and when does he know it, and why does he need to know it, and if he knows it, are you free? I would argue since the openness-of-God people do believe some things are fixed and final, I have to have a reason why other things are not, and if you say, well, they’re more important, are they? How important is her five choices over here she just talked about; that’s fairly significant to her. And if we believe what the Bible teaches about a connected human race, I’d say it’s fairly important to some of the rest of us, too, whether we are aware of it currently or not! Oh well.

It starts here, but the question is, if I’m going to answer an openness of God question, I’m going to start with creation theology. Does not the Creator know everything, including—now, they agree that he knows everything going on now. They’d say “Well, he knew that they had sinned and all these other things. He knows the heart. He knows everything going on now; he’s fully aware now, and he’s fixed some things in the future, but some of these other things are open.” 

Student: [Inaudible]

Well, and I’m trying not to say too much from Genesis 1 and 2. You can run with these things, but again, this is what we know now. What does Isaiah mean just at the very beginning of creation theology? Isaiah 40, one of the texts that’s ever used by Christians that are in the Old Testament, starts with “Comfort my people.” There are two reasons they need comfort in Isaiah. One is the country’s just been shot to bits by the Assyrians. According to chapters 36 to 39, there’s been an Assyrian invasion. According to ancient history, every city in Judah, 53 in all were captured, looted, plundered; people murdered, impaled, boiled in oil, tortured. The Assyrians made artwork of it. There’s even one of what happened in Judah at this time, the Lachish inscription, or the Lachish reliefs that are in, um, where else? The British museum, replicas in Jerusalem. But it’s really interesting; well it’s like I was watching last night a bit on the History Channel, the Nazis filmed all sorts of atrocities that they themselves were doing, extraordinary. So the Assyrians had just sacked 53 cities. Jerusalem had been laid under siege and had barely escaped. That was one reason they needed comfort. 

The second reason they needed comfort was God had predicted through Isaiah at the end of chapter 39 that long term, Babylon would come and capture Jerusalem and Judah. The short-term problem was we just went through a horrible, devastating nation-numbing war that we lost; we were never in the game, and it took a divine miracle to free us even in Jerusalem – that’s one thing – and that in the future that miracle won’t occur; there’s coming a time when the same thing will happen, only Jerusalem will fall, too. 

But, comfort my people. Tell them short-term and long-term, their sin has been forgiven, but based on what theology? Because these people are weary and tired, so they say things like, verse 6: “A voice says, ‘Call out.’ And I said, ‘What shall I call out?’ ‘All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like a flower in the field; the grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it.” 

Surely, the people are like grass on a hot day in Alabama, without water, without a breeze; that’s what people are like. Now that sounds like my grandmother could have said that. I have two grandmothers, one, a totally optimistic, kind, and happy every day, and the other one who really understood the human race, “Cause that’s just about what people are; they’re here for a little while…gone, that’s it.”

“The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.” And here comes the word of God, proclaim this: “God’s gonna carry his people (verse 11) like a shepherd tends his flock.” Then it gives you creation theology, verse 12: “Who’s measured out the waters in the hollow of his hand? Who’s marked off the heavens by a span? Who’s calculated the dust of the earth by the measure; has calculated and weighed it out?” It’s kind of like an artisan, somebody making, you know, an item, like God’s in a shop somewhere baking a world! But he is the Creator!

Now, to him, verse 15, “The nations are like a drop in a bucket. They’re like a speck of dust on the scales.” So, verse 18, “Who are you going to compare God to?” If these things are true, can you compare God to an idol? See, the people had options. Should we worship the God of the Scriptures? Should we worship the gods of the Assyrians since the Assyrians are so powerful? Should we worship the gods of Egypt since Egypt has avoided the power of the gods of the Assyrians? Should we worship the gods of the Babylonians? After all, they seem to be the winners of the future. And Isaiah says you can’t compare God to an idol! He’s the Creator. He’s all there is. He is God, and there is no other. Not only is there no one like him; this is out of creation theology. 

And so it says the one who sits above the circle, the creator, the sustainer of the world, he rules rulers. Verse 23: “He reduces rulers to nothing. He makes the judges of the earth meaningless.” Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, and he takes care of them. So do you pray to the Assyrians? Do you pray to the Egyptians? Do you pray to the bishop? Do you pray to the deacons? Do you pray to the elders? Who are you afraid of? God made them all. God rules them all! They are all accountable to God, whether they know it or not, because the Creator is also the Assessor, remember? And the one who can sustain the world; verse 26, “He created the stars, put them all out there, kept track of them all – do you think he hasn’t kept track of you?” 

So with all that creation theology in mind, he says “The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not become weary or tired, and he gives strength to the weary.” The Creator who made you can give you strength. Therefore, though youths grow tired and weary and vigorous young men stumble badly. Now we get to the verse everyone remembers: “Those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength, mount up with wings like eagles, run and not get weary, walk and not faint.” 

When you first hear that, “‘Those who wait upon the Lord,’ so I can take a rest awhile; the Lord will empower you again.” No, we’re talking about the Creator of all heavens and earth giving you some of his strength. So what does Isaiah 40 use creation theology to do? What is Isaiah 40 trying to do for the hearers and the readers, put in simple terms? Comfort, establish faith, to assure them of his presence, his love, of their place in his life.

So creation theology is here put to use to try to help people know who God is, take faith in him, and take comfort in the midst of a horrible situation that long term is not going to get better. I want to emphasize that because sometimes God talks about delivering people from a situation; other times, he talks about sustaining them in a situation. We all prefer the former, do we not? We just do; we want to be delivered, but sometimes that is not what is going to occur, at least not soon, and so we, yes, want God to sustain.

Now, as these texts go on, particularly, God says, chapter 43, verse 1 (just a couple minutes we’ve got left), God says they suffered greatly, and he says he has punished them. Chapter 43, verse 1: “But now says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel, do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I made you, I formed you, I’ve now redeemed you and called you by name.” Creation theology, making, naming, purpose. 

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow.” You know, the one who made you is not going to forsake you, abandon you. The last day of class or so, we’re going to talk about theology, what happens when you suffer and it feels like you’ve been abandoned. But understand he says, “I have not abandoned you; I, the Holy One of Israel and your Savior, I am with you.” So again, the Creator—now another thing, he’s not just now trying to assure them. In chapter 43 in verse 10, he wants to protect them from false theology that will bring them no hope. Verse 10: “‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘And my servant and my chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, and there will be none after me. There’s no God out there but me. I am the Lord, and there is no savior besides me.’” Verse 13: “Even from eternity, I am he.” 

So God’s trying to reassure them through the theology of creation and through the notion that there’s no other God. See, in biblical theology, it is not a kindness to let people believe in false gods; if there is no hope in those gods, it is not a kindness to do nothing about idolatry. 

The thing I’ll leave you with…this will maybe segway into tomorrow; we’ll talk about some of the ideas of openness of God. God says, “Let me prove to you that I am God and there is no other. I’m about to declare the future to you.” In Bruce Ware’s recent book, God’s Lesser Glory, which is a critique of openness-of-God theology, he makes a big point about Isaiah 40-48, rightfully so. There are some other texts that ought to be handled as well, but he says, look, in Isaiah 40-48, in the midst of all this creation theology, having said that God’s the Creator, he’s the Savior, there’s no other, he says, “Let me prove this to you; I’m going to tell you the future. Go find an idol that can tell you the future.”

Now in Isaiah, the argument is geared to making sure that people don’t believe in idols or in other gods or other religions, so it’s not a one-to-one correspondence, but he says one of the things the Bible does is to predict future contingent events, for instance, Cyrus.

At the end of the 8th century, Isaiah, as I think it is, you have Cyrus in the future, not even born yet. You have a similar text in 1 Kings 13, before Josiah is born, the text says God predicted that a king named Josiah would come here and do such-and-such to this altar. I want to suggest to you that there are several future contingent events that God is taking into account, at the very least, Josiah’s parents getting together, having a baby, and naming him Josiah. There are some future contingent events involved in that, or in Cyrus being born. Or even if you take a later date for Isaiah, the future contingent event is that Cyrus would deliver the people, that he would care enough about Israel to do it, that he would defeat the Babylonians, that he would set them free, that there would be the decree of Cyrus, all sorts of political and personal future contingent events. 

Now, the Bible at no place that I know says, “Well, God knows all future contingent events, and this means thus-and-so.” But over and over again, he predicts or knows future contingent events, such as who people are going to marry and what sort of child they’re going to have, and these certain events. A little bit like in the New Testament; you know, Jesus never stood up and said, “I am God.” One derives that from all the things that would lead you to that conclusion. I would say the same thing about God knowing all future events. So we’re going to be left in a mystery how God’s knowledge of those dictates or doesn’t dictate the outcome, and I think until Jesus comes, the Wesleyans and Calvinists will discuss how that is the case. I think it’s an important discussion because human responsibility is involved, so I think it’s an important discussion. But whatever you decide, I don’t think God’s lack of knowledge is going to help at all, so that God knows these future contingent events, and part of the evidence he gives that you should trust him and not an idol is that he does know these things.

So we’ll kind of leave it at that, but in creation theology, Isaiah goes from creation theology to God being the judge and comforter and also the one who knows all things, directly out of creation theology, so I wouldn’t make that point. You know, if you asked the question, I wouldn’t give the answer I gave right now from Genesis 1 and 2, but I would say as you come to Isaiah and Isaiah appropriates creation theology, Isaiah makes that point. Now, by the way, if by ‘God never changes’ you mean God is dull, uninteresting, and has no character, no flavor, I certainly don’t believe that. I would argue God doesn’t change because he doesn’t need to change; he’s inherently perfect. That’s very difficult for me to describe, because I hope I’ll come to love you more and more, but so far, I see no inherently perfect people, and I’m certainly not. Why can I only conceive of change? Because I need to change. What if there is a Being described in Scripture who does not need to change because he is infinitely and inherently perfect, which, among other things, means he’s infinitely interesting. 

So we’ll pick up that and finish some stuff on creation and begin the days we’re going to do on God’s law. I appreciate your help today, and do interrupt me when you need to. Thanks a lot. See you bright and early tomorrow.