7 Images: The Knowledge of God

 

Salvador Dali "Abraham, Pater Multarem Gentium" (1964) 

Scripture recounts that God chose a man, Abram, from whom to create a people through whom "all the families of the earth" would be blessed. Little is known of Abram prior to his arrival in the Akkadian city of Harran from the Sumerian city of Ur, apart from a few sparse details regarding his immediate family and their descent from Eber (hence "Abram the Hebrew" in Gn 14:13). The departure from Ur likely occurred during the brief period of Akkadian rule that ended with the city's destruction by the Elamites around 1980 BCE. Our story properly begins with Abram's departure from Harran, a major trade depot connecting Mesopotamia to the Levant, to the land of Canaan.

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went, as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. (Genesis 12:1-3) 

The Canaanites seem to have originally worshipped the collective heavens, which they envisioned as a host of Mighty Ones (Elohim) before conceiving of a single even mightier entity representing representing Time, whom they referred to as El (not an actual name) to whom Darkness and Chaos first bore Dawn a Dusk respectively, after which Chaos bore the Morning Star, the Evening Star, the Sea and the Earth, and seventy Sons of God (Bene Elohim) who rule the seventy nations.

However, Canaan in the days of Abram was in transition from a religion devoted to El to a religion devoted to the Akkadian "Lord of the Storm" (i.e. Haddad) who represented Justice and Fertility. They now hailed this new deity as Ba'al and even appropriated to him the massive horns previously used to represent Might as well the long white hair and beard. El meanwhile became an elderly ruler who yielded authority to whomever was mighty enough to seize it for himself. Only in the hinterlands of the Southern Levant was El still revered, as we note with Melchizedek, and it was to this land that God brought Abram.

When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. (Genesis 12:6-8)

As the Canaanites sowed the seeds of their future destruction by abandoning the some apprehension of God for a sense of material security rooted in the worship of a weather god, Abram placed his trust in the one true God, and God blessed him. As the writer of Hebrews comments: 'whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him' (Hebrews 11:6). 

After these things the word of [YHWH] came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord [YHWH], what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of [YHWH] came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed [YHWH], and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:1-6) 

The last verse cited above is astonishing inso much as it indicates that being right with God is (and has always been) a matter of (a) believing that God is both Good and True to his Word and (b) placing oneself in his hands. Having doubled down on the promise to bless Abram with heirs by further promising their number will be beyond counting, God now gives him the name Abraham and promises that his descendants will comprise nations and kings of nations. He moreover promises possession the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants as an inheritance in perpetuity. This effectively establishes Abraham as King, which Melchizedek (High Priest of El Shaddai) effectively solemnifies by bringing Abraham refreshments in recognition of his routing of the ten invading kings. The Canaanites, having turned away from an intimation of God, thus found themselves dispossessed of their land, and even their language, which has survived to this day in the form of Hebrew.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old [YHWH] appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am [El Shaddai]; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:1-8) 

The sign that will mark those included in this covenant (whether descendants or anyone under the authority of a descendant) was male circumcision. Females would (by inference) come into the covenant via father, husband, or owner.

And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant. (Genesis 17:9-14) 

Note: Though the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael and Esau were also circumcised as part of this covenant, only the descendants of Jacob would become a people set apart for a sacred purpose as part of an additional covenant made at Sinai where God would create from Jacob a people, sacred to himself, to serve as priests to the nations.

Reading Scripture: Romans 9–10

Marc Chagall: "Moses and His People" (1973)

People often ask: “How can there can be a God who is both just and loving given all the unpunished evil and unmitigated suffering that we witness in this world?” This question betrays a sense that God should judge the world by punishing the wicked but also show mercy by saving the helpless—which is exactly what God does though his timetable is not our timetable and his standards are not our standards. We are all guilty and we are all helpless in God’s eyes. Consider Romans 9:30–10:10:

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved, for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge; for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness; for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes; for Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them, but the righteousness based on faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (i.e. ‘bring Christ down’)” nor ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (i.e. ‘bring Christ up from the dead’).

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (i.e. the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Unlike the Jews, whose concept of Law was tied to the holiness of God, the laws of non-Jews were primarily a matter of social order not tied to the nature of their gods, who were not known for their morality. Yet more non-Jews than Jews attained the righteousness of God—how could this be?

The non-Jews who attained righteousness did so by accepting their unrighteousness and casting themselves upon the mercy of God, who justified them because: “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” The Jews who stumbled did so because they trusted in their ability to keep the Law, which could have justified them—as it did Jesus—if they were truly holy, but they of course fell short. They failed to tremble before the Law because “being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness;” and they did not appeal to God for mercy because their zeal for God was “not according to knowledge” that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” They did not understand that justification is by faith.

In Deuteronomy 30:11-14, Moses exhorts Israel regarding the Law: “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” Paul interprets this passage to mean that we are not tasked with something as impossible as fetching Christ from Heaven or raising him from the dead. We have only to proclaim that he is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead. By this means, Christ becomes “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” How is this accomplished?

Though Jesus himself is justified by the Law, he is also condemned by the Law on our behalf for owning the sins of those who belong to him. The resurrected Jesus is both holy and a living sacrifice for our sins—but only if he is our Lord (because he does not own the sins of those who do not belong to him) and only if he has been resurrected (because the dead have no claim on the living). This is why Paul says: “For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

One might understandably wonder how confessing Jesus as Lord squares with the teaching that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”? Consider Romans 6:20-23:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The larger passage frames our options as either being slaves to sin, which leads to death, or slaves to God, which leads to eternal life. The latter option is only available by the grace of God, in which sense salvation is free to us, but being redeemed means that we now belong to God. Thus we read in 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20: “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.”

Returning to the question of how there can be a God who is both just and loving given all the unpunished evil and unmitigated suffering that we witness in this world, my own understanding is that we are learning empathy for one another and trust in God because this life is merely a period of training for the life to come when we will be tasked with something greater that demands a well-developed sense of empathy and trust.