Wow everyone, part 7 can you believe that. What an honor it has been to go through this series with you guys and now I can say with confidence we are nearing the finish line. Today will be our second to last episode in this series. We will be building on the past 6 episodes so if you haven yet gone through those teaching yet please do so now to gain a deeper and clearer understanding of all the concepts provided today. You can do so by clicking here.
We have been on an adventure to find out what the biblical authors answer is for why is the world the way that it is? As we have said at least seven times by now in Ancient Near Easterners worldview the answer to this question is
A proliferation of evil cause by three dual rebellions of both spiritual and human members of Gods family detailed in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis.
One of the most important and frequently used literary devices of the biblical authors is that of repetition. These master craftsmen used repeating themes to communicate powerful truths throughout the biblical narrative.
Motifs
These motifs are used to connect thoughts and telegraph similar ideas spanning the whole of the bible. We have been focusing on a particular motif that is repeated in rebellion narratives. In some instances as with Abraham and Moses we see these same motifs being repeated but as the character is loyal the elements are reversed leaving the reader with a stark contrast between the faithful and the unfaithful.
Here is a reminder of the patten we saw throughout the rebellion stories in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis.
“In the ancient boarders of EdenGod blesses a people, they multiply, they seek contact with the spiritual world apart from God, disobedience from both spiritual and human beings takes place, a judgement is pronounced, a promise given to humanity, God re-establishes the Edamic mandate set in the ancient boarders of Eden with the people again.”
Why is the World the Way that it is? Part 5
As we saw in the last Critical Thinking Aloud post this motif gets picked back up in the story of The Golden Calf in Exodus 32 only this time it is aimed at Gods covenant people. God disinherited the nations after the Babel rebellion and placed them under the authority of other spiritual beings who were to rule them as God would His own portion Jacob (the nation of Israel).
These spiritual beings lust for power fueled by a desire to be god by the inhabitants of their nations, and humans trying to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for the spiritual world, these spiritual and human beings rebel once again corrupting the earth. This is the biblical authors explanation for the origins of the other nations gods. It’s important to remember these spiritual beings are just members of the spiritual world. They are not Yahweh and never can be the creator God they pose themselves to be. They are basically disloyal flunkies masquerading as something they are not.
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Scripture says it all
Sadly last time we saw this motif applied not to the disobedient nations nor the deceptive spiritual beings but to Yahwehs own people the nation of Israel. The very next narrative in the Bible after God makes a covenant with His people is their reckless abandonment of the creator God for a spiritual mediator (The Golden Calf) that will “go before them”. This is tragic and yet another slap across the face of the one who has moved heaven and earth to free these people.
Today I thought instead of going over yet another disaster story we could look at some scripture that will paint this motifs for us to see across the history of the Israelites. Hopefully by the use of my own reptitition throughout these teachings you will notice this pattern for yourselves.
Lets begin
How many times can you see this motif repeated. Over and Over and Over again we read about this disobedient nation, which is Gods chosen people, choosing these flunky gods and running after them instead of the true creator of all things. What a mess!
The writing was on the wall from the every inception of this nation. God brought this nation out of Egypt and in the grips of their new found freedoms the foundations for a rebellion were set. After all their God had done for them in Egypt as soon as they were free they started to complained against their redeemer that He was unable to provide them with water and food. This is amazing! They just watched Him destroy Egypt around them while they we safe in Goshen.
Psalm 78 is this same motif on repeat. God blesses His people within the boarders of ancient Eden. He wants them to live in the promise land in an Edamic state while He provides for all their needs. Gods wants to share His authority with them while living in their midst. All they have to do is trust Him and do as He says. As we just read we know that this is not the case and that they not only disobey what He asked them to do they flat out rejected Him as their God.
“They would not be like their ancestors— a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him”
Psalms 78:8
“They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.”
Psalm 78:58
This was not new news to God
Of coarse this is not new news to God. He knew while Mose was still with them that they were a faithless people. Remember how Moses took on the role of the promised redeemer in Exodus 32 and stood in the gap willing to sacrifice his own life for that of these people least they be blotted out and destroyed all together for their unfaithfulness.
“So Moses went back to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold. But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.”
Exodus 32:31-32
Moses spent a lot of time with these people and he knew how their hearts were prone to wonder from the God who had freed them from slavery.
“After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.”
Deuteronomy 4:25-28
Before His death Moses predicted that Israel would reject the creator for lesser spiritual beings. Unfortunately as all the dual rebellions have proved true, Israels unfaithfulness to their God will also have dire consequences for the world .
“Then the Lord appeared at the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the tent. And the Lord said to Moses: “You are going to rest with your ancestors, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. And in that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and calamities will come on them, and in that day they will ask, ‘Have not these disasters come on us because our God is not with us?’ And I will certainly hide my face in that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods.”
Deuteronomy 31:15-18
If we can cast our minds back to a couple episodes ago, episode 5 to be precise we talked about the purpose for God choosing Israel. Recalling that information may be helpful to understand the severity of the Israelites rebellion and the impact it had on the world. God chose this nation to be the lineage of the Messiah who would bless every single person on the planet with the opportunity to be redeemed from sins curse.
Just as Abraham did before them, Gods chosen people Israel were to reflect the creator God to the other nations and be an example of how to place ones believing loyalty in Yahweh. The Law was not given to them for the purpose of obtaining salvation through its obedience, the law was given to them because they were Gods people and the law reflects Gods otherness, or what we call holiness (check out this awesome video by The Bible Project on holiness here). The law set the nation apart from the rest of the nations for the sole purpose of displaying what God is like, i.e. teaching the other nations who the one true God is.
Turns out after all this nation was not content on being different nor displaying the one true God to the other nations but became dead set on conforming to their practices and in the end worshiping their imposter gods. This did not turn out to be beneficial for Israel nor the other nations.
“Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek. They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior. They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God— gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your ancestors did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. The Lord saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters. “I will hide my face from them,” he said, “and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful. They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding. For a fire will be kindled by my wrath, one that burns down to the realm of the dead below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains.
Deuteronomy 32:15-22
There was no nation to display what God is like by living in a relationship with Him as Abraham did. There is no faithful nation to stand in the gap like Moses to display what loyalty to Yahweh is. Just a corrupt earth filled with people who are worshiping rebellious spiritual beings. Yet another devastating blow to humanity.
The good, the bad, and the ugly
After a long tragic history of faithlessness God finally abandons His people. In the open chapter of Ezekiel, the prophet is shocked to see the God of Israel on this chariot throne by the tributary off the river Euphrates he was sitting next it in the land of the Babylonians. Up to this point in Israels history apart from a brief time when the Ark was taken by their enemies, God was present with his people in the tabernacle or the temple. God shows Ezekiel why he left and this about sums up the Israelites attitude about their God in these days.
“In the sixth year, in the sixth month on the fifth day, while I was sitting in my house and the elders of Judah were sitting before me, the hand of the Sovereign Lord came on me there. I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood. And there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain. Then he said to me, “Son of man, look toward the north.” So I looked, and in the entrance north of the gate of the altar I saw this idol of jealousy. And he said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the utterly detestable things the Israelites are doing here, things that will drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see things that are even more detestable.” Then he brought me to the entrance to the court. I looked, and I saw a hole in the wall. He said to me, “Son of man, now dig into the wall.” So I dug into the wall and saw a doorway there. And he said to me, “Go in and see the wicked and detestable things they are doing here.” So I went in and looked, and I saw portrayed all over the walls all kinds of crawling things and unclean animals and all the idols of Israel. In front of them stood seventy elders of Israel, and Jaazaniah son of Shaphan was standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising. He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? They say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’” Again, he said, “You will see them doing things that are even more detestable.” Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord, and I saw women sitting there, mourning the god Tammuz. He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see things that are even more detestable than this.” He then brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord, and there at the entrance to the temple, between the portico and the altar, were about twenty-five men. With their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east. He said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the people of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually arouse my anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose! Therefore I will deal with them in anger; I will not look on them with pity or spare them. Although they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them.”
Ezekiel 8
Check out this podcast for a more in-depth study of Ezekiel 8 here. It is really good stuff!
This is incredible. The northern tribes have already been taken captive and dispersed among the nations for doing the exact same thing they are doing here. The norther tribes built 2 temples in the north to rival the temple in Jerusalem. The king of the northern tribes placed none other than 2 golden calfs as objects of worship in these rival temples.
Gods presence (the shekinah glory) leaving the temple and the northern tribes being carried off by the Assyrians is most likely why they think God does not see what they are doing and has forsaken them. This is a massive over sight and the omniscient True God has left His people until the time of the promised redeemer. Blessing, the people Multiplied, they worshiped other spiritual beings, judgement pronounced.
We are what is wrong with this world
Adam and Eve with the Devil rebelled. Humanity with spiritual beings rebelled. All the nations again with spiritual beings rebelled. Gods chosen people and the other nations gods (spiritual beings) rebelled! In the biblical authors mind this is the answer to the question of Why is the world the way it is?
This is bad news. God is leaving His chosen people and he won’t be returning anytime soon or at least not in the same way. Think about this. Just as He did with the other nations God finally gives Israel want they want. The want to be ruled by these inferior spiritual rebels so God puts them under their control. Instead of being His nation that teaches all the other nations what the one true God is like while being a blessing to the rest of the world, they chose to become like all the other nations and corrupt themselves by serving these created spiritual brings instead of the creator. Of coarse as we have seen this all takes place within the ancient boarders of Eden.
God doesn’t leave them without hope though. He shows them mercy by telling them they will return from captivity after a certain number of years. The motif concludes by God promising that the future redeemer will not only reunite the 12 tribes of Israel but the whole world back into Gods family.
Humanity is desperately obsessed with the notion that Eden would be grand as long as they don’t have to be bothered with Yahweh. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact I would argue this is the whole point of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). How can we be made right with God and live trusting in His ability to provide for our needs? The bible tells us we need help, and Gods promised Redeemer is the only one that is able to do this for us. By the end of reading through the Old Testament we should be asking only one question: Where is this promised redeemer to help us out of this mess we have created?
The greatest event in all of human history was the appearance of this promised redeemer. Hands down, by far, the messiah coming into the world to save undeserving humanity while they are still in rebellion was and for eternity always will be the single greatest gift anyone could ever receive. This is where our story ends for today but we will be back next time to talk more about this redeemer in our final episode of Critical Thinking Aloud: Why is the world the way it is.
Check out this short video series on Spiritual beings by our friends over at The Bible Project by clicking here. They are amazing and super helpful to better grasp what we will be covering in this series.