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Metaphor in Scripture and Analogical Reasoning (How to Talk About God)

07 Friday Jun 2019

Posted by in Carl F Henry, John Calvin, Richard Sibbes, Uncategorized, Van Til

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In the previous post on Richard Sibbes Second Sermon on the Canticles, Sibbes makes this point:

Indeed, taking the advantage of such relations as are most comfortable, to set out the excellent and transcendant relation that is between Christ and his church; all other are not what they are termed, so much as glasses to see better things. Riches, beauty, marriage, nobility, &c., are scarce worthy of their names. These are but titles and empty things. Though our base nature make great matters of them, yet the reality and substance of all these are in heavenly things. True riches are the heavenly graces; true nobility is to be born of God, to be the sister and spouse of Christ; true pleasures are those of the Spirit, which endure for ever, and will stand by us when all outward comforts will vanish.

Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet And Co.; W. Robertson, 1862), 23.

Below, I am going to outline some of the ideas which are relevant to this question of analogy and analogical thinking and talking about God. This is by no means exhaustive — and I am going to end with a conflict between Gordon Clark and Van Til on analogy.

This concept of an analogy between divine and human things was not new to Sibbes. Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae in response to the question of any name can be applied to God in a literal sens, answered:

I answer that, According to the preceding article, our knowledge of God is derived from the perfections which flow from Him to creatures, which perfections are in God in a more eminent way than in creatures. Now our intellect apprehends them as they are in creatures, and as it apprehends them it signifies them by names. Therefore as to the names applied to God—viz. the perfections which they signify, such as goodness, life and the like, and their mode of signification. As regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God, and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of signification applies to creatures.

Thomas goes on to write, that we can only speak of God by means of analogy:

I answer that, This name “God” in the three aforesaid significations is taken neither univocally nor equivocally, but analogically. This is apparent from this reason: Univocal terms mean absolutely the same thing, but equivocal terms absolutely different; whereas in analogical terms a word taken in one signification must be placed in the definition of the same word taken in other senses; as, for instance, “being” which is applied to “substance” is placed in the definition of being as applied to “accident”; and “healthy” applied to animal is placed in the definition of healthy as applied to urine and medicine. For urine is the sign of health in the animal, and medicine is the cause of health.

The same applies to the question at issue. For this name “God,” as signifying the true God, includes the idea of God when it is used to denote God in opinion, or participation. For when we name anyone god by participation, we understand by the name of god some likeness of the true God. Likewise, when we call an idol god, by this name god we understand and signify something which men think is God; thus it is manifest that the name has different meanings, but that one of them is comprised in the other significations. Hence it is manifestly said analogically.

Article 7. Whether names which imply relation to creatures are predicated of God temporally?

The doctrine of analogy brings together rather disparate elements of the Christian tradition (it’s not always that one cites Thomas Aquinas and Van Til).  The doctrine of analogy rests upon the Creator-creature distinction, and here Van Til makes as good a point as anyone:

God is “infinite,” “eternal,” and “unchangeable” in his being. Because God’s being is such, and because man’s being is finite, temporal, and changeable, in short, because there is the ontological distinction, man can have no univocal knowledge of such a being as God. Nor can man, because of the ontological distinction, know what God knows in the same way as God knows it, whether that knowledge pertains to God Himself or to some created thing.

Jim Halsey, “A Preliminary Critique of Van Til: The Theologian A Review Article,” Westminster Theological Journal 39, no. 1 (1976): 122. But we will get back in a moment to that last bit, “know what God knows in the same way as God knows it.” Henry makes a very similar point:

The Bible affirms not simply that God differs from all finite created beings. It declares also that God is the supremely knowable reality, and is so in view of his intelligible self-revelation and disclosure of reliable information about his nature, purposes and acts. It denies, however, that God is in all respects wholly other than man who bears his image.

The analogy of attribution affirms a likeness between God and the creaturely in specific perfections or attributes in distinction from mere analogical relationships.

Carl F. H. Henry, “Methods of Determing Divine Attributes” in God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 5 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 86–87. Analogical thinking, due to the Creature-Creator distinction necessitates some sort of analogical use of language to talk about God:

Thus, when we predicate to God things from creation, we cannot predicate any of their limitations to him. We can only ascribe the actuality the creature received from the Creator. In this sense, creatures are both like and unlike God. That opens the door to understanding by analogy.

The only alternatives to analogy are skepticism or dogmatism: Either we know nothing about God, or we assume that we know things in the same infinite way in which he knows them.

Norman L. Geisler, “Analogy, Principle Of,” Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 22. And so Geilser agrees with Aquinas.

The necessity of analogical thinking was illustrated by Athanasius in dispute with some Arians (those who denied the divinity of the Son), when they argued that God “begetting” the Son means that the Son is a creature. He responded by making an analogical argument:

Words so senseless and dull deserved no answer at all; however, lest their heresy appear to have any foundation, it may be right, though we go out of the way for it, to refute them even here, especially on account of the silly women who are so readily deceived by them. When they thus speak, they should have inquired of an architect, whether he can build without materials; and if he cannot, whether it follows that God could not make the universe without materials4. Or they should have asked every man, whether he can be without place; and if he cannot, whether it follows that God is in place, that so they may be brought to shame even by their audience. Or why is it that, on hearing that God has a Son, they deny Him by the parallel of themselves; whereas, if they hear that He creates and makes, no longer do they object their human ideas? they ought in creation also to entertain the same, and to supply God with materials, and so deny Him to be Creator, till they end in grovelling with Manichees. But if the bare idea of God transcends such thoughts, and, on very first hearing, a man believes and knows that He is in being, not as we are, and yet in being as God, and creates not as man creates, but yet creates as God, it is plain that He begets also not as men beget, but begets as God. For God does not make man His pattern; but rather we men, for that God is properly, and alone truly5, Father of His Son, are also called fathers of our own children; for of Him ‘is every fatherhood in heaven and earth named6.’ And their positions, while unscrutinized, have a shew of sense; but if any one scrutinize them by reason, they will be found to incur much derision and mockery.

Athanasius of Alexandria, “Four Discourses against the Arians,” in St. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. John Henry Newman and Archibald T. Robertson, vol. 4, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1892), 320. We may wish to add here Calvin’s statement in the Institutes that God must accommodate himself to our limited understanding and does this by means of an analogy:

What, therefore, does the word “repentance” mean? Surely its meaning is like that of all other modes of speaking that describe God for us in human terms. For because our weakness does not attain to his exalted state, the description of him that is given to us must be accommodated to our capacity so that we may understand it. Now the mode of accommodation is for him to represent himself to us not as he is in himself, but as he seems to us. Although he is beyond all disturbance of mind, yet he testifies that he is angry toward sinners. Therefore whenever we hear that God is angered, we ought not to imagine any emotion in him, but rather to consider that this expression has been taken from our own human experience; because God, whenever he is exercising judgment, exhibits the appearance of one kindled and angered. So we ought not to understand anything else under the word “repentance” than change of action, because men are wont by changing their action to testify that they are displeased with themselves. Therefore, since every change among men is a correction of what displeases them, but that correction arises out of repentance, then by the word “repentance” is meant the fact that God changes with respect to his actions.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 227.

And now as promised, back to Van Til:

Van Til tells us that the Christian is always to think “analogically”: “Our reasoning then must always and everywhere be truly analogical.… The necessity of reasoning analogically is always implied in the theistic conception of God.”8 But what does it mean to “reason analogically” in contrast to “reasoning univocally”? If we but keep the three elements of analogy in mind, we cannot go far astray in our answer to this question. To reason analogically will mean, for the regenerate consciousness, reasoning as a dependent creature. “Dependent upon what?”, we might well ask. The answer can only be, “dependent upon the self-revelation of the Creator as that self-revelation has been inscripturated in the Bible. Thinking analogically entails:

 

   (a)      thinking under the authority of the Scriptures and therefore of necessity:

   (b)      being in covenant with God (by regeneration), and hence:

   (c)      recognizing the finite, creaturely status of our thoughts as these thoughts are derivative of their Original (God).

   (d)      Consequently, our reasoning (use of the law of non-contradiction) will accord with (a) above. We will see the significance of this point in a little while.

Jim Halsey, “A Preliminary Critique of Van Til: The Theologian A Review Article,” Westminster Theological Journal 39, no. 1 (1976): 125–126. But there is one further matter of Van Til to consider: how great is the disjunction between human and divine thought. An important aspect of Van Til’s thought is that he posits a “hard distinction” in the analogy between Creator and creature:

Again, because of the emphasis Van Til places upon the ontological distinction between God’s being and knowledge and man’s being and knowledge, there can never be any one to one correspondence between the divine and the human mind. For example, God’s concept of a rose and our concept of that same rose will not correspond on a one to one basis at any juncture.5 This lack of identity does not lie in the fact that God knows more about the rose than does man; rather, the difference lies in the ontological level of God’s knowledge. This is but another way of saying that God’s knowledge of the rose proceeds upon a qualitatively different plane than does man’s. If analogy were simply a matter of knowing “more than,” the distinction to be drawn between divine knowledge and human knowledge would be a quantitative and not a qualitative one. If the difference were only quantitative, emphasis would fall upon the commonality, upon the ultimate univocism, of the divine being and the human being.

It is abundantly clear, from even a cursory reading of Van Til, that it is not the quantitative difference that finds emphasis in the doctrine of analogy: “For man any new revelational proposition will enrich in meaning any previous given revelational proposition. But even this enrichment does not imply that there is any coincidence, that is, identity of content between what God has in his mind and what man has in his mind.… There could and would be an identity of content only if the mind of man were identical with the mind of God.”6

Jim Halsey, “A Preliminary Critique of Van Til: The Theologian A Review Article,” Westminster Theological Journal 39, no. 1 (1976): 123–124. This led to a serious conflict with Gordon Clark (you can read about the history of their conflict in lots of places; just search their names and your find endless posts on the issue). I just want to highlight some of the intellectual nature of the conflict:

But Van Til is equally insistent that this divine self-revelation, by the Spirit’s enabling illumination, can produce in men a “true” knowledge of God, although their knowledge will be only “analogical” to God’s knowledge of himself— it will never correspond to God’s knowledge at any single point! How Van Til can regard this “never corresponds” knowledge as “true” knowledge is, to say the least, a serious problem. Perhaps he means that the Creator is willing to regard as “true” the knowledge that men derive from his self-revelation to them even though it is not univocal knowledge at any single point, because due to human finiteness he had to adapt his revelation to creaturely finite comprehension. God’s verbal reve-lation to human beings, in other words, since it is “creature-oriented” (that is, “analogical”), is not a univocal statement of his understanding of himself or of anything else and thus can never produce anything higher than a creaturely (“analogical”) comprehension of God or of anything else. If this is what Van Til means, it is difficult to see how, with his explicit rejection of the univocal element (see his “corresponds at no single point”) in man’s so-called “analogical” knowledge of God, Van Til can rescue such knowledge from being in actuality a total equivocality and no true knowledge at all. It is also difficult to see how he can rescue God from the irrationality in accepting as true what in fact (if Van Til is correct) he knows all the while coincides at no single point with his own knowledge, which is both true and the standard of truth.

Against all this, Clark contended that Van Til’s position leads to total human ignorance:

 If God knows all truths and knows the correct meaning of every proposition, and if no proposition means to man what it means to God, so that God’s knowledge and man’s knowledge do not coincide at any single point, it follows by rigorous necessity that man can have no truth at all.11

He further argues:

 If God and man know, there must with the differences be at least one point of similarity; for if there were no point of similarity it would be inappropriate to use the one term knowledge in both cases.… If God has the truth and if man has only an analogy [this “analogy” containing no univocal element], it follows that he (man) does not have the truth.12

Clark illustrates his point this way:

 If … we think that David was King of Israel, and God’s thoughts are not ours, then it follows that God does not think David was King of Israel. David in God’s mind was perchance prime minister of Babylon.

       To avoid this irrationality, … we must insist that truth is the same for God and man. Naturally, we may not know the truth about some matters. But if we know anything at all, what we know must be identical with what God knows. God knows the truth, and unless we know something God knows, our ideas are untrue. It is absolutely essential therefore to insist that there is an area of coincidence between God’s mind and our mind. One example, as good as any, is the one already used, viz., David was King of Israel.13

Clark concludes:

        If God is omnipotent, he can tell men the plain, unvarnished, literal truth. He can tell them David was King of Israel, he can tell them he is omnipotent, he can tell them he created the world, and … he can tell them all this in positive, literal, non-analogical, non-symbolic terms.14

Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: T. Nelson, 1998), 99–100.

What is the human self?

23 Friday Sep 2016

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Psychology, Uncategorized

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All counseling is ultimately theological: The method and end of counseling are based upon one’s psychology. Psychology derives from certain theological considerations: What is a human being? When one considers just some contemporary answers to the question of self, you will quickly see that the “simple question” what is a human being cannot be easily answered.

Calvin begins the Institutes with the argument that no human being can rightly know himself without first knowing who is before God. Indeed, it is a fundamental proposition of Christianity that everything is ultimately unintelligible without knowing first who we are with respect to God:

Romans 1:21–23 (ESV)

21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

The reason for such divergent understandings of the human being is that human beings simply are in no position to answer to the question without “outside” help:

In spite of the multiplication of academic disciplines in the twentieth century that focus on the biological, social, psychological, and evolutionary understanding of the human creature, these modern approaches provide a very limited perspective from which the human person can understand the human condition. The sixteenth-century Reformers recognized that it was not enough for human beings to study themselves. That provided too limited a horizon. They could not stand outside themselves to gain the necessary perspective from which they could comprehend the totality of their being and existence. Because we are creatures, what it means to be fully human simply lies beyond the grasp of the human mind. Creatures cannot, by the very definition of what it means to be a creature, comprehend and understand everything about their Creator, and because their relationship with their Creator stands at the heart of their existence, they cannot grasp everything about themselves. Lacking the ability to step outside of themselves, human beings take on a sense of self-exalted importance or find themselves struggling with a sense of insignificance and helplessness within the universe.[1]

[1] Kolb, Robert; Arand, Charles P. (2008-02-01). Genius of Luther’s Theology, The: A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church (p. 24). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 

Knowledge of Self Requires Knowledge of God

12 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in John Calvin

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1. Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God
b(a)Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.3 eBut, while joined by many bonds, bwhich one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. eIn the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he “lives and moves” [Acts 17:28]. For, quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves; indeed, our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God. Then, by these benefits shed like dew from heaven upon us, we are led as by rivulets to the spring itself. Indeed, our very poverty better discloses the infinitude of benefits reposing in God. The miserable ruin, into which the rebellion of the first man cast us, especially compels us to look upward. Thus, not only will we, in fasting and hungering, seek thence what we lack; but, in being aroused by fear, we shall learn humility.4 bFor, as a veritable world of miseries is to be found in mankind, e(b)and we are thereby despoiled of divine raiment, our shameful nakedness exposes a teeming horde of infamies. Each of us must, then, be so stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness as to attain at least some knowledge of God. bThus, from the feeling of our own ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity, and—what is more—depravity and corruption, we recognize that the true light of wisdom, sound virtue, full abundance of every good, and purity of righteousness rest in the Lord alone. To this extent we are prompted by our own ills to contemplate the good things of God; and we cannot seriously aspire to him before we begin to become displeased with ourselves. For what man in all the world would not gladly remain as he is—what man does not remain as he is—so long as he does not know himself, that is, while content with his own gifts, and either ignorant or unmindful of his own misery? Accordingly, the knowledge of ourselves not only arouses us to seek God, but also, as it were, leads us by the hand to find him.

2. Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self
bAgain, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself5 unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.6 For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy—this pride is innate in all of us—unless by clear proofs we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly, and impurity. Moreover, we are not thus convinced if we look merely to ourselves and not also to the Lord, who is the sole standard by which this judgment must be measured. For, because all of us are inclined by nature to hypocrisy,7 a kind of empty image of righteousness in place of righteousness itself abundantly satisfies us. And because nothing appears within or around us that has not been contaminated by great immorality, what is a little less vile pleases us as a thing most pure—so long as we confine our minds within the limits of human corruption. Just so, an eye to which nothing is shown but black objects judges something dirty white or even rather darkly mottled to be whiteness itself. Indeed, we can discern still more clearly from the bodily senses how much we are deluded in estimating the powers of the soul. For if in broad daylight we either look down upon the ground or survey whatever meets our view round about, we seem to ourselves endowed with the strongest and keenest sight; yet when we look up to the sun and gaze straight at it, that power of sight which was particularly strong on earth is at once blunted and confused by a great brilliance, and thus we are compelled to admit that our keenness in looking upon things earthly is sheer dullness when it comes to the sun. So it happens in estimating our spiritual goods. As long as we do not look beyond the earth, being quite content with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue, we flatter ourselves most sweetly, and fancy ourselves all but demigods. Suppose we but once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and to ponder his nature, and how completely perfect are his righteousness, wisdom, and power—the straightedge to which we must be shaped. Then, what masquerading earlier as righteousness was pleasing in us will soon grow filthy in its consummate wickedness. What wonderfully impressed us under the name of wisdom will stink in its very foolishness. What wore the face of power will prove itself the most miserable weakness. That is, what in us seems perfection itself corresponds ill to the purity of God.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 35–38.

The Restoration

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in Christology, John Calvin, Union With Christ

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Calvin claims that the substance of human nature is good. As he states in the Institutes, the original, created human nature is not only good; it is “united to God.” Indeed Adam, is righteous through a “participation in God.” However, in the fall, the accidental characteristic of sinning is added, alienating human beings from God, from neighbor, and ultimately from themselves. In this fallen state, human beings seek their identity “in themselves” or “in the flesh”. They seek to be human apart from God. But this is simply repeating the sin of Adam- following one’s own wisdom rather than lovingly trusting God. While fallen humans share the accidental characteristic of sinning, this characteristic does not completely vanquish the imago Dei, which Calvin says is a “participation in God.” Again, this characterization of the imago Dei makes sense with Calvin’s view of humanity: to be fully human is to be united to God., and although sin seeks autonomy from God, there is still a trace of this union with or participation in God in all humanity.

In redemption, then, is where Calvin’s Aristotelian distinctions do especially important work. When Paul speaks about being “crucified with Christ” and putting to death the flesh or the old self, is this misanthropic? Does this make salvation a rupture of identity — leaving behind all that we were and taking only what is new? No, Calvin says. The Christian life, involving the mortification of the flesh, is a restoration of who we were created to be.

J. Todd Billings, Union With Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic 2011), 44.

The Situation of Union With Christ

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Ascension, Christology, Incarnation, Union With Christ

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Lewis Smedes in Union With Christ orients the doctrine of union in the “situation” of the Christian between the resurrection and the Second Coming. But before he explores the union, he begins by noting types of doctrines of union.

First, he references the “communion with God” model.  This model denies any real union with Jesus. The man Jesus is dead and gone. While there may be communion with God (or with “Christ”), Jesus, himself cannot be an object of union.

Dawson in Jesus Ascended considers the problem which the non-union “communion” model places to the fore: How can a man, Jesus of Nazareth, be the subject of any real relationship, seeing he is physically located somewhere (“heaven”) distant from us?

Still, because a body occupies space, the spatial distinction is not merely a metaphor but a reality. There is a place where the human Jesus is. There isa  heaven in which spiritual bodies occupy space, a created realm in which creatures are, to the limits of their capacity, in the presence of God (49).

Dawson responds by noting that the trouble of union with a distant Jesus lies in our concept of space. While there is a physical location of Jesus, we must limit our conception of space to a receptacle which holds the body of Jesus.

Relying upon Calvin and Thomas Torrance, Dawson discusses the matter of “relational” space:

Rather, in a relational sense, God in Christ crosses the divide to enter our existence, our way of being. Then, through this union, Jesus returns, still bearing his humanity, to the place the place of relation described as the Father’s right hand, the ‘place’ or honor, glory, power and dominion. Thus, heaven as a relational place is where God has ‘room’ for his divine life and activity in ever-deepening communion with humanity. (49)

The non-union response would be that this distant Jesus cannot be accessed from the place of our life. However, as Calvin notes, the Holy Spirit can communicate the blessings of Jesus to us.

We see how, in order to unite Christ with the Church, he does not bring his body out of heaven. … Here it is clear that the essence of the flesh is distinguished from the virtue of the Spirit, which conjoins us with Christ, when, in respect of space, we are at a great distance from him….  He sends his grace to us from heaven by means of the Spirit. (4.17.28).

John Calvin and Henry Beveridge, vol. 3, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 424-25.

Now, of those who do admit to a union, Smedes defines three types: First, a sacramental union. Such a union depends upon an exalting humanity:

Sacramental Christology stands and falls with the historical Jesus. But it does not find its center in the meaning of the historical events of Jesus’ life; it finds the center in the elevation of humanity to a new level. There is indeed a new creation, a new being that is Christ. But the primary note in the new creation is its being, not its action. Humanity is deified; that is the core of the good news. (9).

He next defines a “transaction Christology”:

[Jesus] became a man to obey, to die, to sacrifice, to atone. The heart of Christology lies in what Jesus did personally to transact with God for our atonement (10).

Now, as  Calvin notes, Jesus does us no good as long as he remains outside of us:

As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and is of no value to us. [Calvin’s Institute, 2.17.3, quoted in Smedes, 11).

Third, Smedes brings forward the category of Situation Christology. Situation Christology does not deny the position of transaction, but rather “stress[es] that Christ radically changed the historical situation in which men live” (15).

The work of Christ took place within history – but also without and transcending history: “The decisive event was able to alter the human situation fundamentally because it too place behind the scenes of the human situation” (18).

Yet, it is just this change in situation which leads to the present quandary:

In view of the spiritual revolution in the world situation that took place at the resurrection and in vie of the fact that the ultimate triumph is still waited for, what is the meaning of the present time? Is there a Christological interpretation of the present existence of Christian people. (22)

Smedes notes that some of tried to solve this problem by arguing that Christ merely changed the “spiritual” situation, a “spiritual” experience –but one that has no real effect no or ever upon history. Smedes rejects that position and contends,

The present reality is the reality of union with Christ. And union with Christ is the experience of people who are introduced to the new age, with Christ as Lord (25).

Why the genealogies in the Bible?

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Hermeneutics, Image of God, Psalms

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Should you open the Bible to 1 Chronicles, you will find:

17 The sons of Shem: Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. And the sons of Aram: Uz, Hul, Gether, and Meshech.
18 Arpachshad fathered Shelah, and Shelah fathered Eber.
19 To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg (for in his days the earth was divided), and his brother’s name was Joktan.
20 Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah,
21 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah,
22 Obal, Abimael, Sheba,
23 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan.

1 Chronicles 1:17-23. It goes more or less in the same manner for pages. How is one supposed to understand such lists?

Calvin begins the Institutes of the Christian Religion with the observation that our knowledge consists of knowing God and knowing ourselves in relation to God (this is a gross simplification, but sufficient for our purposes). Gerald Bray in his book God is Love takes Calvin’s observation, turns it into three questions and then applies the questions to the text.

Bray first notes that a Christian must “make spiritual sense of passages like these” (59). Therefore, he asks three questions.

First question: “What do the genealogies reveal about God?” You see in the lists the names of human beings going from generation to generation — hundreds upon hundreds and thousands upon thousand whom God did not forget. Since the genealogies occur in the context of God’s dealings with humanity in light of God’s covenants, the genealogies, “tell us that he is a faithful Lord, who keeps his covenant from generation to another” (59). In Ecclesiastes 1:4, Qoheleth writes, A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.

But above and greater than even the earth is the Creator of heaven and earth who remains faithful despite our failings:

11 The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful- for he cannot deny himself.

2 Timothy 2:11-13.

Second question, “What do the genealogies say about us?” Look at the lists: the men and women are nothing more than words, funny sounds – but we do not attach the sounds to any human being. Thus, the answer to Bray’s question is, “[F]rom the worlds point of view, most of us are nobodies” (59). That is a painful observation, but true.

It is painful, because we all know that we must be more valuable than to be a “nobody” — and yet, in the end, most of will be invisible to history. And even those who will be written down will become more and more obscure over time. Proof: Quick, name any ruler of the Hittite Empire.

Now, note Bray’s answer: It is in the eyes of all humanity that we are nobody — but the memory of the world is not the whole story. Think again: What if these men and women did not exist? What if they died without children? God has kept his words among human beings; and God has exercised his power before human beings, “We are part of a great cloud of witnesses, a long chain of faithful people who have lived for God in the place where he put them.”

Now, this does not end the analysis: There is knowledge of God and knowledge of humanity — there is also the point of interaction, “Finally, what do the genealogies say about God’s dealings with us?”

Before you jump to his answer, think for a moment. God has not abandoned history to blind forces. God has not gone far away and forgotten (even when we fear that we may be lost to space and time). But these lists tell us plainly that God has not forgotten, “They tell us that we are called to be obedient and to keep the faith we have inherited, passing it on to the next generation. They tell us that there is a purpose in our callings that goes beyond us” (59).

In short, while the genealogies demonstrate that we may be little in the eyes of men and women with little memory and little understanding; they also tell us that we part of the greater story of God’s work in the world.

There is then an application, We know that we exist for great things. We know that our life must be more than sensation, food, sleep. We all understand that there should be some magnificent about us. We desire such things, because we were made for such things. It was built into us when God created us:

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Psalm 8:3-8. We were created as the capstone of creation — we were created in the image of God. Now sin and death have obscured that image, but the stamp is not gone. Indeed, God’s covenant and end have been directed toward restoring that image:

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Colossians 3:9-11. Thus, when one is found in Christ, the gruesome weight of history which wears us down to invisibility is undone in Christ. Sin’s dominion is ended in the death of Christ. The waste of death is overcome in the resurrection of Christ. Alienation gone in the reconciliation of God and human beings in Jesus Christ. The genealogies with their endless story of death and death point us toward the need of Christ.