This week we are studying Genesis 20 through to Abraham's death, recorded in Genesis 25:10. We observe Abraham and Sarah getting on with life amongst those who did not know God while also living within a covenant relationship with God. We see them displaying doubt and faith, accommodating themselves to (covenanting with?) the reality of neighbors outside of a covenant with God, and experiencing intra-family conflict of their own making. We see Abraham dealing with the death of his wife and seeking a marriage partner for their son.
As we read of Abraham we are drawn to parallels between:
(a) Abraham dealing with daily life while awaiting the full reality of a covenant fulfilled; and
(b) Us dealing with life, death, faith, fear, conflict, contracting, transacting, marriage, and family estrangement, while awaiting a transcendant reality of open, unending communication and friendship with God.
What, if anything, do we learn from Abraham and Sarah? What do we learn about God?
In the middle of the relatively mundane, Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his "only son" as a burnt offering. There is much to ponder in this story alone. Clearly, Isaac was not his "only son" since we have just observed God covenanting with Hagar in the previous chapter -- "I will make Ishmael into a great nation". And, we know that God finds child sacrifice to be an abomination (Deut 12:30,31) and that he instructs "Thou shalt not kill".
The story is presented fairly straightforwardly as a test from God that Abraham actually passes. And most sermons and children's books on this story remain at this level of understanding. While this is clearly a correct understanding of the story (Heb 11:17-19), I would encourage you to grapple with this story a little this week and dare to think more expansively about it.
As we read of Abraham we are drawn to parallels between:
(a) Abraham dealing with daily life while awaiting the full reality of a covenant fulfilled; and
(b) Us dealing with life, death, faith, fear, conflict, contracting, transacting, marriage, and family estrangement, while awaiting a transcendant reality of open, unending communication and friendship with God.
What, if anything, do we learn from Abraham and Sarah? What do we learn about God?
In the middle of the relatively mundane, Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice his "only son" as a burnt offering. There is much to ponder in this story alone. Clearly, Isaac was not his "only son" since we have just observed God covenanting with Hagar in the previous chapter -- "I will make Ishmael into a great nation". And, we know that God finds child sacrifice to be an abomination (Deut 12:30,31) and that he instructs "Thou shalt not kill".
The story is presented fairly straightforwardly as a test from God that Abraham actually passes. And most sermons and children's books on this story remain at this level of understanding. While this is clearly a correct understanding of the story (Heb 11:17-19), I would encourage you to grapple with this story a little this week and dare to think more expansively about it.
Advanced study: If you have time, look at the parallels between the life of Hagar and that of Moses. We have previously noted parallels between Moses and Christ, but the more you look in the Old Testament, the more you find themes that point our minds to Christ. Here's a place to start -- there is a lot of wandering in the wilderness/desert in the Bible, and Hagar does some wandering in Chapter 20.
4 comments:
There some powerful and provocative phases embedded in that lead paragraph. I resonate with some of them, like describing faith as a "darling trust in God". Even so, I can't restrain myself from raising a question or two. In what sense does Christ's blood provide all the ground we need to get right with God, if it does? What does that mean? What are the implications about the God that we're getting right with? Is this really "Real World" language or code language of the initiated?
On the blood question, an uncomplicated (who said simplistic?) crib note that helps me understand this:
Satan challenged God's pure-love-based commitment to mankind, and implied that he cared much more for them.
God said, "Well, I love them enough to become one of them, experience their life as they experience it, and to die for them in the bargain; what do you have to counter with?"
Satan said, "Talk is cheap."
So Jesus did it, thereby laying claim to the spoils, as it were. And having laid claims, exercises his authority to freely give us getrightness, which comes with the ironclad guarranty of both the fact and the quaility of eternal life, free from all that plagues us in this one. Consider the implications of a God like that.
Regarding the language, yup - always a challenge to move from the familiar to the relevant. :-)
The dialogue you provide sounds much less forensic than some and moves towards more positive implications of God that I find helpful and it makes sense up to a point. I do see God taking His case into court in scripture, however I don't see compelling evidence of God striking a deal with Satan. I will look in my files for my thoughts from a study group at Grace Chapel when the question was raised - "what's the ultimate purpose of Christ's sacrificial death?" If I find my notes I'll pass them along.
Also, for those with an interest in an encyclopedic discussion of alternative reasons why Christ died (with, perhaps, the exception of the best explanations), read 'The Cross of Christ' by John Stott.
Here is an excerpt from the beginning of Chapter 5, 'Satisfaction for Sin'.
Sir Alister Hardy, ..., nevertheless expresses his inability to come to terms with the 'crude' beliefs he thought 'so many orthodox churchmen' entertain. In his 1965 Gifford Lectures, published under the title The Divine Flame, he asked whether Jesus himself would be a Christian if he were to live today. 'I very much doubt it,' Sir Alister replied. 'I feel certain that he would not have preached to us of a God who would be appeased by the cruel sacrifice of a tortured body. ... I cannot accept either the hypothesis that the appalling death of Jesus was a sacrifice in the eyes of God for the sins of the world, or that God, in the shape of his son, tortured himself for our redemption. I can only confess that, in my heart of hearts, I find such religious ideas to be amongst the least attractive in the whole of anthropology. To me, they belong to quite a different philosophy -- different psychology -- from that of the religion that Jesus taught. (p.218)
p. 111, The Cross of Christ.
Dr Stott, one of the world's leading Anglican theologians, goes on to categorize Hardy's criticism as a mis-characterization of Christian belief, and then defends the use of terms such as 'satisfaction' and 'substitution'. It is worth reading his defense and evaluating its merits.
Thanks for being willing to address the important question, 'Why did Jesus die?'. What do the rest of us believe? How would we answer a friend or work colleague? It is a fairly central question to be caught flat-footed on.
Interestingly, the first subsection of Stott's Chapter 5 is 'Satisfying the Devil', which fleshes out (no pun intended) the Christian idea of salvation as a deal struck between God and the Devil.
I look forward to reading your insights.
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