Lesson 4 Lecture: The Unfolding Story of Scripture: Part 1
The title, "The Unfolding Story of Scripture" -- actually
continuation. When I was growing up I was
constantly bombarded in Sunday
School and in sermons in church with
an endless stream of stories coming
out of the Bible. I became familiar with
key figures like the Good Samaritan,
Moses, Peter, David, Abraham, but I
never knew that they are all part of
one unfolding drama. I did not even know if
Isaiah came before Moses, after David,
before Job, etc. It just never occurred to
me that the Bible was one big story.
Gradually it became clear to me that
the life of Christ was a story told over
and over again in the gospels. Then, a little later, I
realized Paul the apostle came into the
picture and wrote lots of letters, but I
never got it straight which letter came
first. Finally, I got interested in John
and the Book of Revelation and I
assumed John came last.
But the Old Testament was still a
massive confusion. I guess I knew that
Genesis started things off but the rest
was a trackless wilderness.
In my twenties while at Princeton
Theological Seminary, I was assisting
in a local church where I taught an
adult class. For the first time I got it in
my head that it ought to be possible to
tell the story of the entire Old
Testament in sixty seconds!
Everybody in the class learned how
to do it. I'm really not sure what this
accomplished for the people in the
class, but I know that for me it was
very helpful. I began the story with
Abraham leaving Ur and going to the
promised land; then later being forced
down into Egypt due to a drought;
after 400 years then Moses came out of
Egypt with the children of Israel; 40
years wandering in the wilderness;
Joshua taking the people into the
Promised land once again; ushering in
a period of 400 years of confusion
called the judges; the prophet Samuel
reluctantly choosing a king; David and
all that; the northern tribes break away
and get captured by the Assyrians;
finally, after 400 years of kings, the
southern kingdom is taken off to
Babylon and after 70 years about one
third dribbled back right up to the
date of Jesus' birth, completing 400
years from the end of the southern
kingdom to the time of Christ.
That's about sixty seconds. In
addition over the years, growing up in
a missions- minded church, I gained
the idea that there were some
significant verses in the Old Testament
that talked about missions so that it
was plain in a vague sense that God
always had missions in mind but was
apparently waiting for the ascension of
Christ to set things in motion.
For example, I actually preached
sermons here and there on Isaiah 49:6.
The verse seemed plain to me that it
was a secondary matter that the
children of Israel in bondage in
Babylon would get back to their land
compared to the importance of
sending missionaries to the ends of the
earth. Little did I realize for many
years that the phrase "ends of the
earth" actually referred to the area
where they were captives. Here is the verse: "It is a light
thing that you should be my servant to
raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore
the preserved of Israel: I will also give
you for a light to the Gentiles, that you
may be my salvation to the ends of the
earth." That sounds like a missionary
verse, doesn't it? But actually God
wants them to witness to their captors
- which was probably much more
difficult for them than sending
missionaries at a distance. In other
words, earth was the flat plain, and
where the plain ended in the
mountains of Iran or Turkey was the
ends of the earth.
Psalm 67 was another Old
Testament reference possibly to
missions where in the 7th verse it
speaks of "all the ends of the earth
shall fear Him".
However, the biggest sea change in
my thinking came from Genesis
chapter 12 where as we saw in the
previous lesson the concept of
missions is reiterated five times. All
the families of the earth are to be
brought into the family of God.
Thus now we have a continuous
story running from Abraham to Christ.
In the earliest period of the patriarchs,
according to Martin Luther's
commentary on Genesis, Abraham
was a witness to seven other
surrounding peoples.
Then in the period of the Egyptian
captivity God had a mission purpose
of reaching out to the Egyptians. Who
knows what actually happened. Some
of the documents discovered in the
tomb of King Tut apparently can be
found in the Psalms, though that
would have been quite a bit later.
The period of the judges was more
like the Crusades than it was a witness
to the surrounding nations, although
there is no question that many of the
nations gained a real fear of the God of
Israel in that period.
In the period of the kings we see the
Queen of Sheba coming to learn from
Solomon. We read of the Syrian Naaman coming to Israel to seek the
healing power of the God of Israel. We
read of Jonah being sent to Nineveh.
Then once again as a result of the
Babylonian captivity they are as we
have seen in Isaiah expected to be
salvation to their very captors.
One missing element in this story is
what happened to the northern tribes.
We don't know for sure but we do
know that in Jesus' day (as Peter put it
in the Book of Acts) Moses was
preached in every city of the empire.
Perhaps some of the northern tribal
peoples were involved in that kind of Diaspora (or dispersion).
So that by mechanisms of going or
coming and whether voluntarily or
involuntarily, it would seem that God
was in the mission business whether
His chosen people fully understood
that fact or not.
It seems like today most believers
"live and move and have their being"
with only the slightest awareness if
any at all of the grander plans of God.
This is the reason why, after Paul spent
three years in Arabia rethinking his
understanding of the Bible, he felt he
had to refer to God's plan of the ages
as being a “mystery.”
In doing so he was no doubt aware
of his own earlier ignorance of that
plan and the general ignorance of his
hearers, and he excused them by
saying it was a mystery. But clearly it
should not have been a mystery.
Today it's the same - it shouldn't be a
mystery, but it is.
It is terribly unfortunate that the
overall purposes of God are either
unknown or
nearly totally ignored
by
believers in the contemporary church.
That grim fact is the reason for the
importance of a course like this one.
You can go back through the whole Old Testament
yourself, and there are glimmers of a larger story at a number of points. One of
the clearest is in Exodus 19 where God says to Moses beginning in verse 4:
The concept of a priestly nation is a
mediator of God's grace to all nations. A clear NT reference to this is in I
Peter 2. Peter says,
"You also like living stones are being built into a
spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ."
If you stop right there, you get the
impression that the Reformation
doctrine of the priesthood of all
believers is what is being mentioned. Namely, Every believer becomes a
priest in that sense. However in verse 9, Peter goes on,
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may
declare the praises of Him who called you out of
darkness into His wonderful light." In other words, priesthood does
not really mean access to God, but the responsibility to declare
his praises.
This latter statement does not negate
the Reformation idea that we all have
direct access to God somewhat like
priests. But it emphasizes the more
important role of a priesthood to
declare the praises
of Him Who called us
out of darkness into His wonderful
light. In other words the missionary
significance of Exodus 19 is clearly
preserved in what Peter says in I Peter
chapter 2.
This idea of a distinct plan unfolding
from Genesis 12 on is fairly easy to
establish.
In more recent years I have gained
an even larger picture, more difficult
to see, and it has to do with events
prior to Genesis 12. When you stop to
think about it, it does not seem very
impelling to suppose that at Genesis
12, with Abraham, God launched an
entirely new plan.
What kind of a plan would it be that
would unify the Bible not just from
Genesis 12 on but unify the Bible from
Genesis 1:1 on?
One reason we cannot easily see the
connection between the first 11 chapters
of Genesis and what follows is because
our cultural heritage, for most of us, is
the Reformation, a period during
which the big issue was how to get to
heaven. The Catholics seemed to be
saying you work your way to heaven
or even pay your way to heaven, while
the Protestants insisted that you must
believe your way to heaven. I think
that the Protestants by emphasizing
belief were more safely right, although
their emphasis has often been
understood to mean “belief in certain
doctrines” not the kind of heart belief
the Bible talks about. Of course, the
Catholic emphasis on works is not
entirely wrong either. In fact, Biblically
you cannot separate heart faith from
heart obedience. They are two sides of
the same coin.
Thus, in a sense, the Protestants
gave a better answer to the wrong
question, a better way of going to
heaven, but the question was not
central in scripture. Jesus even went so
far as to say “He who would save his
life will lose it but he who will lose his
life for my sake and the Gospel will
find it.” In other words, a better
answer to the wrong question or at
least to a lesser question.
Back to the point. If Genesis 12 is
interpreted to be merely the beginning
of a global campaign to get people out
of this planet and into heaven, then the
earlier part of Genesis does not easily
fit in.
However, if, as we saw in the
previous lesson, the blessing of God
through Abraham actually inducts
those who respond into
a kingdom at
war, then we can
easily note that that
war began with Genesis 1:1, the first
defeat coming when Satan seduced
Adam and Eve; God struck back with
the choice of Noah and the elimination
of an evil generation. Then God’s
choice of Abraham is seen as another
“selectivity” which enables another
new beginning to be played out in the
text of the rest of the Bible and the
subsequent centuries of the expansion
of the Kingdom of God.
Thus, what unifies the whole Bible is not
simply the redemption of humans but
their redemption to fight a war against
evil. We look almost in vain for
reflections of this war in David’s
prayers and Solomon’s prayer at the
dedication of the temple. It is hard not
to think that their own salvation from
their enemies is the most important
thing. God’s concern for “the
foreigner” is there but very marginally
so.
Meanwhile God’s chosen people are
not necessarily the only people on
earth who seek His face. His people
will both bless and be blessed in their
Babylonian captivity. They will regard
it as mere punishment rather than an
opportunity to witness or an
opportunity to gain a clearer
understanding of Satan’s continued
intelligent opposition, yet witness they
did, and learn they did, despite their
overwhelming preoccupation with
their own situation, their own land,
etc.. (Isa 49:6)
[The result of
the Babylonian experience is strikingly different between the
Old Testament perspective of evil and the New Testament point of
view, which incorporates many passages about the existence of
Satan as a person. But we are to wait until next time.
What we are doing today is merely Part I.]
Another feature of the Old Testament
which is very interesting and we can just get a quick insight
into it─sort of preparation for the next lesson─is the fact
that, for example, in the case of Joseph talking to his brothers
after they came to Egypt and it became clear that their dusty
deeds has worked out for good.
In Genesis Joseph tells his brothers,
“You did not send me to Egypt, God
did.” This gives an example of how
the Old Testament often looks at things from the
point of view of God’s purposes in an
event. This statement does not
constitute a denial of what the brothers
did.
Now my perspective on that is the
idea that in the Old Testament there are often two different
harmonious but paradoxically contrasting explanations of what
happens. The Old Testament almost always talks about the
purpose of God being unfolded through good and evil. In
other words, the emphasis is on the sovereignty of God. In
this particular passage, Joseph actually says, “You did not send
me to Egypt." But it is not contradicting to what so
called the instrumentality aspect of that deeds. He is
talking about the purpose of God in that deeds. And this
dual explanation seems to me very very helpful because otherwise
Satan is particularly missing completely in the Old Testament.
Something similar exists in the case
of David sinning by counting the
people. In 2 Sam 24:1-25 the text has
God being the one who “incited”
David to do this wrong. The same 25
verses, verbatum─absolutely the verbatum except one word, occur in a centuries
newer document, I Chronicles 21:1-25,
where the only difference is that this
text says that Satan “incited” David to
count the people. So you really have two explanations:
instrumentality and the purpose of God. It does mean we
have to be able to read what happens in the Old Testament
through the eyes of the New Testament.
Note that Chronicles was written
after the Babylonian captivity took
place and it is possible that the Jewish
theologians had had their awareness
sharpened regarding Satan due to
their many years of living in the
domain of the dualistic Zoroastrians
who acknowledged two equal Gods,
one good and one bad.
The Jews rejected the dualism but
may have recognized more clearly
than before the existence of personal
opponent and destroyer of God’s
work.
The word Satan
occurs in the Old Testament
over 20 times mostly in the sense of
“adversary,” but as an evil person
only in 1 Chronicles and Job. When Jesus
called Peter a
Satan he was no doubt
saying Peter was a
adversary. Most of
the time in the New Testament the word
Satan
refers to an evil intermediate being
working to tear down the works of
God and thus His reputation.
The result of the Babylonian
experience is a striking difference between the Old Testament
perspective on evil and
the New Testament point of view, which
incorporates in numerous passages the
existence of Satan as a person,
something rarely represented in the Old Testament. But that will have to wait until next time. This is merely Part I.
† Dr. Winter's Lecture for
Lesson Three, "The
Unfolding Story of Scripture: Part 1" was followed by the discussion which began
with the first question, "Please write out in your own words a story of the
entire Bible you may read off in sixty seconds."
You may want to adjust the volume to your sound environment so that you can hear when students speak while listening to discussion audio.
† If you are a Mac user, you may right-click on
Lesson 4
Discussion on MP3
and select "Open with ITunes" so as to listen to this
audio discussion.
