God, Christ and Gender

One of the issues that has arisen in the ongoing debates about the consecration of women bishops is the representative nature of those we commonly call ‘priests’. Specifically, it is being asked what their gender has to do with their humanity and therefore their adequacy for the ‘priesthood’.

If one takes an ‘iconic’ view of priesthood, then this is clearly pertinent. If the priest somehow ‘embodies’ Christ in performing the functions of priesthood — particularly the celebration of the Lord’s Supper — then it might be worth asking whether a woman can do this in exactly the same way as a man.

The best negation of the argument that it makes no difference is perhaps that put forward by CS Lewis in his 1948 essay ‘Priestesses in the Church’. “Why,” Lewis asked, “should a woman not in this sense represent God?” He continued,

Certainly not because she is necessarily, or even probably, less holy or less charitable or stupider than a man. In that sense she may be as ‘God-like’ as a man; and a given women much more so than a given man.

Such assumptions are taken for granted today. But Lewis had a different objection. “The sense in which she cannot represent God,” he wrote, “will perhaps be plainer if we look at the thing the other way round.” The full force of his argument requires quoting at length:

Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to “Our Mother which art in heaven” as to “Our Father”. Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All this, as it seems to me, is involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does.

Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have had priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity. Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask “Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?”

But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child.

We should note that even in Lewis’s day, the argument that God has no biological gender was advanced to ‘deconstruct’ the language used about God. And we should note also that Lewis is well aware of the effects of such deconstruction. Far from the use of ‘Mother’ instead of ‘Father’ being the harmless exchange of one metaphor for another, it would (at least in his view) lead to a religious life, and therefore a religion, “radically different from that of a Christian”.

Hence for Lewis the iconic significance of the priest required that the priest be male rather than female, for with the Church, he says, “we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge.”

But what if you do not share Lewis’s iconic view of the priesthood or his sacramentalism with regard to priestly function? What if, as I have suggested earlier, you would allow that anyone and everyone, including women, could celebrate the Lord’s Supper? Is there still room for saying that gender matters, either in relation to God or to Christ? And what implications, if any, does this have for our thinking about ministry?

Our thinking about gender in this particular context has not one but two starting points.

One is biology. And here gender is relatively straightforward, being essentially a component of the process of sexual reproduction. I say relatively because even here there are complications. Some species, for example, exhibit hermaphroditism, where a single organism can function as either the ‘male’ or ‘female’ partner.

Down at the cellular level, however, everything is clear. Whether one is talking about the vegetable or animal kingdoms, sexual reproduction involves the fusion of two gametes (cells with half the usual pair of chromosomes) to form a zygote (a cell with a full complement of chromosome pairs, one from each of the parent organisms).

All the rest, as they say is commentary. But the commentary is both considerable and variable and gives us little by way of ‘rules’ either of gender characteristics or behaviours. Male and female are not hard and fast concepts — not that they are not essentially clear cut within a given species, but that taken as a whole they do not justify us making statements of the form ‘all males look like’, or ‘all females act like’.

At this point, however, we must introduce the spiritual dimension, for as Lewis says above, in the Christian religion we believe that “God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him”. And he does this from very early on.

In Genesis 1:26 we read that God first deliberates about making human beings: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ...”

Some, most notably the feminist theologian Phyllis Trible, have suggested that this adam is androgynous — a sexually undifferentiated ‘earthling’. But this is unsustainable for numerous reasons. Here we may note simply that the text goes on to speak of adam in the plural: “and let them rule over the fish of the sea, etc.” What ever God plans to make, there will be more than one of them.

And so we read how this works out in the next verse, which forms a poetic triplet (single Hebrew words are indicated by square brackets):

[And created he] [God] [man]* [in his image]
[In the image] [of God] [he created] [him]
[Male] [and female] [he created] [them].

In the first part of the triplet, adam has the definite article. But we need not translate this as ‘the man’ since frequently elsewhere (eg Gen 7:21) ha-adam simply means ‘humankind’. Nevertheless, as the second stanza shows, adam in this sense can be spoken of as a collective singular. To use a term which is now regarded as archaic, we are one ‘mankind’, not ‘men and women’ — a point brought out by Genesis 5:1b-2:

When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them “man [adam].” (NIV)

And though it is common to regard Genesis 2 as being a separate ‘creation narrative’, actually it brings home rather neatly the point made in chapter 1: there is a singular ‘adam’ before there is a plurality of male and female.

This means, furthermore, that we must address at this point the question of a ‘Christological’ reading of the opening chapters of Genesis, for in the New Testament the first Adam is clearly seen as anticipatory of Christ, “a pattern of the one to come” (Rom 5:14), who is therefore a ‘second Adam’:

So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. (1 Cor 15:45)

And this is of enormous significance in terms of our salvation, for the argument runs that what is true of the first in a negative sense is true of the second positively. Thus,

... since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Cor 15:21-22)

When it comes to Genesis 1:27, therefore, we must hold the second and third stanzas in tension. God created a singular ‘man’ in his image and he created a plural ‘male and female’ also in his image.

Once again, we must understand this Christologically. The first point — that one man on his own can image God — must be true in order for what the Bible later affirms about Christ to be true also:

For he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (Col 1:15)

Christ’s imaging of God lacks nothing. Furthermore, it is necessary that he be the full image-bearer, for we ourselves derive our imaging of God from him:

And just as we have borne the likeness [eikon, image] of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness [eikon, image] of the man from heaven. (1 Cor 15:49)

But here we must be very careful and again we must be ready to read Genesis Christologically, for what do we mean by ‘Christ’?

In attempting to do theology, there is a danger of treating the person of Christ in isolation, as if Christ were an abstract concept or, more plausibly perhaps, understood comprehensively as a member of the Godhead. That, however, would not be true, for Christ as we know Christ — Christ as he is revealed to us — is not an abstraction, nor even just the Second Person of the Trinity. Rather, as 1 Peter puts it, he is the lamb “chosen before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet 1:20).

Indeed, he is the one whose character determines the world as we know it, since it was made not only “by him” but “for him” (Col 1:16). His very character is that of ‘Creator Redeemer’, and therefore though it does not require, it entails another.

And it is here that the third stanza of Genesis 1:27 comes into play: “Male and female (in the image of God) he created them”, for what we see played out in the history of creation and redemption is that God images his own image.

God is imaged in Christ, in whom dwells the fullness of God taking bodily form in his creation (Col 1:19). And as Christ is imaged in us, so God is imaged in that which he has created which is entirely distinct from himself.

Now something of this is surely what we see in Genesis 2. We are told in 2:18 that it is ‘not good’ for Adam to be alone — a word which means not ‘lonely’ but ‘the only one of his kind’ (cf Gen 44:20; Ex 18:14, etc). Similarly, however, in God’s plan for creation, it is clearly not his intention that Christ should be ‘alone’. On the contrary, through Christ God is “bringing many sons to glory” (Heb 2:10). Therefore,

Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. (Heb 2:11)

But there is only one eternal Son who is “ the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb 1:3). Therefore these ‘images of the image’ must be both ‘the same as’ and ‘quite different from’ the eternal Son, whose image they bear by derivation from him rather than by nature.

And this, I suggest, is the theological heart of the concept of gender.

Following a Christological reading of Genesis 2, we stand in relation to Christ as Eve stood in relation to Adam. He recognized her as ‘bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh’. In a real sense she was him — an image of the image-bearer. But in another sense, she was quite distinct from him — a being in her own right. And this is brought out in her name: she is an ishshah, not an ish — a woman, not a man (and later an Eve, not an Adam). But she is an ishshah precisely because “she was taken out of man” (Gen 2:23).

And all of this sets the stage for the comment in 2:24 which Paul will pick up and place at the centre of his understanding of the Church and of the nature of our salvation:

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Gen 2:24, cf Eph 5:31)

This is why, in the great drama of marriage and sexuality husband is to wife as Christ is to Church, which is again as head is to body. Christ is not alone, for that would be ‘not good’ in relation to creation. Rather, it is ‘Christ and the Church’ which constitutes the ‘one new man’ (Eph 2:15) ruling over God’s creation.

The Psalmist expresses a sense of mystery in relation to Genesis 1:

what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet (Ps 8:4-7)

Ephesians sees it fulfilled in Christ and the Church:

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (Eph 1:22-23)

God is thus rightly and always in relation to us ‘he’. And in marriage the husband is always to the wife as Christ, and the wife is always to the husband as the Church.

What this means for the ministry is simply (!) that what we do in the congregation should follow what we see revealed in Christ. But that, of course, may be a challenge to all of us in many ways.

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Genesis 2: Only Christ, but not Christ alone

In the Apostle Paul’s thought, a key understanding of the relationship between Christ and the church ultimately traces its roots to the ‘one-flesh union’ of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:24.

Clearly, however, the integration of the Genesis narrative into Paul’s thinking went beyond this single verse. The wider narrative plays a key part, for example, in the arguments of 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 and 1 Timothy 2:9-15.

There is an interesting hint also 2 Corinthians 11:2-3,

I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. (NIV)

Arguably Paul has not just Genesis 3 in view here, but Genesis 2. For not only does he compare the church directly to Eve, but indirectly he puts himself in the role of God in that chapter. Just as God brought the woman to the man, so Paul says he has to sought to present the church to Christ.

Importantly, this suggests that we should read back from Genesis 2:24 to the earlier parts of the narrative, as well as forward, to the theologically more familiar territory of the temptation and Fall, in seeking to understand the whole from a Christian perspective.

Thus, for example, the union of Genesis 2:24 itself depends on the action of 2:23. The two can become ‘one flesh’ because one flesh is what they originally were. The animals are “from the ground” (Heb min-hā’adāmāh), she is “from the man” (Heb min-hā’ādām) — close in language, but utterly different in kind. She is ‘bone of Adam’s bone, flesh of his flesh’, which is all part of her special relationship with him.

Eve is not Adam. She is an individual in her own right. Indeed, as Genesis 5:2 reminds us, she is also an “adam”. But regarding Adam, as Paul observes in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9, “man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (NIV).

Importantly, however, we have to understand here whether Paul is talking simply about ‘men and women’ generally or more specifically husbands and wives. The Greek does not help us, since the term is the same in both cases (anēr and gunē). Thus the ESV of v 3 reads, “the head of a wife is her husband”.

The point is debatable, but there are, I think, two good reasons for taking the restricted ‘husband and wife’ reading, rather than the wider ‘men and women’ approach. First, there is the general flow of Genesis itself, where clearly the outcome of the act of Eve’s creation is, in fact, the first marriage. Not only do we have the comment of 2:24, but that of 2:25: “And the man and his wife [Heb hā’ādām w^eishtō) were both naked ...” Eve is not just ‘a woman’. In relation to Adam she is ‘his woman’ (or as we should rather say, and the English versions generally translate, ‘his wife’, compare Gen 7:7;13:1).

There is also an interesting hint in Paul’s comment that “A man ... is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man” (1 Cor 11:7). There is no hint anywhere else in Paul’s writings that he regards women as any less ‘image bearers’ than men. On the contrary, as has frequently been pointed out, Paul’s approach is generally quite ‘egalitarian’.

Nevertheless the first part of the verse clearly derives from Scripture (specifically Genesis 1:27b, “in the image of God he created him”). But where in Scripture might we find the second notion, that “woman is the glory of man”? Such a profoundly challenging notion ought to have some antecedent. The answer, I suggest, is Proverbs 12:4, “A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown” (NIV). Indeed the contrary part of the proverb may also have some bearing on Paul’s train of thought: “a disgraceful wife is like decay in his bones”.

If we are right in seeing the background to Paul’s particular claim here in the book of Proverbs, then we should understand the principles of what he is saying as applying to husbands and wives. However, we should also then bear in mind that what Paul says of husbands and wives is theologically connected to what he thinks of Christ and the church. Applying this to the passage in 1 Corinthians, we could then say that the church is similarly “for” Christ, as the woman is “for” her man.

Challenging though this idea may seem, we can say with certainty that the universe itself is ‘for’ him. In Colossians 1:16, we read,

For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. (NIV)

The approach we are suggesting is essentially a shift in focus — it is not just the universe in general, but the church in particular that is ‘for’ Christ. However, we are grounding this in the narrative of Genesis 2 on the basis that this is where Paul roots his own understanding of the Christ-church relationship. And that opens up further perspectives, particularly when we read back to Genesis 2:18, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’”

We must be careful here not to exaggerate the parallels between the man-woman and the Christ-church relationship. In typology there is a correspondence between the type and the anti-type, but it is not at all exact. The writer of Hebrews is happy to write about a “greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made” in the heavens (9:11), but we ought not to imagine there is a ‘bigger temple’ somewhere ‘up there’.

The temple is the ‘image’, but the thing ‘imaged’ is very different, for the point about an image is that in many senses it is not at all like the thing imaged. I carry in my wallet an image — a photo — of myself and my wife, and it very effective in doing what I want it to do. But neither of us is made of paper, neither of us is flat, neither of us is only a few centimetres square, and so on (though one of us is getting a bit wrinkled these days).

Similarly, we are told that Jesus is the image of God and that all God’s fullness dwells bodily in him (Col 2:9). But God is not limited in time and space, God does not sleep, God does not have to ask someone “Who touched me?” and so on — all things that we know to be true of the ‘bodily’ Jesus. And yet — in the stuff of this world, the ‘dust’ of the ground, Jesus images God, in a way that the whole human race also could (Gen 1:27), and one day will (Rom 8:29).

Thus, when we look at the narrative of Adam and Eve, we may in one sense say, “God is not like this”, and yet in another sense, and quite truthfully, we may also say, “This images God.” And provided we bear this in mind, we may legitimately draw theological lessons about the God who is imaged from looking at the ‘imaging’ man (especially when it comes to Jesus himself), and in the same way we may draw lessons about Christ in relation to the church (and vice versa) from Adam in relation to Eve.

Thus what we have in Genesis in some sense prepares us for what we read about the church as the body of Christ, or indeed what we read in 1 Corinthians 6 or in the gospels themselves:

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! (1 Cor 6:2-3, NIV)

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matt 19:28, NIV)

Such statements are, I suspect, quite baffling to the typical modern reader, to whom it has never occurred that they will judge angels, let alone the world! But they may perhaps begin to fall into place when we read Genesis 2:18 Christologically:

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Gen 2:18, NIV)

In its immediate context, this applies to Adam and leads to the creation of Eve. But in terms of the future envisaged by the first chapter of Ephesians, a future where Christ is “head over everything for the church” (1:22, NIV), we may equally say of Christ that it is “not good” for him to be “alone” and that God has created a “helper suitable for him” also.

There are at least three reasons why we may suggest this needs to be so. First, a spatially-bound creature can only be in one place at a time. Therefore even Christ cannot be everywhere at once in terms of his incarnation. The eternal Son may be unbound and thus infinite, but his incarnate body is in just one place.

Actually in the Church of England, to which I belong, we have this as an official doctrinal statement, found in the footnotes to the Book of Common Prayer service of Holy Communion:

... the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ’s natural Body to be at one time in more places than one.

I should, of course, acknowledge that other denominations, not least the Lutherans, take a different view about the post-resurrection presence of Jesus’ body. However, the body of the Jesus of the gospels clearly is in one place at a time. (And, incidentally, it could be argued that were Jesus to appear in more than one place — for example to two people at the same time — this would have as much to do with his not being limited by time as his not being limited to one place. The BCP footnote is about Jesus being “at one time in more places than one”.)

At the beginning of Genesis, however, the human race is told to “be fruitful and increase in number” in order to “fill the earth and subdue it” (1:28). Adam ‘alone’ clearly could not do this. And it is equally clear that, whatever else might be possible, God does not intend to do it with an incarnate ‘Jesus alone’ either.

It is God’s intention that the incarnate Christ should be the one who “fills everything in every way” in this physical world (Eph 1:22). But the way that the body of Christ extends throughout that world is through the expansion of the Church. Martin Luther caught this vision in his tract The Freedom of a Christian:

Surely we are named after Christ, not because he is absent from us, but because he dwells in us, that is, because we believe in him and are Christs one to another and do to our neighbors as Christ does to us. (LW 31:368)

Christ is in more places than one insofar as God is in us:

There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Eph 4:4-6)

Of course we must be careful that we maintain a proper distance between the image and the thing imaged. Adam is not Christ (emphatically). We must also remember that ‘not good’ is not the same as actually bad. The implication of Genesis 2:18 is not that something has gone wrong with what God has made, but that it is not yet complete. The verdict of ‘good’ is implicit in Adam’s jubilant greeting of Eve.

Nevertheless, as we have seen, it is true to say that Christ is not ‘alone’ in exercising his dominion. He himself says that his disciples will share the task of ‘judging’, which is the exercise of rule.

Furthermore, the man in Genesis 2:18 is not lonely. It the ‘aloneness’, not his loneliness, which is ‘not good’. And a little thought shows that in relation to the creation the ‘aloneness’ of the incarnate Son is also ‘not good’.

The second reason we may suggest why this is so is that God’s imaging of himself in the human race is evidently a vast project, not a ‘one-off’. In the letter to the Hebrews, the writer boldly speaks of the multiplicity of God’s children in Christ:

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.” And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again he says, “Here am I, and the children God has given me.” (Heb 2:10-13, NIV)

God intends that there should be not just one Son but “many sons”. The wonder of it all is that this is also a cooperative process, in two ways. First, God enables us to produce ‘image-bearers’:

When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. (Gen 5:3, NIV)

Amazingly, through the act of intercourse, we finite human beings are a production line for images of the infiinite God. If nothing else, that surely ought to make us think about the significance of sex and parenthood.

But what about our redemption? Surely this is the work of Christ alone? The hymn by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, ‘In Christ Alone’, is entirely right in what affirms about Christ. Yet although he is certainly the only one capable of bearing God’s wrath and and reconciling us to him, the task of bringing others into that salvation is carried out through us:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20, NIV)

Once again we see how the operating principle is ‘through Christ’ but not ‘through Christ alone’.

And then, thirdly, there is the sheer love of God, the ultimate paradigm of which is that love we find in the ideal marriage of a man and a woman. Earlier commentators used to interpret the Song of Songs as an allegory of Christ’s love for the church. The Reformation approach to reading the Bible demoted allegorization as an approach, and incidentally thereby demoted the Song of Songs from being one of the most-commented on books of the Bible. However, we are right to see the Song as a depiction of intense, passionate, and ultimately ‘marital’ love:

I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. (Song of Solomon 5:1a, NIV)

And insofar as the Bible depicts the relationship between God and his people in marital terms, we may surmise that it also partakes of a similar intensity:

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. [...] There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. In that day,” declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ [...] I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.” (Hosea 2:14,15b-16,19, NIV)

For my earlier posts on Genesis, see here:
The woman Eve, so good Adam named her twice
and here:
From Genesis to Jesus: Eve in Christian perspective


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From Genesis to Jesus: Eve in Christian perspective

The narrative of Genesis 2 leads to the creation of the woman, Eve, from the man, Adam, and up to this point is largely rooted in its immediate, local context.

Like the narrative of Genesis 1, however, there is a trajectory that leads into the far future. Public debate about the creation narrative tends to focus very much on the issue of the ‘six days’. Indeed ‘six-day creationist’ has become a particular kind of theological label (or insult, if you are differently inclined).

However, the rest of the Bible takes almost no interest whatsoever in these six days. Indeed, they are only ever mentioned twice in the rest of Scripture, and then to highlight what does concern the Bible, namely the seventh day on which is based the institution of the Sabbath.

In this regard, the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3 points beyond the local context to the future — from this climax of divine rest will flow the future ‘mini-rests’ of the weekly break from human labour. As Christians, however, we see an even more significant sign, pointing not to a day in the week but to Christ. As Colossians 2:16-17 puts it,

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (NIV)

As with the similar ‘shadows’ of Old Testament priesthood and sacrifice (Heb 8:5), and indeed the Law itself (Heb 10:1), Christ is the substance who provides the reality foreshadowed in the earlier ‘types’.

But as J V Fesko has identified in his Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis 1-3 with the Christ of Eschatology (Ross-shire: Mentor, 2007) this means that Christ is also the hermeneutical key not just to the types in general, but to Genesis in particular. When we are asking ‘what does this mean?’, we must also ask, ‘what meaning does Christ give to this?’

That approach may seem controversial. Indeed some would assert that it will lead us to misread Scripture. But it is actually fundamental to our faith. In the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, Philip asks him, “Do you understand what you are reading?”, and when the eunuch describes his difficulty in deciding to whom Isaiah is referring in speaking about one “led like a sheep to the slaughter”, we are told that, “Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35).

Thus, whilst the interpretation of Isaiah may still be a matter of academic debate, it would be perverse for a Christian to do anything other than follow Philip’s example — certainly if confronted with the same question.

When it comes to Genesis 2, therefore, we need to be aware that the text also has a trajectory leading into the future and that its final destination is Christ.

The trajectory begins with 2:24. From the Garden, we suddenly move to every future marriage;

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (NIV)

But it does not stop there, for as the Christian reader will probably know, this verse is picked up by the Apostle Paul and applied, once again, to Christ:

... for we are members of his [Christ’s] body.“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (Eph 5:30-32, NIV)

This is not, however, an application that Paul produces out of nowhere, like a rabbit out of magician’s hat. On the contrary, the link has been implicit throughout the Old Testament, where God’s relationship with Israel is commonly depicted in marital terms. On the one hand, unfaithfulness to God is described as ‘fornication’, ‘prostitution’ or ‘adultery’:

Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same. (Ex 34:15-16)

On the other hand, Israel’s own relationship with God is typically described in marital terms:

For your Maker is your husband— the LORD Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. (Is 54:5)

Indeed, the life of the prophet Hosea is a ‘worked example’ of the difficulties of this relationship (and a reminder that God’s plan for our lives may include marriage but not necessarily a happy one).

Perhaps the most remarkable depiction of God’s marriage to Israel, however, is found in the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel, where the nation is depicted as a foundling baby girl whom the Lord first rescues and then, when she reaches sexual maturity, marries:

... you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised. Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare. Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine. (Ezekiel 16:5-8, NIV)

By contrast with the negative denouncements of Israel, therefore, her redemption is depicted as the renewal of the marriage covenant:

“The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit— a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God. “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer. (Is 54:6-8)

In the New Testament, then, this marital imagery is simply picked up and applied to Christ, most dramatically, perhaps, with the wedding scene that comes at the end of Revelation. The end of all things is hailed as “the wedding of the Lamb” (19:7), and then in 21:2 we have this vision:

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. (NIV)

At the close of the book, therefore, we see the present-day church longing for this event:

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say ‘Come!’”

To the alarm of some, this invocation is followed by an imprecation — a curse:

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (22:18-19)

In a most bizarre piiece of editing, the latest lectionary of the Church of England actually omits the verses telling us not to omit verses! But this is then followed by another invocation:

He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (22:20, NIV)

The interesting point comes when we compare this with the words in 1 Cor 16:22. The NIV translates this as “O come, Lord!”, but the Greek text preserves the fact that this is actually an Aramaic phrase: Marana tha!

Being in Aramaic, the dialect Jesus and his disciples spoke, rather than in everyday Greek, we must assume that this phrase came into use in the church from the very earliest times. As with Revelation 22:18-20, however, the invocation is again preceded by an imprecation: “If anyone does not love the Lord — a curse be upon him!” (NIV). Given the parallel between the two texts, we may therefore wonder whether the invocation should be understood the same way in both cases, not just as calling on the Lord, but specifically (as in Revelation) as a longing for the arrival of Bridegroom on the part of his Bride, the church.

Certainly Paul viewed the church in this way. In 2 Corithians 11:2 he writes,

I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. (NIV)

But for Paul this is much more than a metaphor. On the contrary, the effectiveness of Christ’s saving work depends on the parallel paul draws between Adam and Eve on the one hand and Christ and the church on the other, centered on the idea of ‘one-flesh union’ expressed in Genesis 2:24.

For Paul, the benefits of Christ to the believer come about through our union with him. Thus he writes in Romans 6:3-5,

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. (NIV)

And the benefit of this union is seen in other areas as well:

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col 2:9-12)

Circumcision is not merely discarded. Rather, it is fulfilled in Christ, so that we who are ‘in him’ are also circumcised with him!

And all this comes from the application of the physical language of Genesis 2:24 to the spiritual life of the believer. Thus paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:16-17,

Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

For Paul, however, the significance of this extends even beyond our own personal salvation. Ephesians 1 presents a a review of God’s plans and purposes from before creation to our full redemption:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love (1:3-4, NIV)

[...]

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession —to the praise of his glory. (1:13-14, NIV)

As vv 20-21 indicate, the those plans and purposes are being worked out through Christ’s resurrection and heavenly ‘session’:

That power [working for us] is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (1:19-21, NIV)

But though Christ’s rule is ultimately to be established over all things, he does not rule alone, as we read in the next two verses:

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (1:22-23, NIV)

There are those, however, including Ian Paul (Women and Authority: The Key Biblical Texts Cambridge: Grove Books, 2011), who deny that Christ’s ‘headship’ here is a matter of rule:

In Eph 1:22 and Col 2:10 he [Christ] is head ‘over all things’ in most English translations. But the Greek cannot mean this, since word [sic] translated ‘over’ is huper, which everywhere else in the NT is translated ‘more than’ or ‘beyond.’ To express rule or authority ‘over’ something, Greek uses another word epi (as in Luke 19:14 and 27 ‘we will not have this man rule over us’). (16)

There are, however, a number of problems with what Ian Paul says here. First, huper is simply not translated “everywhere else in the NT” by ‘more than’ or ‘beyond’. A key meaning of the word is ‘for’ as in ‘on behalf of’: “pray for [huper] those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). Another is ‘for’ in the sense of ‘on the same side’: “whoever is not against you is for [huper] you” (Lk 9:50).

Moreover, the sense of huper cannot always be conveyed by the two alternatives Ian Paul gives. In Matthew 10:24, for example, the NIV’s “A student is not above [huper] his teacher, nor a servant above [huper] his master” is clearly preferable to saying the student is not ‘more than’ his teacher or the servant ‘beyond’ his master.

‘Above’ is clearly a legitimate translation of huper, particularly in spatial terms. Thus the LXX of Deuteronomy 23:23 refers to “the sky which is above [huper] your head”. It would seem perfectly legitimate, therefore, to translate Ephesians 1:22 as “head above everything”. But in any case, the meaning and implications of this phrase would still have to be derived from more than just the single preposition.

Ian Paul inadvertently illustrates this by his reference to Colossians 2:10, for in fact this does not contain the word huper, even though the NIV reads “Christ, who is the head over every power and authority”. The Greek simply uses the genitive: “Christ, who is the head of every power and authority”.

But the sense is not merely that Christ is the ‘origin’ or ‘source’ of powers and authorities — Ian Paul’s preferred options. In the preceding verse, the Apostle writes that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (2:9). And in v 15 he observes that the powers and authorities have been disarmed, made a public spectacle of and triumphed over. Christ’s ‘headship’ in this regard is surely one of being ‘over and above’ as both the one who embodies the fullness of deity and the one in whom the usurping powers of the universe have been put down.

Regarding Ephesians 1:22, both the language and the biblical background make it clear that ‘rule over’ is indeed in view. First we read that God placed all things “under” Christ’s feet. To pursue the physical metaphor, and speak of Christ as the head and the church as his body, thus naturally puts him ‘above’ all things. The theological perspective is the same as that found in Philipians 2:9-11:

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above [huper] every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (NIV)

Furthermore the background to the Apostle’s thought in Ephesians is reflected in Psalm 8, especially v 6:

You made him [ie ‘man’ and the ‘son of man’, v 5] ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. (Ps 8:6-8, NIV)

And this Psalm is itself picking up what we read in Genesis 1:28:

God ... said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (NIV)

The language of ‘filling’ in the LXX of this passage is picked up in Ephesians 1:22, which now uses the same verb (plēroō) to describe Christ as “filling everything” (cf 4:10, “He [Christ] who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe”).

Thus there is a parallel between Genesis 1:28 and Ephesians 1:22-23. In Genesis, mankind is to “fill the earth and subdue it”, ruling over the other creatures of the world. This is picked up in Psalm 8 as a hymn of wonder, but as the writer of Hebrews observes, although we do not see this in human reality we can see it applying to Christ:

Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him [man]. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour ... (Heb 2:8-9)

And the same thought is expressed in Ephesians. It is Christ, filling everything in every way, who fufils the mandate of Genesis 1 to “fill the earth”, and it is Christ, who reigns over all things, who fulfils the mandate to “rule over” the works of God in creation.

But as have said, he does this in combination with the church and he is able to do this because he does it in union with the church. Christ is the head, and all things are under his feet, but between the head and the soles of the feet is his body, the church.

Thus the argument of Ephesians 5, concerning husbands and wives, is not a mere haustafel — a set of household rules setting out an early (and possibly unenlightened) Christian ethic. Rather, it give human expression to the divine principle undergirding not just our salvation, but God’s entire purposes in creation. Christ rules, but not ‘Christ alone’. The plans of God depend on the union between Christ and the Church, and everything that he has done in Christ with regard to the creation is for the church, and finally will be through the church.

No wonder Paul writes as he does in Ephesians 3:20-21,

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Eph 3:20-21, NIV)

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The woman Eve, so good Adam named her twice

Recently I have been putting together some thoughts on the first three chapters of Genesis for a short course at our local churches.

One of the things we dealt with yesterday was the ‘naming’ of the woman in Genesis 2:23,

“This time it is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh;
this then shall be called ‘woman’,
for ‘from “man”’ was she taken this time.”

First, let’s deal with the translation of this verse. The above is my own concoction from comparing the Hebrew text with a number of English translations. The term translated ‘now’ (“this is now”) by the NIV indicates elsewhere an occurrence in a sequence (Gen 18:32; 29:34,35, etc). The reference is back to the previous ‘attempts’ to find a suitable companion for the man, “But for Adam no suitable helper was found” (2:20b).

Most English translations then opt for ‘she’ in the second line: “she shall be called ‘woman’” (NIV, ESV, ASV etc). However, the Hebrew is a masculine singular. I must admit to puzzling over the fact that it is a masculine, not feminine, singular since the reference is ostensibly to a feminine object. If anyone can help me out, I’d be grateful.

There are, however, three occurences of ‘this’ in the three lines. It is the first word of the first two lines and the last word of the last line. Young’s Literal Translation takes it that the reference of the ‘calling’ is back to the action referred to in the first line: “This is the proper step! ... for this it is called ‘Woman’ ...”. And whilst the translation may be awkward, it seems to me to have some merit. Thus I wonder whether the verb should not be taken as referring to the first of these, hence my suggestion “this then”, which tries to encompass both the woman and the action.

Punctuation is, of course, additional to the Hebrew text, but the inverted commas are put in to highlight the special nature of the words ‘woman’ (Heb ishshah), and ‘man’ (Heb ish) — the woman being literally a ‘from-man’ being. For both words, this is their first occurrence in the text, and thus it may be suggested we have here two ‘namings’.

But there are some who would question whether we have any naming at all. One such is Ian Paul, in what has become quite a popular work in some evangelical circles. For Paul this is a particularly important issue, since it might have bearing on the egalitarian-complementarian debate:

... it might be argued that the adam’s earlier naming of the animals emphasizes his authority over them (2:19-20), and that when God brings the woman to him (at which point we can truly speak of man and woman) he also names her. However, there is an important distinction between the two events. (Paul, Ian. Women and Authority: The Key Biblical Texts. Cambridge: Grove Books, 2011, 7)

Thus he continues,

The man grants each animal a name, using a naming formula ‘its name shall be called ...’ and none of these is a suitable helper. But in 2:23, instead of granting the woman a name, he recognizes who she is as ‘woman,’ as one taken from ‘man’; the Hebrew phrase is quite different: ‘of this one it will be said “woman.”’

There are a number of comments which can be made in response, however, both to Paul’s detailed remarks and to the overall suggestion.

First, we may note, but must reject (as in fact Paul himself rejects it in the same work, see page 6), any flirtation with the idea that what God originally creates should be understood as an andorgynous being — an ‘adam’ of indeterminate gender, rather than a man. Phylis Trible is a particular advocate of this in her book God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. The idea, however, finds no real support in the text. Not least, we may note the remark in 2:22: “and he (God) brought her to the man (Heb ha adam). There is no change in Adam’s being (beyond the loss of a rib).

Secondly, despite Paul’s assertion above, there is actually no use of a ‘naming formula’ anything like “its name shall be called ...” earlier in the text. Where the animals are named, 2:19 reads, “And he brought them to the man (ha adam) to see what he would call it, and everything which he, the man, called each living creature, that was its name.”

In fact, the earliest (and indeed strictly speaking the only) use of the precise formula, “his name shall be called” that I can find in the Old Testament is the rather Pythonesque Deuteronomy 25:10: “And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.” (ASV)

We do, however, have earlier instances of ‘calling’ something by a name:

“God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’” (1:5, NIV)

“God called the expanse ‘sky.’” (1:8, NIV)

“God called the dry ground ‘land,’ and the gathered waters he called ‘seas.’” (1:10, NIV)

In each case, the verb ‘to call’ is in the ‘qal’, active (perfect or imperfect), case: “he called”.

By comparison, in 2:23 the verb is in the ‘niphal’ case, indicating a passive or reflexive voice: “it (or she) shall be called”.

As we have seen above, Paul argues that this is “quite different” from the namings that have gone before, having the sense of identifying, rather than imparting, the name. Rather than the traditional “she shall be called” of most English versions, the meaning is, as he puts it, “‘of this one it will be said “woman.”’” Adam is not ‘naming’ the woman, but recognizing what she would be known as.

A comparison with other uses of the verb in this form shows that there could, in other circumstances, be some support for this conclusion. Thus we find the following:

“No longer will you be called Abram ...” (Gen 17:5, NIV)

“... you will no longer be called Jacob ...” (Gen 35:10, NIV)

“... the prophet of today used to be called a seer.” (1 Sam 9:9, NIV)

The niphal ‘shall be called’ is clearly not the same as the qal ‘he called’. Yet it is overstating things to deny that the former can in any sense be used with reference to naming. Consider Isaiah 1:26:

“I will restore your judges as in days of old, your counsellors as at the beginning. Afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.” (NIV)

Or again Isaiah 62:4:

“No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be married. (62:4, NIV)

In these instances at least, the qal form of qārā comprises what might be called a ‘pronunciation formula’: “You will be known as ...” And it is hard to deny, certainly in the case of what God says, that such pronunciations are authoritative.

Moreover, when we come back to Adam in Genesis 2, God delegates the task of naming to the man: “He brought them to the man to see what he would name them ...” (2:19). This is particularly significant when we recall that all the earlier instances of naming were acts of God himself.

The pronouncement of Adam in 2:23, therefore, could be seen as no less ‘authoritative’ than those pronouncements of God we have observed in Isaiah: “This then shall be called woman” is comparable to “You will be called the City of Righteousness” or “You will be called Hephzibah”.

We might also add that since Adam is the only person around at this point in time, the obvious implication is that this 'being known as' begins with him. He is not picking up on what others are saying! In effect, therefore, his, "This then shall be called ...," is the same as, "I will call ...". (We might also add, by way of completeness, and contra Paul's suggestion above, the text does not tell us what he said regarding the animals. Does this not mean that, for all we know, he could have said of each animal, "This shall be called ..."?)

In any case, there are two other features of the narrative that need to be taken into account. The first is the clear parallel between 2:19 and 2:22. In 2:19 we read that God formed (Heb yātsar) the animals from the ground and brought (Heb bō’) them to the man, followed by a naming. In 2:22, God builds (Heb bānāh) the woman and similarly brings (Heb bō’) her to the man. Our natural expectation is that a naming will again follow — this is, after all, the climax of the hunt for the ‘suitable helper’ that began in 2:18.

To deny that 2:23 is a naming would not only go against the obvious flow of the narrative, but would indeed leave an unresolved tension.

Furthermore, we have noted the occurrence of previous, undisputed namings, in chapters 1 and 2. In chapter 1 God names five things in the natural world. In chapter 2, the act of naming is handed on to the man. The giving of names to the animals is thus a sixth naming act. Taking this line, the pronouncement regarding the woman in 2:23 is the seventh — and therefore the ‘perfecting’ or ‘completing’ — act of naming. At this point the tension introduced by the ‘not good’ pronouncement of 2:18 (in contrast to the seven ‘goods’ of chapter 1) is finally resolved.

For those who are still troubled by the fact that this is a naming at all, we would repeat our observation that it is, strictly speaking, a ‘double’ act — both ‘woman’ and ‘man’ are used here for the first time. However, we regard it as indisputably, and indeed in the flow of the narrative importantly, a naming.

That brings us to the second naming of the woman, in Genesis 3:20: “And he called, Adam, the name of his wife ‘Eve’ ...” Many, including Ian Paul himself, interpret this negatively. Thus regarding God’s words to the woman in Genesis 3:16 (“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”, NIV) he writes,

It is immediately apparent that this is no longer the harmonious equality of Genesis 1-2, and indeed the man immediately expresses his rule by naming the woman Eve, this time using a phrase similar to the naming formula used for the animals. (Ibid, 8 — note once again the reference to a 'naming formula' and see the comments above)

For Paul as for others, this is an act of, in his words, ‘domination’. In our view, however, this is a serious misreading of the text.

To begin with, contra what Paul writes above, the words of 3:20 obviously do not follow “immediately” on the words of 3:16. What intervenes after 3:16 is significant to our reading of 3:20, in particular the words at the end of 3:19: “for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

It is these words, not the words of 3:16, which should control our reading of the text of 3:20. (In any case 3:16 is patent of a different interpretation from the one assumed by Paul — see Susan Foh, ‘What is the Woman’s Desire’, Westminster Theological Journal 37 (1974/75) 376-83. Paul lists this in his references, but seems to take no account of her conclusions.)

The text has brought us to the final pronouncement of the ‘curse’ God warned would follow on disobedience in 2:17: “when you eat of it, you will surely die” (NIV). It is then that Adam names his wife ‘Eve’, “because she would become the mother of all the living” (3:20b, NIV).

This is surely not an act of domination but a prophetic expression of hope! I have often commented, when teaching on this passage, that there are any number of names a man might have been tempted to call a woman in such circumstances. Indeed, history is repleat with readings of the text that would suggest some ripe examples.

Adam had earlier blamed Eve and God between them for his own sin and downfall: “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree ...” (3:12). Now he has been told that he (and by implication all his descendants) will die. Yet immediately (to use Paul’s phrase) he calls the woman chavāh, ‘Eve’, for she will become the ‘mother of all the chay (living)’.

Rather than being a ‘domineering’ act in keeping with a certain (though in my view false) interpretation of 3:16, this is not only an extraordinary insight but an act of both repentance (necessary to the change of heart towards the woman) and grace (since she has not actually done anything to deserve this). Adam recognizes, and in giving the name openly acknowledges, that the solution to the problem of death lies not with him but, ultimately, with the woman. What God has said to the serpent will indeed be true:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. (Gen 3:15, NIV)

This is rightly called the protoevangelium — the ‘first gospel’ — and it is expressed in Eve’s name. What Adam sees is the good that will come via her, something so good he names her twice.

John Richardson
24 August 2012

PS: for those who might not get it, the title reference is to New York, N.Y, the city that, as the song has it, is 'so good, they named it twice'.

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Shurely shome mishtake?

There is a blog out there by a minister in the Scottish Episcopal Church which has picked up on my article about the latter's introduction of 'inclusive language' in relation to God.

One poster says they are, "glad to see you have a different toake [sic] to that of the Ugley Vicar" and asks, "What d’you make of his perspective?", to which the author of the blog in question, Revruth, replies, "it wasn’t Ugleyvicar’s views but an article he pinched from John Richardson."

Much as I've tried, I can't post in the comments section, but for the record we are still one and the same person.

The other comments are worth reading, though, as they back up my hunch that this is all about revising our outward language about God in ways that conform to people's inward feelings - as I said before, basically idolatry in the sense that 'I' become the arbiter of God's nature, and wind up with a God fashioned by myself (see Isaiah 44:12-20 for the same process using the hands and wood, not the mind and mental images).

The battle to come here is related to that over sexuality but is, if anything, bigger.

BTW she disagrees, but doesn't say why.

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The Justification of God in the Book of Joshua (notes from a sermon on Joshua 7)

On Sunday night I tackled what I think is one of the most difficult issues in contemporary reading of the Bible, namely the 'holy war' of Joshua. Here are the notes for that sermon (and oddly timely it would seem).

Introduction

The events of Joshua 7 clearly represent a setback for Israel’s conquest of the land. Yet at one level they also seem simple to understand —Israel sinned, as a result, Israel’s enemies triumphed against them, God judged Israel and, as we will see next week, Israel’s fortunes were restored.

Yet at another level the events are quite complex. And they touch on one of the most difficult issues in the book of Joshua itself, namely the picture it gives us of the character of God.

We have already seen some of this in chapter 6 with the conquest of Jericho. In v 21, we read,

They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

It is, quite literally, a massacre, with the exception of the extended family of Rahab. And it raises serious problems —not least in evangelism, where people who are familiar with this will dismiss the God of the Bible as barbaric.

What are we to make of it?

Accusing Israel

There are, I think, a number of wrong ways to respond to this problem. One is to accuse Israel. What people say is, “God is not really like that. What actually happened was that Israel justified these massacres by claiming that God ordered them, but he didn’t really.”

This gets God off the hook, but it undermines the trustworthiness of the Bible, which says quite explicitly this was God’s doing. In any case, it simply doesn’t work to suggest that this is what Israel wanted to do, as the incidents of chapter 7 show.

Until recently, war was generally regarded as an opportunity for a bit of profit. Sailors in Nelson’s navy got a share of the ‘prize money’ from captured enemy ships. And in the ancient world, the booty from warfare was regarded as a bonus for the winning side.

So the instruction to destroy everything, went against both common practice and common sense. No one would invent a divine command ordering such a thing. As an explanation it just doesn’t work.

Another wrong response is to suggest that Israel misunderstood God — that they thought this was what God wanted, but he didn’t really.

This is a very attractive solution, but again chapter 7 of Joshua makes no sense at all on this reading. The Bible is quite clear —this total destruction is what God ordered.

Accusing God

So the other option is to accuse God, which a lot of atheists do. On the basis of these passages, some of them get terribly angry about God and call God all sorts of things —hateful, vengeful, evil, etc.

The trouble is, of course, if you’re a real atheist, you can’t call God anything. In fact, if you don’t believe in God, but you do believe these actions were hateful and evil, there’s only one thing you can blame —what is that? The human race.

Ironically, the atheist who says that if God is like this, then God must be very evil is actually saying the human race is very evil, whereas a lot of them actually want to claim that, at least compared with God, the human race is very good.

But still, it is hard not to read these accounts and feel there is a problem. Can we accept that God commanded this?

The true God

I have given this a lot of thought over the past few weeks, and I would say the one thing we must not do with this issue is try to get God off the hook. We must not try to say, “God didn’t order this,” or “Israel didn’t understand God.”

And the reason is because our motivation is that we feel uncomfortable about this picture of God. But if we try to adjust the picture of God to suit our feelings, we are actually idolaters —we are making God in our own image, a God with whom we feel comfortable.

Whatever else we do, we have to accept the picture it gives of God even if it confronts, even if it contradicts, the picture we would like to have.

Like Abraham, when God told him to sacrifice his son, we have to accept that God might actually turn out to be not like we imagined, or not like we would want. We have to let God be God. Otherwise we will fall into terrible error.

So with that in mind, let’s turn to tonight’s passage.

An unfaithful act

The opening verse sets the scene, but more than that, it explains the problem. The word used for what has happened is ‘unfaithfulness’ — it is the breach of a relationship. But notice also that although it is the sin of one man, it is attributed to the whole people:

But the Israelites acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things ...

Again, we are told that“the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.”

The hint is that what Achan did, anyone could have done. And that is born out by what happened next.

 A devastating defeat

As readers we know something Israel at this stage didn’t. The text intends us to know this —it therefore intends us to read these events and form our own judgement: to see everything in the light of what is actually wrong.

After the conquest of Jericho, Ai was seen as an easy target —only a few people defended it, and it could be taken by a handful of soldiers. But, contrary to expectations, the Israelites were routed and a number of them —about three dozen —killed.

The casualties are really quite light, but the effect on the Israelites was devastating, as we read at the end of v 5,

At this the hearts of the people melted and became like water.

Now the important thing is to compare this with 5:1and 2:9. In 2:9, Rahab told the spies,

“I know that the Lord has given this land to you and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you.

And again in 5:1,

Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

In other words, Israel has become like their enemies. And what does this mean? It means there is no faith —not even a recollection of the things God had done for them that caused their enemies’ hearts to melt!

A panic reaction

And we see this in the reaction not just of the elders but of Joshua himself. They all fell on their faces before the ark, praying and throwing dust on their heads, which you might think is a good thing, but look at Joshua’s prayer in vv 7-9.

This is not a prayer for help, or wisdom, or guidance, or courage. It is a prayer of panic and it is wrong in almost every respect.

First, in v7, God’s motives are questioned:

Ah, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us?

It reminds us of the serpent’s words in Genesis 2, where the serpent attributed false motives to God. But ask yourself, have you ever done the same —have you ever doubted God’s goodness?

And then, in the same verse, Israel’s failure is put down to being over-ambitious:

If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!

This is ridiculous! They were on this side of the Jordan because of God’s miraculous work. How could this be the result of overconfidence? They’re not even asking the right question.

Then in vv8-9, the failure is compounded by expecting things to get worse:

O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? ⁹ The Canaanites and the other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth.

But we do the same —we look at our circumstances and assume it’s going to be downhill all the way.

And then, last of all, in v9 it is assumed that God himself will be the final loser.

What then will you do for your own great name?

God here is the ultimate victim —unable to rescue even himself! And as informed readers we are supposed to spot this —we are supposed to be saying, “No, you’re wrong, that’s not it!” But look at our own attitudes, and our own prayers, and we realize we are not much better.

God’s response

And then look at God’s response:

The Lord said to Joshua, “Stand up! What are you doing down on your face?”

The good news is that there is no need to panic. But there is very bad news to follow, which the Hebrew brings out by a series of repeated ‘also’s:

Israel has sinned; they have also violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have also taken some of the devoted things; they have also stolen, they have also lied, they have also put them with their own possessions.

Israel has sinned, and the nature of the sin is made clear down to the specific details: they have violated the covenant, they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions.

And so v 12 tells us what we, the readers, already know,

That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies ...

But what we don’t know, which the text now tells us, is the terrible nature of the consequences:

... they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction.

Israel is now exposed to exactly the same fate as the other inhabitants of the land.

The God of Judgement

You see, we know from earlier in the Bible why these nations were to be destroyed. In Genesis 15:16 God said to Abraham, “in the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

It wasn’t until these nations were ready for judgement that the Israelites would be allowed into the land, as we red in Deuteronomy 9:4, where Moses said to the Israelites

... it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you.

We can easily point to this as one of the reasons for the ruthless nature of Israel’s warfare —it was an enactment of God’s judgement. But it is only as we read the story of Achan that realize what this means.

Israel’s destruction of these nations is not a matter of race —this is not, despite what people say, a case of ethnic cleansing. Ethnicity has nothing to do with it, as 7:12 shows. Israel itself is now liable to exactly the same destruction, and there is only one solution:

I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.

A disgraceful thing

This is why God spoke as we read in v13:

Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow ...

The Israelites are to make themselves holy — and this takes us to the heart of the problem which is in v13:

That which is devoted is among you, O Israel.

It is the accursed thing which is in Israel’s midst. But what ought to be in Israel’s midst? The Holy God is in the midst of Israel, doing great things for her, but instead, there is a ‘devoted thing’. Yet it is not the thing itself which is the problem. The problem is what has brought this situation about. In v15 we read,

He who is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the Lord and has done a disgraceful thing in Israel!

What has been done is a disgraceful thing —the very opposite of holiness and keeping the covenant.

“I coveted”

And so we read how Achan was discovered, probably through the drawing of lots. And yet even this reminds us it could have been anyone!

But the words of Achan in v 20-21 reveal something else:

It is true! I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: ²¹ When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.

Quite simply, despite everything, Achan had coveted what he saw. And so we see in v 24, that Achan suffered the same fate as the nations had done:

Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor.

A snare to Israel

There is a message her, but to understand it we need to go back to Deuteronomy 7 and read God’s words there to Israel. In vv 24-25, we read this about the nations Israel was now fighting:

... the Lord your God ... will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. ²⁵ The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. ²⁶ Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Utterly abhor and detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

Look again at 25,

Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it

Or look at 12:29-30,

The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, ³⁰ and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.”

What is the weak link in all this? It is Israel’s inability to withstand temptation. And this is exactly what we have seen in the case of Achan. Why did he take the forbidden things? In his own words, “I coveted them and I took them.”

The Judgement of Israel

And why is this a problem? Because it is not just a matter of material greed, but spiritual failure. We have already seen in this chapter Israel’s collapse from bottom to top —from Achan who took the goods to Joshua who panicked.

Why must these nations be eliminated? Why must Israel show no mercy? Because of Israel’s weakness. Israel is constantly a whisker away from betraying everything —the covenant and God himself.

And remember, the salvation of the world depends on Israel. Our salvation depends on their being an Israel, into which Jesus would be born.

The destruction of the nations is not just a judgement on them, it is a judgement on Israel, because Israel could not be trusted to withstand the temptations they would present.

It is a fearful lesson, not just about God and judgement, but about us and sin. And it is a sobering thought that God took the only way possible by commanding that these nations be shown no mercy, because Israel must be preserved so that the world might be saved.

This is nothing to do with ethnic cleansing, but it is everything to do with sin cleansing. And so we read Achan’s fate, and the fate of his entire family in vv 25-26:

Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today. Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. ²⁶ Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since.

There really is no alternative. Otherwise, Israel would fall.

But there is finally an alternative. There is another one on whom God’s wrath can fall. There is another one the Lord can bring trouble upon. Salvation is not achieved by our goodness. Rather, another bears our wickedness. And because he has died we can be spared.

But through his death we have a message of transformation for all people. We can show mercy not only because God’s mercy has been shown to us, but because we have a gospel of transformation and forgiveness.

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