Category: Uncategorized

We are now about 2,000 revolutions around the sun from days of Jesus Messiah on this earth. We are somewhere in Act III of God’s drama with humankind. Given what we know of God’s history with humankind, this Act III is already stretching the limits of Act II (Abraham to Jesus). Is it nearing the time for God to try a new tack, or perhaps call the game? Or will God continue to abide God’s human creation, having shown us all the path to eternal life in spirit? These questions are, of course, imponderables.

We do know, or can observe, that prophets seem scarce. Perhaps there is a reason for this phenomena that one could ponder usefully. As Karl Barth observed, God came very near to us in history. God incarnated the Son who came down from heaven ( Jn. 6:38). Unlike manna that God sent from heaven to keep the Israelites alive in the desert (Ex.16:14-31), Jesus declared himself to be the bread of life, the living bread that came down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die, but have eternal life (see Jn. 6: 35-51). In the man Jesus, who lived in history, humans could touch God. Humans could listen to God speak to them and teach them what God wills for them. Humans could witness God’s miracles, but more important, humans could witness God’s love in the person of the Son. Jesus said, “The Father and I are one” (Jn. 10:30). God has never come so near.

We know all these things, including the acts of the Holy Spirit in the decades following Jesus’ ascension, because witnesses recorded the events and dialogue orally and in writing. Scholars organized what they considered to be the best of all these writings into a book that has survived to edify and instruct succeeding generations for nearly two thousand years. As C.S. Lewis rightly observed, we are all saints in training. Jesus Messiah was God’s peace offering to reconcile God to humankind. What more could we possibly ask of God?

So, perhaps prophets are scarce because Jesus Messiah said it all, speaking as Son of the Father, one with the Father. We have only to follow Him. His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Mt. 11:30). And thank Him for His gift, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” Jn. 15: 27.

In my view, the modern Christian church (as reflected in the NRSV and the NIV Bibles) has it wrong and does so on purpose. The church translates Paul’s writing about Jesus as follows: “whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.” NRSV Ro. 3:25. The NIV is similar, and both bibles translate John’s first letter likewise, “he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1Jn. 2:2 and 4:10. My NIV Study Bible makes clear the church’s view in its note to 1Jn.2:2 and Ro. 3:25. “God’s holiness demands punishment for human sin. God, therefore, out of love, sent his Son to make substitutionary atonement for the believer’s sin. In this way the Father’s wrath has been satisfied; his wrath against the Christian’s sin has been turned away and directed toward Christ.”

The problem with this interpretation is that neither Paul nor John wrote the Greek words for sacrifice or expiation (atonement). The Greek word used by Paul and John is properly translated as “the place of forgiveness” or “the means of forgiveness”, or specifically the “cover of forgiveness.” The Greek word used by Paul and John is derived from the Septuagint known as the LXX Greek translation of Hebrew scripture written by scholars in Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC. The Greek word translated the Hebrew word for the gold covering of the Ark known as the Mercy Seat, the most holy place at which God would appear or dwell (See Ex. 25: 21-22) and the place at which annually on the Day of Atonement the people were reconciled to God through the sprinkling of blood. (See Lev. 16: 1-19). So, what Paul and John were communicating was that God had presented Jesus as God’s new locus of God’s forgiveness and reconciliation with humankind.

Theologian Karl Barth explained it this way in his epic Epistle to the Romans; “The analogy with Jesus is especially appropriate, because the mercy seat is no more than a particular, though very significant place. By the express counsel of God, Jesus has been appointed from eternity as the place of propitiation above which God dwells and from which He speaks; now however, He occupies a position in time, in history, and in the presence of men. The life of Jesus is the place in history fitted by God for propitiation and fraught with eternity—God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself (2 Cor. 5:19).” ¹

Neither Paul nor John wrote that Jesus was offered as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, but theologians for centuries have insisted that Paul meant to say such, principally for the reasons outlined above by the NIV notes.² Frankly, I don’t see it making sense. An atoning sacrifice for our sins smacks of retribution. God loved us so much God directed his wrath to God’s Son? Is this how we express love, by causing another to suffer? Rather, scripture supports the notion that God was about reconciliation, not retribution. Jesus lived for us by teaching and healing. It seems to me that Jesus died a human death to show us his faith in God, his faithfulness to God, that in the death of the flesh through the letting out of his blood, he would gain eternal life. It seems to me that God willed Jesus to do this act in order to show humankind God’s reconciliation with the human condition and to plead with humanity to be alive in faith in God. God willed Jesus the man to walk the talk, “those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Mt. 16:25). And the radical nature of Jesus’ condemnation, humiliation and torture by the ruling class of the Temple and Rome, only to be raised up by God to glory, shows that, in Barth’s words, “the righteousness of God is clearly seen to be the unmistakable governance of men and the real power in history.”³

Paul wrote to the Corinthians the following: “Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer….Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Cor. 5:16,18-19 KJV). Jesus is a peace offering–God’s attempt at reconciliation. Thanks be to God.

1. Barth, Karl, Epistle to the Romans, translated from the sixth edition by Edwyn Hoskyns, Oxford University Press, first published 1933. p. 105.
2. Truth is elusive among the numerous commentaries written on Romans by theologians over the centuries. One modern commentator suggests that Paul was not referring to the object itself (Mercy seat cover), but the activity occurring there (sacrifice of atonement). So we have Paul using a metaphor to interpret a metaphor. See Keck, Leander, Romans, Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2005, pp 108-109. Barth seems to make more sense. Readers are invited to express their own thoughts and come to their own conclusions.
3. Barth, Romans, 106
   

After some 1,500 years of disappointing experience with the chosen people, beginning with God’s miraculous work through Moses as recorded in Exodus, God decided to chart a new course on a different tack, still seeking (it would seem) the same goal for humankind to become inclined toward righteousness through faith and disinclined toward evil through the sins of the flesh. God’s effort to induce holiness in humankind through the teaching of the Law coupled with rewards and punishments, blessings and curses, had not meant with any measurable success. Time for a new approach. And so we began Act III, which I call God’s Attempt At Reconciliation.

There is an old adage that those who can’t do it, teach it. For 1,500 years God, who could not be human or do human, tried to teach humans. But the humans said to God in effect, ‘Look your Holiness, why don’t you try coming down here and be Holy while being human. Not so easy.’ Maybe God needed to become human so human righteousness through faith could be taught by a human ‘doing it’. C.S. Lewis deduced just this, offering an eloquent explanation in his Mere Christianity. To be human is to suffer pain unto death, and to be a righteous human is to put one’s faith entirely in the hands of God, as did Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Elijah. God would raise Jesus, defeating death through eternal life.

We know the what, where and when of Jesus. The how and why of incarnation, life, death and ascension remain a mystery to mortals. But humans always want to know the why of everything even if the how is beyond their comprehension. I have sorted out in my own mind why the Word became flesh to live among us, as explained above. The more difficult question for me is, why did God ask Jesus to willingly challenge the authorities to the point that he would suffer the ultimate in human pain and suffering?

Christian theology finds the answer in Paul’s letter to the Romans, that we are now justified by God’s grace as a gift, “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith” Ro. 3: 24-25. Further, the author of Hebrews explains that this sacrifice is the reason why the Word became flesh and lived among us. “Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” Heb. 2: 17-18.

I have never been comfortable with the church’s explanation of the cross as a “sacrifice of atonement” for our sins, wiping them all away in one epic act. It seemed to me that the church would have us live under the dark cloud of guilt, looking up at Jesus in agony due to our miserable human weaknesses, such that we would get down on our knees pleading for mercy. Yes, we are all cracked vessels in need of God’s guidance and God’s mercy. In my opinion, though, the why of the cross was not a sacrifice of atonement for our sins. For me, the why of the cross is one important part of the why of the Word becoming flesh, living with ordinary folk and teaching us of God’s love for us, of our role as saints in training, and inculcating our faith in God’s eternal plan for us even unto suffering and death. The why, in my view, is God’s attempt at reconciliation with humankind God created. God’s reconciliation demanded that God embrace solidarity with the plight of the poor, ordinary citizen, even unto the awful physical abuse of governing authorities. God did not hold back. Praise be to God!

Next week. Squaring my view with Paul. Karl Barth got it a century ago.

God watched over, led, protected, fed, and taught the progeny of Abraham and Sarah for nearly 1,000 years. God gave them great leaders in Moses and later Joshua and Caleb to bring this nation of people out of slavery in Egypt and into the land God had promised Abraham. God did all this even though God realized soon after delivering this people from the slavery of Pharaoh that they were a stiff-necked¹ people given to disobedience and corruption no different, perhaps, from humankind before and after Noah (Ex. 32: 7-9). God wanted to destroy them all right then and start over with Moses, but relented after Moses pleaded with God to accept God’s people and remember God’s promise to Abraham (Ex. 32: 11-14). When the people were afraid to enter Canaan, lacking faith, God threatened again to destroy them all, saying to Moses, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the signs I have performed among them?” (Num. 14:11) God kept them in the desert another 40 years until the unfaithful died off before supporting the invasion of Canaan led by Joshua and Caleb (Num. 14: 20-24).

During the period in which the Israelites settled the land of Canaan there was little joy for God as God observed these people (Judg. 3:7,12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:11-16; 13:1. But God continued to preside over the people in God’s steadfast effort to turn them away from their inclination to evil and corruption. For me, the most poignant passage in the entire OT is a conversation between God and God’s servant Samuel in which God acknowledged failure. As Samuel was aging without a successor, the elders came to him asking for a king to govern them like other nations. Samuel objected, and reached out to God for guidance. God said to Samuel, “‘Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you.'” (1 Sam. 8:7-8). Then at God’s request, Samuel solemnly warned the people of the ways a king would reign over them, taking for himself all the finest animals, crops, land, daughters, sons and slaves plus a tenth of all they produced, making them all the king’s slaves (1 Sam. 8:9-17); concluding “And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day” (1Sam.8:18).

The people ignored Samuel’s warning and demanded a king. Thus commenced a succession of kings over a period of about 500 years, ending in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, dispersal and exile. During the age of the kings, God withdrew to communicate through God’s prophets, expressing God’s displeasure (wrath?) as God witnessed a steady deterioration of the culture through widespread failure to obey God’s commands given to the people through Moses. The last straw is followed by Jerimiah’s accurate prophecy (Jer. 15:1-17:4) of death and destruction as God executed God’s judgment. The surviving Jews lived in exile for 70 years, after which a remnant was permitted to return to Jerusalem and rebuild (Ezr 9:8-9). The Jewish remnant remained just that for another 500 years, vassals of Persia, Greece and Rome, surviving by God’s grace (Ro. 11-5).

We are taught to approach the Old Testament of our Bible as the saga of the Israelites, the chosen people, who fashioned their own story of Creation. But what if this saga is in reality the saga of God’s experience with God’s humankind creation. For the first two thousand years God watches what God has wrought and finally decides to start over. God’s next experience after the flood (in roughly three 500 year phases) is to nurture the development of a people, lead these people directly into their own land, and then cede control to the people to manage their own affairs. There is nothing in this experience to be found pleasing to God. It was an epic disappointment that ended very badly for both God and the people Israel (see Jer. 32: 26-35). Yet in the same breath, God vowed to bring the survivors back to Jerusalem to live in safety as God’s people, giving them a singleness of heart and action (Jer. 32: 37-41). God declared that God would make a new covenant, not like the old one they broke, saying, “‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts…No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest'”(Jer. 31: 33-34). Another 500 years passes and so ends Act II of this grand drama.

At this point what do we know? We know for sure that God is not giving up on humankind. There are more arrows in God’s quiver. God will persist. So is it any wonder that God might then have taken a different tack from the law, judgment and wrath?

Some things to think about. What might God have meant by God’s intention to write God’s law on our hearts? How might it come to be that we would all know God? Also, God’s time is not our time. What for us may seem like incredible patience in God’s forbearance may seem to God as just the beginning of our Creator’s relationship with us. What for us may seem as an epic disappointment for God might seem to God as just one episode in a very long saga.² What for us may seem as unforgivable weakness may seem to God as the behavior children in need of love and teaching. Next week we move to Act III, God’s Attempt at Reconciliation.

1. The term ‘stiff-necked’ is a metaphor for unwillingness to be bridled or restrained as a horse or an ox might behave. It seems not altogether pejorative, but its usage is such when referring to one’s refusal to be subjected to legitimate authority or to be set in one’s ways in a manner considered uncivilized.
2. In Enoch’s vision, God’s judgment would come after 70 generations. In those days, a generation might have been thought to be a minimum 100 to 200 years, or a total of 7,000 to 14,000 trips around the sun. Perhaps since then we have made 6,000 trips.

After the Flood, we begin Act II of this drama. Humankind seemed to be redeveloping similar to the development following Eve’s son Seth, absent the fallen angels mucking around with mortal women. Families split up and moved on. Man tried to play god by building the tower. God intervened by confusing their languages. Humankind, at least the male segment, continued to be inclined toward evil. Nothing much changed.

Then we get the report that God called this 75 year old fellow with no children and a barren wife from the Euphrates region and told him to go to what is now Israel. In our Bible, this occurred 367 years after the Flood. Was God up to something new here, or was God simply selecting another spear carrier like Enoch and Noah. God says to this fellow, Abram, “I will make of you a great nation” (Gen. 12:4). Well, this is certainly new. To this point, God had shown no interest in anything we might call a ‘nation.’ But apparently God planned to create a whole people from one common blood source, one common ancestor. God told Abram, “‘Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be’ “(Gen. 15:5).

Why then would God pick a childless aging man with a barren aging wife? How does one build a whole people from these two? Sure, Abram was a man of strength physically and morally (see Gen. 14; 13-24). But God needed more. God wanted a man who had what Enoch and Noah had….the capacity to live in faith. Pastors like to preach about Abraham’s faith in his willingness to sacrifice Isaac (Gen. 22). But the first example of Abram’s faith occurred when God told Abram the impossible would happen…. descendants as numerous as the stars…. “And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Gen. 15:5-6)

And so commences the 2,000 year saga of God and God’s people Israel as recorded in the Old Testament. In reading and studying this immense story, one tends to focus on the characters and events in this drama revealing every human strength and weakness. But perhaps we might step back and try to embrace the grand sweep of what God was doing in this part of God’s creation for two thousand laps of earth’s orbit around the sun. It seems to me that God was trying a new experiment with humankind. Remember, God accepted the fact that the heart of humankind was inclined toward evil from youth (Gen. 8:21). So, I’m suggesting that God planned to work with one segment of humankind created from one male ancestor in the hopes of creating over time a disinclination toward evil replaced with the inclination toward God’s Ways through the path of righteousness (faith). After all, God’s great wish for us is to be Holy, like God (Lev. 19:).

This plan did not start auspiciously. God rejected Hagar’s Ishmael in favor of Isaac and Rebekah’s Esau in favor of Jacob. It seemed like a repeat of Noah’s two sons rejected in favor of Shem. How could God build a whole people with one son per generation. Then we see that God accepted all twelve sons of Jacob, including four from female slaves.¹ All males were given the mark of the extended family, circumcision. And as planned, these twelve ended up as a slave colony in Egypt for four hundred years, procreating into a population of over 600,000 men.² They divided themselves into what became the 12 tribes of Israel.³

God now had a population large enough to become a nation and humble enough (as slaves for 400 years) to respond positively to direction from God. We might think of this period as Scene 1. God was now prepared to act with one mighty intervention to bring this people out of slavery and into God’s embrace. God would give them God’s Law, teach them God’s Ways, and deliver them to the land God promised to Abraham. Next week we’ll discuss how all this worked out for God, God’s steadfastness notwithstanding.

1. Significantly, perhaps, the four women were all from Haran near the Euphrates, and Jacob’s two wives were of his mother’s and grandfather’s family (Rebekah and Abraham). See Gen. 29:12.
2. Ex. 12:37. The math actually works. Women bore many children to share the work. If one assumes 8 children from one male during a 50 year span and that half the children born are male, then multiply Jacob’s twelve sons by 8 and then multiply the product by 4, seven times. The result is 1,572,864, a number sufficient to produce 600,000 adult males.
3. The census taken by the twelve tribes in the desert of the males twenty years and older, excluding the Levites, totaled 603,550. Num. 1:45.

The Book of Enoch is just one of many writings that influenced the Israelite culture, but were excluded from the canon of our Christian Bible. The cultural influence, though, is historical evidence that the visions of Enoch were sufficiently relevant to affect humankind’s relationship with God in that region. When the Israelites were on the cusp of invading the promised land, the spies sent forth to investigate came back with fearful insertions of giant people, “There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” Num. 13:33. The spies who were afraid to invade Canaan invoked the age old (500+ years by then) legend of the progeny of the eternal spirits who impregnated women on earth. The assertion was totally effective, causing great fear and refusal of the people to follow God’s command. As a result, God forced the Israelites to spend 40 years wandering in the desert until all of that generation perished. The story was so embedded in Israelite culture that several verses of Deuteronomy are dedicated to a recollection of this event ( Dt. 1:28; 2:10,21; 9: 1-6).

Approximately 1,500 years later the Apostles were spreading the good news of God’s aggressive re-engagement with humankind through the incarnation of God’s Son, the Son’s teaching, crucifixion and ascension. In doing so they often had to combat false teaching (as we do today) which tried to bend God’s will to conform to human desires. Jesus’ brother Jude warned of the coming judgment of the Lord, invoking the prophesy of Enoch. “It was also about these, that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied saying , ‘See the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed…'” Jude 14. ¹

A final example is provided by the writer in his Letter to the Hebrews, perhaps the most eloquent writing in the New Testament.² The letter is essentially a sermon preaching the reality that God speaks to humankind in intervals in many ways and forms, along with the injunction, “See that you do not refuse the one who is speaking…” Heb. 12:25. The writer incorporates the entire sweep of history known to Hebrews. “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets…” Heb. 1:1. “By faith Enoch was taken so that he did not experience death; and ‘he was not found, because God had taken him.’ For it was attested before he was taken away that ‘he had pleased God’ Heb. 11:5. The writer began with Abel, moved to Enoch, then Noah, then Abraham, all reckoned as righteous by their faith; not simply believing in the existence of God, but wholly trusting God in all their human actions and decisions.

It occurs to me that the value of literature describing God’s interaction with humankind during the primeval period of history is to inform us that God has always interacted with humankind since Creation. God has always rewarded faith. God has always taken into God’s eternal embrace those whose faithfulness pleased God. And further, the reality of God’s interaction with humankind was known to humankind from the very beginning, and this theological knowledge (faith) was considered sufficiently important to life and culture to have been preserved and recollected in scripture for thousands of years.

Finally, and most interesting to me, theologically, is the notion that God has accepted humankind as God created us, cracked vessels that we are. God acknowledged to Noah after the flood that the human propensity to sin had not changed. It seems plausible that there may have been other factors that caused God to bring the flood. So, perhaps in my relationship with God I should focus more on God’s love for me as I am and less on God’s disappointment with me as I am.

1. Jude modernized Enoch’s vision, replacing God’s coming in judgment to the return of the Lord (Jesus Christ).
2. For centuries, authorship was ascribed to Paul, but may well have been Timothy or Barnabas.

Genesis 1 explains God’s creation, including humankind, man and woman. “God saw everything that [God] had made, and indeed, it was very good” Gen 1:31. Then all hell breaks loose. Why? Genesis 2 and 3, created by the so-called priestly group a thousand plus years later, offer an explanation with the serpent tempting disobedience and sin. But suppose we skip Genesis 2 and 3, and we jump to Genesis 4 when Adam and Eve create Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel because the Lord is unhappy with his offering. Where is Adam? Cain is driven off to begin his own line of descent. Now, if you have Genesis 2 and 3, you can understand the evil in Cain, but otherwise we are still left somewhat in the dark. Eve then gives birth to Seth who begins the ancestral line of Adam leading to Noah, Abraham, Judah, David and ultimately Jesus. The time line from Adam to Noah and the flood is 1,656 years in our Bible. That lengthy span is accomplished in two short chapters of Genesis. Chapter 5 records the lineage…Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah.

Chapter 6, comprising eight short verses, describes God’s heart breaking disappointment with humankind and God’s disgust with what God had created. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” Gen 6:5. “And the Lord was sorry that [God] had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved [God] to [God’s] heart” Gen. 6:6. So God said, “‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created…” Gen. 6:7. Really? What happened during those 1,600 odd years that was so awful? Wasn’t evil present from the beginning? (Gen. 2 and 3) God did not snap in a fit of rage. God is not mercurial. There must have been some very untoward developments in humankind that caused God to grieve to the point of heart brokenness.

All we have are four preceding verses (Gen. 6:1-4), seemingly unconnected, that offer only a clue. When people began to multiply and daughters were born to them, “the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose… The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown” Gen 6:2; 6:4. The word ‘Nephilim’ is a translation of the Hebrew, meaning ‘fallen ones’. Were they the heroes of old? What is significant about these verses, placed as they were in Chapter 6?

Well, as one might imagine, there is quite a story, imbedded in the Israelite culture and oral tradition of God’s people that survived to be written in its present form in the late third or early second century BC. It is called the Book of Enoch which was incorporated in the Ethiopic Bible of the Coptic Christians, preserved at Qumran in the Dead Sea Scrolls and lost for about 1,000 years to western Christendom.

In Adam’s ancestral lineage, Jared was born 622 years after Adam and lived for 962 years, dying just before the flood. Our Bible records that each man in the lineage was born, lived a very long life, and died…. except one. Enoch, son of Jared, lived 365 years, “walked with God,” and “then he was no more, because God took him” Gen 5: 23-24. The only three people I remember being raised (taken) by God in our Bible are Enoch, Elijah and Jesus. (Someone please tell me if I am mistaken).

The Book of Enoch relates Enoch’s visions while he was in the presence of God. During Enoch’s life, in the days of Jared, 200 male angel “watchers” of humans on earth came down to earth to take wives among humans, enjoying sexual pleasure with the “fair” women. The progeny of these sexual unions of spiritual beings and human flesh were giants, possessed of huge physical strength, eternal spirits, and mortal flesh. These fallen watchers would have been the ‘sons of God’ referenced in Genesis 6:2 and 6:4. The Nephilim would have been the progeny, the so-called giants. The priestly group that wrote evil into Genesis 2 and 3 is thought to have written Genesis 6 also. Perhaps having written evil into Genesis 2 and 3, no further elaboration was deemed advisable.

It is Enoch who tells the story of God’s wrath over the violation of God’s ordinances by the watcher angels who descended to earth to cavort with human women. God ordered God’s Holy Angels, among whom were Gabriel and Michael, to destroy these fallen watchers. The Nephilim were another problem. God determined not to abide their existence more than 120 years (Gen.6:3), and ordered their destruction (which was completed in the flood). In his vision, Enoch heard from the Lord, “And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits on the earth. They shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called spirits of the evil ones. As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born on the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling. And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, war, destroy, and cause trouble on the earth.”¹

Enoch’s visions would seem to make more sense than the alternate story of creation in Genesis 2 and 3, introducing the sin of disobedience via the crafty serpent who tempted Eve. And Enoch’s visions provide a much more compelling reason for God to bring the flood, destroy life, and start over. We might be reminded that God’s view of humankind did not change from Genesis 6:5 pre-flood, “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually,” to Genesis 8:21 post-flood, “‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth.” Nor did humankind change. What did change was God’s attitude and acceptance of humankind void of the disgusting mutations wrought by the fallen angels that God could not abide in God’s creation.

Now, Enoch’s visions of the origins and presence of evil spirits did not make the canon. Perhaps the effort to inculcate monotheism called for suppression of the saga that involved a small army of disobedient primordial spirits occupying heaven with the one omnipotent God. I don’t know. But whether one accepts or rejects Enoch’s visions as inspired by God, scripture records with some clarity that Enoch pleased God and was reckoned as righteous through his faith. And there is evidence in scripture that Enoch’s story had a material influence on the culture of Israel and early Christianity. More on this in my next post.

1. There is an original book of Enoch included in the Ethiopic Bible, from which I quote Chapter 15, vs. 8 and 10. This book, not unlike our Bible, is a composite of several manuscripts written over a period of several hundred years, BC. There are other books of Enoch, one Slavic and one Hebrew. A compilation together with parallels in scripture is presented by author Joseph Lumpkin under the title The Books of Enoch, 2011, ISBN: 9781936533077.

God’s relationship with humankind that God created can perhaps be usefully segmented into three spans of time marked by sudden sea changes in God’s behavior toward God’s human creation. We can think of these time spans as Acts in an epic drama, or perhaps Books in the saga of the human family, or in the digital terminology of the current age, God 1.0, God 2.0 and God 3.0. I find the segmentation useful in that it augments my understanding of God and my role as one of God’s children at this point in the saga.

The three Acts are delineated as follows: Act One: Adam to Noah, which I dub The Early Years of Chaos; Act Two: Abram to Jesus, which I call God’s Attempt to Create God’s People; and Act Three: Jesus to date, which I call God’s Attempt at Reconciliation. Now, the last two Acts are replete with much action and story because they are more recent and much was written, recorded and determined to be sufficiently inspired to be included in the Hebrew and Christian Bible. However, much occurred of significance in Act One which covers a similar period of about 2,000 years and merits a mere six chapters of the Bible we Christians read. Yet Act One is of enormous significance to God’s experience with humans and God’s realization of what God had wrought.

I will begin with Act One in my next blog. Suffice to say here that indeed there was much written about one principal character who lived during Act One. We will consider that person of history and lore in our next blog post. His visions shed light on God’s enormous dilemma, and his prophecies mirror those of Daniel and John. I find all this rather interesting. Hope you will enjoy thinking on it as well.

So, okay, we know where we are today after God gave us the Holy Spirit following the ascension of God’s Son, Jesus the Christ. God is blessing us as humans, acknowledging and forgiving our sins, hoping for our desire to access God’s Kingdom, and available to us in our need through God’s Spirit when we open our hearts wide and silent all the monkeys in our brain clamoring for attention. How did we get here? How did we get to the point where we can actually understand the concept, Emmanuel, God with us?

In the next many blogs, I am going to attempt to share with you my journey, learning and asking questions along the way. How important is the beginning? Where did evil occur? Is it a force, a god of sorts? What of angels and the spirits of ancient oral tradition? Is it all so uncertain that there is no sound, rational beginning from which to ground an understanding or a faith? My friends have heard me say that we are living in the world of God 4.0 or 5.0. What the heck does that mean, and why, and who cares?

I invite you share with me a consideration of significant events in scripture to help us understand God in our time. I found the whole story pretty fascinating. Maybe I can interest you as well. I ended up being glad I am not God. Thanks be to God for hanging in there with us.

Next week. Creation. If you think there was chaos before creation, how about afterward??

Last week I questioned why it took over 400 years of theological debate to agree on the Trinity. While studying and thinking about theology can easily find oneself chasing one’s tail, it seems clear to me that the presence of the Holy Spirit in the decade or two following the ascension of Christ presented the intellectual community with such an enormous problem with so many ramifications, even the brightest minds in the Roman Empire could not come to a common understanding of this new phenomena.

Jesus was born into the monotheistic culture of Judaism….one God. “I am the Lord your God…you shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:2). How does the Son become God, eternally with the Father. “Before Abraham was, I am” (Jn.8:53). “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9b). Add to this startling development the presence of some mysterious force people were calling the Holy Spirit which enabled ordinary human believers to possess extra human powers.

One popular theory held that Jesus was not real, but rather God in a different mode, as was this mysterious force called the Spirit. This theology of “modalism” seemed consistent with the Judaic tradition of monotheism which testified to God’s appearance in human form (Gen. 18: 1-15; 32:24-30) and in spirit (1Kgs. 19: 11-18). There were many other theories of who or what Jesus was, including the influence of Greek philosophy that suggested that the highest form of wisdom and truth in the cosmos became incarnate in Jesus. In the end, a political decision of sorts was necessary to preserve a common community of church, with acknowledgement that God had indeed presented its Godself to humanity on earth in three distinct, separate and very real ‘persons’ of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Further, it was deemed apparent that these three ‘persons’ continued to be present among women and men who would accept their presence in faith.

And that is the nub of the matter, isn’t it? After all the intellectual thought and study, we are left with no rational deduction from knowledge gained….because all the combined knowledge of women and men is yet incapable of comprehending God. We must become like children (Mt. 18:3), born anew from above (Jn. 3:3).¹ Like children, in faith and trust, we throw ourselves into the arms of God, our loving parent; for the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit “that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…”(Ro. 8:16-17). In all seriousness, then, we remain as children, knowing little and trusting greatly in faith.

1. It is perhaps worth mentioning that in John’s gospel, written in Greek, the word for being born again has a double meaning which does not translate. The Greek word ἄνωθεν (anothen) means both ‘again’ or ‘anew’ and ‘from above’. There is no Hebrew or Aramaic word with this double meaning. English translations that use one or the other meaning miss the full meaning of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus. For example, in the NRSV, the author uses “born from above” with a footnote “or born anew”. The verse should read (arguably) “born again from above” with a footnote “or born anew from above”. Source: Gail R. O’Day, Commentary on The Gospel of John.