The Old Covenant Story....

 

Sunday 1^st Jun 2025

The biblical history of salvation, thorns and all…begins with the Old Covenant.(thorns = God gave us the ability to sort thorny stuff out carefully, and not accept what is said, even traditionally, in blind fashion…hence David’s reinterpretive skills….)

Also, remember the disclaimer of last week – this is a ‘no agenda’ Blog, a sharing as I journey and while I write the text on Jacob’s Ladder; Blog history of posts thus far is at dreliatjacobsladder.blogspot.com

Dear ones in Jesus,

The biblical history of salvation begins with God’s call to Abram in Gen 12:1-3. God says Come, and I will make of you a great people, and by you, all the peoples of the earth will be blessed. Cool. And why is God doing this?

Look at Genesis chapters 1-11. Mix of myth, legend, symbol and confession of faith; and it signifies?

1.      The story of (not the history of) God’s relationship with humankind.

2.      Out of chaos, God creates! And God’s creation = order!

3.      Humankind is created in the image of the Spirit of God, for God is spirit. No notion of a physical godly reference/image whatsoever here i.e. looks, features.

4.      Humankind is given every blessing from God, and is able to exercise intention and choice, and the stewardship of all that has been given. This is a big deal.

5.      There is a condition for such order to be maintained – the condition is one of relation i.e. it is able to continue as long as relationship with God is kept in engagement i.e. kept active, kept alive, kept in synch.

6.      So, direction, framework, parameters are all set. What happens?

7.      Humankind chooses. Poorly. No one person/entity is to blame. Not ‘satan’, not eve. It is the exercise of choice. Collectively. Influence? Well, that’s still there….

8.      Some questions & issues to begin to work on, that we will need to ultimately decide:

a.      The Adam, Eve, apple, Satan narrative places the blame squarely on Satan and then Eve. And so Eve, and all women thereafter, are punished by God to forever suffer painful and risky childbirth….

b.      We are all descendants of the three sons of Noah, so we’re all descended from wandering Arameans or some such…

These questions cannot be answered quickly nor easily but only when all of scripture is seen and understood as a whole from the perspective and experience of what salvation is; then their significance will either grow or diminish accordingly. We shall see.

9.      Order and accord have been rejected; action has been taken; cause and effect come into being; and the result? Dis-order, and the beginning of the real sin of separation from God.

10. Humankind cannot go backwards; as in the Garden of Eden narrative, access is now denied; they can only go forward; it is the accountability and responsibility that God teaches and requires.

11. How is this resolved? God calls Abram; listening and following, Abram (great father) has his name changed to Abraham or in Hebrew,  ‘Av-ra-ha’am’ (father of a great multitude). Why? He is to become the people through which accord will be restored. This is Israel, the chosen.

12. And does this happen? Not quite. Abraham and Sarah are to wait for the child of the promise. But they’re old. God surely can’t expect to see such an event happen for them; Sara’s childbearing days are over. So why not use her maid instead? Good intentions and a desire to be of some help. Sure backfires, though. They end up with 2 sons!

13. Thus begins the Ishmael vs Isaac debacle. For now, they shall both become great nations. But the promise will continue through Isaac, then Jacob, then Joseph, who becomes Israel, with 12 sons, ending up as the 12 tribes of Israel.

14. In Egypt in a time of famine, Joseph prospers; but when rulers change, and perspectives change, Israel is oppressed. But God saves and the reality of salvation is seen for the first time.

15. Years of wandering in the wilderness, growing towards maturity. Not quite. Even as the Commandments are given, the people ask, and a golden calf is made. There is both judgement and cleansing, but it is a forerunner of things to come, despite the leadership passing from Moses to Joshua, and the people then saying that they choose to follow God.

16. They keep forgetting to follow God, and are easily turned aside; and so in the Book of Judges it is an up and down adventure, while God leads them through their own self-caused adversity, again and again.

Question here for reflection is the issue of the land which God has promised to them, hence the promised land; but it ain’t uninhabited; there’s people there; and so this is Israel’s first major challenge of conversion; they do not make it; they are converted themselves, far too often.

17. The people say to Samuel, we want a King, that we may be like the nations. Samuel is angry but God points out that the people have not rejected Samuel; they have rejected God. Israel does not wish to be the chosen. Saul is anointed King but comes to a sad end; and then David is King, and for a while it seems different; Until the King falls into the common lust of Kings of those times, and then into premeditated murder, even. David comes close to God, and there are lessons there. But also great sadness over sinful consequences. When Solomon is King, there seems to be God given wisdom, for he asks well. But he fails to build on this; he builds great wealth instead; and in the final analysis, much wealth and many wives with different values has their effect on him, after Solomon, the Kingdom is soon divided into North & South, Israel and Judah. What has happened to the promised land and the promised people through whom great blessing to all will come? They have failed. But humankind must go forward.

18. And so prophets prophesy; The servant Israel is now to be a suffering servant and through a suffering redemption, the blessing of all people, will finally become reality. The suffering servant is a new concept, a new reality God makes possible, and it is now the work of one man, and no longer that of one people. Thus Isaiah declares.

19. The servant is to be a light to the nations – the new innovation of the blessing of Gen 12:1-3. God is light/spirit/love; and the servant will bring the light of salvation to and for all; And he will suffer, both for Israel and for the nations, once and for always. He will be wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. For Israel has turned to its own way, and it is not the way of God. It is no longer the chosen.

20. The days when God fought for Israel, when Israel needed to do no fighting, are over; Israel is now like all the other nations, and behaves accordingly, as it does, today. With weapons and armament to war and still at war, for it has not followed the call to win, ‘not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.’

It is now neither a bringer nor a giver of peace to the world. It is no different from any other nation.

21. And so, in the fullness of time, God sends his Son, which is God himself come amongst us, to fulfill the words of the prophets of the Old Covenant, and to render unto the people, unto Israel and the world, a New Covenant, to be continued next week as we consider the outlay of the New Covenant. Take care of yourselves and have a good week. Grace and peace, G.