In the first account of creation, Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a, we see God in all his glory and majesty, calling the universe into being and shaping it by divine decree, his word. If we had only this account we would have a splendid introduction to the God of Scripture, but it would be a flat image, without texture and depth. And so we have, paired with it, a second account; intimate, detailed, tender. This account begins, When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens -- and continues to the end of chapter three.
We notice immediately that the word LORD has been introduced, and this is very important because, in an English translation, wherever you see LORD like this, in all caps, it is a substitute for the divine name, Yahweh. The first writer has been referring to God using only a generic title, like calling a queen “The Queen”, but this new writer uses his personal name. It’s not quite Father or Abba (Daddy) as Jesus would do some day, but it is more personal, like calling Her Majesty, Elizabeth, or a Supreme Court Justice, Jack. This is, now, the intimate and personal Hebrew deity; the same God who created the Milky Way, of course, but now as the Gardener who plants a garden, the Sculptor who forms a man and then a woman, and the Guardian who nurtures and instructs, counsels and corrects. And, even more important, this is the God who delivered these particular people, the Hebrew people, from slavery in Egypt, because he cares about injustice. This is the God of whom the Psalmist is singing in Psalm 68:4-6:
his name is the LORD — (Yahweh)
rejoice before him.
A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows ,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families,
he leads forth the prisoners with singing...
This literary device of bringing two distinct pictures together to form a single image with depth and texture is a central principle of biblical writing. Every important story in the Bible is told by at least two different witnesses, every important truth is seen from at least two different angles. Sometimes the details disagree, but, like the two distinct pictures that produce a 3D image, they mysteriously come together in the story as a whole, producing one image that is far more than any number of individual images could produce viewed singly.
This is why there are four Gospels, two versions of the history of David and the monarchy, many different prophets proclaiming the same or very similar truths, and Psalms and Proverbs and the many Epistles of the New Testament, that repeat and repeat the same things in different ways.
Perhaps there is something, somewhere, that is so utterly simple as to be completely knowable through a single experience, but, if so, it’s certainly not God, or a personal being of any kind. All personal relationships are complex, and are built up out of many contacts, incidents, exchanges and experiences. They are stories, in fact, and the person of God, Yahweh, emerges over the course of this epic story as we engage it personally.
The god who is God, cannot be fully known through a single contact, experience, incident or encounter. He is not exhaustively known even in the Bible, certainly not in anyone’s personal experience of the Bible. Indeed, God cannot be exhaustively known at all. When Moses, at the burning bush, asks God to tell him his name and receives the cryptic answer "I AM WHO I AM . Tell the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.” (Exodus 3:14) surely this is part of what God is saying.
To say “I know God” is like saying “I know the Pacific Ocean”. I lived for years in Victoria. I have seen, and even sailed upon the Pacific Ocean many times. What I saw and sailed upon really was the Pacific, but to imagine that I know it? How absurd. A sailor who has sailed upon it all his life could only know a small portion of it, and even at that, only of the surface.
So let’s wade boldly into the scriptures, and seek God experiences in all of life, but let us do so with humility. And whenever we speak of God, let’s remember Job who, thinking back on all his God-talk said, “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. Job 42:3
No comments:
Post a Comment